The Trinity (5)

The Catechism summarizes the Trinity in this way: We do not confess three Gods but one God in three persons… The divine persons do not share the one divinity among themselves but each of them is God whole and entire. (CCC 253).

The primary scriptural data from which the Church derives the doctrine of the Trinity are:

a. that there is only one God (Deuteronomy 6:4); 

b. that the Father is God (John 5:18);

c. that the Son is God (John 8:58); and 

d. that the Holy Spirit is God (Matthew 28:19).

In its simplest outline, the doctrine of the Trinity contains four truths: 

1.    In the one divine Nature, there are three Persons, the Father, the Son and the Holy Spirit. 

2.    No one of the Persons is either of the others, each is wholly Himself. 

3.    The Father is God, the Son is God, the Holy Spirit is God.

4.    They are not three Gods but one God.

In Christ, Ken.