Isn’t the Trinity simply a mystery?
The Objection Lab · Objection IX of X
Isn’t the Trinity simply a mystery?
Stated first the way its strongest advocate states it. Then your turn.
“The Trinity isn’t a contradiction; it’s a mystery beyond human understanding, and you reject it only because you can’t comprehend it.”7 verses answer it
I · The steelman
Their case, at full strength
“The Trinity isn’t a contradiction; it’s a mystery beyond human understanding, and you reject it only because you can’t comprehend it.”
God is infinite, and finite minds should expect to be stretched. “My thoughts are not your thoughts” (Isa 55:8); His ways are “past finding out” (Rom 11:33); “Canst thou by searching find out God?” (Job 11:7). The Trinity is above reason, not against it. A contradiction would say God is one and three in the same respect. The doctrine says He is one in being and three in person, which is not contradictory, only beyond our comprehension.
Oneness believers accept mysteries too. The incarnation, God and man in one Christ, is “the mystery of godliness” (1 Tim 3:16). To reject the Trinity because we cannot picture it would be to reject the God of Scripture for being greater than we are. Faith receives what God has revealed, even when it cannot fully explain it.
II · Drill it
Answer it. Ninety seconds.
Write what you would say if you heard this tonight. The clock starts with your first word; the ring is only a guide.
0 words
Read further
- Ten Objections to Oneness, Answered · this objection in the essay
- Oneness Theology: A Working Compendium
A short but complete map of Oneness theology: the one God of Israel, manifested in flesh as Jesus Christ. It works through the Hebrew and Greek of the key Old and New Testament texts, the typology of the angel, the tabernacle and the priesthood, and the apostolic practice of baptism in Jesus’ name. Each contested text is set beside the strongest Trinitarian reading before it is answered.