[OBW]

And reading through the various other posts that I will not quote, and few of the comments by theologians, it is clear that there is no absolute certainty as to what to make of the use of the various words. And if to make it work in the tenuous way that they want, they have to make statements like "we use the term 'Person' differently than we generally use it in everyday life" then they are not really trying to make something clearly known. It is meaningless to start by redefining the terms. It allows you to say two things every time you say only one.

Persons, beings, entities, etc., are the added terms. They are not in the scripture. In fact, the scripture never puts the Father, Son, and/or Spirit together in such a way as to define anything like what we call the Trinity. But it clearly refers to One God. And Jesus clearly refers to himself as God when he said "I am" (among others). Yet he also called the Father "God" and referred to him as separate from himself. (I do what he does. What he commands. What I see him doing. etc.) So they are described as One God (even saying so many times). Yet other than saying things like "I and the Father are one" (something that does not simply mean that they are the same person with two names) they are never described as simply a singular other than being One God.

You don't like the term "being" used in terms of the three persons. And show that others have said the same thing. But if you read what they describe, they are essentially running an asymptote right up to "being" with their description. "Not separate beings but you really couldn't tell by the evidence" is what they should be saying.

Meanwhile, you are darn sure that it cannot be separate beings. You are happy to say something less than that. But the doctrines on the subject that are primary in your teaching is that they are not hardly even persons. They are just each other. I would argue that your are running the asymptote right up to modalist. Not quite there. But the rhetoric is so "One" sided that it is hard to tell the difference.

For me, I am less impressed with the alleged precision of definition in the Trinity than in what is revealed about God in the scripture. He is clearly three, yet clearly One. I really don't care whether you want to say the term "being" can't apply to the three. They are not simply each other according to the accounts. And there is surely something that makes them very "One." But no so much that they are not three. Yet not three separate gods.

The truth of the scripture is that there are not three gods, and there is not just one God appearing in different costume, or changing or "processing" into a different form over time. Beyond that is the land of committees who haggle over what variations in terms will be accepted by the vast community of believers that don't see every aspect in exactly the same way. It may not be the phraseology of choice, but three beings joined into a singular God by a common essence is not inconsistent with the Trinity as described. Just not said with the preferred terms. But the preferred terms would appear to be using less-than common definitions which makes any alleged precision when spoken to the masses of little value. It makes the definition of the Trinity like an inside joke. Only the theologians have any idea what they just said.

Meanwhile, the shade-trees, like us, come along and try to be precise with a lexicon that isn't even one we are familiar with. Better to be general.

And when you get through with all this nit-licking over the terms, you are left with Lee primarily teaching that the Trinity is not really meaningful because they three are simply each other. Dismissing the meat of all the passages that give meaning to the Father, Son, and Spirit as other than "each other."

That is why a definition like in the Athanasian creed is probably better. It acknowledges the truth of the three without terms and the One without terms. Instead, it says that the three are not to be confused into each other, or one, and the One is not to be separated into three. It bounds a mystery rather than insisting that it is not a mystery and can be defined with the precision of words.