One God vs Triune God

St_Worm2

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Hello @Godistruth1, Christianity teaches the doctrine of the Trinity to circumscribe and safeguard what the Bible tells us is true about the Godhead. It has nothing to do with what we consider to be “reasonable”.

Just FYI, Christianity and Judaism both teach that there is only one Divine Being (who we refer to as God).

—David
 
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HTacianas

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How does trinity seem more reasonable than only One God that we Muslims believe in?

Firstly, I don't think it's unreasonable to believe that God is a complex being. But probably the most thorough explanation you'll get to the idea of the Trinity is found in the writings of Philo of Alexandria. You can find an encyclopedia entry discussing Philo here:

Philo of Alexandria | Internet Encyclopedia of Philosophy

Perusing the table of contents alone will give you an idea.
 
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trulytheone

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How does trinity seem more reasonable than only One God that we Muslims believe in?

The Three Divine Persons have only One Mind, viz., One Intellect and One Will, since They are Consubstantial.

Unlike human or even angelic persons, who, despite of the former having one common nature, still have their own individual minds.
 
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throughfiierytrial

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How does trinity seem more reasonable than only One God that we Muslims believe in?
Sacrifice...
We are all born sinful in need of a Savior. God uses His Son, His only Son, Jesus, to reconcile us to Himself and make peace between God and man again. The sinful cannot rescue and restore a sinner to God so God sent His holy Son as a ransom for all. All we need is the faith to accept this message and grab hold of life eternal. The Holy Spirit comes to us to open our eyes to these truths and to bring us to full faith and understanding...God upholds us through the three persons, termed the Trinity, yet He is ONE.
See these passages from Isaiah 9:8-7:
6 For to us a child is born,
to us a son is given,
and the government will be on his shoulders.
And he will be called
Wonderful Counselor, Mighty God,
Everlasting Father, Prince of Peace.
7 Of the greatness of his government and peace
there will be no end.
He will reign on David’s throne
and over his kingdom,
establishing and upholding it
with justice and righteousness
from that time on and forever.
The zeal of the Lord Almighty
will accomplish this.

The child to be given us, the son, is Jesus. It states there that among all else He shall be the Mighty God, Everlasting Father...so there's no denying that Jesus is the Son and He is the Everlasting Father. The son, Jesus will be called Wonderful Counselor...so stated here...the Wonderful Counselor is the Holy Spirit. The Gospel of John records Jesus as saying He will send us the Counselor and He will remind us of everything He (Jesus) taught. (that's John 14:26)
 
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Godistruth1

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Just FYI, Christianity and Judaism both teach that there is only one Divine Being (who we refer to as God)
The Jewish concept of God is same as Islamic concept of God. Jesus believe in one God like Muslims do. They don't believe God is 3 persons
 
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Godistruth1

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The Three Divine Persons have only One Mind, viz., One Intellect and One Will, since They are Consubstantial.

Unlike human or even angelic persons, who, despite of the former having one common nature, still have their own individual minds
How is that more appealing to you than the islamic version?
 
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Godistruth1

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Sacrifice...
We are all born sinful in need of a Savior. God uses His Son, His only Son, Jesus, to reconcile us to Himself and make peace between God and man again. The sinful cannot rescue and restore a sinner to God so God sent His holy Son as a ransom for all. All we need is the faith to accept this message and grab hold of life eternal. The Holy Spirit comes to us to open our eyes to these truths and to bring us to full faith and understanding...God upholds us through the three persons, termed the Trinity, yet He is ONE.
See these passages from Isaiah 9:8-7:
6 For to us a child is born,
to us a son is given,
and the government will be on his shoulders.
And he will be called
Wonderful Counselor, Mighty God,
Everlasting Father, Prince of Peace.
7 Of the greatness of his government and peace
there will be no end.
He will reign on David’s throne
and over his kingdom,
establishing and upholding it
with justice and righteousness
from that time on and forever.
The zeal of the Lord Almighty
will accomplish this.

The child to be given us, the son, is Jesus. It states there that among all else He shall be the Mighty God, Everlasting Father...so there's no denying that Jesus is the Son and He is the Everlasting Father. The son, Jesus will be called Wonderful Counselor...so stated here...the Wonderful Counselor is the Holy Spirit. The Gospel of John records Jesus as saying He will send us the Counselor and He will remind us of everything He (Jesus) taught. (that's John 14:26)
But how does killing an innocent person for all the sins make sense?
 
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throughfiierytrial

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How is that more appealing to you than the islamic version?[/Q
But how does killing an innocent person for all the sins make sense?
Jesus did not only die. While living He fulfilled all the Commands of righteousness which stood against mankind; He nailed it all to the cross as Colossians states.
Jesus was not killed as any other human would be killed...He offered His life of His own accord John 10:17-18:
The reason my Father loves me is that I lay down my life—only to take it up again. 18 No one takes it from me, but I lay it down of my own accord. I have authority to lay it down and authority to take it up again. This command I received from my Father.”

So, He rose again from the dead to accomplish our reconciliation and reigns at the right hand of the Father.
I pray I gave at least some insight.
 
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trulytheone

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How is that more appealing to you than the islamic version?

Well, because it's a datum of Divine revelation.

Since I answered your question, it's my turn to ask question(s):

Do you believe that God's omniscience is identical to His omnipotence?
 
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Maria Billingsley

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The Jewish concept of God is same as Islamic concept of God. Jesus believe in one God like Muslims do. They don't believe God is 3 persons
Christians belive Jesus Christ of Nazareth is God in the flesh and we are connected through His Holy Spirit. All three are ONE.
 
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Ophiolite

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I understand the explanations. As a former Christian I had some familiarity with the concept. What puzzles me is why it is considered important. It seems akin to me worrying whether my judo instructor has black hair or brown hair, when the important thing is that he understands judo. Would anyone take a stab at explaining the apparently huge importance of the Trinity?
 
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timothyu

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The Three Divine Persons have only One Mind, viz., One Intellect and One Will, since They are Consubstantial.
Yet Jesus said He did nothing of His own will but the will of the Father alone, thus narrowing things down.
 
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trulytheone

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Yet Jesus said He did nothing of His own will but the will of the Father alone, thus narrowing things down.

That's the thing: Our Lord, in His Divine Nature, has only the Will of the Father, viz., His Will and His Father's Will are one and the same. To put this in another manner, He does not possess an individual Divine Will unique to the Person of the Son, since both the Father and the Son have only one Divine Will.

And His Human Will is always in complete submission to this Divine Will. So, in a certain sense, He does not do anything of His own will but the will of the Father alone, since He has no will that's opposed to the Father's to begin with.
 
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timothyu

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And His Human Will is always in complete submission to this Divine Will. So, in a certain sense, He does not do anything of His own will but the will of the Father alone, since He has no will that's opposed to the Father's to begin with.
I understand that point of view from the theological winners of the race to build a religion out of Him, but this also absolves mankind of taking responsibility for doing as He commanded in putting the Father's will ahead of our own. Jesus set the example and died to fulfil His own commandment to us. Yet our refusal to put the Father's will ahead of our own thus loving all as self is adversarial to that commandment but somehow man thinking like the adversary self justifies not following it. We say it was Jesus' responsibility, not ours and that He did it for us so we're off the hook and need not follow His commandments. This is where He will say to these Lord Lords that He never knew them because we threw the repentnce he asked for out the window..
 
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hedrick

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The Jewish concept of God is same as Islamic concept of God. Jesus believe in one God like Muslims do. They don't believe God is 3 persons
It's not so clear that this was true in 1st Cent Judaism. In order to talk about God's presence with us, they spoke of a variety of quasi-divine mediators, e.g. Wisdom, Logos, and even Torah. Also a variety of almost-deified humans, e.g. Moses. This pretty clearly formed the basis for early Christian reflections upon Jesus. You can see signs of both in the NT. But in the most influential NT position, Jesus was taken to be the human form of the Logos, i.e. God's presence with us in human form. Of course it took centuries for this to be explained in terms of essense and hypostasis, but it's built on Jewish concepts, reinterpreted in terms of neoplatonic ontology. I think you can reasonably argue whether neoplatonic philosophy was up to the task, but trying to adopt a Muslim view of God would have been foreign both to Jesus and his early followers.
 
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timothyu

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I think you can reasonably argue whether neoplatonic philosophy was up to the task, but trying to adopt a Muslim view of God would have been foreign both to Jesus and his early followers.
The Jews and Hebrew people as a whole were well aware of the Father and the Holy Spirit long before Jesus. By our thinking wouldn't they have at least thought of God as a duality? Does the Muslim faith? If not why?
 
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hedrick

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The Jews and Hebrew people as a whole were well aware of the Father and the Holy Spirit long before Jesus. By our thinking wouldn't they have at least thought of God as a duality?
Early theological developments didn't really involve the Holy Spirit. I agree that he was always understood to be there, but the creation of the Trinity was really driven by arguments about the status of Jesus. As that was formulated, the Holy Spirit was included, but a lot of early writing could be called binitarian, the Father and Son. I'm not an expert historian, but my understanding is that the Holy Spirit wasn't seen as one of these mediating characters in Judaism. I don't know why not. Of course the Holy Spirit was always understood to be there. But it looks like until the Trinity was formulated, the mediation and the Holy Spirit weren't put together into the same framework. Perhaps because in the OT, Wisdom and the Holy Spirit weren't seen as the same thing.
 
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