Yesterday I confessed (perhaps foolishly?) to my precept group in Systematic Theology that I don't think I believe in the Trinity.

This is kind of a big thing to admit, especially for a kid raised in a high-church Episcopal congregation and a pastor-in-training who hopes to never have to skip the Nicene Creed in liturgy.  (I love the creed.  I absolutely do.  It connects me backward and forward to Christians in time, and I believe what it confesses.)

I think G-d is G-d, who has been manifest & known to us in three ways:
- the Father/Creator/Y-h/G-d of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob
- the Savior, Messiah, and Christ: Jesus of Nazareth
- and the Holy Spirit present at creation and at Jesus' baptism and now running rampant through the world.

I do not necessarily subscribe to an understanding of these three manifestations as "persons."  Once a liberal arts religion major starts breaking down one's ability to conceive of G-d as male, and then as a deified human, and then as really anything that can be conceived...talking about three-persons-in-one-essence doesn't necessarily stick to the wall of one's mind.

Maybe I just don't know what is meant by "persons".  Maybe when the Church Fathers have said "persons" they meant "manifestations."  I may not know enough definitely don't know enough to know.

May G-d bless me to know what I need to know.