A common question Muslims ask Christians about, how do you believe that the Father, the Son and the Holy Spirit each is God but they are not three Gods but one God? How can 1+1+1 =1? Is it logical?
What is the Trinity Christians Believe in?
In the beginning, we need first to understand what is the Trinity? The Athanasian creed may be a reference:
http://www.ccel.org/creeds/athanasian.creed.html
Christians have various answers and analogies to try to explain the Trinity to Muslims and non Christians in general. So let’s go and see whether these explanations really prove the Trinity as logical or not.
Analogies Used By Christians
At the beginning a Christian may say: “Well, it is not 1 X 1 X 1=1″. Actually this is a weird example, as it actually has no meaning. What is the meaning of saying ” Father X Son X Holy Spirit = God”? How could they be multiplied by each other? Actually I am not sure how.
Sun Analaogy
Then we may come to a next analogy, which is Sun has body, light and heat. But they are not considered three suns but one sun. Well, we may need to look at the Athanasian creed explaining the Trinity here where it says:
15. So the Father is God, the Son is God, and the Holy Spirit is God;
16. And yet they are not three Gods, but one God.
17. So likewise the Father is Lord, the Son Lord, and the Holy Spirit Lord;
18. And yet they are not three Lords but one Lord.
So we understand from what the creed says here that each person in the Trinity is fully God in nature, i.e. doesn’t depend on other persons. This is not the case with the Sun as actually its light is dependent on its heat, and its heat is dependent on the nuclear explosions occurring on its surface. Besides, we don’t call the light of the sun or its heat as sun because actually they are light and heat emerging from the sun not the sun itself.
Human Analogy
A next analogy may be the human being, where he is body, mind and spirit. Actually this analogy doesn’t match with the Trinity as well as the sun analogy as both the mind and spirit refer to the body. An insane man is a body and a soul but has no mind, and dead man is a body with no mind or soul. We don’t say that mind is a full man or that spirit are full man, because they cannot exist without a body, but a body can exist without mind or soul even temporarily as the case with a corpse.
Atom Analogy
Then another analogy may be used, which is the analogy of the atom. An atom contains protons, neutrons and electrons. Actually this is not the case as well as the three subatomic particles are added with each other to make an atom, where the protons with positive charges must be equal to neutrons with negative charges to make the atom neutral, and the case that the atomic weight depends on the weight of each particle. This is not the case with the Trinity, as the Trinity is that God is divided into parts.
Water Analogy
Moving to the next analogy of water. Water has 3 phases, an ice which is a solid, heat it to become water (liquid), heat it more to become steam (vapor). This is modalism, meaning that Father is the Son is the Holy Spirit i.e. one person in three different states, this is a heresy used to be adopted by a Christian sect called Monarchians and Church Fathers as Tertullian clearly stated that they are not Orthodoxy Christians in his book Against Praxeas:
http://christiandefense.org/Tertullian.Prax.htm
Analogies Explaining Trinity are against Logic
Actually all the analogies shall either end up with any of the three, either concluding that the Trinity doesn’t say that each person is a full God as it depends on other persons, or that God is divided into parts or that they are not actually three persons but one person with three different states, and the three are considered a heresy according to Christian belief.
At the end a Christian might say, it’s a secret of God and we as humans cannot get it. Actually there is nothing wrong with saying so if the Trinity really had an authentic source from God proving that it is true, but even according to the Bible, neither there is a solid evidence proving the Trinity in the Bible nor the Bible could be really proven as a reliable source from God, and this points were covered in the site in detail.
