Chapter C6, “The Trinity and Human Reason”
Each person of the Trinity is a full and complete expression of the Godhead. This is, in fact, a logical impossibility. Yet it is precisely what the Bible teaches. Pieper details two ways that we attempt to explain the Trinity. First, though there are many natural analogies of three in one, all of them break down. Nature certainly bears God’s fingerprints, but never his unique and trinitarian nature. Second, we cannot adequately analyze the doctrine by considering special characteristics of the persons. This always results in some god other than the one of the Bible. We are left, then, with the biblical narrative and nothing else.
Pieper divides modern theology and its speculations into two categories. First, some will fall into unitarianism, depicting one God but three different powers or wills. Another group will so classify the persons of the Trinity that they become tritheists.
In the end we have a biblical account which cannot be adequately analyzed or understood by our reason. Yet, trusting that God has inspired his Word and has shown himself trustworthy, we accept and receive this Word.
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