Carrying this concept over to the Trinity, it is not a contradiction for God to be both three and one because He is not three and one in the same way. . Basil of Caesarea, St. Gregory of Nyssa, and St. Gregory of Nazianzus (the Cappadocian Fathers), the doctrine of the Trinity took substantially the form it has maintained ever since. In John 1:1 it is affirmed that Jesus is God and, at the same time, that He was with God- thereby indicating that Jesus is a distinct Person from God the Father (cf. Mahoney, Kelli. Jesus is God, but He is not the Father or the Holy Spirit. Did this doctrine originate in the Bible or in the early Church? 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If there is one passage which most clearly brings all of this together, it is Matthew 28:19: Go therefore and make disciples of all the nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit. First, notice that the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit are distinguished as distinct Persons. Over the next half century, St. Athanasius defended and refined the Nicene formula, and, by the end of the 4th century, under the leadership of St. Privacy Policy Contact Us This approach is known as Partialism (which is also the term for something else which is NSFW.) Other statements may at first seem contradictory but are really not. In the baptism of Jesus, we see the Father speaking from heaven and the Spirit descending from heaven in the form of a dove as Jesus comes out of the water (Mark 1:10-11). What we believe about the gospel and our call to serve every nation. You can specify conditions of storing and accessing cookies in your browser. Learn Religions, Apr. And my personal favourite it's like three-in-one shampoo. One God, but his 3 personas are united. And in John 16:13-15 we see that although there is a close unity between them all, the Holy Spirit is also distinct from the Father and the Son. Early Christians believed that Jesus used the phrase "in the name of the Father, of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit" in Matthew 28:19 to make the first reference to the Trinity. There is far more to God than the intricacies of the Trinity and, however we choose to look at it or make some sense of the complexities of the Godhead, we're never going to get there. Point to Jesus speaking to the Father about sending the Holy Spirit," he says. Throughout the Bible, we are taught that God is one thing. Gods essence is His being. Please click here to learn how. In addition to these texts, the others we mentioned above make clear that the Personhood of the Holy Spirit is distinct from the Personhood of the Son and the Father. Neither the word Trinity nor the explicit doctrine appears in the New Testament, nor did Jesus and his followers intend to contradict the Shema in the Hebrew Scriptures: Hear, O Israel: The Lord our God is one Lord (Deuteronomy 6:4).

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why is the concept of holy trinity confusing