Q. 6. How many persons are there in God?

• AOR 1
• Augsburg Confession 1
• WSC 3
• WCF 2.3
• Belgic Confession 8–9
• Heidelberg Catechism 25
• The Athanasian Creed

Three … Trinity. God revealed the deepest truth about himself when he sent his Son to become incarnate and poured out the Holy Spirit at Pentecost (see Q. 28; 37). The Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit are each identified as God, and yet distinct from one another (see Q. 27; 36). The gospel reveals that there is something three about the one God. The word “Trinity” (from the Latin trinitas) means “three.”

Three persons … one substance. The early Church recognized the need to carefully explain what is three in God without compromising God’s unity and oneness. The words hypostasis (Greek) and persona (Latin) were identified as the best words for what is three in God, while ousia (Greek) and substantia (Latin) were used to point to what is one about God. In English, the words person and substance are commonly used. “Person” is a term for who someone is. “Substance” is a term for what something is—the nature, essence, or being of a thing. The human substance is a body and soul, created and finite; the divine substance is pure spirit, eternal and infinite (see Q. 5). In each human being—for each human body and soul that exists—there is only one person. However, God is not human, and we should not expect the incorporeal, infinite, and incomprehensible Creator to exist in the same way as his creatures. God has revealed that in the single divine being there are three distinct persons (hypostases or personae). When we ask someone, “Who are you?” we are not asking them to tell us about their body, soul, or human attributes. We are inquiring about the person who “stands under” the substance. We are asking for their personal name. The Trinity is the answer to the question “Who is God?” In this sense, Gregory of Nazianzus wrote, “When I say God, I mean Father, Son and Holy Spirit” (Oration 38). On the other hand, the question, “What is God?” can be answered by describing the divine substance or nature (see Q. 5). Whatever can be said of the substance can be said of the Father, Son, and Spirit, since these three are consubstantial (of one identical substance). The Father is almighty, the Son is almighty, and the Spirit is almighty. But there are not three almighties, since almightiness is an attribute of the divine substance, which is one and cannot be divided (see p. 317, “The Athanasian Creed”). God is not three and one in the same sense, since that would be a contradiction. God is three persons of one substance, nature, essence, or being. “We believe in one God, who is one single essence, in whom there are three persons, really, truly, and eternally distinct according to their incommunicable properties—namely, Father, Son, and Holy Spirit” (Belgic Confession 8).

Father … Son … Spirit. The three persons are named for their eternal relations to one another. The first person is called “the Father” because he eternally begets the Son (see Notes on Q. 27). “Father is not a name either of an essence or of an action, … it is the name of the relation in which the Father stands to the Son, and the Son to the Father” (Gregory of Nazianzus, Oration 29.16). “He was not first God without a Son [and] afterwards in time became a Father; but He has the Son eternally, having begot Him not as men beget men, but as He Himself alone knows” (Cyril of Jerusalem, Catechetical Lectures 11). The Father alone is unbegotten. The second person of the Trinity is called “the Son” because he is eternally begotten by the Father (Q. 27). The third person is called “the Holy Spirit” because he eternally proceeds from the Father and the Son (see Notes on Q. 37). The three persons are distinguished by their eternal relations of origin. “The Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit are one in every respect except with regard to unbegottenness, begottenness, and procession” (John of Damascus, On the Orthodox Faith 2). The true God eternally exists in a communion of loving persons (John 17:24) who mutually indwell one another (John 14:10–11). God is love (1 John 4:8). Our ultimate purpose as human persons is to participate in the holy, happy fellowship of the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit (1 John 1:3–4).

Eternity. “The Father was never without the Son, nor without the Holy Spirit, since all these are equal from eternity, in one and the same essence. There is neither a first nor a last, for all three are one in truth and power, in goodness and mercy” (Belgic Confession 8).

Faith. “Certain things that are true about God wholly surpass the capability of human reason: for instance, that God is three and one. … All that is said about God, though it cannot be investigated by reason, must not be immediately rejected as false. … The human intellect is incapable by its natural power of attaining to the comprehension of his essence” (Aquinas, Contra Gentiles 1.3). “Although this doctrine surpasses human understanding, we nevertheless believe it now, through the Word, waiting to know and enjoy it fully in heaven” (Belgic Confession 9).

Worship. Gregory of Nazianzus expressed his wonder when contemplating the Holy Trinity: “No sooner do I conceive of the One than I am illumined by the Splendor of the Three; no sooner do I distinguish Them than I am carried back to the One. When I think of any One of the Three I think of Him as the Whole, and my eyes are filled, and the greater part of what I am thinking of escapes me. I cannot grasp the greatness of That One so as to attribute a greater goodness to the Rest. When I contemplate the Three together, I see but one torch, and cannot divide or measure out the Undivided Light” (Oration 40.41, On Holy Baptism).

Neither confusing. The Father is not the Son; the Son is not the Holy Spirit. God is not like a water molecule, which can exist as solid, liquid, or gas, nor is God like a man who wears three masks or has three roles (e.g., as a father, husband, and employee). These illustrations reflect the heresy of modalism, which denies the distinct personhood and eternal coexistence of the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit, and instead views them as mere modes or manifestations of God.

Nor dividing. God is “without parts” (Q. 5). God is not like an egg with three parts (the shell, the yoke, and the white), nor is God like a clover with three leaves. These illustrations reflect the heresy of partialism, which divides God’s essence into three parts.