What's Wrong with Conventional Depictions of the Trinity? PLEASE NOTE, THIS SAME ARTICLE APPEARS UNDER THE TITLE "TRINITY" ON THIS SITE

Of course, the standard, 'popular' depiction of "the Trinity" is nearly entirely misleading-- as an Old Man with a beard, a young man with a goatee, and a bird.    

Contrast that depiction with the sublime Trinity found in the mystical theology of the Church fathers, such St. Irenaeus of the second century:

“God -
the glorious Transcendent;

the powerful, illuminating and transforming Holy Spirit;

the divine knowing and intelligent Wisdom of the Creator and Logos,
each revelation being the fullness of God”.

The "Father" is not an Old Man with a Beard-- the "Father", Irenaeus affirms is the "glorious Transcendent" Dimension of God.

The "Son" is not a young celestial male with a smaller beard-- rather, the "Son" is the Eternal Logos, which is God's Intelligence existing from eternity, so of course prior to "Christ" or Jesus.  (There was no "humanity" at the creation of the universe, just God-- so Christ --the oneness of created humanity and Divinity-- did not exist from all eternity.  

No man, including Jesus, is the Logos; and Jesus did not create the cosmos. The Logos is God's Knowing through which all things came to be'(John 1).
The cosmos was created by the Trinity,
according to the Divine Will (the "Father")
through the Divine Intelligence (the Logos ),
and by the Divine Power, the Holy Spirit.

There is so much more to be said on the Trinity, which Essence is three "hypostases" (poorly, quite misleadingly, translated today "Three Persons").

This site is dedicated to sharing the profound mystical theology of the Trinity found in the writings of the Fathers, and in the the literature of Christian mysticism into our time because there is no possibility of clarity on Christ apart from clarity on the Trinity.