Three Gods

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Yeaton Clifton wrote:

>You may learn meaning of trinity either from Augustine's treatise on the
>Trinity...

Certainly Augustine in _De Trinitate_ explained the Godhead as having
personal, relational distinctions incompatible with our monarchian view.
Yet, it's interesting that his analogies explaining the Trinity were drawn
between the internal nature of God and the multiple internal workings of
one human person's mind. He was wary of analogies that might suggest the
idea of three gods (and warned that all analogies were but feeble attempts
to understand and explain God's nature). 

The picture he felt came closest to reflecting the Godhead was that of a
person's memory, understanding, and loving.

	It was the same mind which remembered, which understood,
	and which loved as it was the same God who was Father, Son,
	and Spirit. And yet memory, understanding, and love were
	different. Augustine finally said characteristically, it was
	in the worship of God that this human trinity was most clearly
	evident. The mind was called to remember the acts of God, to
	seek after the understanding of God and finally to love and
	embrace that same God.	--Prof. Rick Lints,
				Gordon-Conwell Theological Seminary

>...or from the Summa Theologica of Thomas Aquinas.  These books
>describe Jesus and the Holy Ghost as distinct entities from the Father.

In an exposition of the Latin doctrine of the Trinity, based on Thomas
Aquinas, _The Catholic Encyclopedia_ says, "The whole perfection of the
Godhead is contained in the one infinite Divine Essence." Explaining the
Trinitarian view of the Father and Son, it says they are identical in their
divine essence, and that God's one substance "is identical not with two
absolute *entities*, but with each of two relations."

>The reason I accuse trinitarians of worshiping three Gods is it seems, to
>me, impossible believe in three distinct beings yet claim they are not
>seperate gods.

I certainly agree, belief "in three distinct beings" would be tritheistic.
These theologians did affirm belief in three personal, relational
distinctions within the one substance of *one being*. But where do they
contend for the persons of the Trinity as *three beings*?

It's true that more recent Trinitarians sometimes have used this
terminology. Fundamentalist R.A. Torrey, for example, claimed "the Father,
the Son and Holy Spirit are all clearly designated as Divine Beings and as
clearly distinguished from one another" (_What the Bible Teaches_, 1898).
We Oneness folks aren't the only ones who cringe at such aberrant
portrayals of God. Dr. David Reed of Wycliffe College (an evangelical
Anglican school) describes such views as "extreme" and laced with
"incipient tritheism."

Most careful Trinitarian writers, in my experience, will describe the
persons of the Godhead as "distinct," but not as "separate," since they
believe the distinctions are within God's one, indivisible substance.

Cary Robison