Objection #1 - The Trinity is Confusing

The tract starts out by saying that Trinitarians are not agreed amongst themselves as to what the Trinity is, and preachers are hesitant to preach about it because people will not understand it, anyway. Therefore, it must not be of God. 

>"Divine revelation itself does not allow for such a view of God: "God is not a God of confusion."—1 Cor. 14:33, RSV. In view of that statement, would God be responsible for a doctrine about himself that is so confusing that even Hebrew, Greek, and Latin scholars cannot really explain it?<

First, to clarify the Church's position. I will try to expound the Christian point of view more thoroughly in later posts. However, for now it is safe to say that the vast majority of Christians believe that God is Triune... Father, Son, and Holy Spirit are three Persons, but the same God in essence and quality. ALL mainstream Christian denominations hold this point of view, both Catholics and Protestant (contrary to what the booklet says). 

A few outliers include: 

Unitarian Universalist - believe that God the Father exists as a single Person, and that Jesus is a separate being. (This view shares similar points with the JW view about the deity of Christ. The doctrines and practices within the UU church actually mirror some of the problems described in I John.) 

Oneness Pentecostals - believe that God is one, but has manifested Himself in different "ways" as Father/Son/Spirit. (This gets a little shaky when you get to Jesus' conversations with the Father and the issues of knowledge, will, etc.) 

These are actually considered fringe groups by most Christians. It is safe to say that most Christians believe in the Trinity as articulated above--Google the statements of faith of different denominations for a sampling. 

What gets tricky is *explaining* the Trinity. It is easy to just state the facts, but it is harder to draw an analogy that describes God's essence. The reason is that there is nothing comparable to God in the created order. We have difficulty DEPICTING the Trinity. It would be like trying to describe an object that exists in four dimensions, when we ourselves are subject to three. It is here that a lot of people (myself included) get tongue-tied when describing this doctrine to someone else. 

Nevertheless, Trinitarian theology IS taught in most Sunday Schools and churches. Especially if you attend a discipleship group for new believers, you will always get a briefing on the Trinity. It is foundational to Christian theology and Christology. The Trinity is to Christian teaching what the principles of arithmetic are to statistics--it's the foundation you build on, but not usually the topic of the lesson. (Watch me get proven wrong on Sunday). 

I Corinthians 4:13 also deserves a second look. "God is not the author of confusion," Paul writes. What did he mean by confusion? The Greek word ακαταστασια is only twice translated "confusion" in the New Testament. Both times, it refers to disorder/chaos/tumult. In I Cor. 4, Paul was addressing a specific church that had a problem with cross-talking (people shouting prophecies over each other, women yelling questions to their husbands who were seated in a separate section, and people eating the Lord's Supper at different times, leaving nothing for the latecomers.) In context, you could paraphrase this passage to mean that a healthy congregation preserves order out of love and respect for one another, because God is not the author of disorder, chaos, or an atmosphere of strife. 

In James 3:16, this word is again used to describe an atmosphere of chaos resulting from evil within: "For where you have envy and selfish ambition, there you find disorder (ακαταστασια) and every evil practice." In this context, the disorder and evil referred to cursing man and blessing God with the same tongue. Again, the fruit of the Spirit produces a consistent pattern of life and speech, whereas sin produces inconsistency and hypocrisy. 

That said, ακαταστασια seems misapplied to the Trinity. Is the idea of Father, Son, and Spirit being distinct persons, yet one God disorderly, chaotic, or evil? The "confusion" of a doctrine that people find hard to fathom is very different from the "confusion" that refers to inconsistency between faith and lifestyle. 

That is not to avoid the question... 

Can God be the author of something confusing or difficult for me to fathom? 

I would answer wholeheartedly, yes! 

God is the author of insects with compound vision. Although I can understand neurologically how hundreds of images at different angles can be transformed by a fly's brain into one field of sight... I can never imagine seeing the world from all angles at once. 

God gave us seven colors of visible light... we can only perceive the other wavelengths through technology or mathematical theory. I understand what ultraviolet light is, but I cannot imagine what a flower looks like to a bee, who sees an entirely different color pattern that highlights only the most relevant points on its landscape in UV topography. What "color" is ultraviolet, anyway? Or infrared? Or microwave? Invisible light is a mystery to us humans. 

A look at Job 38-42 will remind us that the creation of God is wild, beyond our control and beyond human understanding. Modern science may describe far more about the earth, but we are still far from knowing all of its mysteries. 

How much more the God who created all things! 

If we are confused by the Trinity, it just means that we are not understanding it properly, not that it is untrue. 

I think one of the closest analogies was that of Saint Patrick. He plucked a clover leaf and showed how the three leaflets were distinct, yet the whole comprised one leaf. This illustration is imperfect, but may help us get a better idea of one God in three Persons. 

The Trinity does not defy the laws of logic. It just stretches the boundaries within which we like to define things. We are one person, one essence; therefore, it is easiest to understand other beings that are like us. We balk at the notion that someone can be different. 

In conclusion... 

If people are confused by the Trinity, it is because 1) they have not properly articulated it, 2) may be unfamiliar with how the Bible supports this idea, and 3) it is a concept that makes sense spiritually, but becomes confusing when you try to describe it using principles that apply only in our world of space and matter.