Three Are One: How Can I Explain the Holy Trinity?

by Michael Shackleton · Published July 2, 2024 · Updated July 1, 2024

Question: I have great difficulty in explaining the Trinity to non-Christians who persist in thinking that we worship three gods, as some have intimated that we do as Hinduism does.

Answer: The Church’s doctrine is that the one God has revealed himself to us in three distinct expressions of the godhead: the unbegotten Father begets the Son and the intense bond of love between them is the Holy Spirit, a distinct divine Person.

The reality of the Blessed Trinity is found in the New Testament. In the “Great Commission” (Matthew 28:19), Jesus instructs his disciples: “Go therefore and make disciples of all nations, baptising them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit.” This equates the Father, the Son (Jesus), and the Holy Spirit in their role in baptism and indicates their unity.

And note the benediction in 2 Corinthians: “The grace of the Lord Jesus Christ and the love of God and the fellowship of the Holy Spirit be with you all.” Here, the three persons of the Trinity are mentioned together, with each associated with divine attributes — grace, love, and fellowship.

This is undoubtedly the same God who revealed himself to Abraham. He is numerically one (Deuteronomy 6:4), in contrast with the many gods worshipped by the peoples of Abraham’s time – or, indeed, in Hinduism.

We can say, then, that there is certainly only one God and he exists in his uniqueness eternally in three Persons who are each distinct from the other yet each fully God.

If that sounds complex, don’t worry — brilliant Christian minds have wrestled with this apparent contradiction for centuries.

A simple, non-theological way to approach this mystery, is to turn back to Scripture, which says that among God’s attributes is that he is the source of knowledge (1 Corinthians 2:11) and of love (I John 4), obviously even before creation. Therefore, since before creation there was nothing outside of him to know or love, he must have had to know and love himself in a way beyond our understanding.

This idea at once makes us see that there must be a vital dynamism in the godhead which, in human language, we have come to call the Trinity: the Father, who mutually knows and loves the Son, and the Spirit who is the expression of their mutual knowing and loving. This relationship among them is eternal. It is the unity of one God in three persons or ways of existence, expressing something of God’s infinite inner reality.

This is one of many ways to tackle the mystery. But we must stick to the creeds, including the Athanasian Creed which asserts: The Father is God, the Son is God, the Spirit is God, yet there are not three Gods but one God and all three persons are co-eternal and co-equal with each other.”

Answered by Michael Shackleton

Published in the May 2024 issue of The Southern Cross magazine