Substantial Unity of the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit

Augustine once wrote, “When we think about God the Trinity we are aware that our thoughts are quite inadequate to their object and incapable of grasping Him as He is.” It is the “perplexing mystery” of the Trinity which James Dolezal addresses for the final lecture of the Southern California Reformed Baptist Pastors Conference. Thinking deeply about the Trinity allows Christians to “uphold the biblical witness to monotheism, the distinction of the three, and the full co-equality of divinity of those three.”

It is tempting, and frequently the practice of many individuals, to “soften the mystery” of the Trinity in order to make it more comprehensible. However, a knowledge of the doctrine and a healthy respect for the incomprehensibility of the doctrine will guard Christians against over-simplistic metaphors, analogies, and illustrations of the Triune God. These guardrails are even more important when one considers the trinitarian heresies that have overtaken many individuals throughout Church history. Many of these heresies misunderstand the “unity of being” of the Father, Son, and Spirit. It is this issue that James Dolezal hopes to clearly articulate in the video below.