How Can There Be Three Persons In One God?

HOW CAN THERE BE THREE PERSONS IN ONE GOD?

“…there is no other subject in the entire universe that demands and deserves our attention, our reflection, than God himself. To begin to scratch the surface of what God is like is to taste the stuff that eternal life is made of.  It is therefore desperately sad that too often we neglect this important aspect of what God is like. And I hold my hand up as someone very guilty of not giving this the thought it deserves, not emphasizing it in my daily life as I should.”

Pete Jackson

The greatness brings complexity with it.

When we look at the nature we see the make-up of God Himself.

This is the God who made the vast universe and it is no wonder there are things we cannot comprehend about Him.

The only way we can know anything about God is by what he has revealed about Himself in the Bible.

Have you ever seen the word "Godhead"?

Theologians sometimes use that term when they want to refer to God the Father, God the Son and God the Holy Spirit as three divine Persons in one God.

How can God be three and yet one?

Isn't it contradictory?

It would seem that God could be one and not three.

Or three and not one.

But He cannot be both three and one at the same time.

It is a violation of the most fundamental law of thought, the law of noncontradiction.

The doctrine of the Trinity — that God the Father, God the Son, and God the Holy Spirit are each equally and eternally the one true God — is difficult to comprehend.

And yet is the very foundation of Christian truth.

Although skeptics may ridicule it as a mathematical impossibility, it is nevertheless a basic doctrine of Scripture.

As well as profoundly realistic in both universal experience and in the scientific understanding of the cosmos.

The Christian belief in a Trinity of three persons in on God is not a contradiction.

A contradiction occurs when something is both A and non-A at the same time and in the same sense.

God is both three and one at the same time but not in the same sense.

He is three persons but one in essence.

He is three persons but only one in nature.

God is like a triangle.

At the same time it has three corners and yet it is only one triangle.

Each corner is not the same as the whole triangle.

God is not 1 + 1 + = 3

But He is 1 x 1 x 1 = 1

Both Old and New Testaments teach the Unity and the Trinity of the Godhead.

The idea that there is only one God, who created all things, is repeatedly emphasized in Scripture.

For Jehovah created the heavens and earth and put everything in place, and he made the world to be lived in, not to be an empty chaos. I am Jehovah, he says, and there is no other!

Isaiah 45:18 (TLB)

In New Testament we can read:

Are there still some among you who hold that “only believing” is enough? Believing in one God? Well, remember that the demons believe this too—so strongly that they tremble in terror!

James 2:19 (TLB)

The three persons of the Godhead are, at the same time.

Come closer and listen. I have always told you plainly what would happen, so that you could clearly understand. And now the Lord God and his Spirit have sent me (with this message):

Isaiah 48:16 (TLB)

The speaker in this verse is obviously God, and yet He says He has been sent both by The Lord God (that is, the Father) and by His Spirit (that is, the Holy Spirit).

The New Testament doctrine of the Trinity is evident.

But I will send you the Comforter—the Holy Spirit, the source of all truth. He will come to you from the Father and will tell you all about me.

John 15:26 (TLB)

Then there is the baptismal formula:

Therefore go and make disciples in all the nations, baptizing them into the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit,

Matthew 28:19 (TLB)

God is one God.

Manifested eternally and simultaneously in three distinct persons.

God is love. (1 John 4:16)

But to have love, there must be a lover (Father), a loved one (Son) and a spirit of love (Holy Spirit).

“God is a Tri-unity, with each Person of the Godhead equally and fully and eternally God. Each is necessary, and each is distinct, and yet all are one. The three Persons appear in a logical, causal order. The Father is the unseen, omnipresent Source of all being, revealed in and by the Son, experienced in and by the Holy Spirit. The Son proceeds from the Father, and the Spirit from the Son. With reference to God's creation, the Father is the Thought behind it, the Son is the Word calling it forth, and the Spirit is the Deed making it a reality.”

Henry Morris and Martin Clark, The Bible Has the Answer

Love itself is a tri-unity.

“Another illustration of the Trinity is that God is like my mind, ideas, and words. There is a unity between them, yet they are distinct from each other.”

Norman Geisler

The Trinity is a mystery.

It goes beyond reason without going against reason.

We can apprehend it, but we cannot completely comprehend it.

“If we try to understand God completely, we may lose our mind, but if we do not believe in the Trinity sincerely, we will lose our soul!”

Anonymous

This is Good God Questions Monday. A series dedicated to those good, and difficult, questions about God, universe, life, sin, Christ, love, and everything related.

Why is it so important to answer questions about God?

“but in your hearts honor Christ the Lord as holy, always being prepared to make a defense to anyone who asks you for a reason for the hope that is in you; yet do it with gentleness and respect”

1 Peter 3:15

Even little children can ask tough question, but there are good answers for all of them. The Bible exhorts us to find them and give them.

“Let your conversation be always full of grace, seasoned with salt, so that you may know how to answer everyone.”

Colossians 4:6

This post is based on the book “How Made God? And Answer To Over 100 Other Tough Questions Of Faith” by Ravi Zacharias and Norman Geisler.

The First Monday we wondered:

WHO MADE GOD?

The Second Monday we wondered:

WHY COULDN'T THE WORLD HAVE ALWAYS EXISTED?

The Third Monday we wondered:

HOW CAN GOD MAKE SOMETHING OUT OF NOTHING?

The Fourth Monday we wondered:

WHAT WAS GOD DOING BEFORE HE MADE THE WORLD?

The Fifth Monday we wondered:

HOW CAN THERE BE THREE PERSONS IN ONE GOD?

The sixth Monday we wondered:

HOW CAN A GOOD GOD SEND PEOPLE TO HELL?

The seventh Monday we wondered:

HOW CAN GOD BE BOTH LOVING AND JUST?

Communication with God

“The modern scientist has lost God amid the wonders of His world; we Christians are in real danger of losing God amid the wonders of His word.”

A. W. Tozer – Pursuit of God

God is a person.

And as a person, a relationship with Him can be cultivated as with any person it can be.

It is inherent in any personality to be able to know other personalities.

But the full knowledge of one personality by another cannot be achieved in one encounter.

It is only after long and loving mental intercourse that the full possibilities of both can be explored.

What is faith but in essence the response of created personalities to the creating personality, God.

“God is a person, and in the deep of His mighty nature He thinks, wills, enjoys, feels, loves, desires, and suffers as any other person may. In making Himself known to us He stays by the familiar pattern of personality.”

A. W. Tozer – Pursuit of God

And how to cultivate a relationship with God?

Through communication.

The daily communication with, not only His Word, but God Himself.

And how can we communicate with God?

“He communicates with us through the avenues of our minds, our wills and our emotions. The continuous and unembarrassed interchange of love and thought between God and the soul of the man is the throbbing heart of New Testament religion.”

A. W. Tozer – Pursuit of God

The lack of longing after God has brought us to our present low estate.

Remember that complacency is a deadly foe of all spiritual growth.

We need to acutely desire for Christ in our lives and to be able to commune with Him.

“For it sufficeth enough, a naked intent direct unto God without any other cause than Himself.”

The Cloud of Unknowing

God wants to be wanted.

How do you communicate with God?

What Was God Doing Before He Made The World?

WHAT WAS GOD DOING BEFORE HE MADE THE WORLD?

The first verse of Scripture tells us that God created the heavens and the earth.

But what God was doing before He brought the universe into existence.

The famous atheist of the 19th century, Robert Ingersoll wrote:

"If God created the universe, there was a time when he commenced to create. Back of that commencement there must have been an eternity. In that eternity what was this God doing? He certainly did not think. There was nothing to think about. He did not remember. Nothing had ever happened. What did he do? Can you imagine anything more absurd that an infinite intelligence in infinite nothing wasting an eternity?" 

Robert Ingersoll, Some Mistakes of Moses

The famous fifth-century A.D. Christian teacher Augustine had two answers to this question.

One of them humorous and the other one serious.

The humorous answer was that God was spending His time preparing hell for people who ask question like this.

14. Behold, I answer to him who asks, “What was God doing before He made heaven and earth?” I answer not, as a certain person is reported to have done facetiously (avoiding the pressure of the question), “He was preparing hell,” saith he, “for those who pry into mysteries.” It is one thing to perceive, another to laugh,—these things I answer not.

Chapter XII.—What God Did Before the Creation of the World , The Confessions and Letters of St. Augustine, with a Sketch of his Life and Work

The serious answer was that God didn't have any time on His hands, since there was no time before time was created.

Time begun with creation.

Before creation, there was no time.

And there was no time for God to have on His hands.

The world did not begin by a creation in time but by a creation of time.

15. But if the roving thought of any one should wander through the images of bygone time, and wonder that Thou, the God Almighty, and All-creating, and All-sustaining, the Architect of heaven and earth, didst for innumerable ages refrain from so great a work before Thou wouldst make it, let him awake and consider that he wonders at false things. For whence could innumerable ages pass by which Thou didst not make, since Thou art the Author and Creator of all ages? Or what times should those be which were not made by Thee? Or how should they pass by if they had not been? Since, therefore, Thou art the Creator of all times, if any time was before Thou madest heaven and earth, why is it said that Thou didst refrain from working? For that very time Thou madest, nor could times pass by before Thou madest times. But if before heaven and earth there was no time, why is it asked, What didst Thou then? For there was no “then” when time was not.

Chapter XIII.—Before the Times Created by God, Times Were Not, The Confessions and Letters of St. Augustine, with a Sketch of his Life and Work

This brings us another question:

If there was no time before time begun, what was there?

Eternity.

God is eternal, and the only thing prior to time was eternity.

The question also implies that an infinitely perfect being like God could get bored.

Boredom is a sign of imperfection and dissatisfaction.

God is perfect and perfectly satisfied.

There is no way God could be bored, even if He had long time periods in His hands.

An infinitely creative mind can always find something interesting to do.

Only finite minds run out of interesting thing and get bored.

Christian God also has three persons who are in perfect fellowship.

There is no way such being could get bored or lonely.

There is always someone to talk to, someone of perfect understanding, love, and companionship.

Boredom is impossible for someone like this.

But we can know something of what God did before He created the Universe and the world from the Bible:

Father, I desire that they also whom You gave Me may be with Me where I am, that they may behold My glory which You have given Me; for You loved Me before the foundation of the world.

John 17:24

He definitely loved, even before He made the world.

Just as He chose us in Him before the foundation of the world, that we should be holy and without blame before Him in love.

Ephesians 1:4

He thought about us, even before He made the world.

In hope of eternal life which God, who cannot lie, promised before time began.

Titus 1:2

And He promised us the eternal life, even before the time begun.

This is Good God Questions Monday. A series dedicated to those good, and difficult, questions about God, universe, life, sin, Christ, love, and everything related.

Why is it so important to answer questions about God?

“but in your hearts honor Christ the Lord as holy, always being prepared to make a defense to anyone who asks you for a reason for the hope that is in you; yet do it with gentleness and respect”

1 Peter 3:15

Even little children can ask tough question, but there are good answers for all of them. The Bible exhorts us to find them and give them.

“Let your conversation be always full of grace, seasoned with salt, so that you may know how to answer everyone.”

Colossians 4:6

This post is based on the book “How Made God? And Answer To Over 100 Other Tough Questions Of Faith” by Ravi Zacharias and Norman Geisler.

The First Monday we wondered:

WHO MADE GOD?

The Second Monday we wondered:

WHY COULDN'T THE WORLD HAVE ALWAYS EXISTED?

The Third Monday we wondered:

HOW CAN GOD MAKE SOMETHING OUT OF NOTHING?

The Fourth Monday we wondered:

WHAT WAS GOD DOING BEFORE HE MADE THE WORLD?

The Fifth Monday we wondered:

HOW CAN THERE BE THREE PERSONS IN ONE GOD?

The sixth Monday we wondered:

HOW CAN A GOOD GOD SEND PEOPLE TO HELL?

The seventh Monday we wondered:

HOW CAN GOD BE BOTH LOVING AND JUST?

Prevenient Grace

How can we find God?

Before a man can seek God, God must first have sought the man.

We are all lost, cut out of the source of love, light and life.

Without the true reason for our being, the reason that made us exist.

We breath, we act, but we do not truly live.

We are hollow and incomplete.

All the time, at every moment, there is something missing, something that we almost remember.

A voice that we almost hear, a sweet taste we almost feel in our mouths.

A memory of a smell like mother’s milk, nourishment beyond everything else.

The touch that made us whole.

The light that made us see.

“As the deer pants for water, so I long for you, O God. I thirst for God, the living God. Where can I find him to come and stand before him?”

Psalm 42:1-2, Living Bible (TLB)

How can we find it when we do not know what it is?

How can we start looking when we don’t even admit that something is missing?

The only reason we pursue God, is because He has first put an urge within us that spurs us to the pursuit.

So it can be said, that before a sinful man can think a right thought of God, there must have been a work of enlightenment done within him.

“The impulse to pursue God originates with God but the outworking of that impulse is our following hard after Him.”

A. W. Tozer – Pursuit of God

And the most wonderful thing, the mystery and miracle of it all is –

All the time we are pursuing God, we are already in His hand.

“Listen to me, all of you in far-off lands: The Lord called me before my birth. From within the womb he called me by my name.”

Isaiah 49:1

We were his before we were even born.

We were with Him before we even started to look.

We were His, before we even started to wonder.

“Never! Can a mother forget her little child and not have love for her own son? Yet even if that should be, I will not forget you.”

Isaiah 49:15

How Can God Make Something Out Of Nothing?

HOW CAN GOD MAKE SOMETHING OUT OF NOTHING?

If God and nothing else existed prior to the creation of the world, the universe came into existence from nothing.

Isn't it absurd to say that something can come from nothing?

It is absurd to say that nothing caused something.

Because nothing doesn't exist and has no power to do anything.

But it is not absurd to say that someone – God – brought the universe into existence from nonexistence.

Nothing cannot make something, but someone – God – can make something out of nothing.

If the universe had a beginning, as demonstrated in WHO MADE GOD? and WHY COULDN'T THE WORLD ALWAYS HAVE EXISTED?

Then there was once no universe.

And then there was.

After God created it.

This is what is meant by creation “out of nothing”.

There was God and nothing else.

Then God brought something else into existence that had not existed before.

God did not create out of something else that already existed.

This is creation out of something preexisting matter outside of God.

Not creation out of nothing.

Neither did God create the world out of Himself.

God did not take part of Himself and make the world out of it.

Orthodox Christian God has no parts.

He is a simple whole that is absolutely one.

There is no way God could have taken part of Himself and made the world.

“God is infinite and the world is finite. And no amount of finite parts can make an infinite, since no matter how many parts or pieces one has, there could always be more. But there cannot be more than an infinite.  Hence, no amount of parts could ever equal an infinite. So God could not have created the world out of part of himself.”

Norman Geisler

The world came from God but is not of God.

He is the cause but not the substance.

We came to existence by Him but we are not made of Him.

But since the world was not created out of God, or out of something else existing alongside God.

It must have been created out of nothing.

There is no other alternative.

God made something that didn't exist before.

This is Good God Questions Monday. A series dedicated to those good, and difficult, questions about God, universe, life, sin, Christ, love, and everything related.

Why is it so important to answer questions about God?

“but in your hearts honor Christ the Lord as holy, always being prepared to make a defense to anyone who asks you for a reason for the hope that is in you; yet do it with gentleness and respect”

1 Peter 3:15

Even little children can ask tough question, but there are good answers for all of them. The Bible exhorts us to find them and give them.

“Let your conversation be always full of grace, seasoned with salt, so that you may know how to answer everyone.”

Colossians 4:6

This post is based on the book “How Made God? And Answer To Over 100 Other Tough Questions Of Faith” by Ravi Zacharias and Norman Geisler.

The First Monday we wondered:

WHO MADE GOD?

The Second Monday we wondered:

WHY COULDN'T THE WORLD HAVE ALWAYS EXISTED?

The Third Monday we wondered:

HOW CAN GOD MAKE SOMETHING OUT OF NOTHING?

The Fourth Monday we wondered:

WHAT WAS GOD DOING BEFORE HE MADE THE WORLD?

The Fifth Monday we wondered:

HOW CAN THERE BE THREE PERSONS IN ONE GOD?

The sixth Monday we wondered:

HOW CAN A GOOD GOD SEND PEOPLE TO HELL?

The seventh Monday we wondered:

HOW CAN GOD BE BOTH LOVING AND JUST?