Isn't the Trinity a contradiction?
✓Fact-checked & reviewed for Nicene orthodoxyHow we review →It would be a contradiction if Christians claimed God is one person and three persons, or one God and three Gods, in the same sense. But that's not the doctrine. The Trinity says God is one in being (one "what") and three in persons (three "whos") - Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. Those are different categories, so there's no logical contradiction, any more than one triangle having three sidesAbout this comparisonIs sayingOnly a point about logic: one thing can have a "three-ness" to it without being a contradiction. The form "one X, three Y" isn't nonsense.Not sayingNot a picture of God. God is not made of three parts the way a triangle has three sides (an error called partialism). The Father, Son, and Spirit are each fully God — not one-third each. is a contradiction.
It is a mystery - something we couldn't have guessed and can't fully exhaust - but a mystery is not a contradiction. The doctrine arose because Scripture insists there is one God, yet calls Father, Son, and Spirit each fully God.