Why the Argument that “Yahweh Is One Person” Will Not Convince a Learned Nicene Trinitarian

One of the most frequently misused arguments among us Unitarians is the claim that, in the Bible, Yahweh is one person. The difficulty, however, lies in how we define the word person. When we say “person,” we usually mean a distinct center of consciousness — a self-aware individual mind. But that is not what Nicene Trinitarians mean by the term.

As clarified by Thomas Aquinas — and rooted even in some of the early Church Fathers — a person in Trinitarian theology is defined as a “subsistent relation,” not a separate center of consciousness. In this framework, the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit are not three independent minds within God, but three distinct relations subsisting within the one divine essence.

Thus, when debates revolve around whether Yahweh is “one person,” both sides often assume they are using the same definition of person, when in fact they are not. The Council of Nicaea (and later theological development) employed a more technical, philosophical definition. Within that conceptual framework, the one God subsists as three relations: the one who begets, the one begotten, and the one who proceeds.

The real issue, then, is not merely how many persons God is, but what we mean by person in the first place. Many debates generate more heat than light because this fundamental semantic distinction is left unexamined.