Question on the Trinity

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Bill_johnson

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I’m taking a NT class at a secular university that’s clearly from a semi-secular, semi- Protestant perspective (I know bad idea but I’m transferring so I won’t have to worry about it anymore). Long story short I had a question on a quiz that states:

“The doctrine of the Trinity teaches that God is both one and three - the one and only God exists eternally as Father, Son, and Holy Spirit.”

I put false and got the answer on the quiz wrong. The Trinity is not 3 AND 1 but rather 3 IN 1, correct or am I just crazy?
 
Bill_johnson said:
I’m taking a NT class at a secular university that’s clearly from a semi-secular, semi- Protestant perspective (I know bad idea but I’m transferring so I won’t have to worry about it anymore). Long story short I had a question on a quiz that states:

“The doctrine of the Trinity teaches that God is both one and three - the one and only God exists eternally as Father, Son, and Holy Spirit.”

I put false and got the answer on the quiz wrong. The Trinity is not 3 AND 1 but rather 3 IN 1, correct or am I just crazy?
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You can use the term and in that instance. I think you overthought it. Do they usually have othet trick questions on tests?
 
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@Bill_johnson There is one God in Three Divine Persons.
 
I knew it was in! By the way are you related to a Tim Finigan?
 
Explain please. I’ve always heard “in” not once have I heard “and”
 
You have it correct. It is always one God in Three Divine Persons. Don’t let anyone tell you otherwise.
 
Bill_johnson said:
Explain please. I’ve always heard “in” not once have I heard “and”
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The main reason “three and one” is correct is because we cannot reduce the Trinity to set theory. “Three in One” is most certainly right, but so is “One in Three”, which is why “Three and One” and “One and Three” are also correct.

The primary expression of this reversibility of terms is the Athanasian Creed, which states: “And the catholic faith is this: that we worship one God in Trinity, and Trinity in Unity.”

Due to this expression of the orthodox faith, longstanding Christian hymns have expressed the Trinity in such reversed terms such as:

“…by invocation of the Same, the Three in One and One in Three” (“I bind unto myself Today”, attrib. St. Patrick).

and

“Firmly I believe and truly: God is Three and God is One.” (John Henry Newman).

Limiting ourselves to three in one and not allowing the one in three results in an incomplete expression of the Trinitarian truth. Therefore, it is truly and fully orthodox to state that God is indeed One and Three, as well as One in Three and Three in One.
 
I think three and one here means God is one (as in one God), and God is also three persons…in one God.

So three and one is true.
 
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What exactly does “…God exists externally as Father, Son, and Holy Spirit.” mean?
 
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Three persons and one God is correct. The persons in one God is correct. The wording of the quiz, “God is both one and three” seemingly would have been incomplete, but it was followed with “the one and only God exists eternally as Father, Son, and Holy Spirit”, which definitely makes it true.
 
Depends on what you mean by “personality” or “persons”. In the Christian doctrine of the Trinity, each Person in the Trinity will necessarily never desire what is contrary to the desires of the other two Divine Persons. Hence, the Trinity has perfectly one Will. In other words, they can’t possibly disagree on anything. This isn’t similar in anyway to polytheism, where the gods not only disagree with one another, but often settle their internal disputes with violence and wars. This perfectly one Will in the Holy Trinity is one of the reasons why we Christians are monotheists.
 
It means that God has always existed as the Trinity. The Son didn’t come “after” the Father or anything like that, and God did not just assume the three Persons as roles for interacting with us humans. The Trinity is fundamental to who God is.
 
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