There are probably some steve-isms in here, especially in the last paragraph.
This idea of the dual nature of God (that He is one, and yet manifests as separate persons) is mysterious, but no more mysterious than that He always existed, and that nothing caused Him to exist. Of course, if something had caused Him to exist, then the question just transfers back a generation into, what caused the thing that caused Him to exist, to exist. (Mathematically this is described as the impossibility of instantiating an infinite. God, it seems, is just such an instantiation.)
So we are forced to admit that there are things about God that we can not understand or describe logically. The oneness of God and the distinctness of the God Persons as simultaneous truths is just such a mystery. Whether this truth is best described by the doctrine called “The Trinity”, I can’t say. It may be that it is.
My chief objection to the Trinitarian theology is this: Trinitarians by and large, it seems to me, make of this doctrine a litmus test. If you adhere to it, (more accurately if you profess to adhere to the Nicene creed) you get a pass. If you question it, then you’re at best border-line, probably a heretic, and, at worst, part of a cult.
I think this is an arbitrary and foolish distinction to make and potentially damaging to the body of Christ. I don’t think there’s anyone, even the proponents of the doctrine, who suggests that it’s simply and easily (or perhaps even possibly) comprehended. Paul referred to it as a great mystery. I’ve seen lengthy discussions from intelligent, and, to my mind, godly folk on different sides of this debate. Inevitably they have to draw upon the minutia of techniques for translating Greek words and idioms in order to make their respective points. They point to the creeds of men, and to circumstantial evidences about what the early church believed.
Both sides do this with equal conviction that they are proving their point.
Apparently, at one point, what is generally considered orthodoxy (i.e. conformance to faith as described by the creeds of those who declare for themselves the authority to make ecumenical decrees) hung by the thread of a single man’s vote. I just can’t see God judging non-Trinitarians as harshly as most Trinitarians seem to, when there’s so much room for debate on the details.
To understand and know God, is not necessarily to understand and know everything about Him. This is similar to how I can understand and know my wife, without knowing how her pituitary gland functions. When we ourselves want to be known and understood, it's not typically our clinical, medical, biological make up that we want others to relate to. A doctor can know all of those things without caring one whit about us as individuals. We want others to understand us as thinking, feeling, cognitive people. We want them to know what we like, and dislike, how we think, what our feelings are. I think God is more concerned with us knowing those kinds of things about Him than whether He’s three-in-one-in-three-in-one-in...
) i think some folks have a hard time differentiating between their understanding [or maybe their definition] of God, and God himself. we're told to be of one mind and one heart, and to speak the same thing. too often, it looks as if this translates into "you must say it the way i do, with the same number of syllables, and don't you dare try to change the inflection. if you do, we can't hang out because paul said you just want to argue about words. and therefore you suppose that godliness is financial gain." 