Walking In Spirit

Is it possible to understand the Trinity?

In a quick response to the question, we would have to quickly say “no”. Because of the very nature of God being Infinite we may spend an eternity trying, but will never be able to understand him fully. We could, however, say that there are things revealed to us in scripture that allow us understand certain aspects or ideas about the Trinity. When viewing something, even by the sight of our own eyes, we suddenly realize that even though we can understand the thing within our focus, closer examinations usually only raise more questions.

To illustrate this, look into the night sky. When you view into space with the naked eye, there many factors that limit your observations such as location, the weather and your own eyesight. You could take those observations and say that you fully understand what you see within the limits of your existing knowledge. Once you have seen the same view through a telescope, your previous understanding will suddenly seem narrow and limited. This is because the focus has shifted to the need for understanding the smaller details that were unseen by the naked eye. If we can’t understand the nature of the creation that surrounds us, how ignorant would it be to state that we can understand the triune nature of the Creator Himself? The list of things that we understand about an Infinite God will always be shorter than the list of questions we raise.

However, within the view of what God has revealed about the Trinity to us through our relationships in creation, the Holy Spirit and the written word, there are certain things that we can understand about the Trinity. We need to be careful in how we approach these understandings and try not to idolize them. When men start believing they can understand more about God from other men than they can learn from God himself, they have placed their trust in men.