(Illustrated in the form of a debate)
A: There is only one God, one Supreme Being. This God exists eternally as the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit.
-C: But only the Father is really God; the others are subordinate to the Father." (Exaggeration of unity leads to a sequence or ranking among the Persons of the Godhead).
C: Christianity rejects this! The Persons of the Trinity are equal in power, substance, and eternity. If this were not the case, the doctrine would quickly reduce to Monism. In order for diversity to be upheld, the Persons must be equal.
-A: Then the Trinity is simply three identical copies of God? (Exaggeration of equality leads to conformity, a monotonous copying or cloning of the Godhead into a plurality).
A: No! The Persons of the Trinity are not clones; they have individual personalities ("hypostases") and order.
(A and C): So the oneness of the Trinity is upheld not by the power of an Individual, but in a deeper kind of loving interdependence. And the equality of the Persons in the Trinity consists not of conformity but of a uniformity of power and divinity among the Persons.
Return to trilogic diagram