Trinity and Unity

Question: In Sura al-Ma'ida there is a text which brands those who believe in the Holy Trinity with infidelity. What does your Holiness say to that?

Reply: In verse 73 we read: They are unbelievers who say, ‘God is the Third of Three’, no God is there, but, One God. We do not believe that God is the Third of Three as Sura al-Ma'ida puts it. What we say is that God is One and we take issue with anyone who says that God is theThird of Three. One of the best analogies for the truth of the Trinity is man himself who was created in the image of God. He is of one humanity possessing mind and spirit. Personality, mind and spirit comprise just one human being. In the same way, the Father, the Son and Holy Spirit are one self. No one can say that God has not mind or spirit. God, in His mind and spirit is One God and not the Third of Three. We may also say that fire generates heat and light. Thus fire, with its light and heat is one entity, and what can be said of fire can also be said of the sun.

God is a living, divine person, intelligent, consisting of mind, life and self. Mind and life are one being. Thus, one cannot separate between the Father, the Son and the Holy Spirit. We call this divine, living and intelligent being, The Holy Trinity. Our object is explanation rather than separation.

It is clear that the Holy Spirit is God's Spirit and there is no problem with that... As for the word “Logos”, in what sense is that the mind of God?

The mind, also called the word, both derive their meaning from the Greek original “Logos”. In the original Greek text of John's gospel we read: In the beginning was the Logos (Word) and the Logos was with God and the Logos was God. (John 1:1) The form “logos” in the lexicon has many meanings. One form “logo” gives us the English logic, which means not just ordinary speech (words), but mind expressed or intelligent expression.

God created the world by His intelligent mind, or by His Son, or by His logic or wisdom - all of which mean the same. For God and His mind are the same being. And example of this is when we say, I solved the problem with my mind. Is it you who solved it or your mind? Both are the same thing. This distinction between you and your mind is merely intellectual and does not involve separation. Likewise, when we say Father and Son, we are not separating them, but only clarifying the issue. If God was without mind He would not be God; or if God was without a Spirit He would not be God. Therefore God, of necessity, has to be with His mind and Spirit a Trinity in unity.

We believe in one God, the Father. What then is this talk of the Son? The Son's humanity is not physical nor reproductive. He is not a son born of a consort. It is of another kind, the personal, intellectual, spiritual sonship which has no connection with the body or physical propagation. An example of this is when we say that the mind gives birth to ideas. It is true that mind begets thought, but is the begetting productive? Of course not! As thought is born of mind so was the birth of the Son of the Father. In physical birth there is a separation. However, birth from the Holy Triune God does not involve separation. As Christ said in the Gospel of John, I and the Father are one. (John 10:30) The Son comes from the Father without leaving Him. He comes out of Him and yet remains in Him, which leads to the enquiry, how? I shall explain to you with the help of an example: When you think and your thought emerges as sound, that thought reaches the ears of people, yet thought is still in your mind. It is also possible for the thought to leave your mind and enter a book which is distributed in America where many read it. In that sense the thought came out from you and yet remains with you.

We understand the word “Son” in a number of ways. A word referring to time and space as when we say, for example: So and so joined the army when he was twenty in its Arabic form “Ibn Ishreen” a son of twenty years. We also speak of “Sons of the Nile”, our countrymen - or of intellectual situations when we say: So and so did not utter a “lips daughter” (Bint Shafa, literally “daughter of a lip”, or word). Also there is a spiritual sonship between a teacher and his pupils, as when he calls them: “My sons, oh pupils!” In the language of science we speak of friction giving birth to heat... And so in the Gospel, Saint John, The Beloved says, Oh my children, I write this to you so that you will not sin.

The Son was also called “Wisdom” in the Proverbs of Solomon in the Old Testament (before Christ's incarnation). This has the sense of wisdom and knowledge... The Book says: In whom are hid all the treasures of wisdom and knowledge... Thus when we say that the Father created the world through the Son it means He created the world through His mind, His wisdom, His thought and His knowledge. Thus the Father created and the Son created, and the two of them are One.

The Trinity which Islam combats is not the Christian God. It is clear that the target of Islam's attack in the Quranic text The Creator of the heavens and the earth - how should He have a son, seeing that He has no consort, and He created all things, and He has knowledge of everything? (Sura An'am 6:100); this is an error which Islam resists and which we Christians fight also. One who says that God has a son through a consort is an infidel in both the Islamic and Christian creeds... The Trinity which both Islam and Christianity fight is the heathen trinity. An example of this is found in the pharaonic religion which has Isis, Osiris and their son Horus, the very trinity which Christianity combatted before the rise of Islam. However, Islam accused the Christians, well versed in their Trinity, that they believed it consisted of God, Christ and the Virgin since it says in Sura al-Ma'ida and when God said, ‘O Jesus, Son of Mary didst thou say unto men, “Take me and my mother as gods, apart from God?”’ He said, ‘To Thee be glory! It is not mine to say what I have no right to.’ We, too, deny this saying and reject a trinity consisting of God, Christ and the Virgin... Indeed we fight it along with the Muslims. We do not teach that the Virgin was a goddess. On the contrary, we consider one who deifies the Virgin to be an infidel.

The three persons in the Christian Trinity are fully equal: the Father equals the Son, equals the Holy Spirit; there is no difference of separation. They are also co-eternal, and this distinguishes the Christian Trinity from the heathen trinity.

In heathen trinity, the three - Isis, Osiris and Horus - are not one, so unlike the Christian Trinity which holds that the Father, the Son and the Holy Spirit are One.

The heathen trinity has the element of sexual propagation which is absent from the Christian. It is different as to time. In the heathen story at one time there was Osiris and Isis alone before marriage. After their marriage Horus came into existence and his years, naturally were fewer than theirs.... However, in Christianity, there is no time difference between the Three Persons because God has existed eternally, and in him was mind (Son) and Spirit (Holy Spirit).

The idea of the Christian Trinity was not evolved today or yesterday and is not a Christian invention for it has existed since eternity.

In the Arian heresy, Arius said that the Son was created, thus showing his ignorance of the essence of the Holy Trinity. For if he had understood that the Son is the mind of God, he would have realised that it was not possible for God to create His own mind; for this would mean that it did not exist before its creation. Far be it that God would be without His mind at any time! Therefore, it is not possible for the Son to be created. God and His mind were there since eternity. While it is true that the incarnation occurred in time, the Son existed before the Incarnation.

As for the Holy Spirit, those who say that He was created misunderstand the Holy Trinity. How could God exist before His Holy Spirit? If follows then that God in His mind and Spirit has existed eternally. And the word “God” can be applied to any of the Three Persons. Hence, we say, God the Father, God the Son, and God the Holy Spirit.

The founders of the neo-Platonist philosophies held that it was not possible for God to have a direct connection with matter. Consequently, He created an intermediary who had a connection with matter. This intermediary mediates between the divine self (God) and matter (man). The Christian response to these philosophies is that we do not see any problem with the creation of matter by God. If a created god (a mediator) existed he could not rightly be named “God” because there would have been a time when this god did not exist. From this we can see that such a god is dispensable since the universe existed and was operated without him... Therefore, the Father and the Son (the incarnate God) are one and the same thing.

God is the Spirit and the Wisdom (or mind) and He is the divine Person. Thus, we can speak of the divinity of the Son, the Holy Spirit, and the Father; all three are One. There is no difference between one Person of the Trinity and the other.