The objection
One God as one person is easier to imagine than one God in three persons. If a simpler explanation is possible, it should be preferred to a complicated doctrine of the Trinity.
1. Brevity is no independent criterion of truth
An explanation can become shorter by omitting some facts it is meant to explain. This gains nothing. The Unitarian formula, like the Trinitarian one, must explain why the Word is called God, why the Son possessed glory with the Father before the world, and why the same honor belongs to him as to the Father.
The actual comparison is therefore not “one sentence against a longer sentence” but: Which interpretation holds revelation's statements together without continually reconstructing their meaning? A simple formula with many retrospective exceptions may be the more elaborate explanation overall.
2. The supposedly simple starting point is already a decision
“God is one person” seems self-evident only if every unity is understood on the pattern of a created single individual. This assumption is not neutral. Before listening to God's Word, it determines what personal reality God may possess.
We, by contrast, begin with God's self-revelation. His Word is no uncertain object before an independent human tribunal. It is the criterion through which we rightly situate God and our own knowledge. This does not release us from thinking; it obliges us to understand the received statements precisely and consistently.
3. Unity and diversity are original in God
John 17,24 attests love between Father and Son before creation. God did not have to create the world to have a real relationship of love for the first time. His perfection does not depend on a created counterpart.
Poythress shows that unity and diversity in the created world reflect God's own fullness at their creaturely level. No limited human perspective is the ultimate criterion; this lies in God's perfect knowledge.[1] One cannot calculate the number three from this without revelation. But it shows why God's personal fullness is no retrospectively imposed problem.
4. “Simplicity” also has a precise theological meaning
In classical doctrine, divine simplicity means that God is not composite or dependent on constituents. It does not mean that every human can easily survey him.[2] Anyone confusing the two makes the limits of their imagination the measure of divine reality.
The Trinity is therefore not true because of its difficulty. It is true because God reveals himself as Father, Son and Spirit. Its intellectual demands arise because none of these statements may be sacrificed. Christian thought seeks the clearest presentation of this truth, not the God most conveniently reduced to a familiar human pattern.
Biblical texts in context
Sources and further study
- Vern S. Poythress, Making Sense of the WorldCh. 1, pp. 10–12: Trinitarian unity and diversity; God's knowledge as criterion.
- James E. Dolezal, God without PartsCh. 2: simplicity as noncomposition, not easy imaginability.