Theology: The Trinity: 1 + 1 + 1 = 1 ?

It Just Doesn’t Add Up

The Father is God, and the Son is God, and the Holy Spirit is God, but there is only one God. “Wait a minute,” some people say. “One plus one plus one equals one? This can’t be right. It just doesn’t add up.”

True, it doesn’t add up—and it’s not supposed to. God isn’t a thing that can be added. There can be only one all-powerful, all-wise, everywhere-present being, so there can be only one God. In the world of spirit, the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit are God, unified in a way that material objects cannot be. Our math is based on material things; it does not always work in the infinite, spiritual realm.

The Father is God and the Son is God, but there is only one God being. This is not a family or committee of divine beings—a group cannot say, “There is none like me” (Isaiah 43:10; 44:6; 45:5). God is only one divine being—more than one Person, but only one God. The early Christians did not get this idea from paganism or philosophy—they were led to it by statements in Scripture.

Just as Scripture teaches that Jesus Christ is divine, it also teaches that the Holy Spirit is divine and personal. Whatever the Holy Spirit does, God does. The Holy Spirit, like the Son and the Father, is God—three Persons perfectly united in one God: the Trinity.

Author: Michael Morrison