But those who endeavor to fathom the mysterious Trinity are tempting the charge of blasphemy.
We are not expected to understand it; it's the great mystery of God.
It is not lawful, theologians claim, for men to breach the sacred secrets of God.
It is true that we are not able to "find out" God or discover His nature, what He is.
But it is vital for us to "know the only true God and Jesus Christ who He has sent"
to know who He is, for only thus can we obtain eternal life.

Proclaiming such a holy taboo on the Trinity does indeed save us from the need to explain we they cannot.

Church Fathers for centuries have recognized the futility of understanding the inexplicable:
one in three and three in one, yet only one. And using new math: 1 + 1 + 1 = 1.
We are told that we must simply believe that "three" persons really means "one" substance.
But who prays to a substance?
This, of course, is simply to dodge the accusation of worshipping three Gods:
God the Father, God the Son, and God the Holy Spirit.
But we are reminded that They are not three Gods but He (Father, Son and Spirit) is one God.

And to keep all three Persons in the same God substance we are told that…
"Begotten" does not mean "born",
"firstborn" does not really mean "firstborn".
"Son" does not mean "Son",
"Father does not really mean "Father"
which allows us to believe that Father = God, and Son = God,
but Father does not equal Son.

This logically inconsistent arrangement is explained by stating that the Trinity transcends human logic.

The Trinity uses the biblical title "God the Father",
and two non-biblical titles: "God the Son", and "God the Holy Spirit".
The Trinity then describes these three God persons as:
One God essence, or one God substance, or one divine nature, or one eternal being,
which is indivisible yet mysteriously shared by three distinct persons
who express themselves in three different co-equal, co-eternal manifestations.

Father and Son could qualify as two distinct manifestations of the One divine nature.
The Father is Spirit; the Son is Spirit and Flesh, both God-nature and Man-nature, divine and human.
The need for a third Spirit "person" appears to be unnecessary.
The Spirit of God which is sent from the Father through the Son
as the Spirit of Christ is already accounted for.

The Trinity doctrine makes a distinction between "being" (what one is) and "person" (who one is).
This correlates with the shared collective single nature of human beings (what we are)
and the individual persons that comprise humanity (who we are).
Father, Son and Holy Spirit are said to have the same divine being or nature (what they are).
But each is a separate individual person (who they are).
This is very close to simply saying Father, Son and Holy Spirit are three Gods.
But that would damage the "God is one" truth and indict such a belief as guilty of polytheism,
the great error of paganism, which Islam charges against Christianity.

So the definition of Trinity must resort to metaphysics and mysticism by saying,

"There is one eternal, infinite being of God, shared fully and completely by three persons…
These persons are never identified with one another-that is they are carefully differentiated as Persons… One what, three whos."
A Brief Definition of the Trinity, James E. White, director of Alpha & Omega Ministries (not related to E.G.White).

To help understand the interdependent concepts and the errors associated with eliminating any one of them, Doctor White offers the following diagram:

The "truths" of the Trinity are positioned on the sides of the triangle, while the "errors" are at the apices.

For example,
if we don't accept that God is composed of three separate persons, we are Modalists
______as promoted by the United Pentecostal Church's Oneness theology.
If we don't accept that these three persons are the same God, we must believe in Tritheism,
______a form of pagan polytheism, like the Mormons and many Seventh-day Adventists.
If we don't accept that the three persons are equal, we accept Subordination,
______and make one or more of them into an inferior demi-god like the Arian Jehovah's Witnesses.

Trinitarianism and Arianism both arrived at the same conclusion:
____Jesus was not truly the Son of the living God.
Both were diametrically opposed to each other;
____the defeat of Arianism became the strength of Trinitarianism,
____with which all their foes were charged, labeled, and condemned.

This is why Catholicism identifies so strongly with the Trinity:
it was the very issue which forged their affiliation with civil powers and the state in 325 AD, and
it was the very issue that secured their independence as a church-state power in their own right in 538 AD.

So, it is reasoned, all three precepts of the Trinity must be embraced to avoid the undesirable pitfalls of modalism, subortionism, and polytheism.

But the mysterious Trinity has its own drawbacks.
God is no longer a real Father and the Son cannot really be a son, it is assumed, without losing His divinity.
They become a What of divine essence within which a Father and Son somehow manifest themselves in these theatrical roles. The Trinity concept is thus not far removed from the pantheistic New Age ideas of eastern mysticism.

Because of its incomprehensibility, a wide range of concepts exist among individual believers. If you doubt this, just ask what people believe about the Godhead or the Trinity. The Collegiate Quarterly in 1999 relayed the following comment:

Threeness choices:
The Godhead is composed of three members (a Trinity)
(1) Father, Son, and Spirit are all divine
(2) Expressions or manifestations (Christ is God manifest in the flesh; Holy Ghost is God manifest in the spirit)
(3) Extensions or modes (God is sometimes Father, sometimes Son, sometimes Spirit)
(4) Distinct from each other (Father is not the Son or the Spirit, Son is not the Spirit)
(5) Father is the Source of all things, unbegotten, uncreated
(6) Son is not created, but begotten from Father once in eternity (literally emerged from the Father as the Word)
(7) Son is begotten continuously and eternally (as a Sunbeam from the Sun)
(8) Son is unbegotten, a son in title only, has always existed but not always in the son role
(9) Word became the Son at the incarnation in Bethlehem
(10) Word who was the Son of God became the Son of man at the incarnation
(11) Spirit proceeds from the Father, through the Son
(12) Spirit is an independent separate person, the third person in the Godhead
(13) Spirit is the personal presence of the Father and Son (the Spirit of God and the Spirit of Christ)

Oneness choices:
There is only one God
(1) Only one God the Father, who is head over the one Lord Jesus Christ, and together share one Spirit
(2) One Godhead with 3 divine Beings: Father, Son, and Holy Spirit
(3) God is a single tri-personal Being (one Being with three expressions or personalities)
(4) One God, one Being, who is sometimes a Father, sometimes a Son, sometimes the Holy Spirit
(5) One in divine nature and essence (each have the same kind of nature but are separate individuals)
(6) One in substance-consubstantial (they are physically connected to each other)
(7) One in spirit, mind, purpose (harmonious unity among them)
(8) One in equality-co-equal (equal power, equal authority, equal status/position between them)
(9) One in age-co-eternal (all without beginning, all without end)
(10) One consciousness--no separate self-consciousness (all think the same thoughts at the same time)

God of the Bible
The biblical understanding of God as presented in Scripture is dramatically different.

Trinitarians might object to this characterization as presenting more of a "oneness" modal view of the Godhead, where God is manifested in more than one way: God as Father, God as Son, God as Spirit. Yet, a concept of three in one also invites an inevitable blurring of identity. Complete equivalence allows for such suggestions that the Father could have lived a human life and died on the cross and it would have been no different, or even the Holy Spirit, for they are absolutely co-equal.

As we have seen: God loves the world and desires to save all His creatures from the disease of sin.
God's love for the world is demonstrated by giving His own Son to die for our sins.
God loves His Son because He is His very own Son, for He came out from Himself.

The Trinity Implied
It is accepted that the teaching of a triune Godhead is not explicitly stated in Scripture.
It "is not explicitly taught in the New Testament" Encarta Encyclopedia, article "Trinity."
"It is fair to say that the Bible does not clearly teach the doctrine of the Trinity. In fact, there is not even one proof text, if by proof text we mean a verse or passage that 'clearly' states that there is one God who exists in three persons" Charles C. Ryrie, "Basic Theology" p. 89

But the nature of man, created in the image of God, is said to explain the three-part nature of God.

1Thes 5:23___May your whole spirit, soul and body be preserved

Man is here described as having three parts: spirit, soul and body.
Remember, in the New Testament, "soul" is psuche Greek for "psyche" or "mind".
Thus man's three components are spirit, mind and body.
This is considered to correspond to the Holy Spirit, the Father' Mind, and Christ's body.
(No one knows the mind of God but the Spirit "which is in him" 1Cor 2:11)

Gen 1:26 reports that God breathed His Spirit or breath into the lifeless body of Adam
and "man became a living soul" or a living being.
Notice that Adam "became" a living soul, he wasn't given a soul.
Adam as a single person was a single being (not two or even three persons in a single being).
He was composed of two parts: God's Spirit (the breath of life) and a physical body.
Together they enable man to be a living, functioning, thinking human being or soul.

If this analogy is to hold true for the Original of which man is an image,
then the Father as the Divine Soul or Mind of the Godhead,
is composed of His Spirit and the physical body of Christ.
Both come from Him; both are sent by Him.
It is the Mind of the Father that is in Christ Jesus and is to be in us Let this mind be in you, which was also in Christ Jesus Phil 2:5