Triunity: God, Jesus, and the Holy Spirit

“In the beginning, God created the heavens and the Earth” (Genesis 1:1 ESV). What one does with that opening sentence in their life will most likely determine their eternal destiny. Christians believe that the Bible is the very Word of God. The Bible from the beginning to the end never defends the existence of God; it just assumes the existence of God. Furthermore, Scripture defines within the Godhead, there is one what but three who’s namely God the Father, Jesus, and the Holy Spirit. Moving forward, one will discover a few key arguments for the existence of God. One will also get an understanding of the attributes and acts that only God alone has while then comparing these acts with Jesus and the attributes Jesus carries, confirming Jesus’s deity. Lastly, this essay will cover how Jesus and the Holy Spirit are homoousios, or of the same essence with God the Father, proving that God is Triune.

Proving Gods Existence

Before one immerses themselves into specific acts or attributes that the divine creator has, one must establish the fact that there is a God who can perform such acts and thereby be worshiped for His attributes. Many arguments over the years have been proposed to defend the existence of God, but for simplicity, the top three will be expounded on. Thomas Aquinas was a master when it came to cosmological arguments; consisting of motion, first causes, design, and other arguments (Aquinas, n.d.). Although these arguments are ample, there is still perhaps a more significant argument for the existence of God which is the moral argument.

The Moral Argument

The moral argument states that all human beings have an innate sense of right and wrong, they can make moral judgments, and they all have a sense of justice (Highfield, 2008). When people use words like right, wrong, justice, injustice, good and evil, they are declaring that there is a moral standard built inside of them which must be an objective moral order (Highfield, 2008). If one takes this argument a step further, and one says that evil actually proves the existence of God, this wording usually gets even more traction. When one observes pain, suffering, death, and evil that is done in this world; people want to know why. Calvin (1845) rightly said:

Even the wicked themselves [italics added], therefore, are an example of the fact that some idea of God always exists in every human mind. All men of sound judgment will therefore hold, that a sense of Deity is indelibly engraven on the human heart. (Vol. 1, p. 57)

Bird (2013) explains this defense even better:

In order to believe that “evil” exists, one needs an absolute standard by which evil is judged to be, or else we are simply left with competing views and voices about who or what is evil. The argument from evil is only valid if we assume that evil is an objective moral quality; yet we can only have objective moral values if there is an absolute moral lawgiver in the first place (i.e., the moral argument for God’s existence). In the absence of God, pushing an old lady in front of a bus is as equally meaningless as helping her walk across the street. We can collectively stipulate that such action is wrong, but this is no more than an opinion that has no power or value beyond the subscription of a collective will. After all, on what basis or on what authority does one describe one deed as “good” and another deed as “evil”? In the absence of God, ethics is reduced to aesthetics. To say that killing children is wrong describes a certain sociological position that ascribes relative value to human life, but it is not scientifically prescriptive. To say that “killing children is wrong” has no more truth value than saying, “I don’t like cabbage-flavored ice cream.” In itself killing a human being is a morally meaningless act. We can ascribe meaning to the deed if we wish, but this is nothing more than a language game, a sociological construct, with no objective or scientific quality. (p. 687)

People are unable to explain the fact that when they observe a child being beaten, they know within themselves that this act is inherently wrong. When a woman is raped, when people are brutally murdered, or when animals are set on fire for sport; people know these acts are wrong. But the question is, how do people know this? The proposed solution is that there is a God who created us with morality; the understanding to know right from wrong. Evolution is unable to explain this life enigma, science is unable to prove it, nor can the greatest evolutionary minds come up with a reason. The only reason for this innate inner knowledge is because God created it when He created man (Romans 2:15).

The Intelligent Design Argument

The second most convincing argument for the existence of God is possibly the intelligent design argument. Three of the most convincing are proposed by William Paley, Michael J. Behe, and Guillermo Gonzalez. Paley’s (2012) argument is often confused with the famous every watchmaker must have a designer argument. Paley’s (2012) argument goes more in-depth in a sense by suggesting that if an intelligent agent regards the watch valuable because it keeps time and this object can keep such a thing as time due to its shape and specific mechanisms to keep track of time; this proclaims the fact that some other intelligence agency designed the watch for that exact reason. No one in their right mind would believe that over millions of years that the parts and mechanics of a watch would somehow come together with the precise capability of keeping track of an intelligent wonder such as time. 

Another convincing intelligent design argument is presented by Behe (2006) who proposes a design trait called irreducible complexity. Behe (2006), who is a molecular biologist, proposed that the bacterial flagellum is a rather super complex piece of bacteria that operates almost like a car engine. If even one component of this bacteria is removed, the propeller-like features for it to move no longer function. Behe and other molecular biologists propose that no complex system could come into being through gradual alteration by means of random mutation and natural selection (Behe, 2006). Instead, the proposed counter-argument is that an intelligent designer must have created these complex living organisms.

Guillermo Gonzalez and Jay Richards propose the final example within an intelligent design theory. Gonzalez and Richards (2004) point to an intelligent designer by means of a privileged planet. In their book, they present a wealth of evidence on how privileged planet Earth is to not only create life but also to sustain it. The examples of liquid water, oxygen, Earth being in the habitable zone, the magnetic field, a G2 dwarf star, the moon, tectonic plates, isostasy, the speed of Earth’s rotation, and specific laws and forces which all make life habitable here on planet Earth (Gonzalez & Richards, 2004). If any of these components are removed, like water; the Earth would no longer be able to sustain life. This argument is compelling as it points to an omnipotent creator or intelligent designer who fine-tuned our universe but even more specifically, fine-tuned planet Earth to create life.

Pascal's Wager

There is one final argument for the existence of God and though it sometimes is used as a fear tactic; it is perhaps one of the best arguments for existence of God. This argument is known as Pascal’s Wager (Highfield, 2008). Pascal’s arguments are summed up by saying:

It makes more sense to wager on God’s existence: for if God exists, you gain your soul, but if God does not exist, you lose only some cheap thrills. However, if you wager on God’s nonexistence and it turns out that God exists, you will lose your soul. (Pascal, 1995, pp. 149-153)

Even though Pascal’s Wager offers no proof for the existence of God, it does get one to think about the repercussions of our view God. One final quote comes from Athanasius (c. 296-373):

Since then, there is everywhere not disorder, but order, proportion and not disproportion, not disarray but arrangement, and that in an order perfectly harmonious, we needs must infer and be led to perceive the Master that put together and compacted all things, and produced harmony in them. (“Athanasius of Alexandria,” 1892, p. 24)

These arguments are not exhaustive but should suffice as some of the most compelling arguments for the existence of God.

God is the Creator and Forgiver

Once one has established a belief in God, two primary acts that define deity in the Christian worldview are that God is the creator of all things and that He alone is able to forgive sins. The first sentence of the Bible proclaims that God is the creator of the Heavens and the Earth (Genesis 1:1). On this day: time, space, matter, and light are created. The third word that is used in the Hebrew Bible is Elohim which speaks of a plurality (Mangum, Brown, Klippenstein, & Hurst, 2014). This name derives from a root word meaning of power which is why Christians view God as the omnipotent one who is the divine creator (Swanson, 1977). It is also in this first sentence where we see the Hebrew word bārā (ברא) which means to create out of nothing. This word is only used for divine activity (Barry et al., 2016; Vine, Unger, & White, 1996). God created the heavens and the Earth out of nothing which is incomprehensible. There are rivers of passages in the Old Testament that attribute the act of creation to God, whether speaking of the heavens, the Earth, man, animals, clouds, wind, or the sea; it is all attributed to God alone (2 Kings 19:15; Exodus 20:11; Isaiah 37:16; 42:5, 18; Nehemiah 9:6; Psalm 19:1). Perhaps the most weighted portion of scripture that speaks of God creating all things comes from the voice of God Himself as He responds to Job in chapters 38-42. It is here where God Himself proclaims that only He is the creator but also the sustainer of all things.

God is the Only one who can forgive sins

Not only is the divine attribute of creation attributed to God alone, but so is the significant act of the forgiveness of sins. The Theology of forgiveness came into existence once Adam and Eve rebelled against their creator and fell to the temptation to be like God (Genesis 3:5). Due to this act of rebellion and disobedience, God Himself would introduce the concept of forgiveness starting with covering Adam and Eve with animal skins (Genesis 3:21). This concept would be further communicated to God’s people throughout the Old Testament but would not entirely be realized until the New Testament in the ultimate act of forgiveness offered through Jesus Christ. God did introduce the idea of this saving message of the Gospel all the way back in the book of Genesis called the Protoevangelium, “I will put enmity between you and the woman, and between your offspring and her offspring; he shall bruise your head, and you shall bruise his heel” (Diffey, 2015; Genesis 3:15).

God would further introduce the concept of forgiveness during the Exodus when He instructed the people of Israel to put the blood of an unblemished lamb on their doorposts and the angel of death would pass over (i.e. Passover) them representing God’s forgiveness and point again to the future fulfillment of Christ (Exodus 12). Furthermore, after God established Israel as a nation, He would then provide a way of forgiveness through the priesthood and ritual of the scapegoat (Leviticus 16:21-22). As communicated in the Old Testament, God alone was able to forgive sins. The book of Isaiah records God saying, “I, I am He who blots out your transgressions for my own sake, and I will not remember your sins” (Isaiah 43:25) and David proclaimed, “I acknowledged my sin to you, and I did not cover my iniquity; I said I will confess my transgressions to the LORD, and you [italics added] forgave the iniquity of my sin (Psalm 32:5). God alone is the one who forgives.

Jesus has the same attributes as God

Where does this leave Jesus? If God alone is the one who can forgive one’s sins and is proclaimed as the creator of all things, then how is Jesus able to accomplish this same role as communicated in the New Testament? The answer is simply that Jesus is God and carries the same attributes as God the Father. As the New Testament unfolds, people reading it should be able to make the connections that Jesus carries the divine creator attribute just like God the Father. The three prominent examples in scripture are found in The Gospel of John, Paul’s epistle to the Colossians, and Johns Apocalyptic book of Revelation. In John’s Gospel it says:

In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. He was in the beginning with God. All things [italics added] were made through him, and without him was not anything made that was made. He was in the world, and the world was made through him [italics added], yet the world did not know him. (John 1:1-3, 10)

Paul further communicated this truth in his epistle to the Colossians:

He is the image of the invisible God, the firstborn of all creation. For by him all things were created, in heaven and on earth, visible and invisible, whether thrones or dominions or rulers or authorities—all things were created through him and for him. And he is before all things, and in him all things hold together.

What is interesting about this portion of scripture is that the same Hebrew word bara that is used to communicate divine creation is now used here in Paul’s epistle to the Colossians in Greek form. The same root word is also communicated in John’s Apocalyptic book where the twenty-four elders fall down and worship the Lamb who is Christ and proclaim, “Worthy are you, our Lord and God, to receive glory and honor and power, for you created [italics added] all things, and by your will they existed and were created” (Revelation 4:11). Jesus is not only the creator of all things; but He sustains it, upholds it, is proclaimed as the Author of life, and is appointed heir over all things (Acts 3:15; Hebrews 1:2).

Jesus as our forgiver

Not only does Jesus hold the attribute of the creator like God the Father, but Jesus also holds the same attribute as the forgiver. Jesus Himself on a couple of occasions communicated to people that their sins were forgiven (Luke 5:20-24; 7:47; Matthew 9:2; Mark 2:5). It was these very words which prompted the religious leaders to murder Jesus for blasphemy. During the last Passover feast with His disciples, Jesus, speaking of the New Covenant said, “Drink of it, all of you, for this is my blood of the covenant, which is poured out for many for the forgiveness of sins (Matthew 26:27-28). All of the types and shadows that were communicated of God forgiving sins would all come to a complete fulfillment, or archetype, in Jesus Christ. Jesus, who shed His blood, as the perfect lamb slain before the foundation of the world, would be the ultimate fulfillment of the Passover picture, the scapegoat picture and is the only one qualified to take away sins perpetually rather than temporary (Hebrews 10:4; Revelation 13:8). C.S. Lewis said it best when comparing the deity of Christ with God:

You can shut him up for a fool, you can spit at him and kill him as a demon or you can fall at his feet and call him Lord and God, but let us not come with any patronizing nonsense about his being a great human teacher. He has not left that open to us. He did not intend to. Now it seems to me obvious that He was neither a lunatic nor a fiend: and consequently, however strange or terrifying or unlikely it may seem, I have to accept the view that He was and is God. (Lewis, 1952, pp. 55-56)

Jesus most certainly is God in the flesh. Many other comparisons could be made to show the deity traits possessed by both Jesus and the Father, but ultimately where people get lost is when introducing the concept that God is triune.

God is Trinity

The most common pushback from people who do not believe in the Bible is that nowhere in Scripture does God communicate that He is triune, nor does it explicitly say God is Trinity. This is a common misconception as Scripture unfolds the truth about this doctrine all throughout Scripture (1 Cor. 1:18-21; 2:1-4; 2 Cor. 13:14; 1 Peter 1:2; Acts 10:38; Bird, 2013; Genesis 1:26; 3:22; 11:7; Grudem, 2004; Highfield, 2008; Isaiah 6:8; 63:10; Matthew 3:16-17; 28:19). Also, Christians should embrace the doctrine of the Trinity since it separates Christianity from other monotheistic faiths like Islam and Judaism (Bird, 2013). Augustine of Hippo (1887) once said, “There is no subject where error is more dangerous, research more laborious, and discovery more fruitful than the oneness of the Trinity [unitas trinitatis] of the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit” (Vol. 3, p. 19). The doctrine of the Trinity did not gain traction until later on in Church history. Early Church fathers communicated the relationship of God being in triune form (1 Clement 46.6; Ign. Eph 7.2). In the second century, Justin Martyr and Irenaeus continue the thought of God being triune until Tertullian who is considered the grandfather of trinitarian thought came up with a model “where God was of one substance (substantia) with three distinct persons (persona) as part of his counter response to both modalism and Gnosticism” (Bird, 2013, p. 115). The Church officially proclaimed God being triune in the Council of Nicene’s Creed in A.D. 325 stating that “the Son shared the same essence as the Father, was coequal with the Father, and was coeternal with the Father (Bird, 2013, p. 117). This Creed would gain an even more formal defense of the Trinity in the Niceno-Constantinopolitan Creed in A.D. 381 (Highfield, 2008).  

The primary point was to show that both Jesus the Son and the Holy Spirit were of the same being or homoousios with the Father. Highfield (2008) demonstrates how all three work together accomplishing the Gospel goal of salvation:

It becomes clear in the New Testament that the economic activity of God always takes a Trinitarian form. God creates and sustains the world through the Word (John 1:10; Col. 1:17; Heb. 1:2, 3). Through the incarnate Word, God saves sinners and reconciles the world to himself (Rom. 3:25; 5:17, 19; 2 Cor. 5:18). In the power of the Spirit, God raised Jesus, and he “will give life to your mortal bodies through his Spirit, who lives in you” (Rom. 8:11). It is through Christ that we may offer praise to God (1 Pet. 4:11; 2 Cor. 1:20). (p. 8)

Many of these passages demonstrate how Jesus and the Holy Spirit are both God but somehow a distinct person. God is one in nature but distinct in three different persons: The Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit (Highfield, 2008). 

The Holy Spirit

It has already been demonstrated that Jesus Christ carries the exact attributes that God the Father does such as creator and one who can forgive sins. Jesus also holds other attributes though which further proves His deity such as His many claims to be God (John 8:19; 9:34-38; 10:30; 14:7-9), His claims to be the Son of Man (Mark 14:62), miracles that are attributed only to God (Isaiah 35:5-6), Jesus’ acceptance of worship (John 20:28; Matthew 14:33; 28:9; Mark 5:6), and Jesus possess the divine names of God (John 1:1; Matthew 1:22; Revelation 22:13). The Holy Spirit can also be identified with God carrying the same attributes as God the Father like: creator (Job 33:4), omniscient (1 Corinthians 2:11), omnipresent (Psalm 139:7), omnipotent (Romans 15:18), and eternal (Hebrews 9:14). Jesus and the Holy Spirit are clearly of the same substance of God but somehow separate in persons. It is a mystery that one may never fully realize until one is made present in Heaven.

Conclusion

The doctrine of the Trinity begins with an understanding of God. One will only begin to grasp the majesty of the Trinity by concluding that God does exist. Whether it is the moral arguments, the intelligent design arguments, or even Pascal’s wager that pushes people to believe in God, only then can one begin to study and understand divine attributes. God being the creator and the one who forgives sins are key components to identify of God because these attributes are most highlighted in the person of Christ. It is Jesus who is communicated in scripture that He is the very agent of creation and the ultimate person whom atonement is provided through. This was all made possible by the power and conviction of the Holy Spirit. It has been said that the Father chooses, the Son redeems, and the Spirit sanctifies (Bird, 2013). Another phrase puts it this way, “The Father is the author of salvation, the Son is the actor of salvation, and the Holy Spirit is the applier of salvation (Bird, 2013, p. 95). Only a triune God can accomplish the Gospel goal of salvation and achieve it flawlessly.

References

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Athanasius of Alexandria. (1892). Against the Heathen. In P. Schaff & H. Wace (Eds.), A. T. Robertson (Trans.), St. Athanasius: Select works and letters(Vol. 4). New York: Christian Literature Company.

Augustine of Hippo. (1887). On the Trinity. In P. Schaff (Ed.), A. W. Haddan (Trans.), St. Augustin: On the Holy Trinity, doctrinal treatises, moral treatises(Vol. 3, p. 19). Buffalo, NY: Christian Literature Company.

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Bird, M. F. (2013). Evangelical theology: A biblical and systematic introduction. Grand Rapids, MI: Zondervan.

Calvin, J. (1845). Institutes of the Christian religion. H. Beveridge (Trans.). Edinburgh: The Calvin Translation Society.

Diffey, D. (2015). Wisdom in the beginning. In A. DiVincenzo (Ed.), The beginning of wisdom: An introduction to Christian thought and life. Retrieved from http://lc.gcumedia.com/cwv101/the-beginning-of-wisdom-an-introduction-to-christian-thought-and-life/v2.1/#/chapter/3

Gonzalez, G., & Richards, J. W. (2004). The privileged planet: How our place in the cosmos is designed for discovery. Washington, D.C.: Regnery Pub.

Highfield, R. (2008). Great is the Lord: Theology for the praise of God. Grand Rapids, MI: William B. Eerdmans Publishing.

Lewis, C. S. (1952). Mere Christianiy.San Fransisco, CA: HarperOne.

Mangum, D., Brown, D. R., Klippenstein, R., & Hurst, R. (Eds.). (2014). Lexham theological wordbook. Bellingham, WA: Lexham Press.

Paley, W. (2012). Natural theology: Or, evidence of the existence and attributes of the deity, collected from. Place of publication not identified: Nabu Press.

Pascal, B. (1995). Pensées (A. J. Krailscheimer, Trans.). London: Penguin.

Swanson, J. (1997). Dictionary of Biblical languages with semantic domains: Hebrew (Old Testament)(electronic ed.). Oak Harbor: Logos Research Systems, Inc.

Vine, W. E., Unger, M. F., & White, W., Jr. (1996). Vine’s complete expository dictionary of Old and New Testament words. Nashville, TN: T. Nelson.