Trinitarianism. Unitarianism. Ow, My Head Hurts.

One of the things non-Christians find difficult to grasp about Christianity is the fact that it considers itself a monotheistic religion, but has three figures it generally holds to be divine: Father, Son, Holy Ghost. Any attempt to explain this is frequently seen as an incomprehensible feat of philosophical and metaphysical gymnastics.

To be honest, I'm sort of with the people who don't really understand it. But bear with me while I try to muddle through it, and then I'll get to what I believe.

Most modern Christians subscribe to the trinitarian belief. The basics of it as I understand it are this: There's not three beings. The three named beings are the three ways God works among us—the Creator Himself, the incarnation of Him on the earthly plane, and the part of him that speaks to or guides humanity.

There's also a unitarian (note lower-case 'u') viewpoint, one that acknowledges the role of Christ, but does not think of him as a divine being that is meant to be worshipped, even if his teachings are the cornerstone of Christian faith. Whether or not he was somehow supernatural isn't even the point; the point is he's subordinate to God and does not have His powers. As to the Holy Spirit, well, maybe that's another of God's Heavenly servants, or maybe it's just the voice of God.

My beliefs are much closer to the latter than the former, and that's probably part of the problem I have with Christian churches. I'd probably be more at home in a unitarian church, though since I'm not really fond of church-going to begin with I'm not sure.

For what I believe... it's hard to define, precisely.

As far as God goes, well, that one's easy. God's, um, God. The Creator, the source from which everything came, the being who laid down the rules and the laws of the world as well as the rules and laws by which He wanted humans to abide. He's the object of our worship.

Jesus is not God. I form this belief primarily from one source: Jesus' words as related in the Bible. He talks of the Father as if He is a separate being, talks directly to Him in places, and explicitly denies he himself is divine. His role on earth was to teach us, and then to suffer the crucifixion, to atone for the sins of mankind. I believe his role in Heaven is to be a sort of mediator between us and God, someone else who can hear our prayers.

In fact, I believe God has many servants in the Heavenly realm, beings that are not human, but not precisely divine. We usually call them angels. Jesus may be an angel now, or he may be something else entirely, but either way, he's a servant of God, not God himself.

So what's the Holy Spirit? I'm not entirely sure, but I'm nearly certain it's who God was talking to when he was making the world. It might be an angel, or it might be some other being that was there from the beginning (God's first creation, perhaps), or it might just be the conscience of God. When I say the conscience, I mean two things, though: both God's own inner thoughts, and the part of God that connects us and Him and speaks to us in the still of the night, prompts us, and guides us.

I believe in one singular God, but I also believe that we're meant to revere and respect Jesus, and follow his teachings, and strive to be more Christlike. The Holy Spirit is more of a mystery to me, but I think it's our conduit to God, that part that speaks to our souls. A messenger, perhaps. All three are important, but only God is God.