DAY 252
CHALLENGE
“The doctrine of the Trinity is polytheistic; it teaches that there are three gods.”
DEFENSE
There is another word for belief in three gods: tritheism. The fact that trinitarianism has a different name indicates it is something different.
Of course, the concept of threeness is involved. The word “Trinity” is derived from the Latin root trinus (“threefold, triple”) and the suffix –itas, indicating a state or condition. “Trinity” thus indicates that God is threefold, but the question must be asked: Three of what?
The answer is not three gods but three Persons. Trinitarians are very clear on the fact that there is only one God. Thus the Catechism states: “If God is not one, he is not God” (CCC 228), and “the Trinity is One. We do not confess three Gods, but one God in three Persons” (CCC 253).
The phrase “one God in three Persons” is a classic expression of the doctrine of the Trinity, used by Christians all over the world, and both parts of the expression must be taken seriously. One cannot ignore the “one God” part and then rewrite the “three Persons” part to make it “three gods.” That would falsify the concept of the Trinity and replace it with something else—something Christians do not believe.
Indeed, for a Christian to hold that the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit are three gods would be such an extreme falsification of Christian doctrine that it would constitute heresy. For a Catholic to maintain it obstinately would be the canonical crime of heresy and would result in an automatic excommunication (Code of Canon Law, canons 751, 1364 §1). That’s how serious the Church is about the subject.
In response, a non-trinitarian might say he doesn’t understand how one God can be three Persons, but an informed non-trinitarian can’t in good faith say Christians believe in three gods.
Ultimately, you have to take someone at his word when he says, “That’s not what I believe.” You may not understand what he believes, you may even think it involves a contradiction (which the Trinity doesn’t; see Day 39), but it displays bad faith to continue to assert that someone believes something when he explicitly denies it.