I have mentioned in a previous post that the Latin word 'persona' (from which we derive the English word 'person') is itself derived from a Greek word which originally meant 'mask' (as in the mask worn by an actor on the stage. In this post, I propose the word 'guise' (not to be confused with disguise) as an appropriate substitute for the word that is usually rendered 'Person' when referring to the trinitarian nature of God. The traditional formulation of the doctrine of the Trinity involves the concept of God as three Persons in one Being. I am suggesting, instead, the idea of God as one Person (in the modern sense of the word, ie. an individual conscious entity, a self) in three guises.
The "only true God" (John 17:3) is the Father, but we encounter him in two other guises: firstly, He is fully present in the life and teachings of Jesus and, secondly, He is fully present in the form of (or, rather, by means of) His Spirit (the same Spirit which was, and is, present in Jesus). When we encounter God in the life and teachings of Jesus, rather than call Him the Father, we refer to Him as the Word (see John 1) or, since Jesus' relationship with God was so utterly intimate that He was able to say "I and the Father are One", and Jesus is, in a unique way, God's Son, we can also refer to God in this guise as the Son - but that is not to imply that Jesus the man is actually God himself, or that Jesus and the Father are the same Person, only that God is fully present in Jesus and in his life and ministry (see 2 Corinthians 5:19).
When we encounter God in the guise of the Spirit then we refer to Him as such, ie. as the Spirit, rather than as the Father.
I think this understanding of God can be distinguished from modalism/sabellianism, because in the modalist idea of God, the Father and the Son (Jesus) are considered to be the same Person and this, perhaps, is the reason for modalism being declared a heresy, since it would mean that when Jesus prays to the Father it is actually God praying to Himself. The model that I am proposing does not, however, suffer from this problem.
Actually, all of this is really just another way of stating the position I set out with my very first post on this blog, the idea of one God in three presences.
