If God is 3 persons, but one nature... do the 3 persons of God also have 3 distinct personalities?
How would you describe each personality?
For those of you who would say you have met, or have a relationship, with Jesus... What is he.... like?
We use the term "person" because we don't really have better language than that. The use of "person" is historical, it comes from the Latin persona (plural personae) which was used as a Latin translation of the Greek prosopon (plural prosopa). But it was also a bit of a controversial word historically as well.
The reason why "person" was controversial historically can be traced back to certain heretical teachers from the early 3rd century, principally: Sabellius, Noetus, and Praxeas. The first of these, Sabellius, actually gives his name to one of the first major Christological heresies: Sabellianism. Sabellianism is also known more formally as Modalistic Monarchianism, or simply Modalism for short; according to this teaching God consists of a single Essence (Ousia) and Hypostasis, namely God the Father. However God in His expression of Himself toward man and creation expresses Himself as one of three "modes" (hence Modalism); each mode of God's self-expression is a prosopon, or "face"/"mask". The word prosopon was used to describe a mask worn by an actor in a Greek play, thus an actor by changing his mask would play different parts, take on different roles. Modalism therefore asserts that God wears different masks.
Because of this mask-prosopon relation, and the rejection of Modalism as heretical in the ancient Church, many weren't necessarily comfortable with its use.
Instead the ancient Church argued that God is a single Ousia or Essence and there are three Hypostases (singular, Hypostasis).
The word hypostasis is a hard word to pin down, a literal translation would be "subsistence" (and, in fact, subsistentia is the direct Latin translation of hypostasis). But what does it actually mean? Effectively it means the underlying reality of a thing, or the discrete and distinct existence of something. So by asserting that God is one Being/Essence (Ousia, a derivative from the Greek verb
eimi meaning "to be"), and that there are three Hypostases each distinct and also fully one in Being the point was to preserve several vitally important statements of faith:
1) God is an absolute unity, there is only one God, and God is not comprised of parts, God is simple and absolutely one in being.
There is only one God.
2) While it is a given that God the Father is God, Christian confession--from the time of the Apostles onward--has always confessed that Jesus Christ is also God, and the Holy Spirit likewise is also God.
3) There is a distinctiveness between the Father, Son, and the Holy Spirit. That is to say, the Father isn't the Son, and the Son isn't the Father, these are two distinct
Someones.
So how do we confess all three of these things? That's where the language of one Ousia and three Hypostases comes from.
After establishing that there are three Hypostases, the use of "person" becomes less problematic, and so we see the Hypostases also called "Persons" (both in Greek as prosopa and in Latin as personae). So that by the time we get to the Definition of Chalcedon in the 5th century, Christians spoke of the one undivided Hypostasis and Person of Jesus Christ, as both fully God and fully human without confusion or separation.
The use of the term "personality" is probably a difficult thing to ascribe to God. God is Personal, in fact God is tri-Personal. We do, in fact, also speak of things such as "the mind of God", but such anthropomorphic language is usually understood as approximate. For example when we say that God "sees" we don't mean that God has eyes, when God "hears" our prayers, it doesn't mean that He has ears. Likewise, when we speak of the mind of God, we are speaking in the language of approximation and analogy--not that God has a mind in the way that you or I do.
In traditional Trinitarian theology we tend to state that because the Being of the Three is one, therefore the will is one; therefore there is only one Divine Will. And yet, we see relational agency--for example Christ's humble obedience to the Father is the Son's own willful act and choice. So there is one Divine Will, and yet there remains that relational agency. Does God have one mind, or three? Well, again, there is only one Divine Mind. Thus the Father, Son, and the Holy Spirit are of one Mind and Will.
Insofar, then, if we were to ascribe the language of "personality"; it may be arguable that there is only one personality: God's "personality", which is what we see in Christ Incarnate as a man. Thus the Son, revealed in the flesh, Jesus Christ, properly shows and reveals to us the mind and heart of God--because He Himself is God (as the Son) and as the Son is of the one Essence with the Father. So Christ revealing the Father, reveals the heart and mind and will of the Father.
We can know who the Father is, because we have encountered the Father through His Son, who is (according to the author of Hebrews) "the radiance of the glory of God and the exact imprint of His Hypostasis" (Hebrews 1:3). Thus Jesus says,
"
'If you had known Me, you would have known My Father also. From now on you do know Him and have seen Him.' Philip said to Him, 'Lord, show us the Father, and it is enough for us.' Jesus said to him, 'Have I been with you so long, and you still do not know Me, Philip? Whoever has seen Me has seen the Father. How can you say, 'Show us the Father'? Do you not believe that I am in the Father and the Father is in Me?'" - John 14:7-10a
To know the Son is to know the Father.
Thus in the Person of Christ the Son, we have also met the Father and the Holy Spirit, and we know Christ's Father because we know Christ, for "I and the Father are One" (John 10:30).
This means if you want to know what God is like, you look to Jesus. And Jesus is there, meeting us in His Word and Sacraments. To know Jesus is to know Him as He freely gives Himself to us, the Shepherd speaks, and His sheep know His voice. To hear the Gospel is to hear Him, that's His voice. It is Him, right there, in the pages of Holy Scripture. It is Him, His own very flesh and blood in and under the bread and wine of the Eucharist. He is there in the waters of Holy Baptism by which we receive new birth from above. Christ is there, and He meets us, and He is there to be known and heard through the Means by which He has promised to be and to find us.
You don't have to go on a pilgrimage, or devote yourself to a life of asceticism, or to some special spiritual journey or path. Christ isn't on the top of some mountain, He isn't to be found somewhere deep in one's own heart if they just look inwardly long enough. Christ is public and present in His Church, through His Word and Sacraments. He has always been here, as He Himself has said, "I am with you, even until the end of the age". He who ascended and reigns at the right hand of God the Father is right here, everywhere, and He isn't hiding.
-CryptoLutheran
He is creative in love. God is creative; every Person is creative for loving, for bringing a loving good in any situation. I do experience this in circumstances, and I find He shares His creativity with me so I can do what is loving with any person, at all. But this works best while I am submissive and humble in His peace ruling how I am and what I do > Colossians 3:15.
