Trinity Questions

_Tess_ said:

I have questions on the nature of the trinity. I am going to number them for ease of response.

I am not a theologian or someone who likes to debate so please keep answers short and easy for me to understand.

Please note: When I use the term 'person' I do not mean it in a literal, human-person sense.

1. The first question is just to establish basic understanding: God the Father, Jesus, and the Holy Spirit, are separate, but one, at the same time. Yes?
2. A theologian friend said to me recently that 'Holy Spirit' is a 'person', (person in the sense that He/it has has thoughts/feelings) and that we should treat Him/it as a person. This is not how I have ever thought of 'the Holy Spirit' before. Is the Holy Spirit a 'person' in the sense that it/He has thoughts and feelings?
   
3. If God, Jesus, and the Holy Spirit are separate, but still one, do they 'think' independently, as a whole, or as part of a sort of hive-mind?
4. Similar to Q.3 - can/do the trinity act independently, or do they all have to 'agree'/submit somehow?
5. In heaven, would we expect to see one, two, or three 'people'/entities?

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1. Distinct, not separate. The Father, Son, and Holy Spirit are never separate, but are distinct. That is, the Father is not the Son, the Spirit is not the Father, etc. But you can't separate the Son from the Father, or the Father from the Spirit. Their divine unity is indivisible and inseparable.

2. The term "Person" to describe the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit can be somewhat confusing. In English we have spoken of the Father as a Person, the Son as a Person, and the Holy Spirit as a Person because we inherited this way of speaking from Latin theologians before us who translated the Greek word Hypostasis as Persona. The technical theological term is that the Holy Spirit is a distinct Hypostasis, the word in this context means something like "a distinct fundamental reality" so when we speak of the Hypostasis of the Father we are speaking of the Father's distinct Father-ness. E.g. it is the Father who begets, from all eternity, the Son. What we can say about the Holy Spirit is that He is, like the Father and the Son, God. He is God in the same way the Father and the Son are both God, not three gods, but the same God. Thus the Holy Spirit isn't some sort of impersonal force or power, He is very and real God and is to be worshiped and glorified as God. He is the God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob and, as God, means that He is personal not impersonal.

3. Remember, distinct, but not separate. Scripture tells us, "For my thoughts are not your thoughts, neither are your ways my ways, declares the LORD." (Isaiah 55:8) there is simply no way for us mortals to even begin to speculate on the deep mystery of these things. What we can say is what we have in Scripture. The mind of God should never be thought of as though it were like our mind, or say a "hive-mind". When we speak of the will of God we man the one Divine will of the Trinity, and yet the Son submits Himself eternally to the Father. Additionally: the Son has two wills, divine and human, because our Lord Jesus is both God and man.

4. See above.

5. God has no form that we should "see" Him. We shall see Christ, because of the Incarnation the Son became man and so He indeed does have form--human form--because He is human. But when talking about the Divine Essence Scripture consistently speaks of God as invisible, formless, as being unapproachable and incomprehensible. Our experience of things in the Age to Come is not revealed to us that we can speculate or imagine it. God is infinitely more than all our thoughts about Him could ever hope to be.

-CryptoLutheran

_Tess_ said:

I have questions on the nature of the trinity. I am going to number them for ease of response.

I am not a theologian or someone who likes to debate so please keep answers short and easy for me to understand.

I realise that we can probably never know the answer to many of these questions, but please feel free to offer your personal opinion/perspective.

Please note: When I use the term 'person' I do not mean it in a literal, human-person sense.

1. The first question is just to establish basic understanding: God the Father, Jesus, and the Holy Spirit, are separate, but one, at the same time. Yes?
2. A theologian friend said to me recently that 'Holy Spirit' is a 'person', (person in the sense that He/it has thoughts/feelings) and that we should treat Him/it as a person. This is not how I have ever thought of 'the Holy Spirit' before. Is the Holy Spirit a 'person' in the sense that it/He has thoughts and feelings?
   
3. If God, Jesus, and the Holy Spirit are separate, but still one, do they 'think' independently, as a whole, or as part of a sort of hive-mind?
4. Similar to Q.3 - can/do the trinity act independently, or do they all have to 'agree'/submit somehow?
5. In heaven, would we expect to see one, two, or three 'people'/entities?

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God is uncreated Spirit, eternally existing in three separate Persons in that One uncreated Spirit.

All three Persons are YHWH, the Uncreated Spirit, whose name means "Life/Breath".
God does not multiply the persons in Himself, and is therefore a multiplicity of One YHWH in Three Persons.
Each Person in YHWH is a separate Person, and all three Persons are YHWH, fully.
Not one exists without the other, and each has their own office, so to speak.

God exists eternally in three Persons, the three Persons are each uncreated, and created all things.

Adam is one created spirit, and in Adam there are male and female persons, and the persons in Adam multiply in the Adam kind/spirit by the seed created in the loins of the head of the Adam creation in the beginning of creation.

Does that help?


Now think about that: Adam is one spirit, named Adam, and in Adam there are multiplied male and female persons.
YHWH is One Spirit, and in YHWH there is a multiplicity of Three Persons. YHWH, the Elohym, is One YHWH.

Adam is one Adam, and a muliplicity of male and female persons.
Adam multiplies by the already created seed which comes down through the male line by the Adam spirit doing what it was created to do in the beginning.

So YHWH, the Elohym of Israel, is One YHWH, as it says in Deut 6:4, and Adam is one Adam, as it says in Malachi 3:15, as to spirit, and as to flesh, bone, and blood, as other Scriptures teach.
The male Adam persons are not the female Adam persons, but they are one spirit, one flesh, one bone, one blood.

YHWH is One Spirit, and in YHWH there are three Persons. The face of YHWH is seen in the face of God the Word, as it says in
Scripture, and when you look at any one Adam person, you see the "face" of the Adam.

The flesh body the Adam wears is the "face" of the Adam spirit.

The flesh God the Word wears is the "Face" of God the Word, and the Father.

No one can see the Spirit, but the soul brought into being by the spirit of the Adam can be seen separate from the body

_Tess_ said:

Thank you for your answers

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It should be noted that yeshuasavesme's post does not in anyway reflect the understanding of mainstream Christian teaching, if you'd like some rather clear teaching on the Trinity there are plenty of very good resources out there.

A rather good resource is a somewhat obscure confession of faith drawn up by regional council in Toledo in the 7th century. It rather painstakingly goes through the process of explaining the Trinity. An English translation can be found here.

A rather short but concise explanation from an Eastern Orthodox perspective can be found here.

We are living in a time of Christian history where there is an incredible amount of confusion and misinformation as regards Christian theology. It is important that when we articulate matters of faith, especially when it comes to something as difficult as the doctrine of the Trinity, that we do not engage in innovation but communicate and articulate what has been believed so that we remain firm in the faith and our confession. I have come across many "explanations" of the Trinity which are, quite frankly, explicitly heretical or just plain bizarre--because there is a lack of education and theological formation out there.

That's why I refer back to a 7th century formulation of Trinitarian faith here, it's very old and very consistent with historic Christian teaching. Most Christians should find very little to disagree with, regardless of denomination.

-CryptoLutheran

_Tess_ said:

Thank you for your answers

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I have Scriptures for my answers, and tradition has reasoned, but many times missed, the plain teaching of the Word of God.
YHWH is One uncreated, eternal, everlasting, Spirit, whose Name, "YHWH" means "Life/Breath", and every living, breathing, creature says that name with each and every intake and outlet of breath; which is why it is not "pronouncable, but is "breathed"
Adam [whose name means earth blood], was created in the image of God the Word [Genesis 1:26-28], and made male and female, with the one name, Adam [Genesis 5:2], whose image was to come [Romans 5:14], when He would extend His One Living Spirit into the New Creation human being flesh of the second and only living Son of God, and brother [Kinsman/Redeemer: Isaiah 59] in that flesh to the Adam creation [Jeremiah 31:22 man ="Geber/Second Man, formed in the womb of the virgin, with a "New Name], whose name in that flesh is not "Adam", but "Israel" [Isaiah 49]: That name, of the Second Man and "Last Adam", means "Ishi Sar El", the Mighty God, who is the Prince, God, the "Everlasting Father", of the adopted sons of Him, in flesh.
He invoked His New Man name over Jacob as a sign of the adoption into that name when the Adam flesh we wear would be transformed, and named with His New Name,and that is the adoption.
What does this have to do with the Trinity? -It is the teaching of Scripture that shows us How the Uncreated Spirit exists in three Persons, like the created Adam "head" -the Spirit that we all exist in and come into our Adam being in, exists in the male and female persons called "Adam", in Scripture.

My poiint for your consideration and Bible study to study on, is that The Father of the spirits of all flesh examples for us, in that creation, how He is Spirit, and exists in the separate, uncreated, Persons.