What is Holy Trinity Catholic?

Our title at the head of this paper is one such. Yet there is abundance of teaching in the Holy Scriptures that God reveals Himself as Father, Son and Holy Spirit, not three Gods, but a Triune God, though Scripture teaches that the Father is God, the Son is God, the Holy Spirit is God, yet one God indivisible.

Here in this very majestic declaration of the Oneness of the Godhead, care is taken to state it consistently with the truth afterwards revealed concerning the Three Persons of the Godhead—Father, Son and Spirit. These Three Persons, of one Substance, completely united in thought, will, purpose, counsel, are not three Gods, but One God, not a tritheism, but a Holy Trinity. We cannot understand the mystery of all this, but this truth lies at the very foundation of the Christian faith.

So we must be careful in using the terms, first, second and third Persons in the Trinity, not to think there is any difference in importance. The Father is God; the Son is God; the Spirit is God—the Spirit equal in nature and substance to the Father and the Son. If the three Persons of the Godhead are each of them God, it does not follow that there are three Gods. That were impossible. There can be only one God, supreme and unique. Orthodox Christendom believes in three Persons in the Godhead, yet one God, indivisible and unique—the three Persons in the Godhead with one will, one purpose, each sharing to the full every thought and desire and purpose in the minds of the others. We may not, nay cannot, comprehend this. It is a mystery hidden in the Godhead, yet the Godhead is pleased to reveal Itself as Father, Son, and Holy Spirit.

Moreover in Genesis 1:1, the verb, created, following the plural noun, is in the singular, showing that there is only one God, though there are three persons in the Godhead, a plural unity, if we may so phrase it. There is one particularly interesting example of the use of the word, God, in the plural, we would draw attention to. In the special affirmation of the oneness of God in connection with the solemn occasion of the giving of the law, we read:

This clearly shows that whilst Scripture affirms that there are three distinct Persons in the Godhead, yet there are not three Gods, but one; not a trinity of Gods, but a triune God.

Scripture is most plain, whatever unbelief may say, that there are three distinct persons in the Godhead, equal in power, majesty, and glory, each taking His own part in all that is done, whether in creation or redemption, yet ever acting in perfect unity and communion.

The Catholic church is holy in doctrine, in the means of holiness, in the fruits of holiness, and, lastly, in the divine testimony of holiness. She is holy in doctrine, especially in that of the Unity and Trinity, in the incarnation, death, and atonement of the Son of God. And she has always been the same. If she was holy in doctrine in the apostles' age, she is holy in it now.

Certain truths are at the foundation of Christianity itself as a whole. Others have to do with its efficacy or the making of it good towards men. There are, thirdly, some which relate to the means of its reception, and even of its communication. Thus, for instance, we find at the very root of Christianity the existence of one God, the Trinity, the divinity of Jesus, His humanity, and such like doctrines. Just as the existence of one God was the fundamental truth of Judaism, and the truth alters not, so likewise the revelation of the Father, Son, and Holy Ghost, and, in connection with that, the revelation of the Person of Jesus, distinguish essentially Christianity. Roman Catholic theology admits this.

124 The thing the church of Rome is faulty in, is not so much foundation truth, as the application of it, and that is as faulty for us as if it were in itself wrong. They own the Trinity, and Christ's humanity, and propitiation, but not substitution; but when they come to the way God applies it, they stop His channel, and open their own, which is sacraments and work.

The Holy Trinity—Three in One, and One in Three—is in its essence a mystery beyond human comprehension, even when the comprehension is that of the renewed mind of the believer. In the very nature of things this must be so. How can the creature comprehend the Creator; the finite, the Infinite; the relative, the Absolute.

No doubt many an earnest Christian has sometimes longed for a list of things that are prohibited, as well as things which are permitted, but such a list cannot be found in the New Testament, nor would it have been of much help had such a list been given, for unworldliness is far more than merely abstaining from certain pleasures or going to certain places. And so it has often happened that the Church has given names to certain doctrines, not because the name itself is to be found in Scripture, but because the doctrines represented by the names are to be found there. Thus the word Trinity is not a Bible word. Nor, be it noted, are we ever told in so many words, that there are three Persons in the Godhead. That is, the word Person is never used in this connection. We ourselves are not objecting to its use, but we feel justified in insisting that it is not a Biblical expression because it is in frequent use by those who are building so much upon the fact that "eternal" is not a Biblical expression in relation to the Son. Where in the Bible do we find such a formula as: "In the Deity there are three Persons"?