Christian Theology and a Triune God

QUESTION: Christian Theology – Triune God

ANSWER:

Perhaps the most astounding characteristic of God’s personality is that He is triune. The Christian believes that God is three co-existent, co-eternal persons in one, who are equal in purpose and in essence, but who differ in function, a doctrine known as trinitarian theism.

The God of the Christian is also a God of power, evidenced by His works in creation and providence. Hebrews 1:10 declares, “In the beginning, O Lord, you laid the foundations of the earth, and the heavens are the works of your hands.” Christian theology asserts that God is the source of all things and that He created the cosmos out of His own mind, according to His plan. “Christianity,” says C.S. Lewis, “thinks God made the world—that space and time, heat and cold, and all the colors and tastes, and all the animals and vegetables, are things that God ‘made up out of his head’ as a man makes up a story. But it also thinks that a great many things have gone wrong with the world that God made and that God insists, and insists very loudly, on our putting them right again.”¹

Christian Theology – A God of Purpose
God also demonstrates His power by moving His world to its purposeful end. Each created thing has an appointed destiny—God has a plan for His world, and nothing takes Him by surprise. The Bible is emphatic on this point. Romans 9:25–26 says, “I will call those who were not my people, My people, and her who was not beloved, beloved. And it shall be that in the place where it was said to them ‘you are not my people,’ there they shall be called sons of the living God.” Scripture makes it clear that God manifests His power by a sovereign and holy plan—a plan that generally collides with our plans, but a sovereign plan that includes human choice and human responsibility.²

“Remember this, fix it in mind, take it to heart, you rebels [transgressors]. Remember the former things, those of long ago; I am God, and there is no other; I am God, and there is none like me. I make known the end from the beginning, from ancient times, what is still to come. I say: My purpose will stand, and I will do all that I please. From the east I summon a bird of prey; from a far-off land, a man to fulfill my purpose. What I have said, that will I bring about; what I have planned, that will I do” (Isaiah 46: 8–11).

Notes:

Rendered with permission from the book,Understanding the Times: The Collision of Today’s Competing Worldviews(Rev. 2^nd ed), David Noebel, Summit Press, 2006. Compliments of John Stonestreet, David Noebel, and the Christian Worldview Ministry at Summit Ministries. All rights reserved in the original.

¹C.S. Lewis, Mere Christianity (New York, NY: Macmillian Publishing, 1974), 45.

² Norman L. Geisler, Systematic Theology, 4 vols. (Minneapolis, MN: Bethany House, 2003), 2:543, 574.