The Trinity, Monotheism and Incomprehensibility

What is monotheism? dictionary.com defines it this way:

1. The doctrine or belief that there is only one God.

Nothing hard to understand about that, right? Here is the definition of the word according to the 1997 edition of The Merriam Webster Dictionary:

1. A doctrine or belief that there is only one deity.

Here is the definition of the word according to the fourth edition of Random House Webster's Dictionary:

1. The doctrine or belief that there is only one God.

Even the same wording this time!

Here is The Oxford American Desk Dictionary and Thesaurus, Fourth Edition's definition:

1. doctrine that there is only one God.

There’s nothing difficult, complicated or least of all incomprehensible about any of these definitions. Nor are their keywords hard to understand, despite what negative atheists say. I get tired of their silly claim that the word “God” is vague or meaningless. Here is the relevant definition dictionary.com gives of “God”, the keyword in its definition of “monotheism”:

1a. A being conceived as the perfect, omnipotent, omniscient originator and ruler of the universe, the principal object of faith and worship in monotheistic religions.

Once again, there’s nothing hard to grasp about this, although I would question their use of the word “perfect” in addition to the different ways in which God is perfect. When you look up he word “deity” in the 1997 edition of The Merriam Webster Dictionary (the keyword in its definition or “monotheism”), you get referred to their definition for “God”, which is:

1. The supreme reality; esp: the Being worshiped as the creator and ruler of the universe.

Yet again, it’s easy to understand. Now here is the definition of "God" according to Random House Webster's Dictionary, Fourth Edition:

1. The creator and ruler of the universe.

Here is the definition for "God" in The Oxford American Desk Dictionary and Thesaurus, Fourth Edition:

1. (in Christian and other monotheistic religions) creator and ruler of the universe; supreme being.

Now here is the most complete and articulate definition of the Trinity in the creeds, that offered by the Athanasian Creed:

The catholic faith is this: that we worship one God in Trinity, and Trinity in Unity; neither confounding the persons nor dividing the substance. For there is one person of the Father, another of the Son, and another of the Holy Spirit. But the Godhead of the Father, of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit is all one, the glory equal, the majesty coeternal. Such as the Father is, such is the Son, and such is the Holy Spirit. The Father uncreated, the Son uncreated, and the Holy Spirit uncreated. The Father incomprehensible, the Son incomprehensible, and the Holy Spirit incomprehensible. The Father eternal, the Son eternal, and the Holy Spirit eternal.

And yet they are not three eternals but one eternal, as also there are not three uncreated nor three incomprehensible, but one uncreated and one incomprehensible. So likewise the Father is almighty, the Son almighty, and the Holy Spirit almighty. And yet they are not three almighties, but one almighty. So the Father is God, the Son is God, and the Holy Spirit is God; and yet they are not three Gods, but one God. So likewise the Father is Lord, the Son Lord, and the Holy Spirit Lord; and yet they are not three Lords but one Lord. For like as we are compelled by the Christian verity to acknowledge every Person by himself to be God and Lord; so are we forbidden by the catholic religion to say; There are three Gods or three Lords.

The Father is made of none, neither created nor begotten. The Son is of the Father alone; not made nor created, but begotten. The Holy Spirit is of the Father and of the Son; neither made, nor created, nor begotten, but proceeding. So there is one Father, not three Fathers; one Son, not three Sons; one Holy Spirit, not three Holy Spirits. And in this Trinity none is afore or after another; none is greater or less than another. But the whole three persons are coeternal, and coequal. So that in all things, as aforesaid, the Unity in Trinity and the Trinity in Unity is to be worshipped. He therefore that will be saved must thus think of the Trinity.

If you have to believe all that without confounding it to be saved, you’re in deep, deep trouble. “Incomprehensible” doesn’t even begin to describe it! Nor is the original definition of the Trinity offered by the Nicene Creed much more helpful:

We believe in one God, the Father, the Almighty, maker of heaven and earth, of all that is, seen and unseen. We believe in one Lord, Jesus Christ, the only Son of God, eternally begotten of the Father, God from God, Light from Light, true God from true God, begotten, not made, of one Being with the Father. Through him all things were made....We believe in the Holy Spirit, the Lord, the giver of life, who proceeds from the Father and the Son.

“Eternally begotten”? “Light from Light”? “Proceeds from the Father and the Son”? Come on, this is just more jargon. They clearly had no idea what they were talking about, and they weren’t prophets getting direct knowledge of the incomprehensible from God but simply a bunch of church leaders in a committee (and as I’ve established in the above article on the subject, there is no biblical basis for the Trinity). Quite obviously, the Trinity isn’t real.

Even if it is real, this creed itself states that the Father is the maker or begettor of everything, including the other parts of the Trinity, so He is obviously greater than either--and indeed, in the Bible the “Holy Spirit” (angels, folks--spirits that are holy--the “Spirits of God”, singular “Spirit of God”, in the book of Revelation, and “Spirit of God” is considered a synonym for “Holy Spirit”) is always sent by God, and “the Son” is subject to Him and even prays to Him. And remember that to him, God is our Father too--see Matthew 5:16, Matthew 10:20, Luke 6:36, John 20:17, etc. My article on the Trilemma on this site’s “Christianity” page goes into more detail about this.

But the Trinity is not real: as I have established, it could not have been anything more than a figment of the church fathers’ very strange imaginations. How could anything real be monotheism if it’s so complicated and even incomprehensible? The definition of “monotheism” is not hard to understand, nor is the definition of “God” as most monotheists would have it. Nobody ever has trouble under-standing it the way most monotheists would have it. There is nothing hard to grasp about monotheism. So how is the Trinity doctrine monotheistic if it’s incomprehensible?

More importantly, how can you believe in something that’s incomprehensible? Is there any way you can possibly reconcile the three persons of it into one God, in any full, doctrinal way, inside your own head? If not, can you be doing anything but practicing polytheism? As Leo Tolstoy said in What Is Religion, “One may say with one's lips: ‘I believe that God is one, and also three’--but no one can believe it, because the words have no sense.” So far I’ve never seen anybody reconcile the Trinity except with false analogies which betray the fact that you’re secretly, unknowingly believing in three separate things. (More on this in my refutation of Answering Islam’s article on the Trinity.)

I’ve found that whenever I complain about the Trinity and how it’s just nonsense, the Christian will tell me something like, “You just don’t understand it.” Exactly! And neither do they, because two minutes later they’re shifting their ground and defending it based on its incompre-hensibility. Either it remains incomprehensible but somehow you can manage to believe it, or I’m misunderstanding it: you can’t have it both ways. And they way I see it, if you can’t understand it either, then there’s no way you can call yourself a monotheist, because monotheism is a simple concept and you can’t believe what is totally incomprehensible to you.

The Trinity doctrine is false and polytheistic.