Explanation of the word 'Trinity'

The original korean text: https://blog.naver.com/stevision/220610259500

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Explanation of the word 'Trinity'

 

* A part of the korean text doesn't need to be translated into English. *

 

The word Trinity derives itself from the Latin word 'trinitas'. Trinitas is a combination of tres (the archaic form of which is tris) and unitas. Tres represents 'three (God the Father, God the Son and God the Holy Ghost)', and unitas, 'one'. It means that the Father, the Son and the Holy Ghost are not three separate Gods but the one God.

 

The question is how to interpret unitas, that is one.

 

Usually, 'one' has two essential meanings: 'one in number' and 'one in mind, or one in set'. ('One in number' is, in other words, one existence while 'one in mind', one set.) This situation is almost the same in any language.

 

Chong Tack Kim is not two men but a (one) man. This 'a (one)' has the meaning 'one in number'.

 

The players became one body and beat the opposing team. Here 'one' is 'one in set, or one in mind'.

 

We should take both meanings of unitas when we explain Trinity. Unitas is 'unity' and 'oneness' in English. And both 'unity' and 'oneness' also have the two essential meanings of unitas, that is 'one in number' and 'one in set'.

 

Therefore, the word Trinity says two facts: 1) the Father, the Son and the Holy Ghost are not separate three Gods but the God (the one God), 2) the Father, the Son and the Holy Ghost form (or organize) one set of three Persons, or one divine Community of three Persons. (Three Persons are the Father, the Son and the Holy Ghost.) These two meanings of Trinity must be all valid in the explanation of the Trinity. By the way, neglecting 'one in number' but taking only 'one in set', some theologians say, "The Father, the Son and the Holy Ghost are one, or one community, but they cannot be one God." This may be a false interpretation of Trinity.

 

The reason is that originally Trinitas was coined to express both 'the individuality of three Persons' and 'the traditional faith of the only God'. To keep the absolute creed of Judaism and Christianity that the God is one God, there must be the confession that the Father, the Son and the Holy Ghost are the (one) God. ‘Unity’ and ‘oneness’ in the interpretation of Trinity must mean primarily ‘one individuality of Trinity, or one existence of the God of Trinity’.

 

And the orthodox doctrine that there is only one will in three Persons of the Trinity supports the dogma ‘The Father, the Son and the Holy Ghost are the one God Jehovah.’

 

Hear, O Israel: The Lord our God is one Lord; and you shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, and with all your soul, and with all your might. (Deut 6,4-5)

 

You believe that God is one; you do well. Even the demons believe - and shudder. (Jas 2.19)

 

If a Christian believes in the God of Trinity, he will believe also that the Father, the Son and the Holy Ghost are all respectively the God. Nevertheless, if a Christian who believes in Trinity says, “>One God< is wrong. >Three Gods< is right,” he is in fact in fallacy of tritheism. Christians believing in Trinity should say like this: “The God is one in number (or in existence), however, is three in Person.” (Person is a divine Self who has the perfect divinity and who is in the Trinity. The Father has the perfect divinity, threrfore, is the perfect God. The Son has the same (kind of) divinity (divine nature) that the Father has, so the Son is, so to speak, as perfect a God as the Father. The Holy Ghost also is a Person in the Trinity. Nevertheless, the three Persons are not the three Gods but the one God.)

 

You must not think like this: ‘The Father, the Son and the Holy Ghost are all respectively a perfect God existing from eternity to eternity. Therefore they, existing separately by respective self-existing-power eternally, merely are united in will into one divine community, into Trinity.’ It is but a crafty heresy of tritheism! The three Persons are not a mere strong union of three divine Lives (three divine Life-beings) but >essentially one divine Life (one divine Life-being) that cannot be divided<. Not a mere eternal union of the three Persons but the three divine Selves (Subjects, Persons) of an eternal divine Life. And you must not overlook, in the explanation of the Trinity, the fact that the Father begot the Son and that the Holy Ghost proceeded from the Father and the Son - the important fact which the interpretation of Trinity that emphasizes only mere >union< is prone to overlook. The Father, the Son and the Holy Ghost are not three divine Lives but ‘one divine Life’. And the Son was begotten by the Father and the Holy Ghost came out from the Father and the Son.

 

The most appropriate interpretation of Trinity is 'The one God has >three divine Persons (Selves, Subjects, that is the Father, the Son and the Holy Ghost) who have perfect divinity respectively< at the same time.' (He exists as such a God forever. And there is no other God like him.) Pastors can explain the Trinity to the laity like this: the only God Jehovah has three divine Subjects (the Father, the Son and the Holy Ghost) unlike the man who has only one human subject (human self).

 

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