To many people some aspects of Christianity seem strange, unbelievable, made-up or just plain weird. This blog is my grand experiment to show that Christianity isn’t weird, but actually makes perfect sense. I’m nobody special, just someone who takes this stuff seriously.
When it comes to the Trinity most of us are naturally inclined to be confused. How could it be that the three individual persons are actually one person? It seems unthinkable and counterintuitive to say that the Father, Son and Holy Spirit are separate and distinct, yet one and the same. Since the fourth century, believers have made every attempt to give a proper analogy for how this relationship works.
Some have claimed that it is not unlike a man who is both a father, a son and a husband depending on what role he is filling at a given moment. He is all three at the same time. The problem is that this, if it were true, would mean that the three persons of the Trinity are not distinct persons. In essence, we would merely be calling the same person by three different names. It would also make no sense when compared with the baptism of Jesus, at which time, all three persons were present in different forms (Jesus as the God-man, The Holy Spirit as the dove and the Father as a voice from the heavens). Others have described God as moving from one to the other like an actor wearing different masks. Yet, this meets the same challenges as the aforementioned problem. So what is the answer?
As mentioned in previous blog posts, developments in modern science have demonstrated that what Christianity has said was true all along makes perfect sense. If God exists outside of the universe as its creator, then He cannot be a part of the natural universe. Only in recent years has science determined that there was an ultimate beginning to the universe. Taking this evidence seriously, the Christian knows that the cause of the universe, as the Bible implies, is outside of the natural world. This is God the Father as described in the opening chapters of Genesis. Yet, God wanted to come into the world in order to dwell with man. This is Jesus (God acting in the physical universe). Finally, in order for man (in the physical universe) to be connected with God (outside of the physical universe) he needed a spiritual person to make the connection. This is the Holy Spirit. They are each distinct persons. They are each God. They are all one.
1. The Father is God outside of the physical universe
2. The Son is God inside the physical universe
3. The Holy Spirit is God bridging the gap
Perhaps the best analogy for this, and it is not original to me, is that of a triangle. Each corner represents a different person of the Trinity. Each corner is a distinct part of the piece, but all are one.