Understanding the Trinity

[Ceallaigh]

You seem to be saying that Christianity is collectively as confused as I am when it comes to understanding the Trinity.

I can (sort of) follow the God Father/Son idea although I can't see why both are necessary. In my more cynical moments I wonder if it (Father/Son) is a way of maintaining continuity between Christianity and the Jewish God.

The Holy Spirit leaves me lost. A couple of posts up there was a suggestion that Holy Spirit was needed to execute miracles. I doubt that Christians would generally accept this idea.

OB

There's no difference between Christianity and the Jewish God. Other than Christian's believing that the Messiah ie the Christ arrived as Jesus, whereas the Jews believe the Christ hasn't arrived yet.

 

[Reluctant Theologian]

You seem to be saying that Christianity is collectively as confused as I am when it comes to understanding the Trinity.

I can (sort of) follow the God Father/Son idea although I can't see why both are necessary. In my more cynical moments I wonder if it (Father/Son) is a way of maintaining continuity between Christianity and the Jewish God.

The Holy Spirit leaves me lost. A couple of posts up there was a suggestion that Holy Spirit was needed to execute miracles. I doubt that Christians would generally accept this idea.

OB

The Israelites and Jews having only the TNK/OT also expected a Messiah who would restore all things (apart from YHWH) - that is not inconsistent with Yeshua being both Messiah and literally being the Son of God.

Similarly the Holy Spirit also in the TNK/OT is all over the place - read e.g. how David's anointing brought God's Spirit over him and made him succeed. God's Spirit present also means God's presence and power present - so indeed that may involve miracles and blessing.

 

[d taylor]

Ok - division of labour?

• Jesus evaluates the project
• The Holy Spirit does the work
• God makes the decisions

What isn't clear is why you need all three. Surely one (presumably God) could easily manage everything.

OB

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So how would a God who was just one. Come and take on human form, live a perfect sinless life. So He (God) would be able to pay for the price He (God) stated was required to be payed for human sin.

 

[d taylor]

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The only way i can see God existing as just, a single being God (no Father, no Son, no Holy Spirit) just God.

Would be if God never created anything angels or humans. That God just existed alone with Himself and never brought anything else into existence.

But God is a creating God and has brought fourth a creation. So this requires God to exist in three beings, to be able to interact with His creation.

 

[d taylor]

The Holy Spirit leaves me lost. A couple of posts up there was a suggestion that Holy Spirit was needed to execute miracles. I doubt that Christians would generally accept this idea.

OB

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It is not suggested as if this is something people have made up. This comes from The Bible.

But Jesus knew their thoughts, and said to them: “Every kingdom divided against itself is brought to desolation, and every city or house divided against itself will not stand. If Satan casts out Satan, he is divided against himself. How then will his kingdom stand?

And if I cast out demons by Beelzebub, by whom do your sons cast them out? Therefore they shall be your judges.

But if I cast out demons by the Spirit of God, surely the kingdom of God has come upon you.


The Holy Spirit also raised Jesus The Son from the grave.

But if the Spirit of Him who raised Jesus from the dead dwells in you, He who raised Christ from the dead will also give life to your mortal bodies through His Spirit who dwells in you.

 

[Occams Barber]

There's no difference between Christianity and the Jewish God. Other than Christian's believing that the Messiah ie the Christ arrived as Jesus, whereas the Jews believe the Christ hasn't arrived yet.

If there is no difference, why are they identified as two separate entities and why is the Holy Spirit included in the Trinitarian mix?

If all three are the same what is the purpose/point in having all three?

Is there any difference in the role(s)/responsibilities of each component of the Trinity? If not, why separate them into three?

OB

 

[Joseph G]

The Bible doesn't mention the Trinity, describe it, or explain it. The doctrine itself wasn't invented until around the 4th century when it was sanctioned as the official position of the church by emperor Constantine.

Matthew 28:19-20 NIV

"Therefore go and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, and teaching them to obey everything I have commanded you."

John 14:15-21 NIV

“If you love me, keep my commands. And I will ask the Father, and he will give you another advocate to help you and be with you forever-the Spirit of truth. The world cannot accept him, because it neither sees him nor knows him. But you know him, for he lives with you and will be in you. I will not leave you as orphans; I will come to you. Before long, the world will not see me anymore, but you will see me. Because I live, you also will live. On that day you will realize that I am in my Father, and you are in me, and I am in you. Whoever has my commands and keeps them is the one who loves me. The one who loves me will be loved by my Father, and I too will love them and show myself to them.”

In the Bible, Jesus isn't God.

Matthew 1:23 NIV

"The virgin will conceive and give birth to a son, and they will call him Immanuel” (which means “God with us”)."

John 1:1-14 NIV

"In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. He was with God in the beginning. Through him all things were made; without him nothing was made that has been made. In him was life, and that life was the light of all mankind. The light shines in the darkness, and the darkness has not overcome it.

There was a man sent from God whose name was John. He came as a witness to testify concerning that light, so that through him all might believe. He himself was not the light; he came only as a witness to the light.

The true light that gives light to everyone was coming into the world. He was in the world, and though the world was made through him, the world did not recognize him. He came to that which was his own, but his own did not receive him. Yet to all who did receive him, to those who believed in his name, he gave the right to become children of God— children born not of natural descent, nor of human decision or a husband’s will, but born of God.

The Word became flesh and made his dwelling among us. We have seen his glory, the glory of the one and only Son, who came from the Father, full of grace and truth."

He's a man with a God just like the disciples were men with a God. They were all anointed with power and authority to forgive sins, heal the sick, raise the dead, cast out demons, etc. There isn't anything Jesus did that the other disciples couldn't do

John 15:5 NIV

"I am the vine; you are the branches. If you remain in me and I in you, you will bear much fruit; apart from me you can do nothing."

. Nothing demonstrates the deity of Jesus in the Bible. Jesus even denied being God and no one apparently believed he was God.

Exodus 3:13-14

"Moses said to God, “Suppose I go to the Israelites and say to them, ‘The God of your fathers has sent me to you,’ and they ask me, ‘What is his name?’ Then what shall I tell them?”

God said to Moses, “I am who I am. This is what you are to say to the Israelites: ‘I am has sent me to you.’”

John 8:54-59 NIV

"Jesus replied, “If I glorify myself, my glory means nothing. My Father, whom you claim as your God, is the one who glorifies me. Though you do not know him, I know him. If I said I did not, I would be a liar like you, but I do know him and obey his word. Your father Abraham rejoiced at the thought of seeing my day; he saw it and was glad.”

“You are not yet fifty years old,” they said to him, “and you have seen Abraham!”

"Very truly I tell you,” Jesus answered, “before Abraham was born, I am!” At this, they picked up stones to stone him, but Jesus hid himself, slipping away from the temple grounds."

John 10:30-38 NIV

"I and the Father are one.”

Again his Jewish opponents picked up stones to stone him, but Jesus said to them, “I have shown you many good works from the Father. For which of these do you stone me?”

"We are not stoning you for any good work,” they replied, “but for blasphemy, because you, a mere man, claim to be God.”

Jesus answered them, “Is it not written in your Law, ‘I have said you are “gods”’? If he called them ‘gods,’ to whom the word of God came—and Scripture cannot be set aside— what about the one whom the Father set apart as his very own and sent into the world? Why then do you accuse me of blasphemy because I said, ‘I am God’s Son’? Do not believe me unless I do the works of my Father. But if I do them, even though you do not believe me, believe the works, that you may know and understand that the Father is in me, and I in the Father.”

In Jesus' teachings, he taught them to only pray to the Father,

Acts 7:59-60 NIV

"They went on stoning Stephen as he called on the Lord and said, "Lord Jesus, receive my spirit!" Then he fell on his knees and cried out with a loud voice, “Lord, do not hold this sin against them!” Having said this, he fell asleep."

worship the Father

Matthew 2:9-11 NIV

"After they had heard the king, they went on their way, and the star they had seen when it rose went ahead of them until it stopped over the place where the child was. When they saw the star, they were overjoyed. On coming to the house, they saw the child with his mother Mary, and they bowed down and worshiped him. Then they opened their treasures and presented him with gifts of gold, frankincense and myrrh."

Matthew 21:8-9 NIV

"A very large crowd spread their cloaks on the road, while others cut branches from the trees and spread them on the road. The crowds that went ahead of him and those that followed shouted,

“Hosanna to the Son of David!”
“Blessed is he who comes in the name of the Lord!”
“Hosanna in the highest heaven!”

Phillipians 2:5-11 NIV

"In your relationships with one another, have the same mindset as Christ Jesus:
Who, being in very nature God,
did not consider equality with God something to be used to his own advantage;
rather, he made himself nothing
by taking the very nature of a servant,
being made in human likeness.
And being found in appearance as a man,
he humbled himself
by becoming obedient to death—
even death on a cross!
Therefore God exalted him to the highest place
and gave him the name that is above every name,
that at the name of Jesus every knee should bow,
in heaven and on earth and under the earth,
and every tongue acknowledge that Jesus Christ is Lord,
to the glory of God the Father."

 

[Ceallaigh]

If there is no difference, why are they identified as two separate entities and why is the Holy Spirit included in the Trinitarian mix?

If all three are the same what is the purpose/point in having all three?

Is there any difference in the role(s)/responsibilities of each component of the Trinity? If not, why separate them into three?

OB

Here in the US there's an automotive parts chain of stores called Pep Boys. The pep boys are the founders of the company named Many, Moe and Jack. If you ask which one is the Pep Boy? The answer is all three of them. Which one is in charge? All three of them. Who created the company? All three of them. Now add onto that analogy the idea that they are identical triplets. Three equal and identical, but still separate people. All three having the same role of CEO, but still separate.

You can't really ask why do there have to be three CEOs? There just are. Or what's the purpose in there being three? There just are.

 

[Occams Barber]

You can't really ask why do there have to be three CEOs? There just are. Or what's the purpose in there being three? There just are.

"There just are" may be a satisfactory answer to the PeP Boys conundrum but I'm afraid its a lousy analogy.

If you can't explain the Trinity please say so.

OB

 

[FreeinChrist]

ADVISOR HAT


This thread had a clean up. Please not this in the Statement of Faith for CF:
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Faith groups and individuals that deny the full, eternal deity of Jesus Christ or His incarnation whereby He, as God, took on human flesh (becoming fully God and fully man in one person), are considered non-Christians at CF. Posts that deny the full, eternal deity of Jesus Christ or His incarnation are considered non-Christian theology and are not allowed in "Christians Only" forums. Discussions in all "Christians Only" forums must be in alignment with Trinitarian beliefs.​

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Per the Statement of Purpose for this forum, the ONLY non-Christian allowed to post in threads in this forum is the OP. Other non-Christians are not allowed to respond. ​

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[Ceallaigh]

"There just are" may be a satisfactory answer to the PeP Boys conundrum but I'm afraid its a lousy analogy.

There's no reason for you to be rude to those trying to help you understand.

If you can't explain the Trinity please say so.

OB

I think it's more like if I can't explain it to you. Is there a way to explain it to you, or are you just going to automatically reject all attempts? Are people just wasting their time trying?

 

[Occams Barber]

There's no reason for you to be rude to those trying to help you understand.

OK - maybe I was a bit blunt but - seriously - it was a terrible analogy.

I think it's more like if I can't explain it to you. Is there a way to explain it to you, or are you just going to automatically reject all attempts? Are people just wasting their time trying?

I agree - I'm a difficult audience to please but I don't usually reject things automatically. I usually give out reasons why I reject an argument. In this case no-one so far has explained the point or purpose or origin or evidence for the Trinity.

The rationale appears to be "Christian tradition says so, so it must be true even though we don't really understand it"


OB

 

[Ceallaigh]

⁷OK - maybe I was a bit blunt but - seriously - it was a terrible analogy.

Can you actually explain what's wrong with it?

I agree - I'm a difficult audience to please but I don't usually reject things automatically. I usually give out reasons why I reject an argument. In this case no-one so far has explained the point or purpose or origin or evidence for the Trinity.

The rationale appears to be "Christian tradition says so, so it must be true even though we don't really understand it"


OB

What you're asking for is the point of, and origin of God, in the view of God being fictional. Since I and others don't view God as fiction, we're not likely to give the kind of answers you're looking for.

 

[Occams Barber]

Can you actually explain what's wrong with it?

Just because you claim you don't know why the Pep Boys are what they are, doesn't demonstrate that the same is true about the Trinity

What you're asking for is the point of, and origin of God, in the view of God being fictional. Since I and others don't view God as fiction, we're not likely to give the kind of answers you're looking for.

This thread has nothing to do with the existence of God. There are many nominal Christians who do not accept the Trinity but are comfortable about calling themselves Christian. In decades of discussing the existence of God I have yet to come across an argument which includes the Trinity.

I am quite comfortable in discussing aspects of Christianity 'as if' the existence of God was a given. In this case I am effectively asking a question about Christian theology.

OB

 

[Ceallaigh]

Just because you claim you don't know why the Pep Boys are what they are, doesn't demonstrate that the same is true about the Trinity

I wasn't trying to prove anything. I was trying to help you understand a concept. But that was my error. You understand just fine. You're just challenging us to prove it's not hogwash.

This thread has nothing to do with the existence of God. There are many nominal Christians who do not accept the Trinity but are comfortable about calling themselves Christian. In decades of discussing the existence of God I have yet to come across an argument which includes the Trinity.

I am quite comfortable in discussing aspects of Christianity 'as if' the existence of God was a given. In this case I am effectively asking a question about Christian theology.

OB

It seems more to me like the typical atheist challenge to prove something on your terms. Which deep down is the lost soul of the atheist seeking God.

 

[PloverWing]

Understanding the Trinity

Here's the best I've got at the moment.

The doctrines of the Trinity and the Incarnation are theological concepts that developed over the first five or six centuries of the early church, as they reflected on exactly who and what Jesus was, and as they reflected on the ways that God was being experienced in the life of the church.

The earliest Christians believed that God was uniquely embodied in Jesus, that Jesus had been raised from the dead, and that their own lives were being transformed by their encounter with Jesus. Detailed reflection on this became the idea of the Incarnation, that God came to earth in human form in Jesus.

But some questions naturally arose out of this idea. If God was on earth in Jesus, then who was keeping the universe going? And who was Jesus praying to? So we get the ideas of Father and Son and their relationship as describing an aspect of God's own self. While the church is reflecting along these lines, they think about the Spirit also, experienced so vividly in the earliest church, and see the Spirit as describing a third aspect of God's own self.

Where the idea of Trinity starts, I think, is with three major ways that Christians experienced God: 1) as the power creating and upholding the universe, 2) as embodied in Jesus, and 3) as experienced in the church, at Pentecost and beyond. Christians believe that these aren't just differences in how we experience God, but that in some way these differences describes God's own self.

 

[2PhiloVoid]

Understanding the Trinity

As an atheist one of the many things I find confusing about Christianity is the concept of the Trinity;

God the Father, God the Son, and the Holy Spirit.​

Part of the problem is understanding the concept of having three ‘God’ entities while at the same time describing them as a single entity.

As an outsider it also seems to me that each of the components of the Trinity would have a specific function or purpose. Is this the case? If not, why have three components?

The most confusing component of the Trinity is the Holy Spirit. Although it’s part of the Trinity it appears to be the least mentioned and the vaguest (to me) part of the Trinity. Although I can more or less understand the God-the-Father/God-the-Son concepts, I have trouble understanding the idea of the Holy Spirit, what it is and where it fits in.



A Request

After more than a decade on CF I’ve found that Christians have a habit of using impenetrable Christian jargon when trying to explain Christian concepts. As a non-Christian much of this jargon can be difficult to follow.

How you respond is up to you however sticking to plain English would help.



OB

In a more philosophical style and without the dogmatic, more deductively laden insistence from Christian Tradition, I think of the Trinity in a way that is analogous to the way I think of the spectrum of light. Obviously, it's a loose analogy, but I think how we conceive various integral aspects of physics can be brought in to help us make an attempt to understand the mystery of The Trinity.

The conundrum in all of this is that if we look at the biblical epistemology, it doesn't look like God intends, or has intended, to enable us to fully understand His Being on an Eternal, Infinite, let alone systematic, scale. There are some aspects of His Being which simply aren't going to be available for a "precise" construction of human understanding in scientific terms and we just sort of have to roll with it on some level.

On a simpler level, and without upending the Nicene Creed in order to express the idea, I'd suggest we think about the Trinity in the following way:

The Father is that Person who exists Eternally and Invisibly---and of course, we don't see Him. But we can pray to Him.​

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The Son is that Person who has manifested Himself as a historical Human Being for Divine Purpose. Some people have seen Him.​

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The Holy Spirit is that Person whose invisible Being is present in the world and among humanity. Some people feel Him.​

 

[ralliann]

First of all thank you for an honest and direct answer without the usual Christian theobabble.


Your description of the Trinitarian Godhead is more or less the same description I used. What is missing is the why. Why is God broken up into three bits and why is it (God) actually not three bits?

As a rationalist this is really difficult to follow. The idea of accepting something which, on the surface, makes no sense, simply because it's written in the Bible, makes no sense. There seems to be no explanation for why there are three bits as opposed to four or seven or one. For instance, I would, at least, expect some division of labour between the Divine Persons where each had a purpose which contributed to the whole.

This sounds like a doctrine created to justify something we can't explain because we can't explain it.

Do Christians ever ask "Why"?

OB

My understanding is it was formulated to speak against wrong ideas in that time and culture. As someone else already said. It was not formulated to explain something the human mind cannot fully understand.

 

[Occams Barber]

Here's the best I've got at the moment.

The doctrines of the Trinity and the Incarnation are theological concepts that developed over the first five or six centuries of the early church, as they reflected on exactly who and what Jesus was, and as they reflected on the ways that God was being experienced in the life of the church.

The earliest Christians believed that God was uniquely embodied in Jesus, that Jesus had been raised from the dead, and that their own lives were being transformed by their encounter with Jesus. Detailed reflection on this became the idea of the Incarnation, that God came to earth in human form in Jesus.

But some questions naturally arose out of this idea. If God was on earth in Jesus, then who was keeping the universe going? And who was Jesus praying to? So we get the ideas of Father and Son and their relationship as describing an aspect of God's own self. While the church is reflecting along these lines, they think about the Spirit also, experienced so vividly in the earliest church, and see the Spirit as describing a third aspect of God's own self.

Where the idea of Trinity starts, I think, is with three major ways that Christians experienced God: 1) as the power creating and upholding the universe, 2) as embodied in Jesus, and 3) as experienced in the church, at Pentecost and beyond. Christians believe that these aren't just differences in how we experience God, but that in some way these differences describes God's own self.

Add in the fact that the Trinity doesn't seem to get a mention in the Bible and I'm left with the impression that the Trinity evolved as a means of filling, what is/was perceived as, a theological hole related to the Son/Father issue (the problem of Himself sacrificing Himself to Himself allowing Himself to forgive sin)

I don't see this as a reason to question the concept of your God but I do wonder whether Christian theology isn't often a convenient post hoc invention. You could argue for instance that Christians 'experience' God in three ways because they have been told that God has three natures.

OB

 

[Occams Barber]

The conundrum in all of this is that if we look at the biblical epistemology, it doesn't look like God intends, or has intended, to enable us to fully understand His Being on an Eternal, Infinite, let alone systematic, scale. There are some aspects of His Being which simply aren't going to be available for a "precise" construction of human understanding in scientific terms and we just sort of have to roll with it on some level.

This sounds suspiciously like a convenient Get Out of Jail Free card. It seems like half of the responses to this thread excuse the absence of an explanation for the Trinity because "it's a mystery".

It's like saying

"I don't understand it therefore it must be true"

OB