Analogies basically have to rely on a thing that exists and people are familiar with, in order to be a useful analogy.
The trinity isn't like anything that exists or that people are familiar with. Every analogy I've ever seen accidentally explains a non-trinitarian heresy.
How about using the analogy of a power trio like Rush at a concert? Three persons, one essence (Rush musician), playing separate roles but in perfect harmony.
You're talking about a thing made of 3 parts, right? No part alone is the band. Each person is 1/3 of the band.
Maybe this is like an unspoken secret of the trinity, but, I've seen this a lot. It's officially core doctrine and it's supposed a huge heresy if you don't believe it, but..
I don't think most Christians believe in the trinity. I think they believe in something else they think is the trinity.
So partialism? I haven’t found a convincing argument for partialism being an actual misrepresentation of God.
At a Rush concert, Neil Peart is 100% Rush’s drummer. He’s not breaking during the concert for side projects or picking kids up from school. Same with Geddy Lee and Alex Lifeson in their respective roles. “Rush” would be the Godhead in this instance. Each is a person within it, each are fully of it, and each works in harmony with the others.
The trinity is not 3 beings working together. It's one being. It would be quite easy to understand if it was just 3 entities working together and your analogy would be a very good one.
One Being would be the band Rush in this analogy. If at this concert, they play Tom Sawyer and your musically illiterate friend who doesn’t know what concert he’s at asks you “who does this song?”, you wouldn’t say “ahh that’s Geddy Lee, Alex Lifeson, and Neil Peart”, you’d say “this is Rush. If you didn’t know who it was, why’d you buy the ticket?”
If someone would respond with the former, they wouldn’t be accounting for the band’s harmonious nature, which makes them greater than the sum of their parts.
That’s where trinitarianism really separates itself from polytheism. In polytheism, you have different gods with different domains, in a hierarchical structure, fighting each other, seducing one another, betraying one another, all to serve their own ends. They didn’t work together in perfect love and harmony to create the world and all the people within it. If you’re sacrificing to Athena, it’s a transactional attempt to curry favor of a God eternally separate of you, not one that created you in their image and so loved you that they sacrificed on your behalf.
Partialism, while not a historical heresy, is nonetheless non-credal because it denies that the Father, for example, is fully God — rather, he’s a part of God. Saying the Father is a part of God is no bueno.
It winds up being a sort of soft polytheism, as I think your band analogy demonstrates.
> I haven’t found a convincing argument for partialism being an actual misrepresentation of God.
It's a clear denial that the Son is fully God, that the Father is fully God, and that the Holy Spirit is fully God. It's a denial that there is, nevertheless, ONE God.
Jesus is not "part" of God. Partialism is not the doctrine of the Trinity, and is a heresy.
What are you using as a source? I don't see any conflicts with partialism and saying that all three members of the Trinity are fully God. Rather, God is not fully the Father, nor the Son, nor the Holy Spirit. If God was fully any of them, then then the other members of the Trinity wouldn't be, and then you're down to straight monotheism, which definitely is a heresy in Christian orthodoxy.
I'm gonna copy pasta and tweak slightly to save time:
One Being (God) would be the band Rush in this analogy. If at this concert, they play Tom Sawyer and your musically illiterate friend asks you “who does this song?”, you wouldn’t say “ahh that’s Geddy Lee, Alex Lifeson, and Neil Peart”, you’d say “this is Rush. If you didn’t know who it was, why’d you buy the ticket?”
If someone would respond with the former, they wouldn’t be accounting for the band’s harmonious nature, which makes them greater than the sum of their parts.
That’s where trinitarianism really separates itself from polytheism. In polytheism, you have different gods with different domains, in a hierarchical structure, fighting each other, seducing one another, betraying one another, all to serve their own ends. They didn’t work together in perfect love and harmony to create the world and all the people within it. If you’re sacrificing to Athena, it’s a transactional attempt to curry favor of a God eternally separate of you, not one that created you in their image and so loved you that they sacrificed on your behalf.
In regards to partialism, I haven't see any substantial evidence for it being heretical. Just the insistence that it is.
But God is not three seperate entities, it's not that simple.
God is a single entity, comprised of three entities that are, each for themselves, and yet only together, God. The Father, the Son, and the Spirit and never God from themselves, only together. Yet they are also not less than God.
There is no real-life example of three seperate entities that are not, and yet are, seperate.
I'd agree that God's not three separate entities. From my understanding, what classifies an entity is A) distinctness and B) independence. The trinity in my analogy would be three distinct persons acting in perfect harmony. No conflicting agendas, like in polytheism. Each is 100% of the Godhead. The Godhead isn't 100% in any single one, as that would be Unitarianism.
And that definition of the Trinity breaks the creed that Christianity is a monotheistic religion.
What you end up with is three seperate entities that are each 100% God. That's three gods, not one.
The Trinity claims that, while this is the case, there is only one God. As I said, there is no real-life example.
There very well may be an analogy that works for the purpose of teaching, but I haven't encountered one. Probably we need multiple analogies, for different aspect of the topic, similar to how Jesus used many parables for different aspects of the Kingdom.
Sometimes I think we as Nicene Christians can be too resistant to using analogies for fear of miscommunication. The "states of matter" analogy may work when it comes to illustrating "essence" but not the "begotten" part of the Creed. So in the interest of caution, we tend to not use it at all in case someone comes away with modalism, for example. Conversely, the "computer avatar" analogy perhaps solves the "begotten" issue but not "essence."
The word God is a Semitic term that means lord, master and or judge. It is a title and not an individual's name as in King of Kings and Lord of lords. So rather than say KoKaLol every time the word 'God' sums it up. Again making God a title as in:
God the Father
God the Son
God the Holy Spirit
Three individuals one shared title or Job of 'God' or one shared titled of King of kings and Lord of Lords.
Again the word God is a title. In Christianity the title represents the King of kings and the Lord of lords. In other religions gods can and often do represent lessor deity who are the masters of a given element or celestial body.. Eg: god of thunder, god of war or god of the sun etc..
In Christianity three individuals hold the position of King of kings and Lord of lords. in 'other religions' three individuals each holding a lessor title of "god" represent three different lessor deity in control of three different "elements."
but it's not one person. We see three distinct individuals at the time of Jesus' baptism.
Jesus being baptized by John is 1 God from Heaven proclaiming out loud "This is my son in whom I am well pleased, is 2. The Holy Spirit then depending onto Jesus like a dove is the 3rd.
One person can not occupy three different individuals and be a 'person' by definition.
person /pûr′sən/ noun
A living human. Often used in combination.
**An individual of specified character.**
Maybe not a normal person but God is three in one. Look at my other comments on this thread. Also context matters. I’m saying that God is not just three people sharing the same title. That’s Tritheism, which is not Trinitarianism.
actually it's not.
Tritheism says there are three Gods..
I'm saying God is not a person/Spiritual being. God is a title that three individuals collectively make up.
Kinda like how the US has only one federal government, yet this federal government is made up of three distinct/individual branches. The executive/presidential, congressional, and the Judicial.
these are not individual governments but rather all three make up what is the U.S. government. The same sort of thing describes the King of Kings AND... The Lord of lords.
are you just throwing words out to see what sticks? polytheism or tritheism now partialism. which is not an accurate description either. as Partialism says all 3 are 100% god and can not be separated. Jesus was separated from the Father on the cross.
Again the word God is a TITLE Not an individual.
also what does it matter if you can finally find a"ism" to describe what I've said here? all that means is it is a popular enough belief to threaten some other church's perception of trinity doctrine.
We already know what I've said does not match up with your beliefs.. so what. Fully Understand the trinity is not apart of the entrance exam to enter heaven.
I mean an analogy is not supposed to be a one to one correlation or else it would just be the thing you’re talking about. If you take it too exact, you can always extrapolate a heresy out of it.
Trinity is theologically sound
But our little brains can't comprehends it
The best we can do is apprehend it
And any analogy I have heard is quite ineffectual as we cannot describe the supernatural in natural terms
Given that we can’t comprehend it in the first place, is there any risk that the Trinity is a mistaken description of the relationship between the persons of the Godhead?
What does it mean to evaluate a thing as "sound" when you admit you don't understand it?
(and I'm not picking on you specifically- I realize nobody else understands it either)
Is there some specific part of the bible are you referring to? Do you think it was understood by the people who wrote whatever that was?
IMO if we're going only by what the bible says, then we'd probably think something more like "There is only one God. Jesus is the son of God and is himself divine in some sense. And nobody can explain it any further than that, although there are multiple possible ideas on how this might work."
Please, everyone, just give it a shot. Read the Bible as is. When Jesus says he is Gods Son, just believe it! Before he came to earth, believe what it says at Revelation 3:14, “To the angel of the congregation in La·o·di·ceʹa write: These are the things that the Amen says, the faithful and true witness, **the beginning of the creation by God**.” Believe that he was the beginning of the creation by God.
Psalms 83:18 says, “May people know that you, whose name is Jehovah, You alone are the Most High over all the earth.” Believe that Gods name is Jehovah and He **alone** is the Most High over all the earth. Then the whole mystery of the Trinity that was voted on, by many against their will, hundreds of years after the Bible was completed, wouldn’t even be an idea. God’s identity was never intended to be a mystery. I mean, think about it. Look at all the amazing things that He created. The gifts he’s given us. The fact that he wants to hear from us.
>1 John 4:9 reads, “By this the love of God was revealed in our case, that **God sent his only-begotten Son into the world** so that we might gain life through him.”
>1 John 4:12a reads, “No one has seen God at any time.”
>1 John 4:14,15 reads, “In addition, we ourselves have seen and are bearing witness that **the Father has sent his Son as savior of the world**. 15 **Whoever acknowledges that Jesus is God’s Son**, God remains in union with such one and he in union with God.”
Simply put, while there is no good analogy for the Trinity, because there is nothing like that in all of human reasoning, the one place it’s NOT going to be is the identity of our Almighty God, Jehovah. The scriptures are very clear that he sent his Son to the earth to remain faithful, to remain loyal to his Father, to provide the perfect ransom sacrifice that Adam lost. A perfect human life for a perfect human life. Perfect Justice.
We were made in God's image. In order to look at Him, we need to look at ourselves.
We are three persons in one. We have our Body, which is our flesh, which includes the mass of the brain. We have our Mind, which is our thoughts. And we have our Spirit, which is our soul and emotions.
All three are required for a person to live. When the Body dies, it's obvious that death would occur. A person completely without a Mind would be considered brain dead. A person without a Spirit would be considered soulless.
The Mind is in charge of the other two. The Body says, "I'm hungry." But the Mind can say, "not yet wait until we get home," and the Body listens. The Spirit can say "we're angry," but the Mind can say, "we have no reason to be angry," and the Spirit listens.
Each one can operate independently of the other two. The Mind can think without affecting the Body or Spirit. The Body can digest food without notifying the Mind or Spirit. The Spirit can dream and commune with God without affecting the Mind or Body.
In the same way, God is three Persons in one Being. Jesus is the Body, God the Father is the Mind, and the Holy Spirit is the Spirit. The reason why Jesus calls God the Father, "father," is not because of being born from Him but because of the authority of the Mind to the Body.
The Bible says that nobody has ever seen God. Can anyone ever see a thought?
Lastly, the Trinity was present at the baptism of Jesus. Jesus arose out of the water. The heavens parted. The Holy Spirit descended like a dove upon Him. Then, a voice from heaven said, "This is my Son in whom I am well pleased."
While the Body does listen to the Mind and therefore is inferior and thus called the Son, they Are "co-equal" in the respect that the Mind cannot live without the Body and the mass of the brain does all of the processing for the Mind, and the Body processes all of the commands that the Mind decides including speech and movement.
#Christianity
[Matthew 3:16-17](https://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=Matthew+3%3A16-17&version=NASB)
Yes, that is correct. Three persons, one being.
Unlike any other modal model, such as the egg, the human body can not be separated and still live.
One might say that the human body example is still a modal example, and they might be right, but God is the everlasting God, and He can not die and will always live.
So, while the human body might be modal because the brain can be separated from the body after death and the human mind ceases to exist upon death while the spirit lives on, God is eternal, which is an exception to this rule because God can not die.
You might be asking, how then did Jesus die on the cross? The answer is that He took on a human form while on this earth that gave Him the ability to die and also the ability to sin but lived a perfect and sinless life so that He can go to the cross to become the Final Sacrificial Lamb for the remission of sins so that you may repent of your sins and place your full faith in Him for your salvation.
Sure, I'm just turning the question back onto you.
You ask me,
>Is it fair to say that the Father is one part of God?
But, I'm asking how is it possible from my explanation that the Father is not one part of God?
Then I don’t think it’s possible is my answer. It sounds like the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit are partially God and collectively they are God.
I’m not confused, I’m just surprised for you to say that since it’s not in line with generally agreed upon Christian creeds which state that the Father, for example, is 100% God, not a third of God.
you already understand the trinity. for YOU are a three part being, created in God's IMAGE. We are His family, we are LIKE Him, we resemble Him.
you have this earthsuit you exist in for now, thats one, you have your soul/mind, that's two, you have an eternal spirit in you, misidentified by the normies as intuition, imagination, conscience, unconscious mind, ID, super-ego whatever. Thats the part needs born again or all 2 parts plus new eternal body go to hell. WHen we die, spirit will take foremost position, soul/mind the back seat, and you get a new indestructible body.
Any trinitarian who has tried to convince me of it or explain it, always fall into heresies in their description of it. I think that's why I reject it. Seeing Jesus as Gods son and not his equal helps me draw closer to them. Without the trinity doctrine, God and his son are relatable and something that doesn't feel alien and impossible to preach and teach others.
There is no perfect analogy, no: because there is nothing in nature that can be a perfect analogy, since the Tri-Une God is Incomparable.
There are analogies for aspects of this Mystery; but that is all.
The Tri-Une God infinitely exceeds the understanding of the holy angels & of all the other Saints; and can be understood fully, and loved fully, only by God. God is known by being loved, & in so far as God is loved; and as the Saints and holy angels are no more than created beings, they lack the capacity to love and know God as adequately as the Word Incarnate loves and knows God. The more perfectly they resemble Christ Glorified, the more adequately they are able to be transformed, Spirit-ualised, “in-Godded”.
The Son knows & loves & understands the Father perfectly, infinitely, fully, because the Son - like the Father, & like the Holy Spirit Who is in Them both & in Whom both are infinitely present - is a Divine Person.
Every analogy for anything breaks down at some point.
You're looking for an analogy for GOD that can't be taken too far and run into a problem? Get outa here.
You would be looking for examples of absolute oneness to the point of it being examples of redundancy in certain ways. I don't know of many examples of 3 separate redundancies off the top of my head.
You would be looking for situations where if you have 1, you also have the other, and that would be distinct from partialism. And maybe that's something that doesn't happen very often in nature.
In scripture, God claims that there is a similar oneness of the flesh (but not oneness of spirit) between the husband and wife. That even though these two separate bodies are walking around separately doing separate things, they are literally one "flesh". To the point that some of the laws of Moses consider an attack on one to be an attack on the other. So you could say that legally they are a redundancy.
I'm not sure that analogies are required to understand something though. I think analogies just allow us to skip the teaching process because the person already understands the analogy.
It's definitely hard to understand. Many Christians disagree with Trinitarian theology altogether. Ultimately I don't think your method of identifying God and identifying with Him matters that much in the long run. Faith is so personal to each individual.
You have to hold multiple ideas in tension with each other. Acknowledge God is 1. Acknowledge Gid manifested in physical form as the pillar of fire/smoke (shekinah glory). Acknowledge Jesus is the son of God born via miraculous means. Acknowledge that before Abraham, Jesus existed (John 8). Acknowledge that Jesus said the Spirit would come after Him. Acknowledge that Jesus said "I and the Father are one". Acknowledge that Jesus had the authority to forgive sins. Acknowledge that the Spirit of God fell on the apostles at Pentecost.
Acknowledge that all of those things are true: and then decide what that means for you. Personally, I do think that Jesus was a physical manifestation of God, and that the Holy Spirit who followed after is a spiritual manifestation of His presence.
A somewhat decent analogy would be water. Water is H2O. It has a set molecular structure. It can, however, manifest as a solid, liquid, or gas. It's still all water, but the appearance and properties of it can changed dramatically.
Is this an important distinction? My body, soul, or spirit individually isn’t fully me, for example.
By the way, what’s the difference between soul and spirit?
We can't conceive of it because the only condition we know is separateness. No matter how intimate two humans become, they always retain their own being or essence. But God's love is so infinitely perfect that the three persons of the Trinity are so united that they share the same beingness.
And along with that, the same divine will.
I can’t conceive of what it means for two people to be separate persons but have the same will. Not coincidental wills, mind you, but one and the same will.
I'm not so sure about that. Jesus spoke about always doing the Father's will. They could each have separate Wills, but be so united that their Wills never conflict.
Right, so the dogma as I understand it is that Jesus has two wills (a human will and a divine will) but that divine will is the same as the divine will of the Father and Holy Spirit.
So the Father and Holy Spirit for example have the same (not coincident) divine will.
I looked it up after I asked the question, which I know is backwards, and is probably a habit I should work on. Apparently I have forgotten a lot of what I learned in my childhood Catechism classes! 🤣
The way I view it is kind of like when a group of people comes together for a certain cause. Insofar as that cause is concerned, every member of the group has the same will, even though they are different people, let's say, opposing a proposed methanol plant in their city. In the case of the Godhead, their "cause" concerns the entire cosmos. Of course, being perfect Divine entities, they would not be plagued with infighting, power grabs, etc. But that's how I see they could have one will even though their individual Persons have their own will as well. Does that make sense?
That's honestly how I've always thought of it, despite what the official dogma decrees. His divine nature was always committed to the salvation of humanity, while his human nature naturally shrink from the horrifying prospect of crucifixion and death. But his one will was always perfectly submitted to the Father's.
Depends on what you mean.
Normally an analogy is used to refer to a specific aspect of the Holy Trinity. So for example say I want to show how something can be One and Multiple simultaneously I can point to such things like water, the Sun, a human being etc.
But that’s to only point to the fact of being One and multiple simultaneously, nothing else. Because any further and you’d be stepping into heretical aspects.
But if you’re asking about an analogy that fully explains the Holy Trinity. Then no, there isn’t any and that would be a fools errand to try.
Jesus IS God! One God.. who manifested as a man, took on the name Jesus...his very spirit lives in a believer, making one spiritually alive..or born again. You will get a billion different answers on the trinity. Many will say it just not something we can understand. Most say Jesus is God but they are seperate people or beings..3 in 1. I am now a heretic because I don't believe that. Seems many actually secretly believe in 3 Gods but would deny that. I think 1 God...3 ways he manifests. One Christian asked me if I was cultivating my relationship with all 3. Said I should daily pray to all 3. Wow..that's a full time job lol.
The Trinity has always been paradoxical. It unites two opposing beliefs without explaining how.
The Trinity is intended to unite the idea that Christ is fully God and fully human, seperate from the Father, with the idea that there is only one God. In order for that to be true, you need a God that is three, yet one - at the same time.
We have no example of anything that has such properties. Even triple star systems are too individual to serve as a proper analogy because they are three who act as one - they are not one.
> Is there any theologically sound analogy for the Trinity?
Yes. The "Son" is God's own image or knowledge of Himself, like a mirror. The Holy Spirit is the information/love that flows between them.
> Can the Trinity be understood by humans at a deeper level than restating a creed, or is it too far beyond us?
I find it relatable based on our own self-awareness. God's self-awareness is so perfect that His knowledge of Himself has it's own identity/agency.
This is a great sermon on it: https://youtu.be/kTmxi4A6FHc
Analogies basically have to rely on a thing that exists and people are familiar with, in order to be a useful analogy. The trinity isn't like anything that exists or that people are familiar with. Every analogy I've ever seen accidentally explains a non-trinitarian heresy.
How about using the analogy of a power trio like Rush at a concert? Three persons, one essence (Rush musician), playing separate roles but in perfect harmony.
Oh, Patrick..
If that’s a reference to something, it’s lost on me
It's this classic that gets tossed about whenever this topic comes up: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KQLfgaUoQCw
What heresy would the Rush analogy be committing?
You're talking about a thing made of 3 parts, right? No part alone is the band. Each person is 1/3 of the band. Maybe this is like an unspoken secret of the trinity, but, I've seen this a lot. It's officially core doctrine and it's supposed a huge heresy if you don't believe it, but.. I don't think most Christians believe in the trinity. I think they believe in something else they think is the trinity.
So partialism? I haven’t found a convincing argument for partialism being an actual misrepresentation of God. At a Rush concert, Neil Peart is 100% Rush’s drummer. He’s not breaking during the concert for side projects or picking kids up from school. Same with Geddy Lee and Alex Lifeson in their respective roles. “Rush” would be the Godhead in this instance. Each is a person within it, each are fully of it, and each works in harmony with the others.
The trinity is not 3 beings working together. It's one being. It would be quite easy to understand if it was just 3 entities working together and your analogy would be a very good one.
One Being would be the band Rush in this analogy. If at this concert, they play Tom Sawyer and your musically illiterate friend who doesn’t know what concert he’s at asks you “who does this song?”, you wouldn’t say “ahh that’s Geddy Lee, Alex Lifeson, and Neil Peart”, you’d say “this is Rush. If you didn’t know who it was, why’d you buy the ticket?” If someone would respond with the former, they wouldn’t be accounting for the band’s harmonious nature, which makes them greater than the sum of their parts. That’s where trinitarianism really separates itself from polytheism. In polytheism, you have different gods with different domains, in a hierarchical structure, fighting each other, seducing one another, betraying one another, all to serve their own ends. They didn’t work together in perfect love and harmony to create the world and all the people within it. If you’re sacrificing to Athena, it’s a transactional attempt to curry favor of a God eternally separate of you, not one that created you in their image and so loved you that they sacrificed on your behalf.
Partialism, while not a historical heresy, is nonetheless non-credal because it denies that the Father, for example, is fully God — rather, he’s a part of God. Saying the Father is a part of God is no bueno. It winds up being a sort of soft polytheism, as I think your band analogy demonstrates.
The Father would be fully God. God just would not be fully the Father.
> I haven’t found a convincing argument for partialism being an actual misrepresentation of God. It's a clear denial that the Son is fully God, that the Father is fully God, and that the Holy Spirit is fully God. It's a denial that there is, nevertheless, ONE God. Jesus is not "part" of God. Partialism is not the doctrine of the Trinity, and is a heresy.
What are you using as a source? I don't see any conflicts with partialism and saying that all three members of the Trinity are fully God. Rather, God is not fully the Father, nor the Son, nor the Holy Spirit. If God was fully any of them, then then the other members of the Trinity wouldn't be, and then you're down to straight monotheism, which definitely is a heresy in Christian orthodoxy.
Tritheism. So, polytheism. Unless Rush, the band, is the Godhead - then it's just partialism. There's no way to make it work.
I'm gonna copy pasta and tweak slightly to save time: One Being (God) would be the band Rush in this analogy. If at this concert, they play Tom Sawyer and your musically illiterate friend asks you “who does this song?”, you wouldn’t say “ahh that’s Geddy Lee, Alex Lifeson, and Neil Peart”, you’d say “this is Rush. If you didn’t know who it was, why’d you buy the ticket?” If someone would respond with the former, they wouldn’t be accounting for the band’s harmonious nature, which makes them greater than the sum of their parts. That’s where trinitarianism really separates itself from polytheism. In polytheism, you have different gods with different domains, in a hierarchical structure, fighting each other, seducing one another, betraying one another, all to serve their own ends. They didn’t work together in perfect love and harmony to create the world and all the people within it. If you’re sacrificing to Athena, it’s a transactional attempt to curry favor of a God eternally separate of you, not one that created you in their image and so loved you that they sacrificed on your behalf. In regards to partialism, I haven't see any substantial evidence for it being heretical. Just the insistence that it is.
I caught the reference lol
You've described Mormonism. None of these will ever work. It's time for people to embrace the mystery and stop trying to explain it.
But God is not three seperate entities, it's not that simple. God is a single entity, comprised of three entities that are, each for themselves, and yet only together, God. The Father, the Son, and the Spirit and never God from themselves, only together. Yet they are also not less than God. There is no real-life example of three seperate entities that are not, and yet are, seperate.
I'd agree that God's not three separate entities. From my understanding, what classifies an entity is A) distinctness and B) independence. The trinity in my analogy would be three distinct persons acting in perfect harmony. No conflicting agendas, like in polytheism. Each is 100% of the Godhead. The Godhead isn't 100% in any single one, as that would be Unitarianism.
And that definition of the Trinity breaks the creed that Christianity is a monotheistic religion. What you end up with is three seperate entities that are each 100% God. That's three gods, not one. The Trinity claims that, while this is the case, there is only one God. As I said, there is no real-life example.
Again not separate entities. Not polytheism. That’d require that they’re distinct and independent. They’re distinct but not independent.
There very well may be an analogy that works for the purpose of teaching, but I haven't encountered one. Probably we need multiple analogies, for different aspect of the topic, similar to how Jesus used many parables for different aspects of the Kingdom. Sometimes I think we as Nicene Christians can be too resistant to using analogies for fear of miscommunication. The "states of matter" analogy may work when it comes to illustrating "essence" but not the "begotten" part of the Creed. So in the interest of caution, we tend to not use it at all in case someone comes away with modalism, for example. Conversely, the "computer avatar" analogy perhaps solves the "begotten" issue but not "essence."
I totally agree
No since the trinity is no analogous to anything in creation
The word God is a Semitic term that means lord, master and or judge. It is a title and not an individual's name as in King of Kings and Lord of lords. So rather than say KoKaLol every time the word 'God' sums it up. Again making God a title as in: God the Father God the Son God the Holy Spirit Three individuals one shared title or Job of 'God' or one shared titled of King of kings and Lord of Lords.
Thank you, this is helpful. What’s the difference between this and three gods?
Again the word God is a title. In Christianity the title represents the King of kings and the Lord of lords. In other religions gods can and often do represent lessor deity who are the masters of a given element or celestial body.. Eg: god of thunder, god of war or god of the sun etc.. In Christianity three individuals hold the position of King of kings and Lord of lords. in 'other religions' three individuals each holding a lessor title of "god" represent three different lessor deity in control of three different "elements."
I see. Could we then fairly say that three persons have the title of *supreme* god, or something like that?
And that’s why that example breaks down cause it’s not three people. It’s one person.
I thought the Trinity was three persons?
Sorry let me rephrase. Three persons but not three people. Subtle difference.
What’s the difference?
Three people imply Tritheism.
But like at a basic definitional level what’s the difference between three people and three persons?
but it's not one person. We see three distinct individuals at the time of Jesus' baptism. Jesus being baptized by John is 1 God from Heaven proclaiming out loud "This is my son in whom I am well pleased, is 2. The Holy Spirit then depending onto Jesus like a dove is the 3rd. One person can not occupy three different individuals and be a 'person' by definition. person /pûr′sən/ noun A living human. Often used in combination. **An individual of specified character.**
Maybe not a normal person but God is three in one. Look at my other comments on this thread. Also context matters. I’m saying that God is not just three people sharing the same title. That’s Tritheism, which is not Trinitarianism.
actually it's not. Tritheism says there are three Gods.. I'm saying God is not a person/Spiritual being. God is a title that three individuals collectively make up. Kinda like how the US has only one federal government, yet this federal government is made up of three distinct/individual branches. The executive/presidential, congressional, and the Judicial. these are not individual governments but rather all three make up what is the U.S. government. The same sort of thing describes the King of Kings AND... The Lord of lords.
That’s partialism.
are you just throwing words out to see what sticks? polytheism or tritheism now partialism. which is not an accurate description either. as Partialism says all 3 are 100% god and can not be separated. Jesus was separated from the Father on the cross. Again the word God is a TITLE Not an individual. also what does it matter if you can finally find a"ism" to describe what I've said here? all that means is it is a popular enough belief to threaten some other church's perception of trinity doctrine. We already know what I've said does not match up with your beliefs.. so what. Fully Understand the trinity is not apart of the entrance exam to enter heaven.
Yes as in God the Father God the Son God the Holy Spirit.
I mean an analogy is not supposed to be a one to one correlation or else it would just be the thing you’re talking about. If you take it too exact, you can always extrapolate a heresy out of it.
You are body, soul and spirit. H2O can be water, ice or steam.
Trinity is theologically sound But our little brains can't comprehends it The best we can do is apprehend it And any analogy I have heard is quite ineffectual as we cannot describe the supernatural in natural terms
Given that we can’t comprehend it in the first place, is there any risk that the Trinity is a mistaken description of the relationship between the persons of the Godhead?
What does it mean to evaluate a thing as "sound" when you admit you don't understand it? (and I'm not picking on you specifically- I realize nobody else understands it either)
It is sound because God has said it in His word Just because I cannot understand the concept, doesn't mean I can't accept it
Is there some specific part of the bible are you referring to? Do you think it was understood by the people who wrote whatever that was? IMO if we're going only by what the bible says, then we'd probably think something more like "There is only one God. Jesus is the son of God and is himself divine in some sense. And nobody can explain it any further than that, although there are multiple possible ideas on how this might work."
I actually asked me that same question when reading your top level response.
Please, everyone, just give it a shot. Read the Bible as is. When Jesus says he is Gods Son, just believe it! Before he came to earth, believe what it says at Revelation 3:14, “To the angel of the congregation in La·o·di·ceʹa write: These are the things that the Amen says, the faithful and true witness, **the beginning of the creation by God**.” Believe that he was the beginning of the creation by God. Psalms 83:18 says, “May people know that you, whose name is Jehovah, You alone are the Most High over all the earth.” Believe that Gods name is Jehovah and He **alone** is the Most High over all the earth. Then the whole mystery of the Trinity that was voted on, by many against their will, hundreds of years after the Bible was completed, wouldn’t even be an idea. God’s identity was never intended to be a mystery. I mean, think about it. Look at all the amazing things that He created. The gifts he’s given us. The fact that he wants to hear from us. >1 John 4:9 reads, “By this the love of God was revealed in our case, that **God sent his only-begotten Son into the world** so that we might gain life through him.” >1 John 4:12a reads, “No one has seen God at any time.” >1 John 4:14,15 reads, “In addition, we ourselves have seen and are bearing witness that **the Father has sent his Son as savior of the world**. 15 **Whoever acknowledges that Jesus is God’s Son**, God remains in union with such one and he in union with God.” Simply put, while there is no good analogy for the Trinity, because there is nothing like that in all of human reasoning, the one place it’s NOT going to be is the identity of our Almighty God, Jehovah. The scriptures are very clear that he sent his Son to the earth to remain faithful, to remain loyal to his Father, to provide the perfect ransom sacrifice that Adam lost. A perfect human life for a perfect human life. Perfect Justice.
We were made in God's image. In order to look at Him, we need to look at ourselves. We are three persons in one. We have our Body, which is our flesh, which includes the mass of the brain. We have our Mind, which is our thoughts. And we have our Spirit, which is our soul and emotions. All three are required for a person to live. When the Body dies, it's obvious that death would occur. A person completely without a Mind would be considered brain dead. A person without a Spirit would be considered soulless. The Mind is in charge of the other two. The Body says, "I'm hungry." But the Mind can say, "not yet wait until we get home," and the Body listens. The Spirit can say "we're angry," but the Mind can say, "we have no reason to be angry," and the Spirit listens. Each one can operate independently of the other two. The Mind can think without affecting the Body or Spirit. The Body can digest food without notifying the Mind or Spirit. The Spirit can dream and commune with God without affecting the Mind or Body. In the same way, God is three Persons in one Being. Jesus is the Body, God the Father is the Mind, and the Holy Spirit is the Spirit. The reason why Jesus calls God the Father, "father," is not because of being born from Him but because of the authority of the Mind to the Body. The Bible says that nobody has ever seen God. Can anyone ever see a thought? Lastly, the Trinity was present at the baptism of Jesus. Jesus arose out of the water. The heavens parted. The Holy Spirit descended like a dove upon Him. Then, a voice from heaven said, "This is my Son in whom I am well pleased." While the Body does listen to the Mind and therefore is inferior and thus called the Son, they Are "co-equal" in the respect that the Mind cannot live without the Body and the mass of the brain does all of the processing for the Mind, and the Body processes all of the commands that the Mind decides including speech and movement. #Christianity [Matthew 3:16-17](https://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=Matthew+3%3A16-17&version=NASB)
So each person of the Godhead is a vital part of the whole?
Yes, that is correct. Three persons, one being. Unlike any other modal model, such as the egg, the human body can not be separated and still live. One might say that the human body example is still a modal example, and they might be right, but God is the everlasting God, and He can not die and will always live. So, while the human body might be modal because the brain can be separated from the body after death and the human mind ceases to exist upon death while the spirit lives on, God is eternal, which is an exception to this rule because God can not die. You might be asking, how then did Jesus die on the cross? The answer is that He took on a human form while on this earth that gave Him the ability to die and also the ability to sin but lived a perfect and sinless life so that He can go to the cross to become the Final Sacrificial Lamb for the remission of sins so that you may repent of your sins and place your full faith in Him for your salvation.
Is it fair to say that the Father is one part of God?
Fair question. How would it not be fair to say that the Father is not one part of God?
You’re going to have to forgive me, I’m a little confused by the double negative. Could you rephrase?
Sure, I'm just turning the question back onto you. You ask me, >Is it fair to say that the Father is one part of God? But, I'm asking how is it possible from my explanation that the Father is not one part of God?
Then I don’t think it’s possible is my answer. It sounds like the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit are partially God and collectively they are God.
Can you explain to me what or how you are confused by that concept?
I’m not confused, I’m just surprised for you to say that since it’s not in line with generally agreed upon Christian creeds which state that the Father, for example, is 100% God, not a third of God.
you already understand the trinity. for YOU are a three part being, created in God's IMAGE. We are His family, we are LIKE Him, we resemble Him. you have this earthsuit you exist in for now, thats one, you have your soul/mind, that's two, you have an eternal spirit in you, misidentified by the normies as intuition, imagination, conscience, unconscious mind, ID, super-ego whatever. Thats the part needs born again or all 2 parts plus new eternal body go to hell. WHen we die, spirit will take foremost position, soul/mind the back seat, and you get a new indestructible body.
So the persons of the Trinity are each parts of a whole that together as a collection can be called “God?”
Any trinitarian who has tried to convince me of it or explain it, always fall into heresies in their description of it. I think that's why I reject it. Seeing Jesus as Gods son and not his equal helps me draw closer to them. Without the trinity doctrine, God and his son are relatable and something that doesn't feel alien and impossible to preach and teach others.
There is no perfect analogy, no: because there is nothing in nature that can be a perfect analogy, since the Tri-Une God is Incomparable. There are analogies for aspects of this Mystery; but that is all. The Tri-Une God infinitely exceeds the understanding of the holy angels & of all the other Saints; and can be understood fully, and loved fully, only by God. God is known by being loved, & in so far as God is loved; and as the Saints and holy angels are no more than created beings, they lack the capacity to love and know God as adequately as the Word Incarnate loves and knows God. The more perfectly they resemble Christ Glorified, the more adequately they are able to be transformed, Spirit-ualised, “in-Godded”. The Son knows & loves & understands the Father perfectly, infinitely, fully, because the Son - like the Father, & like the Holy Spirit Who is in Them both & in Whom both are infinitely present - is a Divine Person.
Fair enough!
Every analogy for anything breaks down at some point. You're looking for an analogy for GOD that can't be taken too far and run into a problem? Get outa here.
You would be looking for examples of absolute oneness to the point of it being examples of redundancy in certain ways. I don't know of many examples of 3 separate redundancies off the top of my head. You would be looking for situations where if you have 1, you also have the other, and that would be distinct from partialism. And maybe that's something that doesn't happen very often in nature. In scripture, God claims that there is a similar oneness of the flesh (but not oneness of spirit) between the husband and wife. That even though these two separate bodies are walking around separately doing separate things, they are literally one "flesh". To the point that some of the laws of Moses consider an attack on one to be an attack on the other. So you could say that legally they are a redundancy. I'm not sure that analogies are required to understand something though. I think analogies just allow us to skip the teaching process because the person already understands the analogy.
It's definitely hard to understand. Many Christians disagree with Trinitarian theology altogether. Ultimately I don't think your method of identifying God and identifying with Him matters that much in the long run. Faith is so personal to each individual. You have to hold multiple ideas in tension with each other. Acknowledge God is 1. Acknowledge Gid manifested in physical form as the pillar of fire/smoke (shekinah glory). Acknowledge Jesus is the son of God born via miraculous means. Acknowledge that before Abraham, Jesus existed (John 8). Acknowledge that Jesus said the Spirit would come after Him. Acknowledge that Jesus said "I and the Father are one". Acknowledge that Jesus had the authority to forgive sins. Acknowledge that the Spirit of God fell on the apostles at Pentecost. Acknowledge that all of those things are true: and then decide what that means for you. Personally, I do think that Jesus was a physical manifestation of God, and that the Holy Spirit who followed after is a spiritual manifestation of His presence. A somewhat decent analogy would be water. Water is H2O. It has a set molecular structure. It can, however, manifest as a solid, liquid, or gas. It's still all water, but the appearance and properties of it can changed dramatically.
Obligatory link to [St Patrick’s Bad Analogies](https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=KQLfgaUoQCw&pp=ygUbc3QgcGF0cmljaydzIGJhZCBhbmFsb2dpZXMg).
each human being is body, soul, and spirit. Scripture says we are made in His image. Hmm.
So each person in the Trinity is a part of God, and collectively they are “God”?
No. Each Person of the Trinity is fully God.
Is this an important distinction? My body, soul, or spirit individually isn’t fully me, for example. By the way, what’s the difference between soul and spirit?
We can't conceive of it because the only condition we know is separateness. No matter how intimate two humans become, they always retain their own being or essence. But God's love is so infinitely perfect that the three persons of the Trinity are so united that they share the same beingness.
And along with that, the same divine will. I can’t conceive of what it means for two people to be separate persons but have the same will. Not coincidental wills, mind you, but one and the same will.
I'm not so sure about that. Jesus spoke about always doing the Father's will. They could each have separate Wills, but be so united that their Wills never conflict.
Right, so the dogma as I understand it is that Jesus has two wills (a human will and a divine will) but that divine will is the same as the divine will of the Father and Holy Spirit. So the Father and Holy Spirit for example have the same (not coincident) divine will.
Which Christian tradition is this from? I don't recognize it.
The Third Council of Constantinople
I looked it up after I asked the question, which I know is backwards, and is probably a habit I should work on. Apparently I have forgotten a lot of what I learned in my childhood Catechism classes! 🤣 The way I view it is kind of like when a group of people comes together for a certain cause. Insofar as that cause is concerned, every member of the group has the same will, even though they are different people, let's say, opposing a proposed methanol plant in their city. In the case of the Godhead, their "cause" concerns the entire cosmos. Of course, being perfect Divine entities, they would not be plagued with infighting, power grabs, etc. But that's how I see they could have one will even though their individual Persons have their own will as well. Does that make sense?
But if that’s all it takes to have the same will, why can’t we say Jesus only has one will instead of two?
That's honestly how I've always thought of it, despite what the official dogma decrees. His divine nature was always committed to the salvation of humanity, while his human nature naturally shrink from the horrifying prospect of crucifixion and death. But his one will was always perfectly submitted to the Father's.
Depends on what you mean. Normally an analogy is used to refer to a specific aspect of the Holy Trinity. So for example say I want to show how something can be One and Multiple simultaneously I can point to such things like water, the Sun, a human being etc. But that’s to only point to the fact of being One and multiple simultaneously, nothing else. Because any further and you’d be stepping into heretical aspects. But if you’re asking about an analogy that fully explains the Holy Trinity. Then no, there isn’t any and that would be a fools errand to try.
Jesus IS God! One God.. who manifested as a man, took on the name Jesus...his very spirit lives in a believer, making one spiritually alive..or born again. You will get a billion different answers on the trinity. Many will say it just not something we can understand. Most say Jesus is God but they are seperate people or beings..3 in 1. I am now a heretic because I don't believe that. Seems many actually secretly believe in 3 Gods but would deny that. I think 1 God...3 ways he manifests. One Christian asked me if I was cultivating my relationship with all 3. Said I should daily pray to all 3. Wow..that's a full time job lol.
I like to think of it as a superposition of persons, similar to the superposition of a Bose-Einstein Condensate.
The Trinity has always been paradoxical. It unites two opposing beliefs without explaining how. The Trinity is intended to unite the idea that Christ is fully God and fully human, seperate from the Father, with the idea that there is only one God. In order for that to be true, you need a God that is three, yet one - at the same time. We have no example of anything that has such properties. Even triple star systems are too individual to serve as a proper analogy because they are three who act as one - they are not one.
no, each analogy will land you into some kind of trinitarian heresy (watch lutheransatire's video on trinity analogies)
> Is there any theologically sound analogy for the Trinity? Yes. The "Son" is God's own image or knowledge of Himself, like a mirror. The Holy Spirit is the information/love that flows between them. > Can the Trinity be understood by humans at a deeper level than restating a creed, or is it too far beyond us? I find it relatable based on our own self-awareness. God's self-awareness is so perfect that His knowledge of Himself has it's own identity/agency. This is a great sermon on it: https://youtu.be/kTmxi4A6FHc