I have been sharing thoughts about the most important belief of our Christian faith, namely God as Trinity. I must hasten to point our, however, that the doctrine of the Holy Trinity is not merely an article of faith which men are called to believe. It is not simply a dogma which the Church requires its good members to accept on faith. The doctrine of the Holy Trinity is not merely an invention of scholars or the result of intellectual speculation, philosophical thinking, or human fabrication. The doctrine of the Holy Trinity, we must admit, arises from man’s deepest and truest experiences with God. It comes from the genuine living knowledge of those who have come to know God in faith.

To grasp the words and concepts of the doctrine of the Trinity is one thing; to know the Living Reality of God behind these words and concepts is something else. We must work and pray so that we might pass beyond every word and concept about God and to come to know Him for ourselves in our own living union with Him: “The Father through the Son in the Holy Spirit” (Ephesians 2: 18–22).

The main question for the Church to answer about God is that of the relationship between the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit. According to Sacred Tradition, there are a number of wrong doctrines.

One wrong doctrine is that the Father alone is God and that the Son and the Holy Spirit are creatures, made from nothing like angels, men and the world. The Church answers that the Son and the Holy Spirit are not creatures, but are uncreated and divine with the Father, and they act with the Father in the divine act of creation.

Another wrong idea of doctrine is that God in Himself is One God who merely appears in different forms to the world: Now as the Father, then as the Son, and still again as the Holy Spirit. The Church answers once more that the Son and Word is in the beginning with God as is the Holy Spirit, and that the Three are eternally distinct. The Son is “of God” and the Spirit is “of God.” The Son and the Spirit are not merely aspects of God, without, so to speak, a life and existence of their own.

There are several other wrong ideas about our Triune God that I will share in coming issues. First, think about your own thoughts about God.

Who IS He in your own mind?