Q. What should a Christian do if he is currently struggling with understanding the doctrine of the Trinity? What should he do if he he is having a hard time viewing God as being one God who is three persons at the same time (i.e. that it seems hard to differentiate the doctrine of the Trinity from the idea of there being three Gods)? Should he just accept the doctrine of the Trinity on faith and accept on faith that the doctrine of the Trinity is monotheistic (e.g. “This is what the Bible teaches, and I know that the Bible is true, even though I don’t really understand the doctrine very well”)?
I think that one thing a Christian can do who is struggling with the doctrine of the Trinity is to recognize that the Christian faith involves many things that are paradoxes. A paradox consists of two things that seem as if they both cannot be true at the same time, but which are actually both true.
One paradox of the Christian faith is that God is three, but also one. But there are also other paradoxes. The kingdom of God is already here, but it is not here yet. Jesus on earth was both fully human and fully divine. God is completely sovereign, and yet human beings are morally accountable. And so forth.
The way to come to terms with a paradox that the Bible teaches is not to choose one side over the other, but to recognize that the truths of God surpass the capabilities of our human minds. We can trust what God has revealed to us in his word even if our minds are not yet able to grasp how two things that his word affirms can both be true at the same time. It may be helpful to think of the analogy of a child not understanding, for example, why his parents, who supposedly love him, are punishing him. The child is not yet able to understand that discipline is an expression of love. The child only feels hurt and humiliated, and people who love you are not supposed to hurt and humiliate you. But hopefully the child will appreciate, relatively young in life, that good parents correct and discipline a child for his own good, and that it is actually much less loving not to discipline a child.
Perhaps another way to come to terms with the doctrine of the Trinity is to work to understand it in light of what I think is the best analogy we have available here on earth. We don’t know any other beings who are both three and one, but we can consider that the spouses in a healthy marriage are two who have become one. There is no loss of individuality; rather, individuality is actually enhanced. But something beyond the individuals has also come into being, and yet it consists of those individuals: a married couple. That couple functions as a being of its own in many ways. For example, while the spouses have each other’s company, “sometimes the couple gets lonely,” as my late wife used to say, and the couple needs the company of another couple or of other couples.
Personally I also find it helpful to appreciate the implications of the doctrine of the Trinity. It means that at the core of God’s being is relationship, community, cooperation, and interdependence. Humans are created in God’s image, and so when we cultivate and experience these things as true worshipers of God, we are sharing in the essence of God. That is something that the doctrine of the Trinity has for us even though we are not able to grasp it fully with our minds. So I hope you will not see that doctrine as a burden, something you have to believe even though it is impossible for your mind to understand. That would be a burden indeed. Rather, see it as a doctrine that reveals something about the nature of God, by which I mean not his threeness and oneness, but his essential relationalness.
Well, my spell-checker is having trouble with the words in that last sentence! That shows how hard it is to put the doctrine of the Trinity into words. But that doesn’t mean that we can’t put it into practice.
Good Question 