The accusation leveled by Islam is that Christians worship three gods. Like many, they distort the teaching of the Trinity by defining it on human terms. Millard Erikson has said, "We do not hold the doctrine of the Trinity because it is self-evident or logically cognent. We hold it because God has revealed that this is what He is like."
So how do we answer this objection that the Trinity is contradictory? The Law of Contradiction states that A cannot be both A (what it is) and non-A (what it is not). If I say, "The moon is made entirely of cheese," and then turn around and say "The moon is not entirely made of cheese" then I have contradicted myself. But, as R.C. Sproul has illustrated, there are some statements that seem contradictory at first, but they are not. For example, Charles Dickens' famous line "It was the best of times, it was the worst of times." We understand that he is saying "In some ways this was the best of times and in some ways it was the worst of times."
It is not a contradiction for God to be both one and three because God is not one and three in the same way. Wayne Grudem (in Bible Doctrine) has described God as being one in essence and three in person. "Essence" describes God's being. It is God's substance. Essence describes what God is. "Person" describes who God is. Granted, person does not describe God in the same way it describes us. As a person I can exist separately from you, and the Trinity is not separate from one another. But as person, God regards Himself as "I" and the other members of the Godhead as "You." He is one in a different way than He is three.
I know it is mind-boggling, but there is no one else who exists this way, because there is only one God. Within God's one being, He "unfolds" into three personal distinctive Beings. And those who have resisted God's unique identity as God have constructed some inaccurate and dangerous teachings to support their explanations. We'll look at those next.
I am working on a philosophical argument that the reason why God can be one being and yet three persons is because of God's attribute of infinitude. Imagine 3 finite personal beings who all of a sudden all became infinite at the exact same time. You would not have 3 Gods but you would end up with 1 God who is three persons. They would all be equally infinite in every aspect so one person could not be or go or think or know something the other persons would not know...so they would all share one existence because of the attribute of infinitude.
ReplyDeleteHowever, what if the 3 persons disagreed with one another? Well, in addition to infinitude the 3 persons must also share an absolute attribute of impeccable morality too so that all 3 persons not only being infinite in existence and capacity they would also be perfect in moral integrity.
If you read Exodus 3:14 that IS exactly the God described above who reveals Himself to Moses. God tells Moses..."I Am." "I Am" is an absolute statement of existence...i.e. I exist without beginning and without end. Then God says next "I Am who I Am." This is a statement of absolute personal integrity. God does not say "I Am who I say I Am" but God IS actually who He is without any falsehood or pretense or hypocrisy.
Mark