I maintain that nobody understands any more the main teaching of Trinity. It is lost to the mists of time. One being. Same being. Homoousios. It was an invented word. It was invented by the first Trinitarians to express something and only they knew what they meant by it. Soon everyone forgot that original meaning. In my opinion, it meant something along the lines of when a young man says of a young woman “she is my type” and then of another woman “she is my type too” and then “they are both my type”. He might even say the next concept “they are equally my type”. That is like coequality. Another analogy: Someone might disparagingly say “the apple does not fall far from the tree” or “like father, like son”. There is a father-son likeness. It is something like this which Plato meant by his idea of a form or an ousios. Everything is like a perfect version of itself, its form. That is a similar concept to a young man saying a girl is his type. It assumes he is looking for a girl like a perfect template in his head of what he hopes for in a girl. (Likewise a girl can say a young man is her type, of course.) This Type, is like a Form in Plato terminology. The Trinity thinkers loved Plato’s philosophies. Tertullian was probably an expert in them. So they thought of Son and Father being same Form or Type. They called it Homoousios. When Trinitarian liiturgies tell people to state that they believe Jesus is of one being with the Father, this is what “one being” means. In my opinion. But perhaps nobody knows what the Trinity theologians originally meant by it. Its meaning drfifted over the centuries through debates of different kinds. Of course, the liturgy congregation speakers might not think they are saying this. They probably think of “one being” as one individual. They probably think the Father is some Trinity individual called God, and the Son is also this same Trinity individual called God. Two personas, one individual. Then they probably think they are supposed to believe that the Holy Spirit is this same individual called God too. Three personas in one individual called the Trinity God. I am fairly sure this is not what it really means. Just like if I say a girl is my type, and another girl is also my type, I am not saying they are the same individual. I am not saying “I think I will give my type a call tonight”. So why should people in a congregation be told to state in solemn confession something whose meaning nobody really knows, and cannot know because it was lost with the first Plato-loving Trinitarians: Lost by endless controversies shifting its meaning over the centuries. All the more shamefulness when you realise that “being” today actually has a meaning of individual, which would be what people probably think they are saying in that liturgy confession. Do not cause a brother to sin.
