Holy spirit and the father are the same. Bit hard to understand the trinity at times.
And being confused about the Trinity doesn't help either. No, the Holy Spirit and the Father are not the same. They are one in Being, that is, in Deity--what the Father is the Holy Spirit is also--but the Father is not the Holy Spirit. The Holy Spirit proceeds from the Father, eternally. The Holy Spirit is distinct from the Father, just as the Son is distinct from both the Father and the Holy Spirit.
How can Jesus be called a son when he and god are one and the same person
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They're not. Jesus is not His own Father. Jesus is the Son because He is eternally begotten of the Father, He is not the Father, He is the Son. As the Son He is very God, because His Father is very God. The Son is consubstantial with the Father, of the same Being, the same God. But they are not the same "person".
never have got my head around that either.
If you've been misinformed that Jesus is His own Father (which is the heresy of Sabellianism by the way) then it's completely understandable why you'd be confused.
Unfortunately many Christians have not been properly taught basic Christian doctrine such as the Trinity, and I suspect a large reason for this is because there are a great many who call themselves pastors and teachers who think they are qualified simply because they've read Scripture and feel called by God. They themselves don't know, and so they perpetuate their own ignorance to their flock.
But if you want solid, historical teaching on these things, the best place to begin is the Creeds.
The Nicene Creed
The Quicumque Vult (also known as the Athanasian Creed)
And, for good measure even though it doesn't address the Trinity directly, the Definition of Chalcedon.
The Nicene Creed is the basic summary of orthodox Christian belief. It was quoted already in this thread. Its most important purpose is to expressly teach the relationship of the Son to the Father, though it also touches some on the Holy Spirit.
The Athanasian Creed, though so named, has nothing to do with the real St. Athanasius; it is a rather uniquely Western creed that goes into excruciating detail about how to properly understand the Trinity.
The Definition of Chalcedon is a formula put forward at the Council of Chalcedon in 451 AD, the purpose of the formula is to reject the heresies of Nestorianism and Eutychianism; and presenting an orthodox statement on the Incarnation, that is, the Hypostatic Union: Jesus Christ is both God and man, without any confusion of the natures and without any separation of His person. Jesus is one person in two natures, God and human. God because He has always been God, the very Son, eternal and uncreated; and He is human because He was conceived in the womb of the Virgin Mary, joining Himself with our humanity, becoming one of us for our salvation. He is, therefore, the God-Man. We can't confuse the two natures or separate them; He is both in all things, always and forever. God, begotten of the Father before ages. Man, conceived and born of Mary in time.
-CryptoLutheran
