God is one in essence and three in person.

That's the classical formula for the Trinity.

One in essence, three in person.

Not too long ago I read an article written by a professor of philosophy who was not only

rejecting Christian theism, but ridiculing it, saying that at the heart of historic Christianity,

we find the doctrine of the Trinity. And he was saying in his essay that he couldn't

understand how any rational person could embrace Christianity precisely because of its doctrine of Trinity.

And then he went on to say that the idea of the Trinity is absurd, it's ridiculous,

because it violates the law of contradiction.

That was the charge, that the doctrine of the Trinity violates logic and the law of non-contradiction.

Now, I was really surprised to see that in that particular essay.

Not that people would make fun of Christianity or accuse of it as being irrational.

I mean, you hear that all of the time. Nor was it a surprise to me that

somebody would say that the Trinity is contradictory. What surprised me was that the charge,

that the doctrine of the Trinity is a contradiction, was leveled by a professor of philosophy.

I realize that people can be educated in America and indeed achieve their PhDs in various

subjects in America without ever having a single course in logic. In fact, most institutions of higher learning no longer require logic.

But I can't imagine getting a graduate degree in the field of philosophy

without having at least an introductory course in logic, and be at least basically familiar

with the law of non-contradiction. And if this professor of philosophy had had an elementary

course in logic, he should have understood, at least, that the Christian doctrine of the Trinity

is not a contradiction. It does not violate the law of non-contradiction, because the doctrine of

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