Explaining the Trinity

mindlight · Dec 9, 2009

BrendanMark said:
These two biblical texts proclaim what is at once both the central truth of the Christian faith and perhaps its most controversial affirmation. God has become a man. The one who was equal with God has taken upon himself the form of a servant. In the man Jesus who has lived among us, we see the glory of the Fathers only Son. As early as ad 325, this affirmation was enshrined prominently in the Creed of Nicea, even though the Council of Nicea dealt not with the incantation per se, but with the full deity of God the Son. The Creed affirms not only that we believe in one God, Father, all-sovereign, maker of all things seen and unseen; and in one Lord Jesus Christ, the Son of God but also that this Son of God for us men, and for our salvation, came down, and was incarnated, and was made man, suffered, and arose on the third day.
Fairbairn, Donald Grace and Christology in the Early Church [Oxford Early Christian Studies, 2003 p.1]

The Trinity is revealed by the apparent scandal of Incarnation. That God dwelt amongst us as a man. Why would God do such a thing?

Thus, prior to the Nestorian controversy, the church had opposed three extreme misrepresentations of the person and work of Christ. (1) Christ was a divine being and therefore could not suffer (Docetism); (2) God the Father was temporarily changed into the suffering Son, at the expense of his full divinity and transcendence (Patripassianism); (3) Christ was involved in change, birth, suffering, and death, therefore he could not be fully divine (Arianism). Having ruled out the three extreme options, the church asserted that the Son of God suffered in reality and not mere appearance; that it was the Son who became incarnate and suffered, not the Father; that the Sons involvement in suffering did not diminish his divine status, because the incarnation was a supreme act of divine compassion and as such it was most appropriate and God-befitting.

Excellent quote - but God suffers in Christ but God does not suffer in the Father, but both are equally and fully God.

The justification of the incarnation as an act worthy of God is a common theme of Christian apologetic against philosophically minded pagans, whose understanding of God did not allow for the possibility that God could empty himself, assume the human condition, and suffer the consequences. The very fact that the Fathers quite self-consciously understood their argument for the God-befitting character of the incarnation to be directed against Hellenistic philosophers puts into question the assumption that the Fathers asserted divine impassibility simply as a result of their uncritical acceptance of the conceptuality of Hellenistic theological thought.
Gavrilyuk, Paul L. The Suffering of the Impassible God The Dialectics of Patristic Thought [Oxford Early Christian Studies, 2004 p. 18]

Excellent point its so easy to buy into this myth about Helenistic dominance of early Christian thoughts and to miss the ways in which they sowed the seeds for the overthrow of this mindset. A God who suffers for His creatures even to the point of becoming one of them is not an impassive, uncaring Deistic remotely transcendent God like that of Plato or Socrates.

A solitary God would not be Love without limits. A God who made himself twofold, according to a pattern common in mythology, would make himself the root of an evil multiplicity to which he could only put a stop by re-absorbing it into himself. The Three-in-One denotes the perfection of Unity of Super-unity, according to Dionysius the Areopagite fulfilling itself in communion and becoming the source and foundation of all communion. It suggests the perpetual surmounting of contradiction, and of solitude as well, in the bosom of an infinite unity.
Clément, Olivier The Roots of Christian Mysticism [NCP 1982, 1993 pp74-75]

When I say God, it is of the Father, of the Son and of the Holy Spirit that I wish to speak without diluting the godhead beyond these limits, lest I should introduce a whole tribe of divinities, and without restricting it to something less than the three persons, lest I be accused of impoverishing the godhead. Otherwise I should fall into the simplicity of the Judaizers or into the multiplicity of the Hellenizers . . .
Thus the Holy of Holies, enveloped and veiled by the Seraphim, is glorified by a threefold consecration in the unity of the godhead.
Gregory Nazianzen Oration 54, For Easter, 4 (PG 36, 620) quoted from Clément, Olivier The Roots of Christian Mysticism [1982, 1993 p66]

Unity with Diversity as the basis for true communion. Interesting insight a personal relationship with the Divine is possible because a preexisting model of relationship already exists in the very nature of God.

Gregory explains the Trinity by means of a double contrast. He contrasts it on the one hand with the ancient pagan notion of diffused divinity, and on the other with the God of Judaism who is totally transcendent and distinct (although this statement would certainly need qualification in the light of the mystical tradition of Judaism). Today, from the same standpoint, we could contrast the mystery of the trinity with, on the one hand, the exoteric rigid monotheism of popular Judaism and Islam, and, on the other, with Hinduism and Buddhism and their transpersonal concept of divinity wherein everything is engulfed, as in an immeasurable womb which is why India loves to speak of the divine Mother.

Here too some qualification would be necessary in speaking about both the way of love in India and the various Buddhist interpretations of Grace. However, the mystery of personality and inner life, a synthesis of which is sought with difficulty by the various religions, seems to have been resolved in the doctrine of the Three-in-One, where association is perceived within the absolute, or rather the absolute within the association.

We are made in the image of God. From all eternity there is present in God a unique mode of existence, which is at the same time Unity and the Person in communion; and we are called to realize this unity in Christ, when we meet him, under the divided flames of the Spirit. Therefore we express the metaphysics of the person in the language of Trinitarian theology. What could be called the Trinitarian person is not the isolated individual of Western society (whose implicit philosophy regards human beings as similar but not consubstantial). Nor is it the absorbed and amalgamated human beings of totalitarian society, or of systematized oriental mysticism, or of the sects. It is, and must be, a person in a relationship, in communion. The transition from divine communion to human communion is accomplished in Christ who is consubstantial with the Father and the Spirit in his divinity and consubstantial with us in his humanity.
Clément, Olivier The Roots of Christian Mysticism [1982, 1993 p65-66]

God both brings us together while affirming our personality and capability therefore of a personal relationship with the Divine.

mindlight · Dec 9, 2009

ebia said:
Depends what you mean by "teaches the Trinity". One can show that Paul, John, etc are starting to think of Jesus Christ in terms that lead one to the idea that he is both God and distinct from the father while simultaenously using monotheistic language about God.

Not without reading stuff back into it.
However, one can show that it doesn't run counter to the OT - and that reading monothestic statements as though they are about the ontology of God rather than about the uniqueness of God was something that largely developed in response to Christianity.

That relationship is right at the centre of who God is.

I wouldn't. Such analogies are more misleading than they are helpful.

Helpful insights - thanks

mindlight · Dec 9, 2009

Ave Maria said:
Here is a useful graphic to help explain the Trinity:

Thanks

mindlight · Dec 9, 2009

MrPolo said:
I know what you are trying to say, but it will be confusing if you tell someone that Christians are not monotheists. Chrisitians ARE monotheists. There is one God in three divine persons.
If anyone will not confess that the Father, Son and holy Spirit have one nature or substance, that they have one power and authority, that there is a consubstantial Trinity, one Deity to be adored in three subsistences or persons: let him be anathema. There is only one God and Father, from whom all things come, and one Lord, Jesus Christ, through whom all things are, and one holy Spirit, in whom all things are. (Council of Constantinople, 533 A.D.)

Yes Christians ARE Monotheists.

Also like the quote from the council of Constantinople. Here the Father is "from whom"- SOURCE, Jesus is "Through whom"- MEANS, Spirit "in whom"- PRESENCE/IMMANENCE.

Others suggest Father as Creator, Jesus as Redeemer and Spirit as sanctifier.

And yet all are involved in Creation, Redemption and Sanctification and there remain large scale areas of the Trinitarian relationship beyond the scope of human experience or comprehension.

Willtor · Dec 9, 2009

mindlight said:
It's an article of faith that most people here believe in the Trinity. That God is One God in three equal, eternal, fully Divine persons- Father , Son and Holy Spirit.

But:

1) Could you begin to demonstrate that the Bible actually teaches the Trinity even though it never uses the word

The Eastern Orthodox understanding of the Trinity is quite fascinating and goes far deeper than I am going to address. I would highly recommend reading Eastern sources along those lines.

However, a cursory reading of the first chapter of the Gospel of John indicates quite strongly that although there is only one God, there is some form of distinction within Him -- i.e., between Himself and His eternal Word, through which He made all things. However, when the Word became Incarnate, this was not "a piece of God" as though God were divisible. So, as to the Son (who is also called the Word) one has it from John that he is God. However, the Son is the Father. A glib way of putting this is that Jesus wasn't talking to himself when he prayed.

A similar case can be made for the Holy Spirit, especially from the book of Acts, though I am not immediately aware of any language quite as strong as John's regarding the matter.

2) Could you provide an Old Testament defence of this? Why is their no awareness of this idea before Christ in the Jewish community?

What you're asking about was actually a very popular practice in the early Church. Many of the Church Fathers talk about instances of the various Persons making appearances in the Old Testament. Justin Martyr has the earliest extant (as far as I'm aware) non-New Testament argument along these lines.

3) What does the Trinity say about the nature of God- what insight does it give us into God?

There, you should definitely read some of the theological literature (especially, though not exclusively from the East). Exploring insofar as one is able is a substantially spiritually rewarding practice. As an example, as touching true and eternal Divinity in Christ, knowledge of the Word is, itself, knowledge of God. In this sense, there is no intermediary between us and the Godhead. As for Christ raising us up in the atonement, it is a call into the so-called Divine dance.

4) What does it mean for our Christian lives to believe in a Trinitarian God as opposed to a Monotheistic one like the Jews or Muslims believe in? How does believing in the Trinity distinguish us from Polytheists also?

To the first point, Trinitarianism is monotheistic. As to arguing the Trinity to one who, as yet, has no interest in following Christ, it feels to me kind of like putting the cart before the horse. With regard to polytheism, if the gods are not always agreed, what is pious?

5) With what simple analogies would you try and explain the Trinity to someone else?

One of the troubles with much of doctrine (as with many things) is that many people don't understand that they can't understand... or worse: some think they _do_ understand. There is the example of the triple point, wherein a substance is simultaneously fully solid, liquid, and gas. But even that is a pale analogy at best.

Chesterton · Dec 9, 2009

Willtor said:
Many of the Church Fathers talk about instances of the various Persons making appearances in the Old Testament.

I'd forgotten Genesis chapter 18 where God appears to Abraham as three men or three angels.

Deut 5:29 · Dec 10, 2009

Chesterton said:
"Let us make man in our image."

This says nothing about there being three.
Us and Our, speak of at least two but that is all that can be said about it.
We know there are the Father and the Son.

Secundulus · Dec 10, 2009

Deut 5:29 said:
Chesterton said:

"Let us make man in our image."

This says nothing about there being three.
Us and Our, speak of at least two but that is all that can be said about it.
We know there are the Father and the Son.

Click to expand...

We know of the Holy Spirit also.

In the beginning God created heaven, and earth. And the earth was void and empty, and darkness was upon the face of the deep; and the spirit of God moved over the waters. (Genesis 1:12, D-R)

Kencj · Dec 10, 2009

Where on earth does the Bible teach that God is three persons? What "personhood" does God have outside of Christ?

The use of "let us make man in our image" In Genesis says nothing whatsoever about God being three persons -if it did Jews would be trinitarians. It just reflects the Hebrew use of the plural in relation to God, like our equivalent of adding a capital "G" to the word.

If you want a scriptural example of how its NOT three people, look at Isaiah 6;

In the year that King Uzzi'ah died I saw the Lord sitting upon a throne, high and lifted up; and his train filled the temple.
Above him stood the seraphim; each had six wings: with two he covered his face, and with two he covered his feet, and with two he flew....
And I heard the voice of the Lord saying, "Whom shall I send, and who will go for us?" Then I said, "Here am I! Send me."

There is only one “person” referring to himself as “us” -the one seated on the throne.
Who do Christians believe the one seated on the throne is?
Do I need to explain?

But about the Son he says,
“Your throne, O God, will last for ever and ever,
and righteousness will be the scepter of your kingdom.
Hebrews 1:8

Isaiah was referring to Jesus when he said this, because he saw the future and spoke of the Messiah’s glory.
John 12:41

Sphinx777 · Dec 10, 2009

Kencj · Dec 10, 2009

Sphinx777 said:

Um, is that supposed to be an answer?

1whirlwind · Dec 11, 2009

Isaiah 45:21 Tell ye, and bring them near; yea, let them take counsel together: who hath declared this from ancient time? who hath told it from that time? have not I the LORD? and there is no God else beside Me; a just God and a Saviour; there is none beside Me.

Willtor · Dec 11, 2009

Kencj said:
Where on earth does the Bible teach that God is three persons? What "personhood" does God have outside of Christ?

Kencj, the thread is four pages long. That isn't too long for you to read before posting.

Kencj said:
The use of "let us make man in our image" In Genesis says nothing whatsoever about God being three persons -if it did Jews would be trinitarians. It just reflects the Hebrew use of the plural in relation to God, like our equivalent of adding a capital "G" to the word.

If you want a scriptural example of how its NOT three people, look at Isaiah 6;

In the year that King Uzzi'ah died I saw the Lord sitting upon a throne, high and lifted up; and his train filled the temple.
Above him stood the seraphim; each had six wings: with two he covered his face, and with two he covered his feet, and with two he flew....
And I heard the voice of the Lord saying, "Whom shall I send, and who will go for us?" Then I said, "Here am I! Send me."

There is only one person referring to himself as us -the one seated on the throne.
Who do Christians believe the one seated on the throne is?
Do I need to explain?

But about the Son he says,
Your throne, O God, will last for ever and ever,
and righteousness will be the scepter of your kingdom.
Hebrews 1:8

Isaiah was referring to Jesus when he said this, because he saw the future and spoke of the Messiahs glory.
John 12:41

You misunderstand: the doctrine of the Trinity is a resolution to the mystery of descriptions of three Divine Persons, and yet also descriptions of a single, unconfused God. It won't help to point out passages that point out the "one-ness" of God because the doctrine presupposes them. On the contrary, you will have to argue a better interpretation of the passages that address the "three-ness" (or, at least, the non-"one-ness") of Personality.

Deut 5:29 · Dec 11, 2009

Willtor said:
You misunderstand: the doctrine of the Trinity is a resolution to the mystery of descriptions of three Divine Persons, and yet also descriptions of a single, unconfused God. It won't help to point out passages that point out the "one-ness" of God because the doctrine presupposes them. On the contrary, you will have to argue a better interpretation of the passages that address the "three-ness" (or, at least, the non-"one-ness") of Personality.

That doesn't make sense? Three in one? One in three? Three-ness? One-ness?

~Zao~ · Dec 11, 2009

The trinity
Ephesians 1:3-14 can be seen as one sentence in which the 3-fold purpose of God is seen in the Father, Son and Holy Spirit.

3-6 is the Father's plan,
7-12 is Jesus' accomplishments
13-14 is the Spirit's application.

3-6
The Father's selection and Predestination, Speaking forth God's Eternal Purpose

3 Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, who has blessed us with every spiritual blessing in the heavenly places in Christ,

4 just as He chose us in Him before the foundation of the world, that we should be holy and without blame before Him in love,
5 having predestined us to adoption as sons by Jesus Christ to Himself, according to the good pleasure of His will, 6 to the praise of the glory of His grace, by which He made us accepted in the Beloved;

7-12
The Son's Redemption, Speaking Forth the Accomplishment of God's Eternal Purpose

7 In Him we have redemption through His blood, the forgiveness of sins, according to the riches of His grace

8 which He made to abound toward us in all wisdom and prudence,
9 having made known to us the mystery of His will, according to His good pleasure, which He purposed in Himself,
10 that in the dispensation of the fullness of the times He might gather together in one all things in Christ, both which are in heaven and which are on earth—in Him.
11 In Him also we have obtained an inheritance, being predestined according to the purpose of Him who works all things according to the counsel of His will,
12 that we who first trusted in Christ should be to the praise of His glory;

13-14
The Spirit's Sealing and Pledging, Speaking forth the application of God's Accomplished Purpose

13 In Him you also trusted, after you heard the word of truth, the gospel of your salvation; in whom also, having believed, you were sealed with the Holy Spirit of promise,

(The Spirit applies ownership)
14 who is the guarantee of our inheritance until the redemption of the purchased possession, to the praise of His glory.

The trinity in a nutshell

Chesterton · Dec 11, 2009

Deut 5:29 said:
That doesn't make sense? Three in one? One in three? Three-ness? One-ness?

Thank goodness it doesn't make sense. For a minute there I thought I might have to change religions.

Kencj · Dec 11, 2009

Willtor said:
Kencj, the thread is four pages long. That isn't too long for you to read before posting.

You misunderstand: the doctrine of the Trinity is a resolution to the mystery of descriptions of three Divine Persons, and yet also descriptions of a single, unconfused God.

Of course I read the entire thread -the closest anyone came to anything near a proof text was Abraham seeing "three men". Yet the text makes it clear that only one of those persons was God, the one who Abraham addresses as God and prays to for mercy for the sake of Lot.

Where is there anything like a "description of the three Divine Persons" that you take as fact?

How is a God made up of three different persons anything but the very definition of a "confused God"?

Christos Anesti · Dec 11, 2009

That doesn't make sense?

Who said the nature of God is graspable by rational thought or "makes sense" ?

Yekcidmij · Dec 11, 2009

mindlight said:
It's an article of faith that most people here believe in the Trinity. That God is One God in three equal, eternal, fully Divine persons- Father , Son and Holy Spirit.

But:

1) Could you begin to demonstrate that the Bible actually teaches the Trinity even though it never uses the word

2) Could you provide an Old Testament defence of this? Why is their no awareness of this idea before Christ in the Jewish community?

3) What does the Trinity say about the nature of God- what insight does it give us into God?

4) What does it mean for our Christian lives to believe in a Trinitarian God as opposed to a Monotheistic one like the Jews or Muslims believe in? How does believing in the Trinity distinguish us from Polytheists also?

5) With what simple analogies would you try and explain the Trinity to someone else?

I think to get a grasp on the early Trinitarian formulations (Tertullian, Novatian, Nicene Creed, Athanasian Creed, Augustine, Gregory, Hilary of Poitiers, etc..) you have to have a grasp on certain western ontological categories of thinking. In this system of thinking, an object exists as the sum total of it's essential properties. Important definitions:

essential property: P is an essential property of some object 'x' if and only if x necessarily has P in any world where x exists. So if P is an essential property of x, x will never be without P when x exists.

essence (synonomous with "nature" or "being"): E is an essence of x if and only if E is essential to x and everything distinct from x has ~E essentially. So, if you have to objects, x and y, and both x and y have essence E then the two objects are the same essence, the same being, they have the same nature.

Let's take a simple example. I am sitting on a chair. What are some properties this chair has? Well, it has the property of "able to be sat on". It has the property of "being uncomfortable". It has the property of "having legs". Take the property "being uncomfortable". Is this an essential property? By the definition, if "uncomfortable" is an essential property of this chair if it necessarily uncomfortable whenever this chair exists. But, I know for a fact that this chair was comfortable before I tore the arms off of it. So "being uncomfortable" is not an essential property for this chair. It's a contingent or accidental property.

For the early Trinitarian formulations, they will express God as being One in Essence (one in Being, one Nature) that consists of 3 persons (or three subsistances, 3 personages). These 3 persons share in the Being of God so that they are One God yet they are individuated by the Father Son and Holy Spirit. Take the property "omnipotence" as it may be a little easier. If "omnipotence" is an essence of God then omnipotence is essential to God and everything distince from God is essentially not-omnipotent. So if both Father and Son are omnipotent, then we have a property that is an Essence of God that both Father and Son share. So the Father and Son share in the one Being of God.

Or take a little more difficult example and say it's true that necessarily God exists. Then existence is an essence of God since existence is an essential property that God has that everything distinct from God has the compliment of, namely, not-necessarily-existing. That is, God's existence is necessary and everything else is contingent. But, we would posit that there exist at least two individuals who both necessarily have existence - that would be the Father and Son. So once again, the Father and Son are sharing in the same Being, the same Essence, but they are still not identical to one another.

You still have One God by these definitions, but you have three persons. Take the property of "dying on a Roman cross". This would be a contingent property that the Son has but that the Father does not. It's contingent because the Son didn't necessarily have to die on a Roman cross; God could have decided to not create anything at all, in which case the property of "dying on a Roman cross" would be held by nobody. So it's a contingent property had by the Son. This would indicate that the Father and the Son are not identical since there is at least one property that is true about one that is not true about the other, namely, "dying on a Roman cross".

I think these are some down and dirty examples, and they may be far from perfect. But I think this is fair enough to show that Father and Son share the same Essence, the same Being, the same Nature, but that they are distinguished from one another as well so that the Father is not identical to the Son. Hence, 1 Being, 3 persons.

One of the biggest mistakes made today in the western world is to assume a material-based ontology. Many people assume, without even realizing it, that for something to exist, it must have a certain set of material properties. And for this assumption, the thinking would go, that the Father and Son are not the same Being because both have distinct material properties. For eample, maybe it's the case that the Father doesn't have any material properties at all (perhaps He's immaterial), but the Son does. So within a material-based ontology they would not share in the same being because of their different material properties.

But the Church Fathers do not, nor the biblical authors for that matter, have a material-based ontology. So if you were to assume a material-based ontology when trying to understand the Trinity you would end up misunderstanding or not understanding what they were saying.

This I think is the down-and-dirty of the ontological Trinity - who God is.

Then you have another animal called the Economic Trinity which could simply be stated to be what God does in creation - how God acts. This is usually easier to understand in my opinion since it doesn't involve abstract ideas that we are unfamiliar with. I would be one to think that it's the economic Trinity that reveals the truth of the ontological Trinity. And I think it's the Economic Trinity that the New Testament reveals in it's writings. It's reflection on the revelation of the New Testament (and Old Testament) and seeing how God acts within the created order that I think led the Church Fathers to form statements about who God is.

Christos Anesti · Dec 11, 2009

How is a God made up of three different persons

Revelation teaches us that God is the Father who eternal begets the Word and from whom the Spirit eternally proceeds. The Word/Son and the Spirit are of the same substance as the Father. Co-eternal and also God. That is the mystery of the Trinity. It can't be completely grasped using logic because God is transcendent. In other words our lack of ability to perfectly describe every nuance of this is derived from the very limitations of the rational facility and human expression as well as the transcendence of God. We have faith in the Trinity and hope to gain experiential gnosis of the Trinity but we will never "understand 'it'" rationally.

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