Trying to Understand The TRINITY : 1. It’s a mystery.  Should we stop trying to understand and just believe and know God?  Note that what makes Christianity True and Unique is the essence of a Loving God in 3 Persons who wants a relationship with us and hence provided Himself in the form of man in order to die for our sins ; and in the form of a Holy “Spirit” to guide, encourage, convict, and teach us.  This is a free Gift!  Outside of the Trinity God has provided the angels – which are created beings and subservient to God!
When they are pressed with tough questions about how God can be three persons or how each member of the Trinity can fully be God, some Christians resort to an unfortunate tactic. They throw up their hands and say,  “It’s a mystery!†They don’t bother to explain any of the tough questions, and sometimes they accuse people of lacking humility when those people try to accurately describe the Trinity. Isn’t trying to define the nature of the infinite and unique Trinitarian God an impossible task? Aren’t we trying to “drink up the ocean in a tea cup†by trying to fit God inside of our tiny, finite minds?
A mystery, it has been said, is not something that is unknowable; it is something that is incomprehensible. I know that pi is the ratio of a circle’s diameter to its circumference, but I don’t comprehend, and can never comprehend, the full value of pi, since it possesses an infinite amount of numbers after its decimal point. Likewise, I can know God is all-knowing, but I can’t fully comprehend what it’s like to be all-knowing. The Church teaches that the mysteries of our faith, unlike the value of pi, are those things human beings cannot come to know through reason alone. In that sense the mysteries of the faith are not like the “mystery†of the Bermuda triangle or the “mystery†of the value of pi, both of which merely represent a gap in human knowledge that can be filled with diligent research. The mysteries of faith must be revealed to mankind in order for us to know them.
The First Vatican Council taught that while man can, by reason alone, come to know God exists, man cannot fully understand that God is a Trinity of three persons. If God had not revealed these truths to mankind, we would still be in ignorance of them, which is why they are sacred mysteries of the Faith. Also, just because we cannot fully understand something doesn’t mean that we cannot understand errors about that thing. For example, Jesus Christ is the most mysterious person who ever lived, because he was fully God and fully man (just try fully understanding what that’s like!). This is what is called the “hypostatic union” and a good example of this is when a tired Jesus fell asleep in the boat and then the storm came.  He awoke and calmly told the storm to stop!
Simply put, there is a lot about Jesus of Nazareth that is mysterious, and we can’t presume to know more (such as what Jesus looked like) than what has been revealed for us. But correcting someone who says that Jesus was a woman, or that Jesus wasn’t a Jew, does not reveal a lack of humility; it reveals a sense of fidelity to those truths about Jesus we can know through historical investigation or by what the Church has revealed to us.   Since the Trinity is the most fundamental and essential teaching in the “hierarchy of the truths of faithâ€, we ought to stamp out errors wherever we find them. Unfortunately, these errors usually come about when believers with good intentions try to create an analogy to help nonbelievers to understand the Trinity. The problem with using analogies to explain the Trinity is that God is the most unique being in existence. In fact, many theologians will tell you it’s not quite correct to call God a being but rather he is the being, or the reason anything exists at all. Because God is so unique, any analogy we use will inevitably fall short.
While these analogies can be helpful for children, when they are pressed too far they lead to conclusions the Church has deemed heretical.
2. “The Trinity is like how a man can be a Son, a Father, and an uncle at the same time. He’s one and three at the same time, just as God is Father, Son, and Holy Spirit at the same time.†Nope. This analogy commits the heresy of modalism. Modalism is the false belief that God is one person who has revealed himself in three forms or modes. Modalism is also called Sabellianism after Sabellius, an ancient theologian whom Pope Callixtus I excommunicated in A.D. 220. Modalists were heavily influenced by Greek philosophy, which taught that God was an ultimate one, or act of unity. While this was a big improvement over Greek polytheism that posited a pantheon of gods who fought each other, it goes too far when it denies that God can be three relationally distinct persons in one being. Returning to the bad analogy that leads to modalism, though a man may be a son, father, and uncle, he is not three persons as God is but one person who has three titles.
Another popular but false analogy is the following: The Trinity is like how water can be ice, liquid, and steam. This again commits the heresy of modalism. God does not go through three different states. The Persons of the Holy Trinity coexist; the different forms water may take cannot. Water cannot be ice, liquid, and steam at the same time. It may be between two stages such as when ice is melting, but this isn’t coexisting, it’s transforming.
Another analogy—attributed to Sabellius—that lives on today is that of the sun. The Father is the sun, while the Son and Holy Spirit are the light and heat created by the Father. But this analogy also smacks of modalism, because the star is simply present under different forms.
Or it can be seen to express Arianism, which is the heretical view that the Father is superior to the Son and Holy Spirit by being a different and “higher†divine substance than the latter two. In the sun analogy, the light and heat are passive byproducts of the sun and are not true equals in the way that the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit share equally and completely in the divine nature. This is what the Jehovah Witnesses believe.
Another heretical byproduct of sabellianism is patripassianism: God exists as one “mode†and merely puts on the mask or role of “Father,†“Son,†and “Holy Spirit.†But this would mean that when the Son suffered on the cross, the Father also suffered on the cross (though he was wearing the mask or mode of being the son). In William Young’s popular novel “The Shack,†the Trinity is illustrated through three people. The Father is an African American woman named “Papa,†the Son is a Middle Eastern carpenter, and the Holy Spirit is a mysterious Asian woman. At one point Papa says to the main character that at the crucifixion “he and Jesus were there together,†and Papa even has scars just like Jesus (pp. 95-96). However, the Church teaches that God is impassible and that nothing human beings do can cause God to literally suffer like us.
Jesus was capable of suffering on the cross only because he assumed a human nature and possessed a human body. Basically, the main problem with modalism is that it denies that God is three distinct persons. When the Bible states, “’Father,’ ‘Son,’ ‘Holy Spirit’ it is not simply saying names designating modalities of the divine being.  They are really distinct from one another. With modalism you are left with is a confusing monotheism where God merely pretends to be three different persons instead of actually being three different persons. Unfortunately, in order to correct this error some analogies overcompensate. This leads to our next bad analogy.
3. “The Trinity is like an egg: yoke, albumen, and shell. The three elements form one egg just as the three members of the Trinity comprise one God.â€
This commits (or could at least lead one to believe it commits) the heresy of saying God is composed of three parts and that those parts make up one God. But God has no parts, as Irenaeus affirmed: “[God] is simple, not composed of parts, without structure, altogether like and equal to himself alone. He is all mind, all spirit, all thought, all intelligence, all reason . . . all light, all fountain of every good, and this is the manner in which the religious and the pious are accustomed to speak of God†(Against Arian Heresies [A.D. 189]). The key here is understanding that we don’t believe in three persons who when united become God but in three persons who possess the same divine nature. â€The Father is that which the Son is, the Son that which the Father is, the Father and the Son that which the Holy Spirit is, i.e., by nature one Godâ€.
Five ways to explain the Holy Trinity:
It’s better that our children not fully understand who God is, than have a false understanding of him,. The closest way to “dumb it down†for kids is by 1) a simple conversation about “beingâ€, person, and nature; and 2) a simple diagram. There are other explanations: 3) the Athanasian Creed: we worship one God in Trinity, and Trinity in Unity, neither confounding the persons, nor dividing the substance. For there is one Person of the Father, another of the Son, and another of the Holy Spirit. But the godhead of the Father, of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit, is all one, the glory equal, the majesty co-eternal. Such as the Father is, such is the Son, and such is the Holy Spirit. The Father uncreated, the Son uncreated, and the Holy Spirit uncreated. The Father incomprehensible, the Son incomprehensible, and the Holy Spirit incomprehensible. The Father eternal, the Son eternal, and the Holy Spirit eternal. And yet they are not three eternals, but one Eternal. As also there are not three incomprehensibles, nor three uncreated, but one Uncreated, and one Incomprehensible. So likewise the Father is Almighty, the Son Almighty, and the Holy Spirit Almighty. And yet they are not three almighties, but one Almighty. So the Father is God, the Son is God, and the Holy Spirit is God.  4) the Nician Creed: We believe in one God, the Father, the Almighty begotten of the Father, God from God, Light from Light, true God from true God, begotten, not made, of one Being with the Father. Through him all things were made. For us and for our salvation he came down from heaven: by the power of the Holy Spirit he became incarnate, maker of heaven and earth, of all that is, seen and unseen. We believe in one Lord, Jesus Christ, the only Son of God, for our sake he was crucified under Pontius Pilate; he suffered death and was buried. On the third day he rose again. We believe in the Holy Spirit, the Lord, the giver of life who has spoken through the Prophets. We look for the resurrection of the dead, and the life of the world to come. 5)  Apostles Creed: I believe in God, the Father almighty, creator of heaven and earth. I believe in Jesus Christ, God’s only Son, our Lord, who was conceived by the Holy Spirit,
born of the Virgin Mary, suffered under Pontius Pilate, was crucified, died, and was buried; he descended to the dead. On the third day he rose again;
he ascended into heaven, he is seated at the right hand of the Father, and he will come to judge the living and the dead. I believe in the Holy Spirit, the holy catholic Church, the communion of saints, the forgiveness of sins, the resurrection of the body, and the life everlasting. Amen.
-some of this paper was edited from Matt Fradd’s website
