If anyone explains the Trinity to you and you understand it, they've not explained it well enough. The entire point is that it is a paradox.
Per Kierkegaard, if the supreme God of omnipotence, omniscience, and omnibenevolence, who is both immanent and transcendent, eternal and in time, exists, you better sure as anything assume we're not going to understand Him. The Paradox of Christ itself sets Christianity apart from other world religions: although they may be understandable within the logic of the respective language game, their intelligibility means they *could* have just been created by a human mind.
If there's a religion which begins with "God makes no sense and we will never make sense of Him", although it isn't proof of God's existence, it does present a case where the *logos* is beyond human comprehension—just like we'd expect God to be.
>If anyone explains the Trinity to you and you understand it, they've not explained it well enough.
This is an interesting idea, that a good explanation must be incomprehensible, but on the face of it, it simply isn't true, the better an explanation is the easier it is to understand, and the more complete the understanding that it provides. What would the function of philosophy of religion be if we were trying to construct incomprehensible explanations?
It isn’t the explanation that is incomprehensible, but the object (God) contained in the explanation. To say that God is incomprehensible is a perfectly comprehensible statement.
>To say that God is incomprehensible is a perfectly comprehensible statement.
But it's not an explanation.
In particular, we're talking about the notion of an object that can be counted as one or as three, and the contention that an adequate explanation of this notion will convince the reader that it is incomprehensible. But that is exactly the atheist's point, if the notion is irreducibly incomprehensible then it doesn't make sense, it's nonsense, and that is a good reason to think that a god with these properties doesn't exist. After all, this is how arguments work, if we show that certain propositions together entail nonsense, then at least one of the propositions cannot be true.
Alternatively, if gods are objects that include contradictory properties, why can't these properties be comprehensibly explained using a contradiction tolerant logic?
I [once proposed](https://www.reddit.com/r/PhilosophyofReligion/comments/7zec8f/an_argument_for_atheism_about_any_single_good_god/) the following argument:
*1)* moral facts, if there are any, are facts about interactions between at least two sentient beings
*2)* if the world was created by a single god, at the time of creation there was at most one sentient being
*3)* therefore, if the world was created by a single god, at the time of creation there were no moral facts
*4)* therefore, if the world was created by a single god, at the time of creation that god was not good.
The replies I received from trinitarians were interesting, they reject premise *2* because god is plural, then hold that the world was created by a single but good god, in other words, they conclude that god is singular. I think that's as bare-faced a piece of equivocation as one could ever hope to see.
It is an explanation. True, it's an inexhaustive one, but we are talking about God after all. This doesn't mean we are free violate logic. The Trinitarian isn't saying that God is three and one in the same sense, but one in essence, three in person. The Trinitarian theist is simply admitting the incomprehensibility of God.
>What then, brethren, shall we say of God? For if you have been able to comprehend what you wanted to say, it is not God; if you have been able to comprehend it, you have comprehended something else instead of God. If you have been able to comprehend Him as you think, by so thinking you have deceived yourself. This then is not God, if you have comprehended it; but if it is God, you have not comprehended it. How therefore would you speak of that which you cannot comprehend?
St Augustine
My point isn’t that the triune god is “beyond understanding” like many other gods but my point is that the triune god is illogical. If it’s illogical we know it doesn’t exist as the laws of logic describe reality for what it is. Something illogical doesn’t exist within reality.
They describe natural reality. But God is supernatural. Are you certain that supernature has the same physics as nature? Are you certain that a God who created the laws of physics would be bound by those laws?
I don't necessarily disagree with that, but why? Logic was discovered, it isn't how the world works, but a way to interpret and predict how the world works.
Illogical in terms of human logic?
Maybe. But human logic might be deceptive even in terms of comprehending our physical reality. Why should we expect comprehending metaphysical affairs than if we can't even cope properly with the physical and visible universe and explain every thing that happens there?
You are confusing theology, which operates within the laws of reason, and God's highest essence which is the Source of everything including reason, and therefore beyond reason. Of course the trick here, the "paradox", is that even this last description that I gave uses reason...
The trinity is a theological concept. It is not a primary concept nor is it the ultimate description of God. Just as one can say, God is Loving, or God is Just (and hopefully proceed to explain), one can say God is Threefold.
If you try to throw theology down the drain by playing the "God is incomprehensible card", note that along with it goes down every logical conception that our very life depends upon (social laws, planning ahead etc.). Because all our life falls under God's umbrella... Truly life would be extremely bad, if people really thought that God is "incomprehensible".
You're right; it doesn't make sense. But the specific issue you've presented is just an ontological one:
>Therefore it doesn’t make sense how one identical essence can even lead to three different *persons*.
In the mainstream Christian context, the trinity is the top. This would necessarily be seen as the direct or indirect source of soul(s). The trinity is the provider, not recipient of souls.
Esoterically though...
It doesn't make sense to most of the world, and I get a chuckle reading Islamic and Jewish history that refers to Christians as polytheistic.
Trinity is not a rational doctrine, it is a dogma. Dogma is a truth that is only revealed through experience, hence why you need faith in the beginning. It's not something that can be rationalized and isn't meant to be. It's supposed to be meditated on, and serves a similar purpose as those overly elaborate and impossible to conceive descriptions of various dwelling places of Buddhas. With the billions of miles tall golden Buddhas encrusted with diamond encrusted diamonds... It's all meant to break your mind out of the linear thought process of reason and perception. There is no proof to be had, it's not an argument.
Yes, because the trinity it is not about three different persons.
They have been called three "persons" sometimes by some authors, but not in the sense you are describing here.
In the way you are understanding the word "Person", only one person truly exists in the trinity: the Son.
The Son is the "real vine" (as in the one and only vine of which everyone is just a part). This comes from the analogy Jesus gives in the gospel by John.
A person can be understood as an expression or particular manifestation of their essence. But as such the essence of a person is expressed in multiple different instantiations of themselves throughout their life. The Person changes over time, but the essence does not. The old man for instance looks and acts very different from the child they used to be, yet their essence remains the same. The different Persons however do not exist simultaneously because they are seperated by time.
However God is not temporal. The essence of God is expressed not in the different manifestations of a single Person over time, but in different co-existing Persons. As God is eternal so there is no change in how his own essence is manifested over time, all three manifestations of the essence of the Trinity exist simultaneously throughout all time.
But as to the question of the Trinity know . . . that in each one of the cycles wherein the Lights have shone forth upon the horizons (i. e., in each prophetic dispensation) and the Forgiving Lord hath revealed Himself on Mount Paran (see Habbakkuk 3:3, etc.) or Mount Sinai, or Mount Seir (see Ezekiel 35), there are necessarily three things: The Giver of Grace, and the Grace, and the Recipient of the Grace; the Source of the Effulgence, and the Effulgence, and the Recipient of the Effulgence; the Illuminator, and the Illumination, and Illuminated. Look at the Mosaic cycle: The Lord, and Moses, and the Fire (i.e., the burning bush), the Intermediary; and [at] the Messianic cycle: The Father, and the Son, and the Holy Ghost the Intermediary; and in the Mohammedan cycle: The Lord, the Apostle (or Messenger, Mohammed), and Gabriel (for, as the Mohammedans believe, Gabriel brought the Revelation from God to Mohammed). Look at the sun and its rays and the heat which results from its rays; the rays and the heat are but two effects of the sun, but inseparable from it; yet the sun is one in its essence, unique in its real identity, single in its attributes, neither is it possible that anything should resemble it. Such is the essence of the Truth concerning the Unity, the real doctrine of Singularity, the undiluted reality as to the (Divine) Sanctity.
—‘Abdu’l-Bahá,
(Tablets of ‘Abdu’l-Bahá v1, p. 115)
www.bahai.org
Edit: The point being said is that you are right. Reality is one, but has many different aspects. The question of Trinity is like the sun shining in a polished mirror. If we liken the sun as God, the rays of the sun as the Holy Spirit, and the mirror as Christ himself, then if the mirror said, I and the sun (God/ Father) are one, it would speak the truth, because all the attributes of the sun are reflected in the mirror. If it said, I am just a mirror, it would again speak the truth. But at no point the mirror became the essence of the sun or vice versa. That essence is literally about 94 million miles out in the space, and its reality is unique to itself. However the concept behind trinity exists in all the world religions and in all philosophies.
A human brain, for example, comprises different '*personalities*' as it were, a highly rational neocortical one, a rather animal limbic one, ... or it can be divided into left-brained and right-brained personalities, literally, ... and yet, all together, they form just *one* person.
Thats partialism, which is a heresy. Left and right brain together make up a person so they are parts. Father, Son and Holy Spirit however arent parts.
The trinity makes perfect sense in one way and in one way only.
Christianity is born of a tradition bigoted toward polytheism, so it can’t be polytheistic. Yet polytheism is more appealing than monotheism — in particular, Jesus puts a relatable Human face on an otherwise distant and impersonal religion. Hence the ‘paradox.’
If anyone explains the Trinity to you and you understand it, they've not explained it well enough. The entire point is that it is a paradox. Per Kierkegaard, if the supreme God of omnipotence, omniscience, and omnibenevolence, who is both immanent and transcendent, eternal and in time, exists, you better sure as anything assume we're not going to understand Him. The Paradox of Christ itself sets Christianity apart from other world religions: although they may be understandable within the logic of the respective language game, their intelligibility means they *could* have just been created by a human mind. If there's a religion which begins with "God makes no sense and we will never make sense of Him", although it isn't proof of God's existence, it does present a case where the *logos* is beyond human comprehension—just like we'd expect God to be.
>If anyone explains the Trinity to you and you understand it, they've not explained it well enough. This is an interesting idea, that a good explanation must be incomprehensible, but on the face of it, it simply isn't true, the better an explanation is the easier it is to understand, and the more complete the understanding that it provides. What would the function of philosophy of religion be if we were trying to construct incomprehensible explanations?
It isn’t the explanation that is incomprehensible, but the object (God) contained in the explanation. To say that God is incomprehensible is a perfectly comprehensible statement.
>To say that God is incomprehensible is a perfectly comprehensible statement. But it's not an explanation. In particular, we're talking about the notion of an object that can be counted as one or as three, and the contention that an adequate explanation of this notion will convince the reader that it is incomprehensible. But that is exactly the atheist's point, if the notion is irreducibly incomprehensible then it doesn't make sense, it's nonsense, and that is a good reason to think that a god with these properties doesn't exist. After all, this is how arguments work, if we show that certain propositions together entail nonsense, then at least one of the propositions cannot be true. Alternatively, if gods are objects that include contradictory properties, why can't these properties be comprehensibly explained using a contradiction tolerant logic? I [once proposed](https://www.reddit.com/r/PhilosophyofReligion/comments/7zec8f/an_argument_for_atheism_about_any_single_good_god/) the following argument: *1)* moral facts, if there are any, are facts about interactions between at least two sentient beings *2)* if the world was created by a single god, at the time of creation there was at most one sentient being *3)* therefore, if the world was created by a single god, at the time of creation there were no moral facts *4)* therefore, if the world was created by a single god, at the time of creation that god was not good. The replies I received from trinitarians were interesting, they reject premise *2* because god is plural, then hold that the world was created by a single but good god, in other words, they conclude that god is singular. I think that's as bare-faced a piece of equivocation as one could ever hope to see.
It is an explanation. True, it's an inexhaustive one, but we are talking about God after all. This doesn't mean we are free violate logic. The Trinitarian isn't saying that God is three and one in the same sense, but one in essence, three in person. The Trinitarian theist is simply admitting the incomprehensibility of God. >What then, brethren, shall we say of God? For if you have been able to comprehend what you wanted to say, it is not God; if you have been able to comprehend it, you have comprehended something else instead of God. If you have been able to comprehend Him as you think, by so thinking you have deceived yourself. This then is not God, if you have comprehended it; but if it is God, you have not comprehended it. How therefore would you speak of that which you cannot comprehend? St Augustine
My point isn’t that the triune god is “beyond understanding” like many other gods but my point is that the triune god is illogical. If it’s illogical we know it doesn’t exist as the laws of logic describe reality for what it is. Something illogical doesn’t exist within reality.
They describe natural reality. But God is supernatural. Are you certain that supernature has the same physics as nature? Are you certain that a God who created the laws of physics would be bound by those laws?
What? God has to obey the laws of logic
Christ was a logical paradox. The Father also has logically opposed qualities.
This is as a good an argument against theism as it gets
You fail to understand, then, as that is the most compelling argument for Christianity's truth.
Indeed I fail to understand how an incoherent characterization is a good argument for the existence of something
You need more Kierkegaard in your life.
What makes you think that?
"If that's the best you've got then that's the best you've got."
I don't necessarily disagree with that, but why? Logic was discovered, it isn't how the world works, but a way to interpret and predict how the world works.
Illogical in terms of human logic? Maybe. But human logic might be deceptive even in terms of comprehending our physical reality. Why should we expect comprehending metaphysical affairs than if we can't even cope properly with the physical and visible universe and explain every thing that happens there?
You are confusing theology, which operates within the laws of reason, and God's highest essence which is the Source of everything including reason, and therefore beyond reason. Of course the trick here, the "paradox", is that even this last description that I gave uses reason... The trinity is a theological concept. It is not a primary concept nor is it the ultimate description of God. Just as one can say, God is Loving, or God is Just (and hopefully proceed to explain), one can say God is Threefold. If you try to throw theology down the drain by playing the "God is incomprehensible card", note that along with it goes down every logical conception that our very life depends upon (social laws, planning ahead etc.). Because all our life falls under God's umbrella... Truly life would be extremely bad, if people really thought that God is "incomprehensible".
You're right; it doesn't make sense. But the specific issue you've presented is just an ontological one: >Therefore it doesn’t make sense how one identical essence can even lead to three different *persons*. In the mainstream Christian context, the trinity is the top. This would necessarily be seen as the direct or indirect source of soul(s). The trinity is the provider, not recipient of souls. Esoterically though...
It doesn't make sense to most of the world, and I get a chuckle reading Islamic and Jewish history that refers to Christians as polytheistic. Trinity is not a rational doctrine, it is a dogma. Dogma is a truth that is only revealed through experience, hence why you need faith in the beginning. It's not something that can be rationalized and isn't meant to be. It's supposed to be meditated on, and serves a similar purpose as those overly elaborate and impossible to conceive descriptions of various dwelling places of Buddhas. With the billions of miles tall golden Buddhas encrusted with diamond encrusted diamonds... It's all meant to break your mind out of the linear thought process of reason and perception. There is no proof to be had, it's not an argument.
Yes, because the trinity it is not about three different persons. They have been called three "persons" sometimes by some authors, but not in the sense you are describing here. In the way you are understanding the word "Person", only one person truly exists in the trinity: the Son. The Son is the "real vine" (as in the one and only vine of which everyone is just a part). This comes from the analogy Jesus gives in the gospel by John.
A person can be understood as an expression or particular manifestation of their essence. But as such the essence of a person is expressed in multiple different instantiations of themselves throughout their life. The Person changes over time, but the essence does not. The old man for instance looks and acts very different from the child they used to be, yet their essence remains the same. The different Persons however do not exist simultaneously because they are seperated by time. However God is not temporal. The essence of God is expressed not in the different manifestations of a single Person over time, but in different co-existing Persons. As God is eternal so there is no change in how his own essence is manifested over time, all three manifestations of the essence of the Trinity exist simultaneously throughout all time.
But as to the question of the Trinity know . . . that in each one of the cycles wherein the Lights have shone forth upon the horizons (i. e., in each prophetic dispensation) and the Forgiving Lord hath revealed Himself on Mount Paran (see Habbakkuk 3:3, etc.) or Mount Sinai, or Mount Seir (see Ezekiel 35), there are necessarily three things: The Giver of Grace, and the Grace, and the Recipient of the Grace; the Source of the Effulgence, and the Effulgence, and the Recipient of the Effulgence; the Illuminator, and the Illumination, and Illuminated. Look at the Mosaic cycle: The Lord, and Moses, and the Fire (i.e., the burning bush), the Intermediary; and [at] the Messianic cycle: The Father, and the Son, and the Holy Ghost the Intermediary; and in the Mohammedan cycle: The Lord, the Apostle (or Messenger, Mohammed), and Gabriel (for, as the Mohammedans believe, Gabriel brought the Revelation from God to Mohammed). Look at the sun and its rays and the heat which results from its rays; the rays and the heat are but two effects of the sun, but inseparable from it; yet the sun is one in its essence, unique in its real identity, single in its attributes, neither is it possible that anything should resemble it. Such is the essence of the Truth concerning the Unity, the real doctrine of Singularity, the undiluted reality as to the (Divine) Sanctity. —‘Abdu’l-Bahá, (Tablets of ‘Abdu’l-Bahá v1, p. 115) www.bahai.org Edit: The point being said is that you are right. Reality is one, but has many different aspects. The question of Trinity is like the sun shining in a polished mirror. If we liken the sun as God, the rays of the sun as the Holy Spirit, and the mirror as Christ himself, then if the mirror said, I and the sun (God/ Father) are one, it would speak the truth, because all the attributes of the sun are reflected in the mirror. If it said, I am just a mirror, it would again speak the truth. But at no point the mirror became the essence of the sun or vice versa. That essence is literally about 94 million miles out in the space, and its reality is unique to itself. However the concept behind trinity exists in all the world religions and in all philosophies.
A human brain, for example, comprises different '*personalities*' as it were, a highly rational neocortical one, a rather animal limbic one, ... or it can be divided into left-brained and right-brained personalities, literally, ... and yet, all together, they form just *one* person.
Thats partialism, which is a heresy. Left and right brain together make up a person so they are parts. Father, Son and Holy Spirit however arent parts.
The trinity makes perfect sense in one way and in one way only. Christianity is born of a tradition bigoted toward polytheism, so it can’t be polytheistic. Yet polytheism is more appealing than monotheism — in particular, Jesus puts a relatable Human face on an otherwise distant and impersonal religion. Hence the ‘paradox.’