Someone explain the trinity to me?

[NeonPeace]

Can someone explain what the trinity is, please? Really not understanding it at all, and I'm really curious about this concept.

 

[drich0150]

what are you having trouble understanding?

 

[NeonPeace]

So, there's three parts to the trinity, right? Body, Soul, and Spirit.
Totally understand what a body is. It's just...pretty obvious.

But definitly not understanding the soul and spirit spirits part. Looking on wiki, it says that the soul is 'the incorporeal essence of a person or living thing or object.' So, what I'm getting is that the soul is some type of spiritual life force? And, on wiki, it says that the spirit is some type of conciousness/will power. Is this wiki-based knowledge correct?

 

[drich0150]

So, there's three parts to the trinity, right?

Yes

Body, Soul, and Spirit.

Depends on the Trinity

But definitely not understanding the soul and spirit spirits part. Looking on wiki, it says that the soul is 'the incorporeal essence of a person or living thing or object.' So, what I'm getting is that the soul is some type of spiritual life force? And, on wiki, it says that the spirit is some type of consciousness/will power. Is this wiki-based knowledge correct?

I've heard the definitions switch, but essentially yes.

Their isn't an actual break down but from the descriptions offered in the bible one can comes to define these terms that way.

Here is a link to more information:
http://www.gotquestions.org/body-soul-spirit.html

 

[drich0150]

Here is another dealing specifically with the soul and Spirit:

What is the difference between the soul and spirit of man?

 

[Hakan101]

So, there's three parts to the trinity, right? Body, Soul, and Spirit.
Totally understand what a body is. It's just...pretty obvious.

But definitly not understanding the soul and spirit spirits part. Looking on wiki, it says that the soul is 'the incorporeal essence of a person or living thing or object.' So, what I'm getting is that the soul is some type of spiritual life force? And, on wiki, it says that the spirit is some type of conciousness/will power. Is this wiki-based knowledge correct?

Wow, really? Never heard of this Trinity before. I always thought there was just the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. But now I think about it, humans are sort of a Trinity. Although I always thought it was Body, Mind, and Soul.

 

[ElijahW]

So, there's three parts to the trinity, right? Body, Soul, and Spirit.
Totally understand what a body is. It's just...pretty obvious.

But definitly not understanding the soul and spirit spirits part. Looking on wiki, it says that the soul is 'the incorporeal essence of a person or living thing or object.' So, what I'm getting is that the soul is some type of spiritual life force? And, on wiki, it says that the spirit is some type of conciousness/will power. Is this wiki-based knowledge correct?

The first division to understand is between observed and observer. The soul is the observer, the world is observed. What is observed is also split into two. One side being spiritual consisting of your thoughts and the voice that sounds like you, talking inside your head and the other side being physical, consisting of what is in flux.

 

[chuck77]

Can someone explain what the trinity is, please? Really not understanding it at all, and I'm really curious about this concept.

Im afraid not. It's somewhat a "mystery". Basically, the Trinity is God the Father, God the Son, God the Holy Spirit.

All God in Three seperate persons yet all One. Got it?

It's sort of like a man and his wife becoming "one" when they get married. That's the best example I have.

 

[LOCO]

From a Catholic point of view the Holy Trinity consists of the Father, Son and Holy Spirit. In nomine Patris et fillii et Spiritus Sancti

Many other Christians also believe in the Trinity however, I did meet a Christian on here who doesn't believe in the Trinity, not sure what type of Christian he was.

Basically, Jesus is God made flesh, he was fully human and fully divine at once. Two sides of the same coin.

After his Ascension into Heaven he sent the Holy Spirit also known as the Comforter or Paraclete. The third person of God.

Below is how it would be explained to a child.

1. Water, ice, steam. All three are the same substance, but function differently from each other. Water is fluid while ice is hard and steam is a vapor, but they're all the same thing.

2. An egg: It has a shell, a yolk, and the white, but all three produce the same thing--a chicken. The shell protects the growing embryo, the yolk feeds the developing bird, and the white is what the chick is formed from.

3. The 3 leaf clover that St. Patrick used works, too. All 3 leafs come from the same stem are the same plant, etc.


The 2minute youtube clip below explains it perfectly.

What is the Trinity? - YouTube

 

[LOCO]

Jim Blackburn at catholic.com explains it differently below:


"The Trinity is one of the most difficult realities to comprehend but it might be a helpful start to recognize the distinction between a “being” and a “person.”

God is one Being (the one and only divine Being). This divine Being exists as three Persons (Father, Son, and Holy Spirit). This is unusual to us because each human being is only one person and it might seem that every being has to be one person: one being = one person.

But that’s simply not always the case. For example, a dog is a being but is not a person. A tree is a being but is not a person. In these cases, one being = zero persons. On the other hand, an angel is a being and is a person. In their case, angelic beings are similar to human beings: one being = one person.

Once you recognize that not every being is always exactly one person, it might be easier to grasp God’s unique reality, the Trinity: one Being = three Persons."

Blessings

 

[ViaCrucis]

Can someone explain what the trinity is, please? Really not understanding it at all, and I'm really curious about this concept.

With all due respect to some of the others who responded already in this thread, things have already become an overly confusing mess.

For instance: God is not three parts. God isn't divided. The Father isn't part of God.

Here is what I'm going to do, rather than putting things entirely in my words, I'm going to show what Christians have been saying for the last two millennia.

The following is a confession of faith drawn up in the 7th century in Toledo, Spain. It was drawn up by a regional Church council as a confession of faith.

It's lengthy, but it's what we as Christians are confessing when we talk about the Trinity.

The Confession of Faith from the 11th Council of Toledo, 675 AD

We confess and believe that the holy and ineffable Trinity, Father, Son and Holy Spirit, is one God by nature, of one substance, of one nature as also of one majesty and power.

(The Father)

And we profess that the Father is not begotten, not created, but unbegotten. For He Himself, from whom the Son has received His birth and the Holy Spirit His procession, has His origin from no one. He is therefore the source and origin of the whole Godhead. He Himself is the Father of His own essence, who in an ineffable way has begotten the Son from His ineffable substance. Yet He did not beget something different from what He Himself is: God has begotten God, light has begotten light. From Him, therefore, is "all fatherhood in heaven and on earth" (cf. Eph. 3.15 Vulg.).

(The Son)

We also confess that the Son was born, but not made, from the substance of the Father, without beginning, before all ages, for at no time did the Father exist without the Son, nor the Son without the Father. Yet the Father is not from the Son, as the Son is from the Father, because the Father was not generated by the Son but the Son by the Father. The Son, therefore, is God from the Father, and the Father is God, but not from the son. He is indeed the Father of the Son, not God from the Son; but the latter is the Son of the Father and God from the Father. Yet in all things the Son is equal to God the Father, for He has never begun nor ceased to be born. We also believe that He is of one substance with the Father; wherefore He is called homoousios with the Father, that is of the same being as the Father, for homos in Greek means 'one' and ousia means 'being', and joined together they mean 'one in being'. We must believe that the Son is begotten or born not from nothing or from any other substance, but from the womb of the Father, that is from His substance. Therefore the Father is eternal, and the Son is also eternal. If He was always Father, He always had a Son, whose Father He was, and therefore we confess that the Son was born from the Father without beginning. We do not call the same Son of God a part of a divided nature,because He was generated from the Father, but we assert that the perfect Father has begotten the perfect Son, without diminution or division, for it pertains to the Godhead alone not to have an unequal Son. This Son of God is also Son by nature, not by adoption; of Him we must also believe that God the Father begot Him neither by an act of will nor out of necessity, for in God there is no necessity nor does will precede wisdom.

(The Holy Spirit)

We also believe that the Holy Spirit, the third person in the Trinity, is God, one and equal with God the Father and the Son, of one substance and of one nature, not, however, begotten nor created but proceeding from both, and that He is the Spirit of both. C)f this Holy Spirit, we also believe that He is neither unbegotten nor begotten, for if we called Him unbegotten we would assert two Fathers, or if begotten, we would appear to preach two Sons. Yet He is called the Spirit not of the Father alone, nor of the Son alone, but of both Father and Son. For He does not proceed from the Father to the Son, nor from the Son to sanctify creatures, but He is shown to have proceeded from both at once, because He is known as the love or the sanctity of both. Hence we believe that the Holy Spirit is sent by both, as the Son is sent by the Father. But He is not less than the Father and the Son, in the way in which the Son, on account of the body which He has assumed, testifies that He is less than the Father and the Holy Spirit.

(The oneness in the Trinity)

This is the way of speaking about the Holy Trinity as it has been handed down: one must not call it or believe it to be threefold, but Trinity. Nor can it properly be said that in the one God there is the Trinity, but the one God is the Trinity. In the relative names of the persons the Father is related to the Son, the Son to the Father, and the Holy Spirit to both. While they are called three persons in view of their relations, we believe in one nature or substance. Although we profess three persons, we do not profess three substances, but one substance and three persons. For the Father is Father not with respect to Himself but to the Son, and the Son is Son not to Himself but in relation to the Father; and likewise the Holy Spirit is not referred to Himself but is related to the Father and the Son, inasmuch as He is called the Spirit of the Father and the Son. So when we say 'God', this does not express a relationship to another, as of the Father to the Son or of the Son to the Father or of the Holy Spirit to the Father and the Son, but 'God' refers to Himself only.

For, if we are asked about the single persons, we must confess that each is God. Therefore, we say that the Father is God, the Son is God, the Holy Spirit is God ' each one distinctly; yet there are not three gods, but one God. Similarly, we say that the Father is almighty, the Son is almighty, the Holy Spirit is almighty, each one distinctly; yet there are not three almighty ones, but one Almighty, as we profess one light and one principle. Hence we confess and believe that each person distinctly is fully God, and the three persons together are one God. Theirs is an undivided and equal Godhead, majesty and power, which is neither diminished in the single persons nor increased in the three. For it is not less when each person is called God separately, nor is it greater when all three persons are called one God.

This Holy Trinity, which is the one true God, is not without number; yet it is not comprised by number, because in the relationships of the persons there appears number, but in the substance of the Godhead nothing is comprised that could be counted. Therefore they imply number only in so far as they are mutually related, but they lack number in so far as they are by themselves (ad se). For this Holy Trinity has so much one name referring to its nature that it cannot be used in the plural with relation to the three persons. This then is, in our faith, the meaning of the saying in Holy Scripture: "Great is our Lord, abundant in power, and of His wisdom there is no number" (Ps. 147 (146) 5 Vulg.).

(The Trinity in the oneness)

However, though we have said that these three persons are one God, we are not allowed to say that the same one is the Father who is the Son, or that He is the Son who is the Father, or that He who is the Holy Spirit is either the Father or the Son. For He is not the Father who is the Son, nor is the Son He who is the Father, nor is the Holy Spirit He who is the Father or the Son, even though the Father is that which the Son is, the Son that which the Father is, the Father and the Son that which the Holy Spirit is, that is one God by nature. For, when we say: He who is the Father is not the Son, we refer to the distinction of persons; but when we say: the Father is that which the Son is, the Son that which the Father is, and the Holy Spirit that which the Father is and the Son is, this clearly refers to the nature or substance, whereby God exists since in substance they are one; for we distinguish the persons, but we do not divide the Godhead.

Hence, we recognise the Trinity in the distinction of persons and we profess the unity on account of the nature or substance. Thus, the three are one by nature, not as person.

(The undivided Trinity)

Nevertheless these three persons are not to be considered separable since, according to our belief, none of them ever existed or acted before another, after another, without another. For they are inseparable both in what they are and in what they do, because, according to our faith, between the Father who generates and the Son who is generated or the Holy Spirit who proceeds, there has not been an interval of time in which the one who generates would precede the one who is generated, or there would be no begotten one to Him who begets, or the Holy Spirit in His proceeding would appear later than Father or Son. For this reason we profess and believe that this Trinity is inseparable and distinct (inconfusa). We say, therefore, of these three persons, as our forefathers defined it, that they should be acknowledged, not separated. For if we listen to what Holy Scripture says about Wisdom: "She is a reflection of eternal light" (Wis. 7.26), we see that, as the reflection belongs inseparably to the light, so too, according to our confession, the Son cannot be separated from the Father. Therefore, neither do we confuse these three persons whose nature is one and inseparable, nor do we preach that they are in any way separable.

The Holy Trinity itself has indeed deigned clearly to reveal it to us: in these names by which He wanted the single persons to be known, it is impossible to understand one person without the other; one cannot conceive of the Father without the Son, nor can the Son be found without the Father. Indeed, the very relationship expressed in the personal names forbids us to separate the persons, for, though it does not name them together, it implies them. No one can hear any one of these names without necessarily understanding also the other. While then these Three are One and this One Three, each of the persons retains His own characteristics: The Father has eternity without birth; the Son has eternity with birth; the Holy Spirit has procession without birth with eternity.

-CryptoLutheran

 

[LOCO]

Hello viacrucis,

With all due respect if I was an atheist like the OP I would find it very difficult to understand what you have just written, it's a novel and if I have nil or very little understanding of Scripture or Christian theology I would still be in the dark.

 

[ViaCrucis]

Hello viacrucis,

With all due respect if I was an atheist like the OP I would find it very difficult to understand what you have just written, it's a novel and if I have nil or very little understanding of Scripture or Christian theology I would still be in the dark.

I understand that. My hope was to present a full and robust portrait of Christian theology without trying to "dumb it down" in order to foster more questions.

I think more harm is done by dumbing down theology which leads to lots of misunderstandings.

Trinitarian theology is complex and has a great deal of breadth and depth and it's probably the easily most confusing and most easily misunderstood notion in all of Christian teaching.

More than anything I was hoping to present an historical articulation and presentation of the teaching on the Trinity apart from the filter and lense of us moderns perhaps putting a confusing spin on it. I wanted to offer something unadulterated, something not watered down.

I was hoping it would lead to further questions and deeper dialogue, seeing as this is one of the most important and deepest aspects of Christian teaching, this theology is the "glue" that makes everything else in Christian theology sensible.

-CryptoLutheran

 

[DCJazz]

Yeah I was about to say the whole One Being = Three Persons thing, but looks like you beat me to it there.

Honestly, even for Christians this is a toughie to nail down into a perfectly explainable, erm, explanation. (Lol redundancy)
I know I sometimes find it a bit difficult to grasp the concept, myself.

 

[LOCO]

I understand that. My hope was to present a full and robust portrait of Christian theology without trying to "dumb it down" in order to foster more questions.

I think more harm is done by dumbing down theology which leads to lots of misunderstandings.

Trinitarian theology is complex and has a great deal of breadth and depth and it's probably the easily most confusing and most easily misunderstood notion in all of Christian teaching.

More than anything I was hoping to present an historical articulation and presentation of the teaching on the Trinity apart from the filter and lense of us moderns perhaps putting a confusing spin on it. I wanted to offer something unadulterated, something not watered down.

I was hoping it would lead to further questions and deeper dialogue, seeing as this is one of the most important and deepest aspects of Christian teaching, this theology is the "glue" that makes everything else in Christian theology sensible.

-CryptoLutheran

I understand and was familiar with what you wrote.

I agree we shouldn't dumb down but bite size pieces at a time might be easier to swallow.

I also am not a fan of spoon feeding.

Blessings

 

[someguy14]

Luke 3:22
And the Holy Ghost descended in a bodily shape like a dove upon him, and a voice came from heaven, which said, Thou art my beloved Son; in thee I am well pleased.

The Father: a voice came from heaven
The Son: Thou art my beloved Son
The Holy Ghost: descended in a bodily shape like a dove

 

[hedrick]

First, body, soul, and spirit aren't the Trinity. They are (supposedly – I don't agree) parts of man. An ancient writer, Augustine, used the three parts of our constitution as an *analogy* for the Trinity. The Trinity is, however about God's constitution, not ours.

There are a number of widely used analogies for the Trinity, some of which have been cited elsewhere in this thread.

Why the Trinity: It actually came out of centuries of discussions in the early Church. Christians, going back even into the New Testament, have generally seen Jesus as in some way God or the human form (incarnation) of God. But there were lots of different views on exactly what that meant. In some ways understanding the doctrines of the Trinity and Incarnation fully requires knowing some of the history. But to keep things short I'm going to try to avoid that. The result is that I'm going to give you ideas in reverse order to how they actually developed.

I claim that the primary doctrine is actually the Incarnation. This talks about the relationship between the human Jesus and God. The Bible speaks of Jesus as having the fullness of God, or being the Word (which is God) made flesh. So it sees Jesus as in some way identified with God, but not simply identical to God. In fact one early heresy saw Jesus as simply God wearing the appearance of a human being. This was rightly rejected, because it made his suffering and death a kind of put-on.

So the final doctrine said that in Jesus there are two distinct things: a real human life, and God himself. The official statement (the creed of Chalcedon) didn't actually say how this could happen. There were at least two different explanations. I'd be open to a followup question about the Incarnation, since how someone can be both human and the full embodiment of God is not obvious, but you asked about the Trinity.

Chalcedon said that in order to be faithful to what we learn of Jesus in the NT, we have to be clear both that he is fully human, and that he embodies God. In order to talk about this, the terms used were "two natures" (God and human) and "one person". That is, the human and God were said to be united in a "personal union", so that in some sense they constituted a single person.

It is important to realize that the Greek term translated "person" had technical meanings in philosophy, and thus the English "person" can be misleading. The things we think as part of a person: will, memory, etc, are actually properties of Jesus' human nature. (In fact the orthodox position is that Christ has two distinct wills, the human will and God's will.)

Now, the Trinity. OK, if Jesus is taken to be the human form of God, does that say anything about God himself? In principle we could have an incarnation without a Trinity. Jesus could be simply the incarnation of a unitary God.

The problem is that Scripture seemed to see a distinct Christ as present from eternity, not just from 4 BCE. Thus John speaks of the Logos who was with God and was God. And Christ was seen as an agent of creation. So the human Jesus embodied something of God that was always present. And I claim that something like this was inevitable. Because if Jesus really shows us God, he shows a God who isn't just the divine lawgiver and father, but an obedient son who can submit his will to his father. More specifically it shows us a God who has the experience of love as basic to his existence. So the Trinity says that there is a certain distinction within God, just enough for him to experience life in a three-fold way, as both father and son. In this analysis the Holy Spirit is taken as the bond between the father and son.

Again, in order to speak about this, terms had to be agreed upon. So the term "person" was used to speak of father, son and Holy Spirit, and "nature" to what is common among them. The term "person" is being used for a center of relationship with other persons. However the three persons are not three separate people. They are three separate centers of relationship within one God.

I actually think the term "part" is OK. That word is used in a variety of ways in English, for things that are physically separate, or just logically distinct. However it's not normally used for the persons of the Trinity, and some people thing it indicates a kind of separation that doesn't actually exist. The only accepted way to refer to the three is three persons, not three parts. Unfortunately talking about three persons gives the impression that we mean three separate things, and of course that's not what we mean at all. So if you look at how words are commonly used "parts" is probably closer than "persons." But if you want to talk with people about this and not be misunderstood, it's best to use the standard language, and that's persons.