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All the Persons of the Godhead Are God The Father is God, the Son is God, and the Holy Spirit is God. Hence, there is one being, one reality. There are not three Gods, but only one. Christian faith is not tri-theistic. The Father is the one and only God, so likewise are the Son and Holy Spirit. Thus the Father is totally God, the Son is totally God, and the Holy Spirit is totally God: there is no depth, width, or breadth of the divine reality that is not fully Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. The Godhead, accordingly, is not something lying behind (or out of which comes) the being of Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. Hence, Father, Son, and Holy Spirit are the same essence. To use the language of the Nicene Creed (A.D. 325), they are homoousios.Thus Father, Son, and Holy Spirit, while differing personally, do not differ essentially. The whole undivided essence belongs to each of the three persons. To use the Latin expression, they are una substantia, "one substance"; they are "consubstantial." There is some danger that such terms as essence and substance imply that God is impersonal. However, the intention is simply to say that the concrete being of Father, Son, and Holy Spirit is the same: they are identical in being. Hence, whatever may be said about the Father begetting the Son and the Spirit proceeding from the Father is not to be understood as if the Son and Spirit receive their essence or being from the Father. What is begotten and proceeds is not essence but personhood. The begetting and proceeding are eternal; hence the relationship is one that inheres within the one divine reality. This is sometimes referred to as the perichoresis (or "coinherence") of the persons, so that the three persons are said to be in and to interpenetrate one another. Each of the persons accordingly contains the whole of the Godhead and is the one undivided God. Another way to describe this oneness