The Trinity

At the centre of Christianity lies the belief that God exists as a trinity. We do not believe in three gods but ‘one God in three Persons’: the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit. We believe that this truth goes beyond the ability of humans to fully understand - we can know what God is not like but cannot fully comprehend what God is like. Faith in the Trinity does not mean we believe that there is a team of gods (sometimes called ‘tritheism’) or that we just experience God in different ways or modes such as Creator, Redeemer, and Sanctifier (a view sometimes called ‘modalism’). Instead, we believe that God is and has always been a community.

We can declare that ‘God is love’ because, from all time, the Father has loved the Son, the Son has loved the Father in return, and their love brings forth the Holy Spirit. God is not distant and static but active and passionate - an eternal wellspring of love that wants to share this divine life with others. We believe that God created us to join in this existence of love. Because we believe that the inner nature of God is this eternal love between the Divine Persons, it does not make sense to think of the Father, or the Son, or the Spirit as ‘part’ of God. Each Person is fully and equally God and has always existed.

Although some Christians might say that the different Persons of the Trinity ‘do’ different things, such as ‘the Father created the world’ or ‘the Son saves us’, this is not strictly true as God does these things. All three Persons are involved in every act of God as they are not ‘persons’ in the sense that you or I are: separate, individual, and self-motivated. They are ‘of one substance’ - united in will and purpose. We believe that the Son became a human being two thousand years ago for our salvation (see the section on Christ) but that this saving work was ultimately an act of the whole Trinity.

As has been said, Christians believe that fully understanding the inner nature of God is beyond human reason. It is a ‘Holy Mystery’ that we are called on to meditate about and reflect on. This church is dedicated to (named after) the Trinity. Its full name is ‘the Church of the Holy and Undivided Trinity in Gosport’. The choice of this name is a reminder to us to put this wonderful mystery at the heart of our life, and to always remember that our Christian faith is calling us into the life of the one God who is love, who loves us, and who wants us to love one another.