What do we mean by Trinity?

Adapted from the teaching of

Christianity at Key stage 1- Seaman and
Owen Christians believe that God is
revealed to them in three ways- God the
Father, God the Son and God the Hoy Spirit-
yet remains one God. Whilst Christianity is
one of many faiths that believe in one God
(monotheists), this belief in God as Trinity
is a distinctive feature and marks a real
difference from, for example, Judaism and
Islam. This central belief developed in the
early Church when Christians were
struggling to explain their understanding
In the name of the Father, and of the Son, that Jesus was God on the earth as a human
and of the Holy Spirit----these are words we being. Trinity or tri-unity (three as one)
use every time we pray the sign of the cross. was the term they developed to try and
Even children know them. explain the relationship between God, Jesus
Christ and the Holy Spirit. This belief in
Can you ask the following questions in Trinity was later defined in the statement of
yourselves such as: faith at the council of Nicaea in 325 A. D.

How many times do you make the sign

of the cross every day? In the explanation of what do we
mean by Trinity, it says there that God is
In making the sign of the cross, are you revealed to Seaman and Owen in three
paying attentions in reciting those names? ways- God the Father, God the Son and God
the Holy Spirit-yet remain One God.
Do you know who these persons are?
So, God is in three places at the same time?
It is the Father.
Did God break off his arm and make a new
Son.
person out of it?
Holy Spirit.
Can they hear what each other is thinking?

No.
These three persons are called the Holy
Trinity. These three persons are different from each
other. In our belief they said that we have 1
God but there are 3 persons: God the Father,
God the Son, and God the Holy Spirit. We
call this the Holy Trinity. The word itself is
never used in the Bible, but the Bible clearly
teaches us that:
God is Father: Gen. 1:1 presents God as the
creator of heaven and earth, after which the
whole Bible affirms that God the Father is
the sovereign Lord over the entire universe.
God is Son: John 1: 1-4 clearly teaches us
that Jesus (the word) was with God from
the very beginning and was God. That all
things where made through him. In him
was life, and that life was the light of
men.
God is Holy Spirit: Jesus affirms the Trinity
in Matthew 28: 19 when he commissions his
disciples to go and make
disciplesbaptizing them in the of the
Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy
Spirit.
And yet..there is One God: One of the
first scriptures the Jews would teach their
children was Deuteronomy 6:4: Hear O
Israel: the Lord our God, the Lord is One.
So there are 3 things I want to affirm at this
point:
1. God is three persons, Father, Son and
Holy Spirit.
2. Each person is fully God.
3. There is One God.
The Bible does not explicitly teach the
doctrine of the Holy Trinity; it is rather
assumed, such as:
Luke 1:26-38: The Holy Spirit shall come
upon thee, and the power of the Most High
shall overshadow thee. And therefore also
the Holy which shall be born of thee shall be
called the Son of God. Here all three divine
Persons are distinctly mentioned: first, the
Son who is to be born, second, the Holy
Spirit and third the Most High, who stands
in the relation of the Father to Him of whom
it is said a few verses farther up: He shall be
great , and shall be called the Son of the
Most High.
Luke 3: 21-22: After all the people had been
baptized and Jesus also had been baptized
and was praying, heaven was opened and the
Holy Spirit descended upon Him in bodily
form like a dove. And a voice came from
heaven, You are my beloved Son; with you
I am well pleased.
2 Corinthians 13:14: St. Paul ends his letter
to the Christians at Corinth with the grace
of the Lord Jesus Christ, the love of God and
the fellowship of the Holy Spirit be with you
all.
John 14:15-17 In His famous farewell
discourse delivered after the last supper
Christ announced that He was going to the
Father who would ask Him to send the
Paraclete. The distinction here made
between the three Divine Persons is as
obvious as it is real. No one can be Father
and the Son under the same aspect, nor can
anyone send Himself.
In the history of the Church no one
has been able to completely explain the
Trinity. God as God cannot be fully
explained because the finite (us) cannot fully
grasp the infinite (God). That said, I want
my children to grasp the mystery of the
Trinity without concluding that mystery
implies irrational or contradictory. Often
skeptics scoff that the claim that God is One
and there is a contradiction. But this is only
true if the doctrine of the Trinity claims that
God is One and Three in the same sense,
which it doesnt. God is not One person and
Three persons; nor is he One God and Three
Gods. Rather, the doctrine of the Trinity
states that God in Three persons.
This is difficult for anyone to
understand. St. Patrick famously explained
the Trinity by relating God in Three Persons
to the Shamrock. A three-leaf clover has
three lobes that are unique from each other
but all part of the same clover or shamrock.
They are three leaves, but one leaf.
We Christians are baptized in the
name of the Father and of the Son and of the
Holy Spirit. The faith of all Christians rests
on the Trinity. The mystery of the Most
Holy Trinity is the central mystery of
Christian faith and life. It is the mystery of
God in Himself. It is therefore the source of
all the other mysteries of faith, the light that
enlightens them. It is the most fundamental
and essential teaching in the hierarchy of
the truths of faith. The whole history of
salvation is identical with the history of the
way and the means by which the one true
God, Father, Son and Holy Spirit, reveals
himself to men and reconciles and unites
with himself those who turn away from sin.
The belief in the Trinity is ultimately
an act of faith- and faith is a gift from God.
Thus, the only way we believe in God as
Trinity is by the gift of God.namely, by
the light of faith.
THE DOGMA OF THE HOLY TRINITY
THE TRINITY IS ONE: we do not confess
three Gods, but one God in three persons,
the consubstantial Trinity. The divine
persons do not share the one divinity among
themselves but each of them is God whole
and entire: the Father is that which the Son
is, the Son that with the father is, the Father
and the Son that which the Holy Spirit is, i.e.
by nature one God. In the words of the
fourth Lateran Council (1215), each of the
persons is that supreme reality, viz, the
divine substance, essence or nature.
Though they differ formally, and,
when predicated of creatures, even really,
the terms essence, substance, and
nature are applied synonymously to God.
Tres quidem personae, says the fourth
Lateran Council, sed una essential,
substantia seu natura simplex omnino---
Three Persons, it is true, but only one
absolutely simple Essence, or Substance, or
Nature. The physical essence of a thing----
its metaphysical essence does not concern us
here--- is the sum total of all those notes by
which the thing is what it is. By substance
we understand ens in se, or, in the words
of St. Thomas, Being, inasmuch as this
Being is by itself, in contradistinction to
accident, which is that whose being is to be
in something else. Nature is the principle
of activity of a substance, or its physical
essence. We know from Divine Revelation
that there is in the Blessed Trinity only one
Nature in Three Hypostases, or Persons.

THE DIVINE PERSONS ARE REALLY
DISTINCT FROM ONE ANOTHER: God
is one but not solitary. Father, Son, condemnation
Holy Spirit are not simply names
designating modalities of the divine being,
for they are really distinct from one another:
He is not the Father, nor is the Holy Spirit
he who is the Father or the Son. They are
distinct from one another in their relations of
origin: It is the Father who generates the
Son who is begotten and the Holy Spirit who
proceeds The Divine Unity is Triune.
THE DIVINE PERSONS ARE RELATIVE
TO ONE ANOTHER: Because it does not
divide the divine unity, the real distinction
of the persons from one another resides
solely in the relationships which relate them
from one another: In the relational names
of the persons the Father is related to the
Son, the Son to the Father, and the Holy
Spirit to both. While they are called three
persons in view of their relations, we believe
in one nature or substance. Indeed
everything (in them) is one where there is
no opposition of relationship. Because of
that unity the Father is wholly in the Son
and wholly in the Holy Spirit; the Holy
Spirit is wholly in the Father and wholly in
the Son.
THE BLESSED TRINITY IN TRADITION
The dogma of the Blessed Trinity
was defined by the Council if Nicaea 325 A.
D., the ensuing Antitrinitarian controversies
which marked the period ending with the
year 381, came to a head at the Second
Ecumenical Council, which safeguarded the
doctrine against various heretical incursions.
In the precise formulation which it received
at Nicaea and Constantinople, the dogma
has come down to our time, and we can
consequently, in demonstrating it from
Tradition, confine our attention to the first
four centuries of the Christian era. Since the
of various heretical
perversions affords the best insight into the
genuine ecclesiastical Tradition, we shall
preface our positive exposition by a brief
account of the Antitrinitarian heresies up to
the beginning of the fifth century.
THESE ARE SOME ANTITRINITARIAN
HERESIES AND THEIR
CONDEMNATION BY THE CHURCH
THE HERESY OF MONARCHIANISM:
This is an ancient heresy, the beginnings of
which can be traced to the second century of
the Christian Era. It is either Dynamistic
Monarchianism or Patripassian. Dynamistic
Monarchianism asserts that the Father alone
is true God, and that the divine element in
Christ was merely a power indwelling in
him as an impersonal divine Spirit.
Patripassian Monarchianism completely
identifies the Son with the Father, asserting
that the person of the Father was made flesh
and suffered on the cross. The Patripassian
is superior to the Dynamistic form of
Monarchianism in so far as it acknowledges
Christ to be a manifestation of the Divine
Essence. The chief representatives of this
heresy were Theodutus of Byzantium (about
192 A.D.).
 The attitude of the Church towards
Monarchianism.---the Church strenuously
opposed all these heresies even before she
began to hold ecumenical councils. The
iniquitous Theodutus of Byzantium was
excommunicated by Pope Viktor I (189-
198).
THE HERESY OF SABELLIUS:
Sabellius (about 250 A.D) was not
extreme Monarchianist, he recognized the
existence of a Trinity, though an imperfect
one, in the Godhead.
The Sabellian Triad is no true, real,
immanent Trinity. It is merely a modal,
external, and transitive distinction, based
upon the relation of God (in whom the
Sabellians admit but one person) to the
created universe. In other words, the Trinity
of the Sabellians is a merely external Trinity
of manifestation not an internal one of life.
Father , Son and Holy Spirit, they argue, are
three distinct modes by which the one
Person of the Godhead manifests Himself,
and which are inter-related as body, soul and
spirit in man, or light, warmth, and
sphericity in the sun. in its role of creator it
is called Father, as the redeemer it is called
the Son, and as sanctifier, enlightening and
regenerating the faithful, it is called Holy
Spirit.
The attitude of the Church towards
Sabellius. ---- Sabellius, after having been
treated with considerate kindness by Pope
Zephyrin, was finally excommunicated by
Callistus (217-222). We know this from
Philosophoumena of St. Hippolytus (first
complete edition by Miller, Oxford 1851).
After his excommunication Sabellius retired
to the Lybian Pentapolis (about 257 A. D.),
and there continued to propagate his errors.
He was opposed by Dionysius the Great,
Bishop of Alexandria, who wrote several
dogmatic epistles in refutation of
Sabellianism.
THE HERESY OF SUBORDINATION:
This heresy involved the Church in
many terrific conflicts. It started with an
attack on the co-equality of the Son with the
Father (Arianism), and ultimately impugned
the dogma of the Consubstantiality of the
Holy Spirit with the Father and the Son
(Macedonianism, Pneumatomachians).
A. The salient tenents of Arianism are these:
The Logos began His existence in time.
Consequently there was a time when the Son
of God was not. He is not begotten out of
the substance of the Father, but made by the
free will of the Father, out of nothing.
Though He existed before all creatures, i.e.,
before the beginning of time, the Logos does
not exist from everlasting, and consequently
He is not God, but a creature of the Father,
exalted indeed above all other creatures,
because Gods instrument in creating the
world. Therefore He is God by grace, an
intermediary being between God and the
world.
B. The heresy of Macedonius and Marathon
was an offshoot of semi-Arianism.
Macedonius, who was a Bishop of
Constantinople about 360 A.D., taught that
the Holy Spirit is a creature of the Logos, by
whom, according to the Arian theory, all
things were created. This completed the
essential subordination of the three Persons
of the Divine Trinity, whom the heretics
ranked as follows: A great One=the Holy
Spirit, a greater one=the Logos; the greatest
of all= God the Father.

The attitude of the Church towards

Subordinationism. For the first time since
the Council of the Apostles at Jerusalem, the
infallible Chruch exercised her teaching
authority against Subordinationism of two
Ecumenical Synods, of which the first
condemned Arianism, while the second
dealth a death blow to the heresy of the
Macedonianists.

A.The first Ecumenical Council, held at

Nicaea 325 A.D., in the reign of
Constantine, solemnly rejected the heresy of
Arius. It did this in a twofold manner:
positively, by enlarging and expounding the
Apostles Creed; negatively, by
anathematizing Arius and his followers.

B.Pope Damasus, at a synod held in Rome,

380 A.D., so thoroughly repudiated the
heresy of Macedonius that the twenty-fourth
in his series of anathemas has been justly
styled a summary of the contents of all the
others, and the keystone of all previous
dogmatic formulas.

Now this is the Catholic faith: we

worship one God in the Trinity and the
Trinity in Unity, without either confusing
the persons or dividing the substance; for the
person of the Father is One, the Sons is
another, the Holy Spirits another; but the
Godhead of the Father, Son and Holy Spirit
is One, their glory equal, their majesty
coeternal (Athanasian Creed; DS 75; ND
16) (CCC 266)