“The Trinitarian Answer:
Orthodox Christianity has asserted another answer to the problem, and, to make clear that answer, certain elementary distinctions are necessary. Theology and philosophy distinguish between the ontological trinity and the economical trinity in speaking of God. The Father, the Son, and the Holy Ghost are each a personality, and together they constitute the triune and exhaustively personal, totally self-conscious God. God is totally self-conscious, meaning that He has no hidden, unknown aspects of His being, no unexploited potentiality. He is actuality, self-conscious and personal. Each person of the trinity is equally God.
Since both the one and the many are equally ultimate in God, it immediately becomes apparent that these two seemingly contradictory aspects of being do not cancel one another but are equally basic to the ontological trinity: one God, three persons. Again, since temporal unity and plurality are the products and creation of this triune God, neither the unity nor the plurality can demand the sacrifice of the other to itself. Thus man and government are equally aspects of created reality. The locus of Christianity is both the believer and the church; they are not independent of or prior to one another. The wishes of husband and wife do not take priority over marriage, nor does the institution of marriage have primacy over the partners to it; marriage indeed is a type of an eternal reality (Eph. 5:22-25), but man is himself created in the image of God (Gen. 1:26-27). Education must be geared both to the individual and to society, but, above all, to God.”
– R.J. Rushdoony