The importance of clear thinking cannot be overstated when we think of the Triune God. As a cornerstone truth in the full orb of gospel truths- as with the deity of Christ- the trinity is a non-negotiable understanding to which all that call themselves by the name Christian will affirm. While it is understandable that there is some woolly thinking and it is a given that we cannot fully plumb the depths of this mystery, it none–the-less remains that there is much that can be understood and known of this glorious truth. Developing an apologetic on this theme will always be useful not only for personal edification but because it is this understanding that will come repeatedly under scrutiny and attack by other ideologies.
It is important to note here the role of the laws of logic in this teaching. Too often the charge of contradiction is laid at the feet of this teaching. The law of excluded middle (either A or non-A) simply means an apple cannot be a plum at one and the same time and in the same sense. They are both members of the fruit family (giving unity in a certain sense), but it is an obvious contradiction to say they are one and the same. How then can God be one (Unity) and three (Trinity) at one and the same time? This conundrum is in a way easily solved, and yet there is from the human perspective mystery. The Unity is speaking in respect of simplicity in essence. Essentially one being- from which we get Monotheism. But the Trinity is true in respect of a different aspect of His nature. There is a distinction within the reality of God, there is plurality in His unity. C.S Lewis (if I understand him correctly) believed that our inability to assimilate this apparent contradiction lay in our tendency to make God in our image, thus we think of him in anthropomorphic terms. As person, we are one- one body, one soul one spirit and we project this thinking onto his image. Lewis thought this analogy useful:
I found useful the following diagram which may be found at:
http://www.reclaimingthemind.org/blog/2009/08/the-trinity-is-like-3-in-1-shampoo-and-other-stupid-statements/
Notice:
by C Michael Patton.
“God is not a simple unity; there is plurality in his unity”, “The trinity goes beyond reason but not against reason” “While the word Trinity does not occur there, the concept is clearly taught in the Bible. The logic of the doctrine of the trinity is simple. Two biblical truths are evident in scripture, the logical conclusion of which is the Trinity:
There is one God.
There are three distinct persons who are God: Father, Son and Holy Spirit[1]
In order to pursue the philosophical implications we need to look again at some of the things, which are characteristic of the nature of God, and also of the nature of love. This will take some time but I hope you will agree- will be worth the effort.
It is written in 1 John 4:8, He that loveth not knoweth not God; for God is love.
If God is love how might we understand that phrase differently from the sentence “God loves his creation”? It does not say God chooses to love but that He is love. Think of being and doing. When God loves his creation he does so out of his nature and his will.
In Titus 1:2 We read: In hope of eternal life, which God, that cannot lie, promised before the world began; If God cannot lie is this merely a question of will or a question of nature as well? While we see that God cannot lie because it is not part of his nature we must not forget that God, who enjoys absolute freedom, chose not to have that sort of nature, so that while he cannot sin because of his nature, he freely chose to be the ultimate good which necessarily excludes the lie. God does not lie because there is no lie in him, it does not come from his will alone.
Conversely we read in John 8:43-47 :Why do ye not understand my speech? even because ye cannot hear my word. Ye are of your father the devil, and the lusts of your father ye will do. He was a murderer from the beginning, and abode not in the truth, because there is no truth in him. When he speaketh a lie, he speaketh of his own: for he is a liar, and the father of it. And because I tell you the truth, ye believe me not. Which of you convinceth me of sin? And if I say the truth, why do ye not believe me? He that is of God heareth God's words: ye therefore hear them not, because ye are not of God. (emphasis mine)
Christ is here making manifest a reason for their unbelief, while it is true that they choose wilfully not to believe, the choice is determined by the spiritual nature of their father. He that is of God heareth God’s words: The phrase “of God” refers to the spiritual parentage, in other words “born of God.” Hence the old adage “like father like son! If on the other hand they had been born “of God” as he brings out in the last line of that verse, they would choose to believe because of their inherent nature (of God).
(Luke 6:43) For a good tree bringeth# not forth corrupt fruit; neither doth a corrupt tree bring forth good fruit. (Luke 6:44) For every tree is known by his own fruit. For of thorns men do not gather figs, nor of a bramble bush gather they grapes. (Luke 6:45) A good man out of the good treasure of his heart bringeth forth that which is good; and an evil man out of the evil treasure of his heart bringeth forth that which is evil: for of the abundance of the heart his mouth speaketh.
(James 3:11) Doth a fountain send forth at the same place sweet water and bitter? (James 3:12) Can# the fig tree, my brethren, bear olive berries? either a vine, figs? so can no fountain both yield salt water and fresh.
To Summarise So Far: These verses show that what comes out of a person’s life whether God or mankind (or both in the case of Christ) is a direct reflection of the nature of that life, and the life that one has, has come from one’s spiritual father. And so we see that the Devil is the father of lies. And God is the father of all truth, and because of this nature, no lie has a place in his life; and the same is of course true of Christ. Also we know that God is love, and as this is intrinsic to his nature all that he does is reflective of that nature.
So we can see that when John said (John 3:16) For God so loved the world, that he gave his only begotten Son, that whosoever believeth in him should not perish, but have everlasting life. This way of showing love was chosen by God and it sprung from his nature, which is love?
What do we see about love? What is typical of love?
(Luke 6:32) For if ye love them which love you, what thank have ye? for sinners also love those that love them.
(Luke 6:35) But love ye your enemies,(Mark 12:33) love him with all the heart,… love his neighbour as himself,(Mark 12:31) love thy neighbour
These verses all reflect that love is something going on between living beings, even in Mark 12:33 the love of God is something going on between persons. Therefore love in these instances can be seen to be personal
(Luke 11:43) Woe unto you, Pharisees! for ye love the uppermost seats in the synagogues, and greetings in the markets. (Luke 20:46) Beware of the scribes, which desire to walk in long robes, and love greetings in the markets, (John 3:19) And this is the condemnation, that light is come into the world, and men loved darkness rather than light, because their deeds were evil.
In the previous verses we cannot say that the word love is used in a personal interaction with other people, but we can say even here, that love is by its very nature a connectedness or bond between a person and something. What one word would describe this precondition of love even when used in its poorest sense? Love is relational.
Summary So Far: While we cannot say that love is always personal, in the sense of connectedness between persons, since the word is used also between persons and things, what we can say is that love is always relational. And since this is a universal characteristic of love we can say it properly belongs to its nature. Accordingly, we may safely say then, that love must have its object whether personal or material. Only a person loves (in the true sense of the word) and the nature of love means that the person must love some one or some thing. Love must have its object because relatedness is intrinsic to the nature of love.
At this point we will leave the questions of the nature of love and again look to the nature of God with respect to his all sufficiency. Since God may be expressed as the perfect Good, (Matthew 5:48 Be ye therefore perfect, even as your Father which is in heaven is perfect.) we see he is beyond change, since something that changed would have to change for better or worse, a state inconsistent with perfection. Neither can one be called a perfect good if he is not perfect and complete within himself. It is to these qualities that Paul refers in Romans 11:33-36 O the depth of the riches both of the wisdom and knowledge of God! how unsearchable are his judgments, and his ways past finding out! For who hath known the mind of the Lord? or who hath been his counsellor? Or who hath first given to him, and it shall be recompensed unto him again? For of him, and through him, and to him, are all things: to whom be glory for ever. Amen.
· How can God, whose intrinsic nature is:
1. to Love (and therefore cannot not love), and who is
2. entirely perfect (and therefore needs nothing out side of himself)
fulfil the nature of love, which is by necessity relational?
This question cannot be adequately answered by followers of the monotheistic cults and religions. (eg Jehovah’s Witnesses, followers of Islam)
Finally: The answer to this question is accommodated only in the Triune God of Christianity. If God were not a trinity then He would have had to have made the universe out of the necessity of Love having its object, necessity would have had to involve obligation, which would in turn necessitate the absence of the grace by which we are saved. The creation would have had to share in the eternity of God since love is eternal.
(John 17:24-26) Father, I will that they also, whom thou hast given me, be with me where I am; that they may behold my glory, which thou hast given me: for thou lovedst me before the foundation of the world. O righteous Father, the world hath not known thee: but I have known thee, and these have known that thou hast sent me. And I have declared unto them thy name, and will declare it: that the love wherewith thou hast loved me may be in them, and I in them. (emphasis added)
Thoughts On The Trinity
Conlcusions:
1. God is Love
2. Love is by nature relational
3. Love must have its object because relatedness is intrinsic to love
4. God existed eternally before the foundation of the world
5. God is entirely self sufficient which is intrinsic to perfection
6. Only a triune God is able to answer perfection and the nature of love outside of creation.
[1] Baker Encyclopaedia of Christian Apologetics by Norman L Geisler p730
It is important to note here the role of the laws of logic in this teaching. Too often the charge of contradiction is laid at the feet of this teaching. The law of excluded middle (either A or non-A) simply means an apple cannot be a plum at one and the same time and in the same sense. They are both members of the fruit family (giving unity in a certain sense), but it is an obvious contradiction to say they are one and the same. How then can God be one (Unity) and three (Trinity) at one and the same time? This conundrum is in a way easily solved, and yet there is from the human perspective mystery. The Unity is speaking in respect of simplicity in essence. Essentially one being- from which we get Monotheism. But the Trinity is true in respect of a different aspect of His nature. There is a distinction within the reality of God, there is plurality in His unity. C.S Lewis (if I understand him correctly) believed that our inability to assimilate this apparent contradiction lay in our tendency to make God in our image, thus we think of him in anthropomorphic terms. As person, we are one- one body, one soul one spirit and we project this thinking onto his image. Lewis thought this analogy useful:
"I must ask you to follow rather carefully.
You know that in space you can move in three ways - to left or right, backwards or forwards, up or down. Every direction is either one of these three or a compromise between them. They are called the three Dimensions. Now notice this. If you are using only one dimension, you could draw only a straight line. If you are using two; you could draw a figure: say, a square. And a square is made up of four straight lines. Now a step further. If you have three dimensions, you can then build what we call a solid body: say, a cube - a thing like a dice or a lump of sugar. And a cube is made up of six squares.
Do you see the point? A world of one dimension would be a straight line. In a two-dimensional world, you still get straight lines, but many lines make one figure. In a three-dimensional world, you still get figures but many figures make one solid body. In other words, as you advance to more real and more complicated levels, you do not leave behind you the things you found on the simpler levels: you still have them, but combined in new ways - in ways you could not imagine if you knew only the simpler levels.
Now the Christian account of God involves just the same principle. The human level is a simple and rather empty level. On the human level one person is one being, and any two persons are two separate beings - just as, in two dimensions (say on a flat sheet of paper) one square is one figure, and any two squares are two separate figures. On the Divine level you still find personalities; but up there you find them combined in new ways which we, who do not live on that level, cannot imagine. In God's dimension, so to speak, you find a being who is three Persons while remaining one Being, just as a cube is six squares while remaining one cube. Of course we cannot fully conceive a Being like that: just as, if we were so made that we perceived only two dimensions in space we could never properly imagine a cube. But we can get a sort of faint notion of it. And when we do, we are then, for the first time in our lives, getting some positive idea, however faint, of something super-personal - something more than a person. It is something we could never have guessed, and yet, once we have been told, one almost feels one ought to have been able to guess it because it fits in so well with all the things we know already.
You may ask, 'if we cannot imagine a three-personal Being, what is the good of talking about Him?' Well, there isn't any good talking about Him. The thing that matters is being actually drawn into that three-personal life, and that may begin any time" ...(right now), "if you like.
What I mean is this. An ordinary simple Christian kneels down to say his prayers. He is trying to get into touch with God. But if he is a Christian he knows that what is prompting him to pray is also God: God, so to speak, inside him. But he also knows that all his real knowledge of God comes through Christ, the Man who was God - that Christ is standing beside him, helping him to pray, praying for him. You see what is happening. God is the thing to which he is praying the goal he is trying to reach. God is also the thing inside him which is pushing him on - the motive power. God is also the road or bridge along which he is being pushed to that goal. So that the whole threefold life of the three-personal Being is actually going on in that ordinary little bedroom where an ordinary man is saying his prayers. The man is being caught up into the higher kinds of life - what I called Zoe or spiritual life: he is being pulled into God, by God, while still remaining himself."
Respected author and Christian apologist Ravi Zacharias offers this analogy:
A woman who becomes pregnant. A woman as a single entity with one set of DNA has a husband and becomes pregnant. His DNA merges with her own and now there's two. The child that grows within is a mixture of them both, separate and unique but the same, so now there's three. When you see a pregnant woman you're seeing the culmination of three separate individuals within a single entity.
I found useful the following diagram which may be found at:
http://www.reclaimingthemind.org/blog/2009/08/the-trinity-is-like-3-in-1-shampoo-and-other-stupid-statements/
Here is a “Trinitarianism Heresy Test Chart” I have created. Keep this by your bed.
Notice:
- If equality is denied, on the opposite side it points to subordinationalism.
- If diversity is denied, the result is modalism.
- If unity is denied, the result is tritheism (or polytheism —many gods).
by C Michael Patton.
“God is not a simple unity; there is plurality in his unity”, “The trinity goes beyond reason but not against reason” “While the word Trinity does not occur there, the concept is clearly taught in the Bible. The logic of the doctrine of the trinity is simple. Two biblical truths are evident in scripture, the logical conclusion of which is the Trinity:
There is one God.
There are three distinct persons who are God: Father, Son and Holy Spirit[1]
In order to pursue the philosophical implications we need to look again at some of the things, which are characteristic of the nature of God, and also of the nature of love. This will take some time but I hope you will agree- will be worth the effort.
It is written in 1 John 4:8, He that loveth not knoweth not God; for God is love.
If God is love how might we understand that phrase differently from the sentence “God loves his creation”? It does not say God chooses to love but that He is love. Think of being and doing. When God loves his creation he does so out of his nature and his will.
In Titus 1:2 We read: In hope of eternal life, which God, that cannot lie, promised before the world began; If God cannot lie is this merely a question of will or a question of nature as well? While we see that God cannot lie because it is not part of his nature we must not forget that God, who enjoys absolute freedom, chose not to have that sort of nature, so that while he cannot sin because of his nature, he freely chose to be the ultimate good which necessarily excludes the lie. God does not lie because there is no lie in him, it does not come from his will alone.
Conversely we read in John 8:43-47 :Why do ye not understand my speech? even because ye cannot hear my word. Ye are of your father the devil, and the lusts of your father ye will do. He was a murderer from the beginning, and abode not in the truth, because there is no truth in him. When he speaketh a lie, he speaketh of his own: for he is a liar, and the father of it. And because I tell you the truth, ye believe me not. Which of you convinceth me of sin? And if I say the truth, why do ye not believe me? He that is of God heareth God's words: ye therefore hear them not, because ye are not of God. (emphasis mine)
Christ is here making manifest a reason for their unbelief, while it is true that they choose wilfully not to believe, the choice is determined by the spiritual nature of their father. He that is of God heareth God’s words: The phrase “of God” refers to the spiritual parentage, in other words “born of God.” Hence the old adage “like father like son! If on the other hand they had been born “of God” as he brings out in the last line of that verse, they would choose to believe because of their inherent nature (of God).
(Luke 6:43) For a good tree bringeth# not forth corrupt fruit; neither doth a corrupt tree bring forth good fruit. (Luke 6:44) For every tree is known by his own fruit. For of thorns men do not gather figs, nor of a bramble bush gather they grapes. (Luke 6:45) A good man out of the good treasure of his heart bringeth forth that which is good; and an evil man out of the evil treasure of his heart bringeth forth that which is evil: for of the abundance of the heart his mouth speaketh.
(James 3:11) Doth a fountain send forth at the same place sweet water and bitter? (James 3:12) Can# the fig tree, my brethren, bear olive berries? either a vine, figs? so can no fountain both yield salt water and fresh.
To Summarise So Far: These verses show that what comes out of a person’s life whether God or mankind (or both in the case of Christ) is a direct reflection of the nature of that life, and the life that one has, has come from one’s spiritual father. And so we see that the Devil is the father of lies. And God is the father of all truth, and because of this nature, no lie has a place in his life; and the same is of course true of Christ. Also we know that God is love, and as this is intrinsic to his nature all that he does is reflective of that nature.
So we can see that when John said (John 3:16) For God so loved the world, that he gave his only begotten Son, that whosoever believeth in him should not perish, but have everlasting life. This way of showing love was chosen by God and it sprung from his nature, which is love?
What do we see about love? What is typical of love?
(Luke 6:32) For if ye love them which love you, what thank have ye? for sinners also love those that love them.
(Luke 6:35) But love ye your enemies,(Mark 12:33) love him with all the heart,… love his neighbour as himself,(Mark 12:31) love thy neighbour
These verses all reflect that love is something going on between living beings, even in Mark 12:33 the love of God is something going on between persons. Therefore love in these instances can be seen to be personal
(Luke 11:43) Woe unto you, Pharisees! for ye love the uppermost seats in the synagogues, and greetings in the markets. (Luke 20:46) Beware of the scribes, which desire to walk in long robes, and love greetings in the markets, (John 3:19) And this is the condemnation, that light is come into the world, and men loved darkness rather than light, because their deeds were evil.
In the previous verses we cannot say that the word love is used in a personal interaction with other people, but we can say even here, that love is by its very nature a connectedness or bond between a person and something. What one word would describe this precondition of love even when used in its poorest sense? Love is relational.
Summary So Far: While we cannot say that love is always personal, in the sense of connectedness between persons, since the word is used also between persons and things, what we can say is that love is always relational. And since this is a universal characteristic of love we can say it properly belongs to its nature. Accordingly, we may safely say then, that love must have its object whether personal or material. Only a person loves (in the true sense of the word) and the nature of love means that the person must love some one or some thing. Love must have its object because relatedness is intrinsic to the nature of love.
At this point we will leave the questions of the nature of love and again look to the nature of God with respect to his all sufficiency. Since God may be expressed as the perfect Good, (Matthew 5:48 Be ye therefore perfect, even as your Father which is in heaven is perfect.) we see he is beyond change, since something that changed would have to change for better or worse, a state inconsistent with perfection. Neither can one be called a perfect good if he is not perfect and complete within himself. It is to these qualities that Paul refers in Romans 11:33-36 O the depth of the riches both of the wisdom and knowledge of God! how unsearchable are his judgments, and his ways past finding out! For who hath known the mind of the Lord? or who hath been his counsellor? Or who hath first given to him, and it shall be recompensed unto him again? For of him, and through him, and to him, are all things: to whom be glory for ever. Amen.
· How can God, whose intrinsic nature is:
1. to Love (and therefore cannot not love), and who is
2. entirely perfect (and therefore needs nothing out side of himself)
fulfil the nature of love, which is by necessity relational?
This question cannot be adequately answered by followers of the monotheistic cults and religions. (eg Jehovah’s Witnesses, followers of Islam)
Finally: The answer to this question is accommodated only in the Triune God of Christianity. If God were not a trinity then He would have had to have made the universe out of the necessity of Love having its object, necessity would have had to involve obligation, which would in turn necessitate the absence of the grace by which we are saved. The creation would have had to share in the eternity of God since love is eternal.
(John 17:24-26) Father, I will that they also, whom thou hast given me, be with me where I am; that they may behold my glory, which thou hast given me: for thou lovedst me before the foundation of the world. O righteous Father, the world hath not known thee: but I have known thee, and these have known that thou hast sent me. And I have declared unto them thy name, and will declare it: that the love wherewith thou hast loved me may be in them, and I in them. (emphasis added)
Thoughts On The Trinity
Conlcusions:
1. God is Love
2. Love is by nature relational
3. Love must have its object because relatedness is intrinsic to love
4. God existed eternally before the foundation of the world
5. God is entirely self sufficient which is intrinsic to perfection
6. Only a triune God is able to answer perfection and the nature of love outside of creation.
[1] Baker Encyclopaedia of Christian Apologetics by Norman L Geisler p730
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