What is the Holy Trinity?
The short answer
The Holy Trinity is the central mystery of Christian faith: there is one God in three divine Persons — the Father, the Son and the Holy Spirit. They are not three gods, nor three masks of one person, but one divine nature, fully shared by three really distinct Persons.
The central mystery
"The mystery of the Most Holy Trinity is the central mystery of Christian faith and life" (CCC 234). Every other teaching flows from who God is.
Three statements held together
- There is one God. "Hear, O Israel! The LORD is our God, the LORD alone!" (Deuteronomy 6:4). The Trinity is not three gods (CCC 253).
- The Father, the Son and the Holy Spirit are each fully God. The Son is "God. The only Son" (John 1:18); the Spirit is God, to whom one can lie (Acts 5:3-4).
- The three are really distinct. The Father sends the Son; the Son prays to the Father; the Son sends the Spirit (CCC 254).
Common errors the Church rejected
- Modalism — one Person wearing three masks. Rejected: the Persons are really distinct.
- Arianism — the Son is a created being. Rejected at Nicaea (325): the Son is "consubstantial with the Father."
- Tritheism — three separate gods. Rejected: one divine nature.
How do we know?
Not by reasoning alone. God revealed it by sending the Son and the Spirit. Jesus commanded Baptism "in the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the holy Spirit" (Matthew 28:19).
Why it matters for your life
God is not a solitary power but an eternal communion of love: "God is love" (1 John 4:8). We were made in his image — for relationship. Every Sign of the Cross is a short creed of the Trinity.
Continue exploring
- What do Catholics believe? A short summaryQ&A
- What the Early Church Believed: Original SinTract
- What the Early Church Believed: The TrinityTract
- Why does the Church use male pronouns for God?Q&A
- Can God make square circles? If not, is he not all-powerful?Q&A
- How can I explain the Trinity to a Oneness Pentecostal?Q&A