Across the years opponents have voiced two basic complaints about the doctrine of the Trinity. The first one is that the doctrine of the Trinity is a flat contradiction. God may be one or three but He is not both. Because it is a contradiction of terms, only an insane person or a religious fanatic who has closed his mind to rational thought can believe in the Trinity.

To this, Christians reply that it is no contradiction at all to hold that something is both one and three --- so long as a person does not say it is one and three in the same sense. We say that there is one God and only one --- not three. God is one in His Being. This one God, however, exists as three persons. God's psychology is more complex than man; in Him there are three "I-Thou" personal centers or personal relationships. So God is not one and three in the same sense, but one in one sense and three in quite a different sense.

Second, it is further objected, contradictory or not, that the doctrine of the Trinity is certainly not found in the Bible. Therefore it is argued, the Christian doctrine of the Trinity really represents a philosophic elaboration of the Greek church --- a sort of accommodation to pagan polytheism.

No Christian claims that the Bible sets forth in its pages an explicit statement of the doctrine of the Trinity, in fact the word "trinity" is not even in the Bible, but he does claim that the Christian doctrine of the Trinity is a true description of what the Bible teaches God is like.