by MW Cook

I guess if things weren’t so complicated, they’d be more simple…

Whenever Ruth and I chat with Muslims, we always seem to come to the same subject of conversation eventually. They want to know about the Trinity. The Qur’an tells them that Christians believe in three gods – Allah, Jesus and Mary. This is the only unforgivable sin in Islam, called shirk. So they want to know why we claim to worship one God, yet seem to worship two.

I really hate some of the analogies that Christianity has come up with to explain the Trinity. Like the apple one. “God is like an apple, three parts (skin, flesh and core), but still one apple.” GOD IS NOT LIKE AN APPLE! That’s just silly! It’s breaking God down into something that we can understand, explain and hold. We gotta be really careful when we’re trying to classify something that we cannot understand. Comparing God to an apple seems very irreverant. It’s not even an accurate picture (what happens when you peel an apple? Can you take one part of God away?)!

The Bible doesn’t explain the Trinity much at all. I get four main things when I read the Bible concerning the Godhead:

  • The Father is God

  • The Son is God

  • The Spirit is God

  • There is only one God

    There’s really not much else there. God does not tell us (probably because if He did our heads would explode). All I can say about the Trinity is that the three are distinct (the Father is not the Son, etc.) and that each is God and God is one. I can’t make up cute analogies about how God is like an egg, or a chicken or whatever else we want to use. Let’s leave the mystery where it is.

    Cook