Let’s be honest right up front, many people are confused about the Trinity. Maybe you’re a Christian and you’re pretty sure you’re supposed to believe in the Trinity but have no idea what that means. Maybe you’re not a Christian but you’ve always wondered what your Christian friends and neighbors believe. Perhaps you’re even a committed non-Trinitarian who wants to avoid making straw man arguments against the Trinity. Whoever you are, welcome! The aim of this site is to help you understand the doctrine of the Trinity better.
Contrary to popular opinion, the Trinity is actually easy to understand and has some really important practical applications. At its most basic, it is two biblical truths: the Old Testament revelation that there is only one God (Jewish monotheism, also known as exclusive Yahwism) and the New Testament revelation of the full divinity of three distinct persons, God the Father, the Lord Jesus Christ, and the Holy Spirit. In short, if Christians worship Jesus as God (spoiler alert: we do!) then the Christian God must be triune. The Trinity is therefore a truth every Christian should understand and believe, for it is at the very core of Christianity.
Formal definition: God is a simple unity—one in being, essence, and substance—but there are three persons who are God: God the Father, the Lord Jesus Christ, and the Holy Spirit. The three persons are co-essential, co-eternal, co-equal, and indwell one another perichoretically, but are distinguished by eternal relations of origin and temporal roles in creation and redemption.