On the Holy Trinity

"Once, Saint Augustine saw a little boy trying to put the ocean into a hole. When he told the boy it was impossible, the boy responded, "I will sooner empty it into this hole than thou shalt succeed in penetrating the mystery of the Holy Trinity with thy limited understanding."

We as Orthodox Christians believe that God is a Holy Trinity.

But what does it mean when we say that God is a Trinity or a Triune God?

First and foremost, we have to make it clear that God in Himself is a mystery, in the sense that He goes beyond our comprehension. Therefore, the Holy Trinity logically follows as a mystery that we as humans can't comprehend and goes beyond our understanding of things, as the above story of St. Augustine of Hippo illustrates.

Do we, by saying "Trinity," believe in three separate gods and are we therefore polytheists? No, of course we aren't.

The Bible is very clear about this when it says: "Hear, O Israel, The LORD, our God, is one LORD" (Deuteronomy 6:4).

Our creed is also very clear when it states: "I believe in one God, the Father Almighty..." (The Nicene Creed).

There are countless other examples from the Bible and the Church Fathers which confirm this belief in one God.

So what do we mean when we say that we believe in a Triune God? How is it that the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit are one God?

Again,

This has all to do with Monarchical Trinitarianism.

This doctrine of the Trinity, always believed by the Orthodox Church, was established as the correct formulation by the Early Church and remains the right doctrine when it comes to the Trinity. Unfortunately, knowledge about this has faded away in Western Christianity with the Great Schism and later on with the rise of Protestantism in the Western world.

Monarchical Trinitarianism simply means that God the Father is the uncaused cause of everything created and uncreated.

In other words, not only does creation exist through the Father, but even the uncreated and eternal things have their existence in and by the Father as their source, also known as the 'Arch Principle' of all that exists.

This doctrine of Monarchical Trinitarianism was formulated during the Council of Nicea in 325 AD after certain heresies arose, questioning the divinity of the Son and the Holy Spirit. One of the reasons we call ourselves Orthodox is because we are strict and precise in our teachings, established by the Church Councils. This is to prevent heretical teachings and doctrines that are not biblical.

The Trinity is the belief in one God.

God is what He is, and the Father is who He is.

There is one divine essence which belongs to God the Father. In this one God, there are three Persons: the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit, as the Son and the Holy Spirit share the same uncreated essence of the Father.

The Father is, as mentioned before, the uncaused cause, the one who is not begotten nor proceeding from something or someone else. He is the cause of everything that exists.

The Son is the second Person of the Godhead, sharing the same divine essence as God the Father, with the only difference being that the Son is eternally begotten from the Father. God is not bound or limited to creation; He is beyond and above time, space, and matter.

The Holy Spirit is the third Person of the Godhead, the Lifegiver who proceeds from the Father.

There are real distinctions between these three Persons, not only in who they are, but also in their origin and existence. Distinction doesn't mean that there is any kind of separation in the Godhead. 

There is nothing in creation comparable to God, but we can use analogies to try to explain how three can be one and one can be three.

One analogy given by the Church Fathers is the sun. The sun itself is a big ball of gas floating in space. From the sun comes light and heat. The sunlight that emanates from the sun is not the sun itself but originates from the sun. When we walk down the street on a sunny day, we can say, "The sun is very bright." This can mean that the sun itself is very bright, which is true, and that the sunlight coming forth from the sun is also bright, which is also true. Although there is a real distinction between the actual sun and its sunlight, we speak of one sun, not two.

The same analogy can be applied to the heat from the sun. When walking on street on a sunny and hot day, we feel the heat on our skin, and seeking shade reveals a difference in the temperature. The heat itself is not the sun, but we can say; "I'm walking in the sun", meaning walking in the warmth of the sun, not actually on or within the sun itself. This analogy reflects the Holy Spirit working through us and within us, as it is God, but not directly the Father. However, the Father works through the Holy Spirit in us, as the Spirit does the will of the Father and is not separate from Him, similar to the sun's relationship with it's heat.

Regarding the space analogy, though we experience space as one, it consists of three aspects: height, width, and depth. Although each aspect is not the other, we can still say that height, width, and depth are all part of space, forming one space. This concept can be applied to the Trinity: the Father is God but not the Son; the Son is God but not the Father; and likewise for the Holy Spirit, who is God but not the Father or the Son. And we can immediately extend this idea to man (body, mind and soul), time (past, present, future) and so on.

It is important to understand that there is no perfect analogy to compare God with something in His creation, as God cannot be comprehended by our limited minds. As mentioned before, God is not bound by the aspects of creation, whereas what differentiates individuals in creation is time, space, and matter. However, God is above time, space, and matter. God and the Persons in the Trinity are shapeless, timeless, spaceless, sizeless and formless. They are fully divine, uncreated, undivided, and perfectly united in their one divine essence, knowledge, love, goodness, power, will, and action.

It is also important to understand that the doctrine of the Holy Trinity is not based on man-made ideas, fantasies, or thoughts, but derives from divine inspiration, revelation, the Bible itself, and is a Biblical truth. While the specific term 'Trinity' may not be explicitly stated in the Bible, the concept of the Holy Trinity is revealed in the Bible. The Church stands as a witness to this truth, aiming to clarify and share this truth with the world.