I have chosen to respond to the question "How can you say that God is three-in-one and one-in-three?"

This is primarily a question of the Trinity.  I have always held the classic Irish-Catholic response to the Trinity.  That is, the Trinity was the clover leaf example that St. Patrick explained to the Irish when he carried the message of the Gospel to Ireland.  My grandfather was the first to become protestant, a Presbyterian, but these ideas were held over from our Irish Catholic roots.  My other ideas of God, Jesus, and the Holy Spirit were from scripture.  I have always understood these to be separate entities as described in scripture.  There is God the Father and Creator and ultimate Lord of the universe.  Jesus is God’s son.  He became God incarnate at the birth or conception of the Christ Child.  He taught us and ultimately died for our sin and rose from the dead and ascended into heaven.  Then there is the Holy Spirit, who descended upon the faithful at Pentecost and has been with us since that time.  I had some vague sense that they were all of the same essence, but beyond what is explained in the Apostles Creed, I was unable to expound upon this.

Since enrolling in this class, my understanding of the three-in-one and one-in-three nature of the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit has been expanded.  The definition of Economic Trinity is the way that we experience the diversity and unity of God’s self-disclosure in history.  The definition of Immanent Trinity is God’s diversity and unity as it is in God.¹  This is an issue that the early church struggled with at length.

There were even those who became so frustrated with their understanding of the Trinity that they began to describe Jesus’ role in ways that were heretical.  The oneness of Christ with the Holy Spirit and God was questioned by the Arians who wanted to preserve monotheism by denying the deity of the Son, but still wanted to honor the Son; therefore, Arius denied that the Son was of the same essence as the Father, but espoused that they were of the same will.  The Ebionitists were early Jewish heretics that held that Jesus was made the Annointed One at his baptism and was made so by having kept the Jewish law perfectly.  This denied Jesus’ divinity.  The Monarchianists denied any delineation in the Godhead.  They believed that Christ was a man that was acted upon by an impersonal divine force that came from God or that God revealed himself to the world in different and successive modes.  Other heretics went to the opposite extreme.  The Docetists believed the humanity of Jesus was merely an appearance.  The Eutychians argued for the dissolution of the human nature of Christ in the Incarnation.  They believed that the divine overwhelmed the human.  The Monophysitists believed that after the Incarnation Christ did not have two natures, the divine absorbed the human.  Nestorianists emphasized the dual human divine nature of Christ at the expense of the unity of the person.²  These heresies caused such controversy in the early church that several councils were held to refute the heretics and give the church one unified statement which declares that Jesus Christ was one person and at the same time He was of the same essence of God the father and the Holy Spirit.  This is clearly stated in the Nicene Creed which was approved at the Council of Nicaea.  In this creed the early church sought to deal with heretic thought by stating Jesus was fully God and fully human.  The question in the early church was, "Is Jesus homoiousios or homoousios with the Father?"  Homoiousios is defined as similar.  Homoousios is defined as the same.  The issue was is Jesus fully God?  The Orthodox Church prevailed and the principals of the Nicene Creed became accepted.  The considered opinion of the early church was that Jesus was fully God (Homoousios).³  These opinions expressed at the Council of Nicea and other councils were the opinions of the early Church as directed by such men as Athanasius and the Cappadocian Fathers.  Irenaeus wrote extensively on the three in one nature of God in his famous book Against All Heresies.  Some of the statements he made can be expressed as follows:  God is the Father, the only One of existence who is not created.  He is, rather, the Creator.  This is the first truth and primary to the faith.  Jesus is the Son.  He is God incarnate and the Logos, or Reason, that appeared to the prophets.  The Holy Spirit is the intercessor between God and man.  That is, he appears before God and man and leads men to righteousness.  Prior to Christ, he led the prophets to prophesize and forebears to lead righteously.  Jesus Christ existed prior to the creation of the world and it was through Him all things were created.  He also was active in history revealing God’s will to the prophets.  Then he became flesh and lives among men to gather all creation together.  In doing so, he destroyed death and restored fellowship between God and man.  The Holy Spirit was present throughout history, appearing first to the prophets and forebears of the faith, and then to all men who seek and follow Christ.  The Spirit leads us in the paths of justice and renews humanity to the entire world.⁴  This is such a critical doctrine to the faith that modern Theologians write at length on this issue today.

McGrath writes extensively on the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit in Christian Theology.  He discusses how the Jewish faith and Islam misunderstand the Trinity and assign the worship of Jesus and the Holy Spirit as a form of polytheism.  However, he also quotes the writings Irenaeus to explain the Trinity or the three-in-one nature of God.  His quote is that:

God the Father is uncreated, uncontained, invisible, one God, creator this is the first article of the faith. … And the word of God, the Son of God, our Lord Jesus Christ … who, in the fullness of time, in order to gather all things to himself, he became a human being amongst human beings, capable of being seen and touched, to destroy death, bring life, and restore fellowship between God and humanity.  And the Holy Spirit … who, in the fullness of time, was poured out in a new way on our human nature in order to renew humanity through out the entire world in the sight of God.⁵

He goes on to express the idea that Jesus is the personal side of God, which makes him more accessible to Man than before the Incarnation.

Today’s theologians even refute the doctrine of the Trinity as is the case with Philip Kennedy.  He states that the explanation of the relationship between Father, Son, and Holy Spirit cannot be found in the Bible.  This explanation was derived by the early church in the fourth and fifth centuries.⁶

In conclusion. my understanding of the Trinity has been expanded over the last several weeks of this class.  I can now articulate that according to early Church doctrine which dates back as far as Irenaeus and the Cappadocian Fathers in the second century.  They began to describe God as being three distinct persons.  God the Father who created and reigns over creation.  Jesus the Son, was present during the creation, through whom all things are created, and who is the Logos (Reason).  He was made fully man, lived on earth as the person Jesus, taught, was crucified, descended into hell, was raised up by God the Father, spent time with His disciples on earth before ascending into heaven.  He now lives in heaven with God the Father and will assist in the judgment of the living and the dead in the last days.  The Holy Spirit is the advocate of the Father in these last days.  He is present with man and encourages us to behave righteously and spiritually for God.  He also performs many other acts such as healing and intervention of catastrophe.  The Father, Son, and Holy Spirit are each separate persons of God with their own dimension, but they are of one essence.  That is, they cannot act imperfectly, they cannot be evil or consort to behave independently of the other two.  While in person they have their distinct character, in spirit they are one.

¹Austin Amonette, “Lecture Definitions:  Introduction to Theology” (Lectures given to Tuesday night class, Houston Graduate School of Theology, Fall Semester 2007).