Is God a Trinity?

The Trinity doctrine states that the one God is the Father, the Son, and the holy spirit: three distinct persons who are coeternal and share the same divine nature. This is a central doctrine of the religion known as Christianity.

The doctrine of the triune God is expressed, among other places, in the so-called Athanasian Creed. It is recognized as a doctrinal statement by the Roman Catholic Church, Lutheran churches, and several other Western denominations. After declaring that salvation requires holding to the “catholic faith,” the creed states: “Which faith except every one do keep whole and undefiled, without doubt he shall perish everlastingly.” It then defines this faith as the worship of one God in Trinity and Trinity in Unity.

The question of whether God is triune is therefore a crucial issue in the religion known as Christianity. According to the Athanasian Creed, belief in the Trinity determines whether a person receives eternal life or perishes eternally.

But what does the Bible say? Does it describe God as a triune God?

The question cannot be settled simply by counting how often the Father, Jesus, and the spirit are mentioned together. We must examine whom the Scriptures call God, what they say about Jesus, and how they describe God’s spirit.

Who Is the One God?

Israel’s faith begins with this declaration:

“Hear, Israel! Yahweh our God, Yahweh is one.” (Deuteronomy 6:4, Interlinear Bible)

When Jesus was asked about the most important commandment, he referred to these very words (Mark 12:29–30). He did not present a new understanding in which the one God, Yahweh, was three persons. He urged people to love Israel’s God with all their heart.

Jesus also spoke directly to his Father about “you, the only true God” and “Jesus Christ, whom you have sent” (John 17:3). Here he distinguishes between the God to whom he prays and himself as the one sent by God. This is a natural place to begin, because Jesus himself tells us who his God is.

After his resurrection, Jesus said to Mary Magdalene:

“I am ascending to my Father and your Father, and my God and your God.” (John 20:17, Interlinear Bible)

He therefore still refers to the Father as his God. The same expression appears later in Revelation 3:12, where the exalted Jesus repeatedly says “my God.” These statements require an explanation if Jesus himself is supposed to be the same as God Most High, who is the Father.

The Father never refers to the Son as his God. This difference deserves attention: the Son says that he has a God, but the Father never says that he has a God. How does this fit with the doctrine that both are God Most High?

God and the Lord Jesus

Paul writes:

“But to us there is one God, the Father, from whom are all things, and we for Him; and one Lord, Jesus Christ, through whom are all things, and we through Him.” (1 Corinthians 8:6, Interlinear Bible)

Both the Father and Jesus hold a unique position. Nevertheless, Paul explicitly identifies the one God as the Father and the one Lord as Jesus Christ.

A Trinitarian may object that Paul does not exclude Jesus’ divinity here. This interpretation deserves to be taken seriously. But the verse does not say that the Father and the Son are two coeternal persons in one divine being. If we take Paul’s own words as our starting point, it is the Father whom he calls “one God.”

We see something similar in Ephesians 4:4–6: one spirit, one Lord, and “one God and Father of all, who is over all.” Here too, the spirit, the Lord, and God appear in the same context, without the text defining them as three persons in one God. Paul clearly refers to Jesus as the Lord and the Father as the one God.

Jesus, God’s Son

In the Gospels, Jesus prays to the Father, obeys him, and receives a task from him. He says:

“My teaching is not mine, but his who sent me.” (John 7:16, Interlinear Bible)

In his prayer in Gethsemane, he says:

“Yet not as I will, but as you will.” (Matthew 26:39, Interlinear Bible)

Here we encounter a real relationship between a son and his Father.

Jesus prays to the Father and submits to his will. Trinitarians explain this by pointing out that Jesus lived on earth as a human being. But we should also ask how Jesus himself describes his relationship with the Father.

Jesus says that the Father is “greater than I” (John 14:28), and that “the Son can do nothing of himself, but only what he sees the Father doing” (John 5:19). These statements must be read in context, but they should not be explained away. They show that Jesus himself distinguishes between his position and the Father’s.

Jesus’ dependence does not end with his resurrection. According to 1 Corinthians 15:24–28, Christ will ultimately hand over the kingdom to God the Father. Paul makes clear that God, who subjects everything to the Son, is himself excepted. Then the Son will subject himself to him, “so that God may be all in all.” Paul is describing a future event and continues to maintain the distinction between God and his Son.

Jesus and His Father

When Jesus was baptized, he came up out of the water, God’s spirit came upon him, and a voice from heaven said: “This is my beloved Son, in whom I am well pleased” (Matthew 3:16–17). The Father speaks of Jesus as his Son. The account shows a relationship between them that we also encounter throughout the rest of Jesus’ life.

When Jesus hung on the stake, he cried out: “My God, my God! Why have you forsaken me?” (Matthew 27:46). After his resurrection, he said that he would ascend to “my God and your God” (John 20:17). Who was the God whom Jesus prayed to, called his God, and ascended to? It could hardly have been Jesus himself.

Jesus was also tempted by Satan (Matthew 4:1–11). James, however, writes that God cannot be tempted by evil (James 1:13). Hebrews says that Jesus learned obedience through what he suffered (Hebrews 5:8). These were real experiences for Jesus. How should we understand them if he himself was God Most High?

Jesus’ knowledge and authority raise similar questions. He said that only the Father knows the day and the hour, not the Son (Mark 13:32). When the disciples asked about the places at his right and left hand, he said that these were not his to grant; they had been appointed by the Father (Matthew 20:20–23). Jesus received honor and glory from God (2 Peter 1:17). Jesus therefore speaks of things that the Father knows and determines, but that the Son does not know or determine. How, then, could Jesus be God himself?

Jesus died, and he later said: “I was dead” (Revelation 1:18). Peter says that God raised him from the dead (Acts 5:30). Paul describes God as the one who possesses immortality (1 Timothy 6:16). We must take Jesus’ death seriously: it was Jesus who died and God who raised him. If Jesus himself was God Most High, how could he die and be raised from the dead by God?

After the resurrection, Stephen saw Jesus standing at God’s right hand (Acts 7:55–56). Hebrews likewise says that he sat down at the right hand of the Majesty (Hebrews 1:3). Paul calls him the “mediator between God and human beings” (1 Timothy 2:5). Jesus is therefore the one who stands beside God and mediates between God and human beings. Ultimately, the Son himself will submit to the God who has subjected everything to him (1 Corinthians 15:28). This also shows that the Son cannot be the same as God Most High.

Trinitarians will respond that the Father and the Son are distinct persons, and that Jesus’ limitations, sufferings, and death belong to his life as a human being. At the same time, they maintain that the Father, the Son, and the holy spirit are not three separate gods, but one God. This still raises a question: Where does Scripture say that the Son who calls the Father his God, receives authority from him, and ultimately submits to him is also equal to him as God Most High?

Is the Holy Spirit a Third Person?

The Bible speaks about God’s spirit in many ways. The spirit comes upon people, is given to them, fills them, and is poured out upon them (Luke 1:35; Acts 2:17–18; Ephesians 5:18). In Luke 24:49, God’s spirit is described as “power from above,” which reinforces the connection between God’s spirit and his power in Luke 1:35.

When Paul writes about “God’s spirit” and “Christ’s spirit” (Romans 8:9), he closely connects the spirit with God and Christ. When Jesus says that the Father will give holy spirit to those who ask him (Luke 11:13), the spirit is presented as something God gives. These texts fit better with God’s own active power than with the doctrine of a third person in a Trinity.

Trinitarians use Jesus’ words in Matthew 28:19 as evidence that God’s spirit is a person in the triune God: “Baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the holy spirit.” But this passage raises a difficulty. It seems strange that the disciples did not follow this specific instruction from Jesus. The earliest congregation clearly baptized only in “the name of Jesus Christ” (Acts 2:38; 8:16; 10:48; 19:5).

Eusebius, one of the church’s first major historians, left writings in which this passage, Matthew 28:19–20, is quoted several times in the following form:

“Go therefore and make disciples of all nations in my name, teaching them to observe everything that I have commanded you. And look, I am with you all the days until the end of the age.”

Notice that baptism is not mentioned in this text. The words about baptism—”baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the holy spirit”—may have been inserted at a later date in place of the words “in my name.” This cannot be proved, but the circumstances surrounding the quotations in Eusebius’ writings, together with the fact that Jesus’ disciples baptized only in Jesus’ name, suggest that these words were added. In any case, the words do not prove that God’s spirit is a third person in a Trinity.

Origins of the Trinity Doctrine

The first disciples did not use the expression “one God in three persons.” They spoke of God the Father, his Son Jesus Christ, and God’s spirit. As the faith spread throughout the Greco-Roman world, Christian teachers began explaining the relationship between them using new concepts. Some drew on philosophical ideas, while others claimed to possess a special, deeper knowledge, or gnosis. Paul had warned against “philosophy and empty deception” based on human tradition rather than on Christ (Colossians 2:8).

Christian writers responded to this in different ways. In the late second century, Irenaeus wrote against what he called “false gnosis” and emphasized the faith handed down from the apostles. Clement of Alexandria, by contrast, used gnosis to describe a deeper Christian understanding that, in his view, rested on faith. Around the beginning of the third century, Tertullian used concepts such as “Trinity,” “person,” and “substance” to explain the relationship between the Father, the Son, and the spirit. He himself was critical of philosophy’s influence, but his formulation shows that his own theology was now using terms absent from the Bible’s own descriptions.

In the early fourth century, a major dispute arose over the Son’s relationship with the Father. Arius, an elder at the Baucalis church in Alexandria, maintained that the Son had a beginning. His view was opposed by Bishop Alexander of Alexandria and his deacon Athanasius. Emperor Constantine summoned bishops to Nicaea in 325. The council rejected Arius’ view and described the Son as “true God from true God,” “begotten, not made,” and of the same essence (homoousios) as the Father. The holy spirit was mentioned only briefly: “And in the holy spirit.”

The dispute between supporters of Arius’ teaching and supporters of the Nicene teaching continued after the council. Athanasius became bishop of Alexandria in 328 and one of Arius’ most prominent opponents. He maintained that the Son was not created but shared the same essence as the Father. The dispute had therefore not ended simply because the bishops had adopted a creed at Nicaea.

At the Council of Constantinople in 381, the bishops upheld the creed of Nicaea. The longer creed associated with the council also described the spirit as “the Lord and giver of life,” who proceeds from the Father and is worshiped and glorified together with the Father and the Son. The following year, bishops in Constantinople described their faith as one Godhead in three distinct persons. In this way, the Trinity doctrine gradually took the form that later became the foundation of the church’s teaching about God.

The Trinity is Read Into Scripture

One argument against the Trinity doctrine concerns the way biblical texts are interpreted. In my view, the doctrine sets aside the clear statements in Scripture and instead gives greater weight to less clear texts. It overlooks the distinction between God Most High and Christ, the Anointed One. In several passages used as evidence for the Trinity, the Father, the Son, and the holy spirit are indeed mentioned together. But the texts do not say that they are three coeternal persons in one God. That idea must be read into the text.

Nowhere in the Bible do we find the Trinity doctrine presented as it was later formulated in the church’s creeds. The doctrine is read into Scripture rather than drawn from it. This distinction is often described using the terms eisegesis and exegesis: eisegesis means reading one’s own ideas into the text; exegesis means examining what the text itself says in its context.

Many errors arise precisely because people try to read their own ideas into Scripture. Or they find a verse that appears to support their view and then ignore the rest of Scripture. A biblical doctrine must therefore be tested against Scripture as a whole.

We should not be satisfied with asking whether a biblical passage can be reconciled with the Trinity doctrine. We must ask whether the passage actually teaches it. At the same time, we must take seriously the clear statements of Jesus and the apostles about the Father and the Son, even when they do not fit a later creed.

Conclusion

Scripture identifies the Father as the one God. Jesus calls him the only true God and his own God. Paul writes that for us there is one God, the Father, and one Lord, Jesus Christ. Jesus is God’s Son, the Lord whom God has exalted, and the one through whom God acts. The holy spirit is described as God’s power at work in Jesus and in his people.

Trinitarians attempt to bring the biblical texts together in a later theological formulation. In my judgment, that formulation goes beyond what Scripture itself says. I therefore do not believe that the Bible teaches that God is three coeternal persons in one being. This does not diminish Jesus. It is an attempt to take seriously both his exalted position and his own words about the Father.

The most important test remains reading the texts in their context: Whom does Jesus call God? Whom do the apostles call the one God? And do the passages that mention the Father, the Son, and the spirit together actually teach what the Trinity doctrine claims?

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