The absolutely-extant which itself is not subject to any determination, determines itself by manifesting itself as the unconditionally-one through the positing of its 'other one', or its content, i.e., all: for the truly one is that which does not exclude plurality, but on the contrary produces that plurality in itself and yet is by no means changed by it, but remains what it is, remains one and thereby proves that it is unconditionally one — one, that is to say, by its very being, whose oneness cannot be taken away or destroyed by any plurality. If the one were such only because of the absence of plurality, i.e., if it represented a simple lack of plurality, and, consequently, with the appearance of the latter would have lost its character of oneness — obviously that oneness would be only accidental, and not unconditional; plurality would have had power over it, it would have been subordinate to plurality. The true unconditional oneness is necessarily stronger than plurality, excels it; it can prove or realize this superiority only by generating or positing in itself actually all plurality, and constantly triumphing over it: for everything is tested by its own opposite. In the same way our spirit also is truly single not because it would be deprived otplurality, but, on the contrary, because it manifests in itself an infinite plurality of feelings, thoughts, and desires, and at the same time always remains itself and communicates the character of its spiritual oneness [unity] to the whole natural element of the plurality of [its] manifestations, making it [that plurality] its own, belonging to it [to the spirit of man] alone.

… God the Father, by His very being, cannot be without the Word, by Whom He is expressed, and without the Holy Spirit, Who asserts Him; in the same way the Word and the Spirit cannot be without the first subject, who is that which is expressed by one and asserted by the other, is their common source and primal beginning. Their separateness exists only for our abstracting thought, and, obviously, it would be completely ideal and uninteresting to try to determine whether the name of God belongs to the divine subjects in such abstract separation, once there is no doubt that this abstract separateness does not correspond to the living truth. In actual truth, although each of the three subjects possesses the divine content or the fullness of Divinity, and, consequently, is God; yet—since He finds himself in possession of that fullness which makes Him God, not by Himself exclusively, but only in the unconditional and indivisible inner and essential unity with the other two—this does not assert three Gods, but only one God who realizes Himself in three indivisible subjects (hypostases) of one substance.

In the three constituent modes of His being, God is in unique relation to His own substance: (1) He possesses it in Himself in His “first act” (absolute fact). (2) He possesses it for Himself, in manifesting or producing it from Himself in His “second act” (absolute action). (3) He possesses it in returning upon Himself, in rediscovering in it, in a “third act,” the perfect unity of His being and His manifestation (absolute enjoyment). He cannot enjoy it without having manifested it, and He cannot manifest it without having it in Himself. Thus, these three acts, states or relationships — here the terms coincide — indissolubly bound together, are different but equal expressions of the entire Godhead. In manifesting His intimate nature or in reproducing Himself by Himself, God has no intermediary and submits to no external action which might modify His reproduction or render it incomplete; that which is produced is therefore completely equal to that which produces, in every respect, except in so far as one produces and the other is produced. And as the whole Godhead is contained in its reproduction, so is it wholly contained in the enjoyment proceeding from that reproduction. This enjoyment, being contingent upon no external condition, cannot be an accidental state inadequate to the absolute being of God; it is the direct and complete outcome of the divine existence and action. God, as enjoying, proceeds from Himself as producing and produced. And as the third term, that which proceeds, is determined only by the two first, which are entirely equal to one another, it must also be equal to them in every respect except in so far as it proceeds from them and not vice versa.