G.K. Chesterton wrote, "It is the saint who tries to get his head into the heavens; it is the atheist who tries to get the heavens into his head; and it is his head that splits." We cannot explain God because our heads are too little and our brains too feeble to accommodate him. Nevertheless, if we are to live in any orderly manner, we must have some orderly thinking about God. Without organizing our thoughts about God, we will never make any progress trying to pursue the will of God. That is what we mean by theology – organized thoughts about God.

Unfortunately, we must use words to express ourselves and since they are a human invention, they will never be adequate. As they are the only tools at our disposal, we must use them with the utmost care to avoid confusion. For example, the word rest can mean that upon which something is placed, or that which is left over, or if a person has gone to his rest, he has died. To avoid this confusion, we have accepted a set of terms with a certain technical significance to avoid having to redefine our theology when popular usage changes.

For example, the word "person" is used in casual speech to suggest a separate, distinct, individual human being. On that basis, "Three persons in One God," is likely to imply three Gods somehow or other combined into one Deity. That is not what is meant by the Holy Trinity. The unity of God (Monotheism) is the very heart of all Christian teaching. The words "person" and "substance" were very carefully chosen to indicate that which was united in the unity. "Substance refers to the essential Being of God which is always one. "Person" does not mean a separate being but a distinct Self. There are three Self’s in one Being – or three Persons in one God. In keeping with Holy Scriptures, we call them Father, Son, and Holy Ghost (or Holy Spirit).

We can create a number of analogies but none will be sufficient to describe our limited understanding of God. I consist of three self’s. I am the subject, object, and umpire of my own actions.

In solving a problem, I talk it over with myself and eventually come to a conclusion. I might even say my better self has determined the outcome. I am a three-fold human being – yet I am only one. Sunshine consists of the source of light, the rays which come from the source, and the illumination which is produced. It is not sunshine without all three but each one is distinct from the other two. Take the well-known combination of hydrogen and oxygen which we call H₂O. In moderate temperatures it is known as water. In low temperatures it is known as ice while in higher temperatures it is known as steam. They are quite different but in essence exactly the same.

None of these analogies can give anything like an exhaustive description of the Holy Trinity but they are at least suggestive. They point the way toward what God must mean to us and verify it against our common experience of life. In primitive times, people thought of many different Gods (Polytheism). Then they thought of a Supreme God above all the other gods (Monolatry). It was a simple step from there to One God (Monotheism). Finally came the unfolding of the one God in three Persons, which is the Holy Trinity.

A study of Holy Scriptures reveals progressive advancement of our theology with hints of God’s three-fold Being gradually rising above all the others. The New Testament is full of allusions in thoroughly personal terms to God the Father, to Jesus Christ as His divine Son, and to the sanctifying activity of the Holy Spirit. At the same time the whole Christian record is solidly committed to the essential unity of the One God. There are a number of very definite Trinitarian statements in our Holy Scriptures. "Go ye therefore, and teach all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father, and of the Son and of the Holy Ghost." (Matthew) "But the Comforter, which is the Holy Ghost, whom the Father will send in My Name, He shall teach you all things." (John) The grace of our Lord Jesus Christ, and the Love of God, and the communion of the Holy Ghost, be with you all." (2^nd Corinthians) "Elect according to the foreknowledge of God the Father, through sanctification of the Spirit, unto obedience and sprinkling of the blood of Jesus Christ." (1^st Peter). The earliest records indicate Christians were baptizing converts in the triune Name of the Father, the Son, and the Holy Ghost.

This doctrine of the Holy Trinity is beyond our intellectual grasp and some may ask, "Why should be we loaded down with an intellectual puzzle when a simple faith in the One God might answer all our needs?" The quickest reply is to say that our needs may not be so easily supplied. The divinity of our Lord and the active operation of the Holy Spirit must somehow be fitted in with our faith in the One God if the integrity of the Gospel is to be preserved at all. We can provide two useful reasons for a doctrine which no one would be likely to manufacture out of his own imagination.

The first useful reason for the doctrine of the Holy Trinity is from the study of personality in recent years. What we have learned fits neatly into the doctrine of the Holy Trinity. God must be personal if he is to have any significance to us. You can’t have faith in an idea. You can’t worship a principle. You can’t love an abstraction. The whole of human life is built around personal relationships. It would be hard to conceive of a creator of a thoroughly personalized human life who was not himself possessed of personal qualities. It would be like an author who could not read or a singer without a voice.

The study of personality shows we cannot exist alone. The very qualities which make people what they are, demand other people to complete them. Love means nothing unless there is someone to love. A completely isolated person would soon cease to be a person.

God must be complete in Himself. If He were dependent upon something outside of Himself, He would be a finite person and therefore less than God. Hence, there must be a personal relationship within the being of God that is independent of His own creation. Infinite love requires an infinite object of love. Therefore we say that the Father eternally loves the Son and the Holy Spirit is the bond of affection between them. If there were not something social about God, He could not be a Person and we would have no basis for knowing anything about Him anyway. If we are puzzled with the idea of the Trinity, consider what must be an even greater puzzle without it. We cannot avoid being puzzled when we think about God.

The second useful reason for the doctrine of the Holy Trinity is that it assembles within itself the best that is to be found in non-Christian faiths in their search after God. Mohammedanism look to God as the all-powerful creator and the Supreme Governor of the universe. Brahmanism and other oriental faiths conceive of God as ever-present and practically identified with His creation. These are forms of pantheism. Pagan cults expect God to be concerned with all the various interests of human life, and have separate gods for different things. There are fragments of truth in all of them. The Holy Trinity says God is supreme. He is also present in His creation, and He is definitely interested in all human affairs. All of this is expressed in the Three Persons in One God – the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit. He is creating, sustaining, and energizing – or to put it in theological language, He is transcendent, immanent, and pervasive.

All searching after God converges upon Jesus Christ. He is the fulfillment of all religions, and He reveals God to us in Trinity. His teaching has come down to us in precept and instruction, in narrative and parable. The Church has endeavored to gather them all together in the concentrated doctrine of the Holy Trinity, not only as a summarized expression of His teachings, but as a protection to the full content of what He taught. We find that it coincides with our own experience, meets our spiritual needs, elevates our conception of God Himself, and expands our religious horizon.

Therefore, "I believe in One God the Father Almighty … And in one Lord Jesus Christ … Being of one substance with the Father … And … in the Holy Ghost … Who with the Father and the Son together is worshipped and glorified."