In the Christian faith, we believe that God is three and unique - triune. He is unique because there is only one God. Yet there is plurality in this God, a plurality in unity. There is perfect unity and harmony between the Father, the Son and the Holy Spirit. He is Father, Son and Holy Spirit. The Father created our universe, in union with the Son (who is also Jesus, the Word of God) and the Holy Spirit.
The picture of a triangle helps to remind us, although very imperfectly, that God is triune, three in one: Father, Son and Holy Spirit.
Some people say that the Christian faith is polytheist, that it teaches there are three gods. This is simply foolish and not true. What they don’t realize is that by pushing their position they confirm that they don’t know God, who is for them more a conceptual idea than a God they relate to and can communicate with. In some ways, it is a form of deism - a faith in a God that created and spoke to people in the past, but who does not really interact with his creation today. It is a god of the past, who could interact with this world before but who cannot speak anymore - like if a loving God would stop speaking. It is then at best a god of paper, a god of traditions.
The Christian faith emphasizes the fact that God is alive, and that we can come to know him, that there is a spiritual world and that God wants us to become aware and wise in choosing to welcome him as our real Lord - master of our reality. It is very naive to think that only with the help of a book - even the Bible or any other ‘sacred book’ -we can have God as our master. This leads us only to construct an idea of God, a god of paper. Without the Holy Spirit we only have a set of attribute and a description of a God of the past. It is even more foolish to think that we will be able to love God with all our heart and soul and strength, with the only help of traditions and scriptural verses.
Without regular interactions with God in prayer - not just praying alone and repeating sets of fixed words, but speaking and listening to God, faith is really a veiled atheism or deism, a way to hide our lack of faith in a living God that can and wants to interact with his creation today.
As you learn that God is alive, that prayer is not simply a set of words to repeat but an invitation to an encounter with God and a dialog, you begin to discover the God described in the Bible, how He really is the Creator of the universe - the Father. We also can discover how Jesus is the way to the Father, how he can deliver us from this separation from God, how by following his guidance - through the teachings of the New Testament in particular - we can enter in a lively relationship with the Father. Through Jesus’ teaching we then are invited to welcome the Holy Spirit, to ask for the Holy Spirit to fill us, so that we can experience forgiveness - real forgiveness of sin - and be filled with God’s love ( see Romans 5:5).
As we learn to really encounter God in prayer, in fellowship, in worship, we discover through our interactions with Him and through reading the teachings of the Bible that He really is Father, that he really is the Son - the Word of God, and that he really is Holy Spirit. This plurality in God is not a weakness of the Christian faith, but a key to its strength. Because of this harmonious and united plurality, there is love in God, love between the Father and the Son, love between the Son and the Holy Spirit, love between the Father and the Holy Spirit.
Once we discover that the God described in the New Testament is not a God of the past but a living God who wants to interact with us in the same way he interacted with humans in the stories of the Bible, we are ready to enter on this amazing journey of the Christian faith. This journey brings a discovery of real love, peace an joy. It is also a journey in which suffering is no more a god that terrifies us, but becomes a part of our learning to love others. The God of the Bible wants us to discover what real love, what pure love, what true love is, even at the cost of suffering. The gods of this world sometimes want us to flee suffering out of fear and anguish, even to the cost of avoiding love.
Do you believe in a god of paper, of tradition, or a living God that invites you to real fellowship every day of your life? Do you know how to live this real communion with him, to enter in this intimacy.
If it is not yet the case, do you want to discover this loving God, through the path opened by Jesus, and receive forgiveness of sin and be filled with the Holy Spirit? If this is your desire, God is waiting for you, longing for this fellowship - he has created you for this very purpose. I invite you to humbly ask God, in faith, to show you if there are things you do that displease him and to take the path to change (see article on repentance for more details). Then forgive others for the wrongs they did to you, so that God forgives you also. Then invite the Holy Spirit to guide you, in particular as you discover more about who God is through the pages of the Bible, as you learn to dialog with God (see the guide on learning to listen to Jesus). This journey cannot be experienced alone, you will need to discover how the other believers in the God revealed in the Old and New Testament, the Church, can encourage you to grow in this wonderful life with God, how you can disagree with grace, how you can help others in this journey in God’s love, how to become part of the people of God and become a light in this world.
May the peace of God, the Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, bless you with all heavenly blessings, through the real presence and love of the Holy Spirit in your daily life.
We really believe in a triune God.
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