I believe in the
Trinitarian view of God.[1] I affirm that the doctrine
of the Trinity is crucial and it concerns who God is and whom we should
worship and to whom we should pray. I believe that God eternally exists as
three persons, the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit, and each person is fully
God and there is one God.[2] I affirm that the Father
is not the Son and the Father is not the Holy Spirit but they are distinct
persons. Scripture is absolutely clear that there is one and only one God. The
three different persons of the Trinity are one not only in purpose and in
agreement on what they think but they are one,, in essence, one in their
essential nature. I believe that the Trinity is eternal and there have always
been three. The Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit and all of them have always
been divine. The function of one member of the Trinity may, for a time, be
subordinate to one or both of the other members of the Trinity but that does
not mean he is in any way inferior in essence.
All
allegories we may adopt to explain the Trinity have its own shortcomings. I
affirm that the Trinity is incomprehensible and we cannot fully understand the
mystery of the Trinity. We can try to explain the Trinity using many allegories
but nothing will be able to fully represent the reality of this doctrine in its
fullness. I believe that New Testament is Trinitarian in character, and there
is no explicit development of the doctrine of the Trinity in its pages. The
theologians of the early church were faithful to the biblical witness when
they embarked on the difficult task of formulating a coherent Trinitarian
doctrine.[3]
