Are the 3 Persons of the Trinity dependent on each other?

Question

So I'm recently trying to reconnect with my faith and I stumbled across the doctrine of the Trinity, and so a question came across my mind especially after I got into a debate with a muslim friend

They say that if the Persons of God are independent of each other than we would have Jesus who is God, The Father who is God and the Holy Spirit who is God, thus 3 Gods in their opinion.

If they are dependent, then they aren't God because God doesn't need anything outside of him.

Sorry for any mistake and may God bless us all.

Answer 1

Here is the Orthodox church position on this matter, which is of course a serious one. I'm glad to see that you accept the Trinity and are seeking understanding of "well how does that even work?" :)

The first thing to remember is that "God is always and forever unknowable and incomprehensible to creatures." An interesting metaphor way to picture that mentally is to try and conceptualize higher physical dimensions and how creatures on those dimensions would be impossible to understand they would be for us.

God the “ineffable, inconceivable, incomprehensible, ever-existing God,” to use the words of the Orthodox liturgy, has made Himself known to creatures. He has revealed Himself in the creation of man and the world, in the Old Testament Law and the Prophets, and fully and perfectly in Christ through the Holy Spirit in the New Testament Church.

Key aspect here, we cannot fully understand God and we only know what God has revealed about himself.

Everyway that God revealed himself was through the Son or Holy Spirit, both in the old and new testament (and of course today still).

We have always and everywhere God the Father, the Son of God who comes as Jesus, and the Holy Spirit. In the Orthodox Church we confess that these three are not three competitive gods, divided, and separated from each other. On the contrary we believe that the Father, who is the Source of all that exists, always has His Son and His Spirit who are not creatures, Who were not made like everything and everyone else, but Who exist eternally with Him; from, in and by His very own divine being.

Thus what God the Father is, the Son and the Holy Spirit also are, namely: eternal, perfect, good, wise, holy, timeless, spaceless… divine and worthy of the title GOD

We believe as well that each of the three divine persons is divine in his own unique way, yet always living and acting in the perfectly absolute unity of the divine truth and love. Thus the Three are one not only because what they are is one and the same, but because their divine union allows of no separation or duality or division whatsoever.

I noticed your tag asking for the Biblical basis. And have not forgotten that you are seeking an answer to a false dichotomy presented by your friend. So here are some Bible verses that help.

Genesis 1:26: “And God said, Let us make man in Our image, after Our likeness.”

Genesis 3:22: “And the Lord God said, Behold, Adam is become as one of Us, to know good and evil.”

Genesis 11:6-7: Prior to the confusion of tongues at the building of the tower of Babylon, the Lord said, “Let Us go down, and there confound their language.”

The plural number here used by God indicates that God is not one Person.

Genesis 18:1-3, concerning Abraham: “And the Lord appeared unto him at the oak of Mamre . . . And he (Abraham) lifted up his eyes and looked, and lo, three men stood by him . . .and he bowed himself toward the ground and said, My Lord, if now I have found favor in Thy sight, pass not away, I pray Thee, from Thy servant.”

This could be interpreted two ways... either as more evidence for the Trinity or This was the pre-incarnate Christ with 2 angels. Personally I think the Trinity explanation is more elegant.

Matt. 28:19: “Go therefore and make disciples of all the nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit.” St. Ambrose of Milan notes: “The Lord said, ‘In the name’ and not ‘in the names,’ because God is One.”

1 John 5:7: For there are three that bear witness in heaven: the Father, the Word, and the Holy Spirit, and these three are one.

That last one being the most obvious quote regarding the Trinity, and why you can easily refute anyone who says otherwise, it is one of the easiest heresies to counter. It literally says right there. (Note that John often writes Logos/Word when Christ is being referenced)

The sides of the trinity aren't independent, they aren't codependent, they literally are God. Another Metaphor would be your "Ego", "Subconsciousness" and "Physical body" are all you. They do different things, but at no point are you confused about how those three things are you. Not the best metaphor, but it's what came to my mind the quickest.

Peace be with you

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Edit: to address the comment and improve understanding: There is no dependance involved. They do different things, but they all act according to their shared divine nature, but each person has slightly different "properties" to our limited understanding.

The Father has causality as one of its unique properties, which is I think the most common cause of the confusion you mentioned. So the Father is the cause of all things and the other two are not. So naturally you would assume that the Son and Spirit are dependent on the Father to exist. But... They always existed. There never was a time when one of the persons of the Trinity did not exist.

Or to put it in the words the the original question had... The Trinity do not require anything outside of themself. (Singular grammar intentional) God is not dependant, the Trinity is not dependant. This is part of the limited understanding we have of God through what He made Himself known to us.

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Each one of the three Persons (hypostases) of the Holy Trinity is the entire divinity. On this basis, the three divine persons dwell in one another (perichoresis) inter-dwelling, co-inherence. Each one of the three acts together with the other two; however, each of them relates to the creation in a personal way: the Father conceives the plan of creation (and of restoration of Creation in His Christ); the Son of God makes the Father's plan of creation (and the salvation of creation) a reality; the Holy Spirit leads God's (the Father's) plan of creation (and restoration of creation in Christ, the incarnate Logos of God) to its perfection. (Greek orthodox archdiocese of america)

This is not dependence.

Answer 2

Dependent means determined by something else or contingent upon something else. Existing only if particular circumstances are in place.

One could say that each person is understood to some degree by their relationship to each other but as this relationship is eternal and impossible to change, the relationships are not technically contingent or dependent. There are merely relational, not contingent. Each are eternal, immutable and infinite, being one and the same God.

The definitions of the councils are simply phrases that force logic to accept that God is one and that there are three persons in that one being. There is no way to craft phrases that can puncture the wording, that is why they crafted those words, not as a deep instructive guide but as a defensive posture against heresy. If one simply believes scripture it is easy to believe that the Father, Son and Spirit are one and yet each saying ‘I’ and ‘you’ to each other. It’s not necessary to be all schooled up in council language to have faith in that, or to engage in linguistics.

But it is valuable to show that all heretical ideas about God, and their specific aim to reject Christ, are mere deceptions of the Devil.

Answer 3

If the faith you are seeking to "reconnect to" is the Christian faith, then it is astonishing that you have only now "stumbled across" the doctrine of the Trinity. It would need to be pointed out to you, in your quest, that one of the biggest stumbling blocks Muslims have regarding their rejection of the Trinity doctrine is that they refuse to believe that Jesus was the eternally existing Word of God, who was with God in the beginning, and was God, and who made everything that was made. That is the biblical statement about the man known as Jesus of Nazareth, as to his pre-human existence. If you study the first chapter of John's gospel account, then you will start to see a basis for the Christian gospel of the Trinity. But without accepting the incarnation of the Word as the man, Jesus, on Earth, there will be no understanding of the Trinity doctrine, and nothing you say to your Muslim friend will be accepted by him.

That being said, the next point is that God cannot be divided or viewed as being in portions. The one Being of God subsists in three uncreated, eternal 'persons'. Check out the difference between subsists and consists.

Think for a minute about the uncreated nature of God. No starting point in time. All of the three Persons were uncreated and have no starting point in time because they subsist in this one Being of God. So they are undivided by time. Likewise with this subsistence - you cannot divide it or take anything away if that which subsists is to continue to exist. To subsist is to exist, to continue to exist, to remain in being. God does not consist of more than one 'thing' because all three Persons in the Godhead are equally this one Being of God. They do not consist of anything different to the nature of God. This triune Being has all of his nature intact.

The answer to the question is that just as the one Being of God is eternal and uncreated, so are the three Persons of the Trinity, for this is what the complex, one, divine nature and Being of God is.

https://gotquestions.org/was-Jesus-created.html should help you see the fundamental issue all people who don't understand the Trinity doctrine stumble over. Once the uncreatedness of the second Person of the Trinity is grasped, clarity should follow - but not until!

Answer 4

There are many Q&A that answer your questions already, please do a search.

So this is just a short answer to resolve your perceived dilemma.

Trinitarians conceive God in 3 persons as immanent relations. We are outside this immanent relations, and can only know of the 3 analogously. Within the God-head, for centuries, Christian theologians have defined these immanent relations in terms of processions and spirations where the specific kinds of "dependence" is defined (although "dependence" may be the wrong word to use).

Jesus is incarnated into our space and time, thus we can see the dependence more clearly, when Jesus prays to the Father, for example. But this dependence of Jesus to God is NOT the same as the immanent relation. God the Father eternally generated the Word who assumed flesh. The immanent relation has to do between God the Father and the Word, while the Word's flesh (Jesus) has another kind of dependence, i.e. creaturely dependence just like we human beings are all dependent on God for our existence, nature, and future resurrection. So it is extremely important to separate the creaturely dependence of Jesus vs. the eternally-generated kind of "dependence" of the Word upon the Father.

As immanent relations go, all 3 persons do NOT need anything outside the Godhead, so from our perspective, they don't have external "dependence", and we Christians can still be considered monotheistic because all 3 persons are "contained" within the ONE Godhead.

Hope the above helps.

Answer 5

The question needs to be broken down, we need to know precisely what is being asked in order to answer it.

The three persons of the Godhead are not dependent on each other for existence. Each person of the Godhead is God. And the fundamental truth about God is that he is eternal: "From eternity to eternity I am God. No one can snatch anyone out of my hand. No one can undo what I have done", Isaiah 43:13. God cannot not exist. Each person of the Godhead is the almighty, ever-existing, "I am". The Holy Spirit cannot not exist, the Son cannot not exist, the Father cannot not exist, and only these three cannot not exist.

Things start to get a bit "tricky" after this, and we have to hang on to every word of the Holy Bible. The real question might be this: "Is the Bible truly the word of the Living God?" If it is, then it doesn't matter how illogical it may seem to us.. we must believe it. The person who has not been willing to prayerfully give the Bible a fair hearing is really in no position to decide if it is true.. if they say it is against logic, then who is arguing? If they say it cannot be true because it teaches things that sound illogical, the Christian would say "All I know is once I was blind but now I can see", John 9:25, there has been a miraculous change in me, and it is because of what the word of God has taught me to believe. The Christian's experience is just as a stanza of a hymn tells it:

"Run, John, and work, the Law commands, Yet finds me neither feet nor hands; But sweeter news the Gospel brings; It bids me fly, and lends me wings."

I know the Bible is the true word of God, even if I do not, and maybe cannot, understand everything it says. It claims to be God's word: it says "All scripture is given by inspiration of God", 2 Timothy 3:16; 815 times it uses the phrase "saith the LORD", (KJV); no one should add anything to it or take away anything from it, Revelation 22:18-19. If it is not the word of God then it is the most terrible, terrible lie.. and who can believe that who has read it? (Muslims are often afraid to read the Bible.. that is the problem. What they have been taught has made them fearful of having an open mind, fearful of being converted, fearful of how other Muslims would treat them.)

The Bible tells us there are three persons in the Godhead, and the three persons of the Godhead are one God.

Jesus is God: the Apostle Thomas said to Jesus "Ho Kurios mou kai ho Theos mou", "The Lord of me and the God of me", John 20:28, https://www.scripture4all.org/OnlineInterlinear/NTpdf/joh20.pdf; and "God was manifest in the flesh", 1 Timothy 3:16, See "The Revision Revised" by John W. Burgon.

The Holy Spirit, who the Israelites provoked 40 years in the wilderness, is the living God, Hebrews 3:7-12.

We are told the three persons of the Godhead were involved in both the work of creation of all things, Genesis 1:1-3; and in the work of salvation of God's people, Matthew 28:19, John 14:26.

In creation, The Father gave the Word, (which is our Lord Jesus Christ, the Word of God), and spoke the universe into existence, and the Holy Spirit was hovering over the waters, Genesis 1:2, enabling the work(?), showing minute care over the details(?). Did they depend on each other for the work of creation? Yes. Could they have made the universe so that only one was making without the other two? I guess anyone of the three persons could. But we worship God in all his ways: we worship God for who he is, what he has done, and how he has chosen to do it, as he has revealed his being and his ways in his own word the Bible, one God in three persons.

The same interaction is found in the work of salvation. The Father sent His only begotten Son to live a sinless life on our behalf, the only man who has ever been able to live without sin. He then died for our sins, a perfectly sinless sacrifice, and then rose from the dead because "it was not possible for death to keep its hold on him", Acts 2:24. He "abolished death" for his people, 2 Timothy 1:10, and by his resurrection he was emphatically "declared to be the Son of God", Romans 1:4. The Holy Spirit worked in our hearts, to persuade us of our own helplessness in sin, and to enable us to believe on the Son for salvation, and to come to God the Father through the Son. By the aid of the Spirit we are saved. Could God have brought salvation some other way? I guess so. Maybe the Father could have come himself(?). But I don't like to even think about other ways, I love the way the Father sent his one and only Son, our Lord Jesus Christ, who not only died for us, but also, as a man, showed us how to worship the Father, with the aid of his Holy Spirit.

All those who believe God exists in only one person have a slight problem. Our Lord Jesus once said to another Jew something like "the whole duty of man is to love your neighbour as you love yourself, and to love God with all your heart. This sums up the law the prophets," Matthew 22:40. It is God-like to do this: God loves us in this way.

Now, very near the beginning of the Bible it says "It is not good for man to be alone", Genesis 2:18. But why? It is because man is created "in the image of God", Genesis 1:26-27. It is not good for man to be alone: Man needs someone, someone with the same nature, to love: he is not able to be fully complete without having someone to love: this is because man is in the likeness of God.

"God is love", 1 John 4:16. And because God is love, there is more than one person in the Godhead. Before God created anything, the three persons of the Godhead existed in perfect happiness and contentment. They did not need to create the Universe to be perfectly fulfilled. Each person of the Godhead loved the other two. Before the Universe was created, for an eternity, the three persons of the Godhead were entirely fulfilled in loving each other, in the contemplation of the perfection of the other two, and in each other's love.

The three persons of the Godhead are mutually dependant in love.

Answer 6

No they are independent of each other but all of them have a leader who is God The Father, He is the being sited on the Great White Throne in heaven and at His right hand is God the Son and on this earth is God the Holy Ghost who is completing the work that all of them began millions of years ago. The authority of The Father is supreme, The Son is interceding on behalf of sinners while the Holy Ghost is edifying the Church and playing the role of a comforter, He is also a witness who will be a prosecutor on judgment day and will convict the nations of their sins. All of them have a united divine will and work together to make decisions that bring glory to God. This is why God uses the term us to refer to Himself in the book of Genesis. The term us refers to a collection of beings who are aware of each other and the creation they created, hence all of them are independent of each other but subscribe to the authority of The Father.

Genesis 1:26: Let us make man in our own image

Genesis 3:22: The man has become like one of us

God is talking to the other beings who are intelligent and independent.