Once again, as we think about God, we have to think hard. While God is one, there is an incredible relationship that exists between the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. The Bible does teach that the Son was begotten from the Father (John 1:14; John 3:16).  There is evidence that a relationship clearly exists among the persons of the Trinity:

The First Person is called the Father and the Second the Son.  We say that the First begets or produces the second; we call it begetting, not making, because what He produces is of the same kind as Himself.  In that way the word Father is the only word to use.  But unfortunately it suggests that He is there first – just as a human father exists before his son.  But that is not so.  The Son exists because the Father exists:  but there never was a time before the Father produced the Son.  The New Testament picture of a Father and a Son turns out to be much more accurate than anything we try to substitute for it.  Naturally God knows how to describe Himself much better than we know how to describe Him.  He knows that Father and Son is more like the relation between the First and Second Persons than anything else we can think of. (Lewis 1980, 173-74)

In addition, it can be argued that the Holy Spirit proceeds from the relationship of the Father and the Son:

So the Holy Spirit does in some ineffable and inconceivable manner proceed, and is breathed forth both from the Father and the Son, by the Divine essence being wholly poured and flowing out in that infinitely intense, holy, and pure love and delight that continually and unchangeably breathes forth from the Father and the Son, primarily towards each other, and secondarily towards the creature, and so flowing forth in a different subsistence or person in manner to us utterly inexplicable and inconceivable, and that this is that person that is poured forth into the hearts of angels and saints. (Edwards 1971, 63)

Is One Better?

Knowing that there’s a relationship in the Trinity is important, but we have to be careful. Typically, in human relationships, people tend to identify a father as superior to a son, at least in knowledge, wisdom, experience, etc., but that identification cannot be true within the Trinity, because the Bible supports equality between the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit.  Therefore, while knowing there is a relationship in the Trinity does help in describing the Trinity, it is not complete, nor did God intend it to be (Romans 11:33-36).

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REFERENCE LIST

Edwards, Jonathan. 1971. Treatise on grace. In Treatise on grace and other posthumously published writings, ed. Paul Helm. Cambridge, MA: James Clarke and Company.

Lewis, Clive Staples. 1980. Mere Christianity. San Francisco, CA: HarperSanFrancisco.