Ask · God & the Trinity

Are Father, Son, and Spirit three gods?

God & the TrinityIn theological review

The short answer

No, Father, Son, and Holy Spirit are not three gods. Scripture insists the LORD is one and that no god exists besides him, and the Nicene Creed confesses one God while naming the Son as of one substance with the Father, so the three persons are the one God, not three beings beside each other.

The fuller answer

No, the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit are not three gods. Christianity is a monotheistic faith, and it guards that claim as fiercely as Judaism and Islam guard theirs. There is one God, one divine essence, undivided and without rival. The three persons are not three beings alongside one another, not three parts of God, and not three junior gods under a greater one. Each is fully God, because each fully is the one God. The charge is sometimes made by critics of Christianity and sometimes asked sincerely by neighbours of other faiths, and it deserves the courtesy of a precise answer.

Hear, O Israel: The LORD our God, the LORD is One.

Deuteronomy 6:4 (BSB)

Israel's central confession leaves no room for a pantheon: the LORD our God, the LORD is one. Isaiah presses it further, putting words in God's own mouth: before me no god was formed, and there will be none after me, and apart from him there is no God at all (Isaiah 44:6). Any reading of the Trinity that ends with three gods has not reached the Trinity. It has stopped at a caricature the church itself rejects and always has.

Thus says the LORD, the King and Redeemer of Israel, the LORD of Hosts: “I am the first and I am the last, and there is no God but Me.

Isaiah 44:6 (BSB)

Jesus, the Jew who quoted Deuteronomy 6:4 with approval, also said I and the Father are one (John 10:30), and his hearers understood the claim's weight immediately. He did not say we are in agreement, though they are. He claimed a unity with the Father that somehow holds together with the real distinction between them, since he prays to the Father, obeys him, and is sent by him throughout the same Gospel.

I and the Father are one.

John 10:30 (BSB)

The Nicene Creed was written to protect exactly this balance against real alternatives. Against those who made the Son a created, lesser god, it confesses him as of one substance with the Father. Against any drift toward three gods, it begins with one God. The church's answer to the question are they three gods has therefore always been a flat no, stated in its oldest creeds, read from its oldest texts, and non-negotiable in its worship. Christians who worship on Sunday are therefore not tritheists with good public relations; they are monotheists confessing that the one God is richer in himself than a solitary unit.

Sources

  • Berean Standard Bible (BSB)
  • The Nicene Creed (AD 325, enlarged 381)

Review status: in-theological-review. Every Contend page passes a human theological review against the Statement of Faith before it is published as approved teaching. This section is in that queue.

Dig deeper

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What is the Trinity?The Trinity is the Christian confession that there is one God, and that this one God is Father, Son, and Holy Spirit, three persons, each fully God, equal in power and glory. The word itself is not in the Bible. The reality is taught everywhere in it, and the church forged the word to protect what the Bible says from being flattened in either direction.How can God be three and one at the same time?God is three and one in different senses, so there is no contradiction: one in essence, one single God, and three in persons, Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. Scripture holds both together, confessing that the LORD is one while baptising in the one name of the Father, Son, and Spirit.Do all religions lead to God?No, and the reason is not tribal loyalty: the faiths contradict each other about God, sin, and salvation, so they cannot all be roads to the same place. More decisively, Jesus did not present himself as one guide among many, saying, I am the way and the truth and the life; no one comes to the Father except through me. Christians can respect their neighbours of other faiths, and should, without pretending the differences are small.Is Jesus God?Yes. The New Testament calls Jesus God in plain words, shows him doing what only God does, and records him receiving the worship that belongs to God alone. That is why the church at Nicaea confessed him as very God of very God, of one substance with the Father, and why Chalcedon confessed him as truly God and truly man in one person.Bible Character: JesusThe Son of God, born of Mary in Bethlehem, who preached the kingdom of God, was crucified for our sins according to the Scriptures, and was raised on the third day.Bible Character: IsaiahThe prophet who saw the LORD high and lifted up in the temple, volunteered to be sent, and foretold the child to be born and the servant pierced for our transgressions.Lesson: I believe in God, the Father almightyThe Creed opens by naming who God is before it says anything about us. Take the first line apart, word by word, with the Scripture under each word.