Question: How are the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit one Being?

One of the fundamental questions of the faith: How can the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit be three yet one? Doesn't the Bible say there is only 1 God? Didn't Jesus pray to the Father? Following the resurrection, doesn't the Son sit at the right hand of the Father? Is not the Holy Spirit sent by the Father and the Son? How does all that work?

It's a great question! Addressing this topic really requires a very large book. I will attempt to just scratch the surface in this blog.

The word "trinity" is a Latin word used to describe the concept of 3 in 1 (tri-unity). The historic definition goes something like this: God is 3 Persons of 1 Essence. This basically means that God exists as a unity of 3 distinct Persons: Father, Son, Holy Spirit. So the Father is not the Son, the Son is not the Holy Spirit, and the Holy Spirit is not the Father. There is distinction. This is why the Son could pray to the Father, and why the Father and Son could send the Holy Spirit, etc.

Now, "person" is a difficult word because the meaning today has changed quite a bit from its original meaning. Today we think of physical individuals who exist completely separate from other individuals. This is not the idea as pertains to the nature of God. "Person," in its original definition, just means individuality and self-awareness. Maybe another word we could use is "subsistence." This simply means something that has real existence. So we must be careful to define our terms to avoid misunderstandings.

1 God / 3 Subsistences we call Persons

So in this 1 Essence that we call God, exists the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. And there is no contradiction here. In fact, this is perfectly logical. A contradiction would be to say there are 3 Gods and only 1 God...or there are 3 Persons and only 1 Person. That is not what historic Christianity holds.

Here are some parallels that are good (I stress good because any finite example of the Divine is still finite).

Consider the following analogies:

- the Universe: composed of time, space and matter, but still 1 universe; and none of these can be separated without destroying the whole

- Time: made up of the past, present, and future; and none of these can exist without the others

- Space: length, depth and width. These can be thought of separately but cannot be actually separated and still have space

- The Triple Point of Water: Pour an amount of water in an empty cylinder and apply 230 mm of gas pressure on it while inside a zero degree environment, water will simultaneously exist as solid, liquid, and gas and yet can be identified as water (H2O) in it's basic nature.

Ultimately, whenever we talk about the infinite God, especially His nature, our understanding will fall somewhat short. If this were not the case, we would be God. To understand every facet of the Divine is to be Divine. Consider the holiness of God. Who fully understands that?! Or what about the fact that He has always existed - the uncaused Cause? Who can wrap their minds around that one?! So when it comes to this issue, the tri-unity within the Godhead, we must adhere to the clear self-revelation that God has given concerning Himself in Scripture.