Pastor John Sherwood Arrest

Thinking about the trinity who and what

 Christians should use their reasoning to further reflect upon God’s revealed truths. The ancient church father Augustine called this process “faith seeking understanding.”

The doctrine of the Trinity is an essential Christian doctrine that allows the creature to peer ever so slightly into the window of God’s infinite nature and personhood. The Trinity may also be the most distinctive of all Christian teachings, setting Christianity apart from all other religions, including other monotheistic religions (such as Judaism and Islam). Because the Christian vision of God is unique, mysterious, and inscrutable to the finite mind, it is often misunderstood and misrepresented. This article will briefly explore what historic Christianity teaches concerning the Trinity by summarizing the doctrine’s most salient points, and by responding to some critical questions concerning its origin, intelligibility, coherence, and importance.

The Historic Christian Doctrine of the Trinity

The Athanasian Creed, the longest and most philosophical of the ancient ecumenical creeds, enunciates the orthodox doctrine of the Trinity in the following manner:

That we worship one God in trinity and the trinity in unity, neither blending their persons nor dividing their essence. For the person of the Father is a distinct person, the person of the Son is another, and that of the Holy Spirit still another. But the divinity of the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit is one, their glory equal, their majesty coeternal….

Thus the Father is God, the Son is God, the Holy Spirit is God. Yet there are not three gods; there is but one God.

Thus the Father is Lord, the Son is Lord, the Holy Spirit is Lord. Yet there are not three lords; there is but one Lord.

Just as Christian truth compels us to confess each person individually as both God and Lord, so catholic religion forbids us to say that there are three gods or lords….1 

The word “trinity” means “tri-unity” (three in one), thus conveying the revealed truth that there is plurality within the unity of God’s nature (one God in three persons). The doctrine of the Trinity should properly be understood within the broader context of the Christian theistic view of God.2 The God unveiled in the Bible and later expressed in the historic creeds and confessions of Christendom is the one sovereign and majestic Lord. Historic Christianity thus affirms belief in one infinitely perfect, eternal, and personal (or superpersonal) God, the transcendent Creator and sovereign Sustainer of the universe. This one God is Triune, existing eternally and simultaneously as three distinct and distinguishable persons: Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. All three persons in the Godhead, or Divine Being, share equally and completely the one divine nature, and are therefore the same God, coequal in attributes, nature, and glory.

God has revealed Himself as one in essence or substance (being), but three in subsistence (personhood). In terms of what God is (essence), God is one; in terms of who God is (subsistence), God is three. Philosophically speaking, God is therefore “one What” and “three Whos.” To put it in the negative, it is not three different gods (tritheism), for that would divide the essence. Rather it is only one God (monotheism). And it is not one single solitary person (monarchianism, modalism), for that would blend or confound the persons. Rather it is three distinct and distinguishable persons (triune).

Ten Essential Points about the Trinity

The following ten points convey essential information about the Trinity, and will help one think through the most important elements concerning the doctrine.3

1. There exists only one God (one divine essence or being). Trinitarianism is a unique type of monotheism, and the underlying truth of monotheism is grounded in the Old and New Testament Scriptures. Orthodox Trinitarianism therefore rejects polytheism in general and tritheism in particular for they divide the divine essence.

2. The three persons of the Godhead are each fully divine, all sharing equally and fully the one divine essence (God the Father, God the Son, and God the Holy Spirit). The deity of these three persons is also grounded in the Old and New Testament Scriptures.

3. The three persons of the Trinity should not be understood as three “parts” of God. Each person is fully divine and equally possesses all of God’s being.

4. The term “person” in reference to the Trinity should not be understood to refer to a separate entity or being, for this would divide the divine essence.

5. Unlike all finite creatures, God possesses plurality of personhood within His one infinite being. This is one example of the theological principle known as the Creator-creature distinction.

6. The members of the Trinity are qualitatively equal in attributes, nature, and glory. While Scripture reveals a subordination among the divine persons in terms of position or role (e.g., the Son submits to the Father, the Holy Spirit proceeds from the Father and Son), there exists absolutely no subordination (inferiority) of essence or nature. The persons are therefore equal in being, but subordinate only in role or position.

7. The members of the Trinity are both eternally and simultaneously distinct as three persons. In other words, the Godhead has forever been, is now, and will forever subsist as three persons: Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. None of the persons came into being or became divine at a given moment in time. Orthodox Trinitarianism therefore rejects all forms of Arianism (that makes the Son a creature and often denies the Holy Spirit’s personality and deity).

8. The three members of the Godhead are distinct persons and can be distinguished from each other (e.g., the Father is not the Son, the Father is not the Holy Spirit, and the Son is not the Holy Spirit). Orthodox Trinitarianism therefore rejects all forms of modalism (that blends or confounds the persons by defining them as mere modes of existence).

9. God’s “oneness” and “threeness” are in different respects. In other words, the way in which God is one (essence) is different from the way God is three (subsistence). Christian theologians and philosophers through the centuries have argued that it is crucial to distinguish between God’s essence on one hand, and God’s subsistence on the other.

10.The way in which God is one does not violate the way in which God is three, and vice versa.

With these essential points in mind, let us now consider four important questions about the doctrine of the Trinity.

Four Critical Questions About The Trinity

1. Since the word “Trinity” doesn’t appear anywhere in the Bible, did the early church simply invent the doctrine out of thin air?

Linguistically, the term “trinity” comes from the Latin “trinitas.” This term was used by the church father Tertullian (c. A.D. 160-230) who wrote about “a trinity of one divinity, Father, Son and Holy Spirit.” While it is true that the formulation of the doctrine of the Trinity progressively developed in church history, that doesn’t mean that the church invented the doctrine without reference to the Bible. Some are troubled that the word “trinity” doesn’t appear anywhere in the Bible. But while the term is not contained in the Bible, this in no way invalidates it as a biblical doctrine. First of all, many important terms are not contained in the Bible. For example, the word “Bible” is not contained in the Bible. But while the actual word “trinity” doesn’t appear in the Bible, the doctrine is clearly revealed in Scripture. The following is a brief summary of the biblical basis for the doctrine of the Trinity. There are literally hundreds of passages that can be marshaled to support the Trinity doctrine.4

The biblical doctrine of the Trinity can be expressed in five propositions:

a) There is one, and only one, God (Deut. 4:35, 39; 6:4; Isa. 43:10; 44:6-8; 2 Tim. 2:5; James 2:19).

b) The person of the Father is God (Col. 1:2-3; 2 Pet. 1:17).

c) The person of the Son is God (John 1:1; 5:17; 8:58; 10:30; 20:28; Phil. 2:6; Col. 2:9; Tit. 2:13; Heb. 1:8; 2 Pet.1:1).

d) The person of the Holy Spirit is God (Gen. 1:2; John 14:26; Acts 5:3-4; 13:2,4; 28:25; Rom. 8:11; Eph. 4:30).

e) The Father, Son, and Holy Spirit are distinguishable persons: (Matt. 28:19; Luke 3:22; John 15:26; 16:13-15; 2 Cor. 13:14).

The logical inference from these five biblical propositions is as follows. If there is only one God, and the three distinguishable persons are all called God, then the three persons must be the one God. The doctrine of the Trinity was not invented out of thin air by the church at the Council of Nicea (A.D. 325) or at any other time. What really happened was that the fathers of the church saw the doctrine of the Trinity as a necessary inference from Scripture. The doctrine developed in the early church because of the overwhelming scriptural evidence supporting both the deity of Jesus Christ and the deity of the Holy Spirit. Evangelical theologian Alister E. McGrath explains:

The doctrine of the Trinity can be regarded as the outcome of a process of sustained and critical reflection on the pattern of divine activity revealed in Scripture, and continued in Christian experience. This is not to say that Scripture contains a doctrine of the Trinity; rather, Scripture bears witness to a God who demands to be understood in a Trinitarian manner…. Historically, it is possible to argue that the doctrine of the Trinity is closely linked with the development of the doctrine of the divinity of Christ.…The starting point for Christian reflections on the Trinity is, as we have seen, the New Testament witness to the presence and activity of God in Christ and through the Spirit.5

While no formal or dogmatic statement appears in the Bible concerning the Trinity, the truths that produce the doctrine find their origin uniquely in the pages of Holy Scripture. The language and context of the four following passages give clear indication that the apostles were well aware that their traditional Jewish monotheism had to be qualified to include the reality of three divine persons.

“Therefore go and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father, and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit …” (Matt. 28:19, NIV)

“May the grace of the Lord Jesus Christ, and the love of God, and the fellowship of the Holy Spirit be with you all.” (2 Cor. 13:14, NIV)

“As soon as Jesus was baptized, he went up out of the water. At that moment heaven was opened, and he saw the Spirit of God descending like a dove and lighting on him. And a voice from heaven said, ‘This is my Son, whom I love; with him I am well pleased.’” (Matt. 3:16-17, NIV)

“Peter, an apostle of Jesus Christ, to God’s elect … chosen according to the foreknowledge of God the Father, through the sanctifying work of the Spirit, for obedience to Jesus Christ and sprinkling by his blood.” (1 Pet. 1:1-2, NIV)

These passages place the Son and the Holy Spirit on an equal level with the Father, and are open to explicit Trinitarian interpretation.

2. Isn’t the Trinity a mysterious, unintelligible doctrine, and therefore an absurdity?

As creatures, human beings will never, not even in the next world, know and understand God as God understands Himself. And while the Trinity doctrine is to some degree mysterious and ultimately incomprehensible to the finite mind, that doesn’t mean that we can’t speak of the doctrine in a meaningful way, or that it is an absurdity. The Trinity is certainly meaningful and understandable as a teaching, but it simply cannot be fully fathomed by human beings. While we will never fully comprehend the Trinity, our imperfect analogies do provide some meaningful insight into the nature of God. And certainly our reasoned and careful inferences drawn from Scripture about God are meaningful and understandable, even though they are not ultimately comprehensive. Christian theologian and apologist Robert M. Bowman, Jr. provides a helpful clarification:

To say that the Trinity cannot be understood likewise is imprecise, or at least open to misinterpretation. Trinitarian theologians do not mean to imply that the Trinity is unintelligible nonsense. Rather, the point they are making is that the Trinity cannot be fully fathomed, or comprehended, by the finite mind of a man. There is a difference between gaining a basically correct understanding of something and having a complete, comprehensive, all-embracing, perfect understanding of it. The way many other theologians would express this difference is to say that the Trinity can be understood, or “apprehended,” but not “comprehended.”6

The difficulty that human beings have in encountering the Trinity doctrine is that God is in certain respects different from anything in the created order. For example, the teaching that one being subsists as three distinct persons is completely counter to all human experience. This is, of course, the difficulty with human analogies of the Trinity -- God is in some respects wholly other. However, the question is whether human beings will accept God as He actually reveals Himself to be, mystery included, or only settle for a being they think they can fully comprehend. Of course if the human mind can comprehend God, can he be much of a God? As C.S. Lewis points out, some concepts of God are easier than others: “If Christianity was something we were making up, of course we could make it easier. But it isn’t. We can’t compete, in simplicity, with people who are inventing religions. How could we? We’re dealing with fact. Of course anyone can be simple if he has no facts to bother about!”7

3. Isn’t the Trinity a logical contradiction?

The law of non-contradiction, the foundational principle for all logical thinking, asserts that two contradictory statements cannot both be true at the same time and in the same respect (A cannot equal A and non-A). This law can take a metaphysical cast indicating what is or is not: “Nothing can both be and not be at the same time and in the same respect.” This same law can also take an epistemological cast, indicating what is true or false: “A statement cannot be both true and false at the same time and in the same respect.”8 A contradiction in logic reflects a very specific relationship. Two statements are contradictory if they negate or deny each other. Contradictory statements have opposite truth value: exactly one statement is true; the other statement is false.

Skeptics often claim the Trinity is a contradiction in two ways. Some critics of the orthodox doctrine of the Trinity assert that it violates the law of non-contradiction on the ground that the doctrine claims that God is one and not one, and that God is three and not three. This criticism is a straw man argument, however, for orthodox Trinitarianism does not assert that God is one and not one, three and not three. Rather the Trinity doctrine asserts that the way God is one (essence), He is not three. And the way that God is three (subsistence), He is not one. Trinitarians assert that one must distinguish God’s essence on one hand and God’s subsistence on the other. God is one in a different respect than the way He is three, and three in a different respect than the way He is one. Thus the Trinity is not a formal contradiction.

Other critics claim that the formulation of the Trinity does indeed involve a contradiction. They argue the following: Since the Father is God, the Son is God, and the Holy Spirit is God, and since the Father is not the Son, the Father is not the Holy Spirit and the Son is not the Holy Spirit; then the result is that each person is simultaneously God and not God. This is, they reason, a violation of the law of non-contradiction.

This evaluation of the Trinitarian formulation is equally a straw man argument, for again it fails to recognize the essence/subsistence distinction. The members of the Trinity all share equally the one divine nature and are thus the one God. However, the relational distinctions in the Godhead (Father, Son, Holy Spirit) do not in any way subtract from each individual person’s possession of the divine nature. Thus the three persons are distinct from each other, but they nevertheless remain fully and equally God. How one Being can simultaneously be three persons is an unfathomable mystery, but it is not a formal contradiction.

This logical tension may be alleviated if one recognizes what is known as the “predication/identity distinction.”9 To say that “Jesus Christ is God” is to predicate the divine nature to Jesus Christ which is an attribute of being that He shares equally and fully with the Father and the Holy Spirit. On the other hand, to say “Jesus Christ is God the Son” is to make an identity claim; namely, that the person of Jesus of Nazareth is the same (identical) person as God the Son, the second person of the Trinity. It is not contradictory to attribute deity to all three members of the Trinity (predication), while simultaneously asserting that they possess distinct personal identities: Father, Son, Holy Spirit (identity). Often misunderstandings can be cleared up if Christians take great care in formulating and articulating the Trinity doctrine.

Critics may question the essence/subsistence distinction, but if they are going to critique the historic doctrine of the Trinity, they must take this critical distinction into account. Christians throughout the centuries have affirmed that the Trinity may range above reason, but never against reason. As Christian theologian Geoffrey Bromiley asserts: “Rationalist objections to the Trinity break down in the fact that they insist on interpreting the Creator in terms of the creature…”10

4. Why is the doctrine of the Trinity important?

As stated earlier, the Trinity doctrine is crucially important because it reveals What and Who God is (one God in three persons). This allows Christians, though in an obviously limited way, to view the inner working of God’s nature and personhood. This doctrine allows God’s people, as the Athanasian Creed declares, to “worship one God in trinity and the trinity in unity…” Christians assert that to fail to worship the Triune God is to fail to worship God.

Furthermore, the Trinity doctrine brings together in a coherent manner the great truths about God’s historical/redemptive actions in and through the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. For example, the Father sends the Son into the world to offer a propitiary sacrifice on the cross that will both appease the Father’s just wrath against sin and extend the Father’s love and mercy by allowing repentant sinners to escape divine judgment. The Incarnate Son (the second person of the Trinity) is able to provide this atonement because He is both God and man (in this case “two Whats” and “one Who”). The God-man conquers death, sin, and hell through His glorious resurrection from the dead. The Holy Spirit (another Comforter) is directly responsible for the believer’s new birth in Christ through regeneration and for the life journey of sanctification. The entire plan of redemption is made possible by the three divine members of the Trinity. Thus salvation from first to last is directly connected to the doctrine of the Trinity.

Finally, as the greatest of the church fathers, St. Augustine (A.D. 354-430), explained in his monumental work De Trinitate (On The Trinity), only a God who has plurality within unity can adequately account for God being love and for the use of His divine mind. For if God is a single solitary being, then before the creation He has no one to love, and He cannot distinguish between the knower and the known (a requisite of self knowledge).11

Christians have grown to cherish the doctrine of the Trinity that sets their religion apart from all others. Through the centuries they have worshiped one God in Trinity and the Trinity in Unity. The last stanza of Reginald Heber’s hymn “Holy, Holy, Holy” (1826) exemplifies this worship:

Holy, holy, holy! Lord God almighty!
All thy works shall praise thy name, in earth and sky and sea;
Holy, holy, holy! Merciful and mighty!
God in three persons, blessed Trinity!12

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Glossary of Terms

Arianism: The heretical view that Christ’s nature or essence is inferior to the Father; that Christ is a created being. A denial of the full and unqualified deity of Christ and of the Holy Spirit.

catholic: When written in lower case, it is a reference to the universal or orthodox Christian church.

essence: The necessary characteristics that make a thing what it is. In terms of God, the full nature or substance of what God is.

modalism: The heretical view that there is only one divine person who merely appears in three different forms or modes; a denial that the three members of the Trinity are distinct and distinguishable persons.

monarchianism: The view that so stressed the unity of God as to exclude God’s plurality (as three distinct persons).

monotheism: The view that there is one, and only one, God (affirmed in Trinitarianism).

ontology: The study of being.

polytheism: The view that there is more than one, or many, gods.

Straw man fallacy: An informal fallacy in which the arguer distorts or misrepresents his opponent’s argument and then attacks the distorted argument.

subsistence: From the Latin “subsistentia,” with respect to the Trinity an individual instance of a given essence.

Trinitarianism: The orthodox doctrine that God is one in essence but three in subsistence: Father, Son, and Holy Spirit.

tritheism: The view that there are three separate gods.

Endnotes

1. Athanasian Creed, in Ecumenical Creeds and Reformed Confessions (Grand Rapids: CRC Publications, 1988), 9-10.
2. For a discussion of the attributes of God see John Jefferson Davis, Handbook of Basic Bible Texts (Grand Rapids: Zondervan, 1984), 23-39; Louis Berkhof, Systematic Theology (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1996), 29-81.
3. These points were influenced by Robert M. Bowman, Jr., Why You Should Believe in the Trinity (Grand Rapids: Baker, 1989); Millard J. Erickson, Christian Theology (Grand Rapids: Baker, 1998), 321-42; Richard A. Muller, Dictionary of Latin and Greek Theological Terms (Grand Rapids: Baker, 1985), s.v. “trinitas,” 306-10; Wayne Grudem, Systematic Theology (Grand Rapids: Zondervan, 1994), 226-61.
4. See Bowman, Why You Should Believe in the Trinity, 50-51, 91-110, 114-20, 124-34.
5. Alister E. McGrath, An Introduction to Christianity (Cambridge, Mass: Blackwell, 1997), 193-94.
6. Bowman, Why You Should Believe in the Trinity, 16-17.
7. C.S. Lewis, Mere Christianity (New York: Simon & Schuster, 1952), 145.
8. For a clear and insightful discussion of the formal laws of logic, see Ronald H. Nash, The Word of God and the Mind of Man (Grand Rapids: Zondervan, 1982), 103-12; and Ed L. Miller, Questions That Matter, 4th ed. (New York: McGraw-Hill, 1996), 32-33.
9. See Thomas D. Senor’s helpful discussion of this philosophical distinction in Michael J. Murray ed., Reason for the Hope Within (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1999), 239-40.
10. Walter A. Elwell, ed. Evangelical Dictionary of Theology (Grand Rapids: Baker, 1984), s.v. “Trinity,” 1112.
11. Norman L. Geisler, Baker Encyclopedia of Christian Apologetics (Grand Rapids: Baker, 1999), s.v. “Trinity,” 736.
12. Psalter Hymnal, Centennial Edition (Grand Rapids: CRC Publication, 1959), hymn #318, 375.

In order to establish some kind of continuity between the message of the prophets and the doctrine of Tawheed, which Muslims allege is taught in the Qur’an, some Muslims argue that the Old Testament (not to mention the New) does not teach the doctrine of the Trinity. With an eye to this, the following aims to present a brief summary of the evidence that the prophets taught the Trinity. As for my thesis, the following will show, unlike Muslims and other unitarians, orthodox Christians cling to and are comfortable with all of the Biblical material, which says that God is a uni-plural or triune being, preferring to follow the prophetic Word where it leads on this matter (and all others) rather than subject the truth of what God has revealed to the misguided dictates of unaided and fallen human reason or to a false revelation delivered in the name of a false god. In other words, Christians are those who submit to what God has said about Himself, however lofty His self-revelation may be, preferring this above rationalistic and idolatrous methods of determining the truth, which turn out to be arbitrary and worthless, not only when it comes to arriving at a true and saving understanding of God, but to account for anything in the world.1 OT Adumbrations and Evidences for the Trinity The doctrine of the Trinity is interwoven throughout the entire warp and woof of the Old Testament; it is not merely found in a discrete passage or proof-text here and there. For example, from the beginning to the end of the Old Testament, plural nouns, pronouns, verbs, adverbs and adjectives are regularly used for God, at least in the Hebrew text. A cursory list follows: The word Elohim is used thousands of times for “God”; Adonai is used hundreds of times for “Lord”; both of these words are plural nouns in Hebrew. A number of passages speak of the “faces” or “presences” or “persons” of God (Exodus 33:14; Deuteronomy 4:37; and Job 13:8). God refers to Himself as “Us,” “Our,” and “We” (Genesis 1:26, 2:18 (LXX), 3:22, 11:7; Isaiah 6:8, and 41:21-24),2 a phenomenon that is reflected in virtually every English translation. The OT says of God, “they caused me to wander” (Genesis 20:13), “they appeared” (Genesis 35:7), “they drew nigh” (Deuteronomy 4:7), “they went” (2 Samuel 7:23), and “they judge” (Psalm 58:11). The OT calls God our “Creators” (Ecclesiastes 12:1), “Makers” and “Husbands” (Job 35:10; Psalm 149:2; Isaiah 54:5). The OT says that God is “holy” (Joshua 24:19; Proverbs 9:10, 30:33), another plural. All of this (and more) can be found in the Old Testament in spite of the fact that singular words are readily available in each instance where these words occur. If the prophetic authors of the Bible were unitarians, we wouldn’t expect them to speak about God in this way. Indeed, unitarians do not typically speak this way in ordinary conversation and fall all over themselves trying to explain them when they are brought up.4 One might say the use of plural expressions is customary among polytheists, but then in the case of polytheism it only needs to be pointed out that right alongside such plural references to God are singular words, even emphatic declarations that there is only one God. These singular references to God are just as disconcerting to polytheists as the plural references are to unitarians. The same thing can be said for many other peculiarities distinctive of Old Testament revelation about God, such as when God speaks to or about another person who is identified as God or Lord (Psalm 2, 110:1, Isaiah 13:17-19; Hosea 1:7; Amos 4:10-11; Jeremiah 50:40; Malachi 3:1; Micah 5:2; Zechariah 2:8-11, 12:10, 13:7)5 or when the Biblical authors refer to more than one person as Yahweh, the God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob (Genesis 19:24;6 Psalm 457). Once again, this does not sit well with either unitarians or polytheists; the former because it implies personal plurality within the Godhead, contrary to their unitarian assumptions; the latter because it implies the essential unity of these divine persons, contrary to their polytheistic assumptions. In addition to plural words and the divine distinctions pointed out above, mention can be made of the triadic prayers, benedictions, and doxologies of the Old Testament (e.g. Genesis 48:15-16; Numbers 6:24-26; Isaiah 6:38 see also Isaiah 33:22; Jeremiah 33:2; Daniel 9:19),9 which given their formulaic character, cry out for some kind of explanation. This cry has fallen on deaf unitarian ears and has been met with equally mute unitarian lips for a reason: this is not the way unitarians would naturally speak of their “god”. The OT further specifies the nature of divine plurality by identifying the three persons of the Godhead. These three persons are all distinguished from each other, and yet, in various ways, are identified as God: the Father (e.g. Deuteronomy 32:6; Isaiah 63:16, 64:8, Malachi 2:10); the person variously designated as the Messenger of the LORD (Heb. Malakh Yahweh), Word, or Son of God (e.g. Genesis 16:7-14, 21:17-18, 22:9-18, 28:10-22 (cf. Genesis 31:11-13), 32:22-32 (cf. Hosea 12:3-4); Exodus 3, 13:21 (cf. 14:19), 23:20-22; Numbers 22:21-41; Judges 2:1-5, 6:7-24, 13:3-22, 2 Samuel 24:16; Psalm 2, 110:1, Isaiah 7:14, 9:6, 63:9; Jeremiah 23:5-6; Proverbs 30:4; Zechariah 1:10-11, 12:8; Malachi 3:1); and the Holy Spirit or Spirit of God (e.g. Nehemiah 9:20; Job 26:13, 33:4; Psalm 104:30, 106:32-33, 139:1-24, 143:10; 2 Samuel 23:1-3; Isaiah 11:2, 40:13; Ezekiel 11:5; Micah 2:7). Finally, in addition to the above passages that separately speak of one or another person of the Godhead, assigning to them the names, attributes, and prerogatives of God, there are many passages which mention all three persons together, assigning to each a role in the divine works of creation, providence, and redemption. For example: 1) Genesis 1:1-3 mentions God creating all things by His Word and Spirit; 2) the same thing is reiterated in Psalm 33:6; 3) Isaiah 42:1 speaks of God, His Servant/Chosen One, and His Spirit, by which He will bring justice or righteousness to the world; 4) Isaiah 48:12-16 has the First and the Last, i.e. the eternal God, speaking of a time when He is sent by the LORD God and His Spirit; 5) in Isaiah 61:1, the person who is sent with the good news, i.e. the Gospel, says the LORD has anointed Him with His Holy Spirit, Who is upon Him; and 6) Isaiah 63 tells of the LORD, the Angel [Lit. Heb. Messenger] of His Presence, and the Holy Spirit bringing about salvation. An Objection Considered The assumption that pre-Christian Jews did not believe in the Trinity is often allowed to run rough-shod over the evidence available from the OT. Not only is this irrelevant – since the question is not what ancient Jews in general allegedly believed but what the Jewish prophets taught as they were borne along by the Holy Spirit – but it isn’t true in the first place. The Aramaic Targums and a wide body of inter-testamental literature give evidence of (at least) a nascent Trinitarianism among some Jews. Often what some people present as evidence against Jewish Trinitarianism comes from modern anti-Messianic Jewish sources, not from the writings of ancient Jews; when appeal is made to Jewish writings of the inter-testamental period, it is usually in a very selective way. Beating A Retreat Since post-Quranic Islamic theology says that the Old Testament has been corrupted, many Muslims may be tempted to say it is no consequence that the Old Testament teaches that God is Triune, because they can just fall back on this expedient. In addition to the fact that the Qur’an does not support the idea that the text of the Old Testament has been corrupted,10 this fall-back position has some serious problems. Not only would such a maneuver in the face of the evidence undermine any ability of Muslims to prove, beyond the solitary witness of Muhammad in the Qur’an, that they are purveyors of the original message of the prophets, it would mean that the doctrine of the Trinity: 1) predated Christianity, since we have OT manuscripts from before the Christian era, which is contrary to the thesis that it was invented by the early church; and 2) was invented by the Jews, since these manuscripts were primarily in their hands at that time, contrary to the thesis that pre-Christian Jews did not believe in the Trinity. Such conclusions run contrary to stock-in-trade notions argued by Muslim apologists, especially when it comes to assessing the evidence for the Trinity provided by the New Testament,11 and look suspiciously like ex post facto rationalizations to resist the otherwise obvious falsification of the thesis that the Old Testament does not reveal the Trinity. Conclusion In the nature of the case, as a summary of the evidence, the above has hardly attempted and much less achieved a comprehensive presentation of the case that can be made for the Trinity from the Old Testament (or a comprehensive refutation of the arguments that are levied against it). Nevertheless, the above has shown something of the fact that this doctrine is found in the Old Testament, and something of just how pervasively it is found in the prophetic writings. Consequently, the Old Testament does not support the idea that God is like the unitarian deity Muhammad supposedly thought He was. This leaves Muslims on the horns of a dilemma: either Muhammad did not reveal the same message as the prophets, which falsifies his claim to be the Messenger of God; or God’s message through the prophets has been corrupted, which makes Muhammad’s repeated claim that the previous prophets brought the same message as he did un-verifiable, which in turn falsifies in another way his claim to be a prophet since he said it could be verified from their writings. Either way the above has shown that the Old Testament teaches the doctrine of the Trinity and this means Muslims are bereft of any basis of appeal in the prophetic writings, either when it comes to arguing against what is taught in the New Testament about the Trinity, or of establishing any precedent for Islamic Tawheed. Footnotes 1 The oldest, most enduring, most pregnant problem of philosophy is that of “the One and the Many”. Neither monism nor pluralism provides a satisfactory philosophical account or resolution of this problem. It is the present writer’s conviction that this problem can only be solved by seeing all things as created, upheld, and governed by the Triune God, the God who is both one and many. For some online sources that explain this, see: Ralph Allen Smith, “Trinity and Covenant”; and Michael H. Warren, Jr., “Christian Civilization is the Only Civilization – In a Sense, Of Course”. 2 For a full Trinitarian defense of these passages, see my article: “Let Us Make Man: A Trinitarian Interpretation”. 3 Proverbs 30:3 is particularly instructive for it goes on in verse 4 to mention God and His Son. For more on this, see the following two articles: The Incomprehensible Nature of God and His Son; and Jesus Christ - the Incomprehensible Son of God and Sovereign Lord of All Creation 4 The Qur’an may be thought to be an exception to this rule, at least when it comes to the use of plural pronouns for God. However, this really solidifies the point since Qur’anic interpreters, by giving contradictory explanations for this phenomenon, show that Muslims are by no means at home with such language. This is to be expected; after all, Muhammad, without adequately reflecting on the implications, appears to have picked up this practice from Jews and Christians, and couldn’t come up with a meaningful answer himself when he was pressed on the point by the Christians of Najran. In other words: Muhammad did not naturally come up with such expressions; he ignorantly borrowed them. For more on this, see my: “The Plural of Majesty: Allah is Neither Plural nor Majestic; or, How Modern Muslims Have One-Upped Muhammad”; and Sam Shamoun’s article: “The Qur’an, Allah and Plurality Issues”. See also my series: Allah’s Use of Plural Pronouns: A Survey and Critique (Part 1, 2, 3, 4, 5). 5 A number of these passages are quoted (or alluded to) and applied to the Lord Jesus Christ in the New Testament: Psalm 2 (cf. Acts 4:25-26, 13:33; Hebrews 1:5, 5:5; Revelation 2:26-27), Psalm 110 (cf. Matthew 22:44; Mark 12:36’ Luke 20:42-43; Acts 2:34-35; Hebrews 1:13, 5:6, 10, 7:17, 21), Malachi 3:1 (cf. Matthew 11:10; Mark 1:2; Luke 7:27), and Zechariah 12:10 (cf. John 19:37; Revelation 1:10). 6 For a fuller defense of this, see my article: “The Heavenly and Earthly Yahweh: A Trinitarian Interpretation”. 7 Psalm 45 is cited in the NT book of Hebrews (1:8-9) as evidence for the deity of the Son. 8 This section of Scripture is drawn on a number of times in the NT. Most relevant here are John 12:39-43 and Acts 28:25-27, the former of which applies what Isaiah saw to the Lord Jesus, the latter of which applies what Isaiah heard to the voice of the Holy Spirit. 9 In the New Testament, similar expressions, which are also structured along a threefold pattern, are explicated in terms of the Father, the Son, and the Spirit (e.g. Ephesians 4:4-6; 1 Corinthians 12:3-6; 2 Corinthians 13:14; 1 Peter 1:2; Revelation 1:4-6, 4:8). It is also interesting to note regarding Numbers 6, “peace” in the second clause, and “grace” in the third clause, anticipate the recurrent epistolary and apostolic benedictions in the name of the Father and the Son (Romans 1:7; 1 Corinthians 1:3; 2 Corinthians 1:2; Galatians 1:3; Ephesians 1:2; Philippians 1:2; 1 Thessalonians 1:1; 2 Thessalonians 1:2; Titus 1:4; Philemon 1:3; 2 Peter 1:2). 10 Evidence for this can be found here. 11 Muslims often argue that certain New Testament passages could not teach the Trinity because the Jews did not believe in the Trinity and Jesus and the apostles were all Jewish.

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[Verse]

therer room at the cross