evidence: Even in his youth, Jefferson had bridled at the core metaphysical claims of classical Christianity. Jefferson had no use for original sin, or salvation by grace alone, or the insistence that Christ—or anyone else; stand down, Lazarus—had risen from the dead. He didn’t even care to affirm the most fundamental doctrine: that, by some mystery of history and providence, Jesus was of the same essence as God, indeed was God. One of Jefferson’s first, and most lasting, points of dissent with Christian orthodoxy had to do with the Trinity, the doctrine affirming that although there is only one God, the godhead is identified as three distinct but inseparable "persons": the Father, who is the creator; the Son, who appeared on earth in order to reconcile humanity to the Father; and the Holy Spirit, who is the breath of love between Father and Son, and who invisibly knits all believers together, creating the society called the Church. To Jefferson, this was all too fuzzy to be true in any real sense—an "incomprehensible jargon."