Last Sunday, I mentioned that I might blog about this one point on the Trinity. I was conveying that idea that when we look at the world around us, we see complexity. So when we believe that God is one, we know that he must be simple and pure, in a sense. It’s not like he consists of 99% good/divinity and 1% other characteristics. But this same God has made a material creation that is not just well-ordered, but also complex. It’s not a 1-D creation of a dot, or a 2-D creation of a line (see the book Flatland to get at this concept). The reality of this world is 3-D, 4-D, etc. It’s complex. So the question is how could a God who is completely unified and pure (a good ’simple’, in a sense) create something that is complex unless he knew or had that complexity within himself? The Trinity accounts for that complexity. God is one, but in the relationships of his persons, Father-Son-Holy Spirit, we see complexity. Since God is both simple and complex, and we see that reflected in the world around us. Plants and animals all look alike in that they pursue life, but they are complex in their makeup and diverse in their variety.

So other monotheistic religions which believe in one creator God will see the Trinity as a weakness of Christianity. But in that the Trinity accounts for the complexity and diversity in the world around us, it is a strength.