Triune God, Trinity

            “The catholic faith is this: that we worship one God in trinity and trinity in unity; neither confounding the persons nor dividing the substance.  For there is one person of the Father, another of the Son, and another of the Holy Ghost; but the Godhead of the Father, of the Son and of the Holy Ghost is all one.” 

So runs the so-called Athanasian Creed.

  In this doctrine the Christian account of the Word God is completed and summed up as, for example, in the First Article of Religion in the Book of Common Prayer: “There is but one living and true God, everlasting … of infinite power, wisdom, and goodness; the Maker and Preserver of all things … And in the unity of this Godhead there be three Persons, of one substance, power and eternity; the Father, the Son and the Holy Spirit.” 

This article is not only the first but central and all-comprehending. The doctrine of God is entirely dependent upon what God is revealed to be, upon the divine self-disclosure attested in the Bible and interpreted in the tradition of the church.  In the doctrine of God the most fundamental thing we have to say is that God is self-revealed as triune, as threefold, as Father, Son and Holy Spirit.  The doctrine of trinity does not appear explicitly in the Bible, rather it is the immediate implication of the biblical testimony as we shall proceed to establish below:

Biblical foundations:            

            We said that the doctrine is built upon the facts of Scripture.  From this we shall not depart.  But we must recognize that it is not a Biblical doctrine in the sense that we can prove it by quoting a few texts.  Mt.28:19 and 2 Cor.13:14 imply the doctrine but they do not state it.  Nowhere in the Bible, or indeed in the Creed, is it explicitly set out as a doctrine in such terms as those of the articles quoted above.  However, it gathers together and expresses the total revelation of God in Christ through the Holy Spirit, recorded in the Bible.  So we say that the doctrine of the Trinity has a wholly Scriptural basis.

(a) God attested in the OT:   First, it is clear that the God attested in the OT is one, a unity, and not a plurality.  Secondly, it is also clear that the God of the OT is not a simple mathematical unity. All the anthropomorphisms of the OT interpret the unity of Yahweh on the analogy of the unity of the human self.  Furthermore, certain divine attributes or powers, such as Spirit, Word and Wisdom, are distinguished and tend to be personalized and hypostatized.  These terms point to a differentiation in the Godhead which is similar to that referred to in the NT by the terms Father, Son and Spirit.  The terms Word and Wisdom are applied to Christ, and OT texts concerning the Spirit of God are applied to the Holy Spirit in the NT.  In other words, the NT authors understood the relation of the Son and the Spirit to the Father in the same way as the OT authors understood the relation of Word, Spirit, and Wisdom to Yahweh.  This differentiation in the Godhead is simply the testimony of the OT that God is a living God.

(b) God is self-revealed in the NT:   God is self-revealed in the NT as triune or threefold, as Father, Son and Holy Spirit.  The God who is revealed in Christ through the Spirit is understood to be the same God who is revealed in the history of the old Israel.  Furthermore the God attested in the NT is a unity.  There is no evidence in the NT that the unity of God is questioned or in doubt.  The divine unity is assumed and affirmed (1 Cor.8:4f, Eph.4:4f, Mk.12:29).  In other words, the NT authors manifest the character of the unity of God.  There are several passages in the NT wherein the three names are put together in a formula (2 Thess.2:13f; Gal.4:6; 1 Cor.12:4f; 2 Cor.13:14; Eph.4:4f; 1 Pet.1:2; Mt.28:19; Acts 2:32f.).  An investigation of the key passages indicates that the name Father designates the ultimate origin and content of the revelation, that the name Son designates the historical mediator of the revelation of the Father, and that the name Spirit designates the subjective mediator of the revelation of the Father through the Son, or the inner testimony by which the receiver of revelation perceives the revelation of the Father in the Son.  Thus the function of the Son is to reveal the Father (Mt.11:27; Jn.1:18; 14:6f) and the function of the Spirit is to bear witness to the revelation of the Father in the Son (1 Cor.2:10f; Jn.15:26).

Meaning of the three names: God is self-revealed as Father.  The idea of God as Father is not prominent in the OT but not absent. In OT it means creative power, providential care and redemption of Israel.  This does not mean simply that God is like a father but especially God is the Father of the Son, the “Father of our Lord Jesus Christ.”  Thus God is ‘our Father’ not simply as our creator but because through the Son we have been adopted as children of God by grace.

            Further, God is revealed through the Son, Jesus Christ.  The Son is at the center of the stage in the NT, but the Son is there because the Father has sent him.  The Son’s only mission is, therefore, to act in complete obedience to the Father and thus to reveal the Father.  Most of the NT testimony to the Son refers to what he does and to his function, viz., to announce and inaugurate the Kingdom, to accomplish liberation, reconciliation, salvation and to reveal the Father.  On the basis of what he does the NT authors testify to who he is, namely, the Lord, the Divine Son, the image of the invisible God, etc.  Jesus the Son of God is Lord with the same Lordship with which the Father is Lord.

            It is through the Son that we have the Spirit who bears witness to the Son and thus to the Son’s revelation of the Father, and who accomplishes in us the work of the Son which is the will of the Father.  The Spirit is God’s personal presence and activity in the world, from creation, through the history of Israel, especially in Jesus, and in the church as a foretaste of the fulfillment.  The NT attests primarily the work of the Spirit in the life and ministry of Jesus and the gift of the Spirit from the Father and the risen Lord to the church.  The NT authors speak of the activity of the risen Lord and of the Spirit synonymously, and so also the activity of the risen Lord and of the Spirit in the same way, implying that the risen Lord acts through the Spirit.  Again, the lordship or deity of the Spirit is not a second lordship or deity, but the same lordship and deity as that of the Father and the Son.

Summary of the biblical basis of the doctrine of trinity:  The biblical basis of the doctrine of trinity is sometimes summarized in different way.  The early Christians had three types of experience; they were aware of historical facts as follows:

            (a)        Jewish experience of God:    The Jewish experience of God is not simply the experience of God the Father but of the God who was later understood to be triune.  Furthermore, the Jews knew God through the divine Word, Spirit, Wisdom, Power, Glory and not simply as Father.  Temple suggests that Yahweh is God the Son rather than God the Father.  The point is that from the Christian point of view the God who is revealed to Israel is the triune God and not simply God the Father.

            (b)       Experience of disciples of Jesus:       The experience of those who knew Jesus was not simply the experience of God the Son.  In the gospels (particularly Luke) the whole life and ministry of Jesus is depicted as a manifestation of the power of the Holy Spirit.  His conception, baptism, beginning of his public ministry and healings are marked by the activity of the Spirit.  The text of his first sermon is Isa.61:1, “The Spirit of the Lord is upon me.”  Further, he speaks constantly of the Father and his kingdom, and attributes his power, authority, teaching and whole mission to the Father.

            (c)        The Pentecost experience and continuing experience:  The disciples knew the gift of the divine Spirit in their hearts empowering them in their mission.  The Pentecost experience and the continuing experience of the presence of God in the church is not simply and solely the experience of the Spirit, except in the general sense in which all experience of God is through the Spirit.  As noted above, the distinction between the presence of and activity of the risen Christ and the Spirit is not clear.  Thus it is not possible to interpret the doctrine of trinity as the adding up of the three types of experience stated above.  The distinctions to which the names Father, Son, and Spirit refer are not types of experience but rather distinctions in the structure of each of these types of experience.

Conclusion:    Trinity is not an easy doctrine but we cannot do without it if we are to be truly Christian in our thinking about God (Eph.2:18; 1 Jn.5:5ff).