I have decided that in order to get around the problem of the Trinity, I am no longer going to speak of God in an unqualified way. From now on I will refer either to the one 'God-Being' or to the three 'God-Persons'. The one God-Being is a group, or family, consisting of the three God-Persons.
Surely, nobody could object to my decision to use this terminology, for all Christians, at least those with an orthodox view of the Trinity, believe that there is only one Being called God and that there are three Persons called God.
I also posit that the God-Person known as the Father sometimes speaks on behalf of, and represents, the group (or family) known as the God-Being. This is because the other two God-Persons derive their divine nature (their infinite power and knowledge and other divine attributes) from the Father. This accounts for passages in the Bible such as Isaiah 45:5 ("I am the LORD and there is no other; apart from me there is no God") or John 17:3 where Jesus says to the Father that eternal life is to "know you, the only true God..." In the former statement, I believe, the Father is acting as a Spokesperson, or mouthpiece, for the God-Being as a whole while in the latter, Jesus is addressing the Father in his capacity as representative of the whole God-Being. A similar situation obtains with regard to 1 Corinthians 8:6, where Paul writes that "for us there is but one God, the Father".
By adopting this terminology of one God-Being and three God-Persons, I believe I will be able to be true to the spirit of the Trinitarian concept of God while using language that does not degenerate into incoherence.
(Bible quotes from the New International Version.)
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