Letham On Thinking About The Trinity

“These parameters should be equally balanced in the way we view the Holy Trinity: unity and diversity, identity and difference, equality and order, union and particularity.

  • One being—three persons, three persons—one being.
  • The three persons are homoousios (identical in being).
  • The three persons mutually indwell one another in a dynamic communion.
  • The three persons are irreducibly different from one another in ways we cannot understand.
  • There is an order among the persons.

“A doctrine of the Trinity that is to be faithful to the Bible from which it emerges must give equivalent expression to each of the above parameters. These parameters are mutually defining. The three persons are irreducibly different, and they are one identical being. There is an order among them, and they mutually indwell each other, are equal in status, and are one in being. They mutually indwell one another, and they are irreducibly different. And so on and so forth.”

— Robert Letham, The Holy Trinity