In a short work defending (Latin/Creedal) Trinitarianism, we read the following rather farfetched apologetic:
Let us put it another way, to stress what we are saying. The Father is Jehovah. The Son is Jehovah. The Holy Spirit is Jehovah. But we must never think that there are three Jehovahs. It is here that the mystery lies, and we are running ahead of ourselves. For the moment we must be content to know that there is only one Jehovah, and that the Jehovah, who is, is one. (Stuart Olyott, The Three are One: What the Bible Teaches us About the Trinity [Hertfordshire, England: Evangelical Press, 1979], 23)
Under the section, The Word ‘Person’ we also read this interesting approach to how Trinitarians should and should not use the term (humpty dumpty language, really):
[N]or must we use the word ‘person’ as we do in ordinary speech. Then we use it of a distinct and individual human being, who has his own self-consciousness—he is conscious of his own separate identity. In God there are not three individuals alongside each other and separate from each other, who, at least in theory, can act against one another. To think like that will bring us back into tritheism. By ‘Persons’ we mean that there are personal self-distinctions within the divine Being, who can use of themselves the word ‘I’, and of others the words ‘thou’ and ‘he’. But we do not mean that the divine Being is capable of being divided, or is to be thought of as a collection of three separate individuals. (Ibid., 59-60)
For both an exegetically and logically sound analysis of God and the Godhead, see Blake Ostler’s book, Of God and Gods (Salt Lake City: Greg Kofford Books, 2008). Be sure to look out for future episodes on the Exploring Mormon Thought podcast that will address these and other issues that cause Trinitarian apologists to engage in mental and linguistic gymnastics like Olyott is forced to in order to prop up a man-made dogma.
