The Trinity of Christianity

[Chronicles]

I saw an interpretation, and thought I would throw it in here for discussion...

Is the following a proper appraisal of the Trinity of Christianity?

There are Three Persons in the Godhead or Trinity.
These three, the Father, the Son, and the Holy Ghost, form the eternal Godhead. They are not one person, as erroneously declared by modern Christian churches, but are separate and distinct substances, though one in mind and power and dominion. Jesus of Nazareth, as the Son of God, was a personality as distinct from the personality of the eternal Father as is that of any earthly son from his father. The Holy Spirit, though proceeding from both the Father and the Son, is not either of them, but has an identity of his own. It is true that Jesus said, "I and my Father are one." (John x:30.) But he also said, "My Father is greater than I." (John xiv:28.)

That the unity of the Godhead is not oneness in person is made very clear in the account of the baptism of Jesus Christ; the Son on that occasion coming up out of the waters of Jordan, the Holy Spirit descending upon him in the form of a dove, and the voice of the Father from heaven proclaiming, "This is my beloved Son, in whom I am well pleased." (Matt. iii:16-17.)

Jesus said, "I came forth from the Father, and am come into the world." Again, "I leave the world and go to the Father." (John xvi:28.) He also prayed the Father, and in the prayer recorded by John explained in unmistakable language what he meant when he declared, "I and my Father are one."

After praying for his apostles, he said: "Neither pray I for these alone, but for them also which shall believe on me through their words, that they all may be one, as thou, Father, art in me, and I in thee, that they also may be one in us. That the world may believe that thou hast sent me." (John xvii:20, 21.)

Concerning the Holy Spirit he said: "Nevertheless I tell you the truth; It is expedient for you that I go away: for if I go not away, the Comforter (Holy Ghost) will not come unto you; but if I depart, I will send him unto you." (Chap. xvi:7.)

Many more of the sayings of the Savior might be adduced, but these are sufficient to show the distinct personality of each of the three that form the Godhead, while they are in perfect unity of mind and purpose and action. If they were one substance, as taught in modern Christendom, then all who believe on them, in all ages, are to be made also one substance, thus losing their identity and becoming one vast, incomprehensible and inconceivable finality.

 

[Zazen]

well

it sounds like whomever made the interpretation is trying to understand god intellectualy, which is to say by means of understanding on a mundane level, which is impossible because to understand god you have to transcend this mundane reality

its only logical right? that to understand something that is beyond our logic you would have to transcend the thought process to something like..intuitive understanding

amitabha

 

[JJM]

I believe that God, that is the father, doesn’t leave heaven because there is no time In heaven. That I don’t pretend to understand. How can we in a world that is completely controlled by time. I don’t agree that they are not one person I believe that Jesus is a human with the soul and understanding of God. But while God at the time may have been greater than him it was because he had at the time a human side and all of the weaknesses that come along with it. When Jesus died and returned to heaven weather or not he a God staid separate entity or if their souls returned in unity it doesn’t change that they are very much the same person. I think that because God doesn’t leave heaven The Holy spirit is his way of communicating and giving emotional strength and happiness to people. I also think that is in fact the same person just with different responsibilities.

_______________________________________
I am the wisest man alive, for I know one thing, and that is that I know nothing.
Socrates

 

[sjr]

That sounds alot like the The Church of Jesus Christ of L.D.S interpretation of the godhead.Willing to bet on it.Kashmir Sivaism has a similar one-everything has a triple nature.At the highest level, this trinity can be resumed to:God(Siva),sakti-Gods creative energy(Holly Ghost),and Anu-the individual(Jesus).

 

[iBrian]

That sounds alot like the The Church of Jesus Christ of L.D.S interpretation of the godhead.Willing to bet on it.

Spot on.

 

[Susma Rio Sep]

Trinity as Zen word puzzle

it sounds like whomever made the interpretation is trying to understand god intellectualy, which is to say by means of understanding on a mundane level, which is impossible because to understand god you have to transcend this mundane reality

its only logical right? that to understand something that is beyond our logic you would have to transcend the thought process to something like..intuitive understanding

amitabha

The Trinity is a Zen word puzzle like the one about the sound of one hand clapping or a forest of one tree or an irresistible force heading onto an immovable object.

The official line is that there is one substance but in three persons. Each person is that one substance but they three don't make three substances.

Here, from a modern Zen master: The Trinity, it’s the three is one and the one is three, and it’s a mysteree.

"its only logical right? that to understand something that is beyond our logic you would have to transcend the thought process to something like..intuitive understanding”; you mean, Zaren, that you must be brain-anesthetized?

By the way, Zaren, at least tell me where you picked up this line:

In nomine patrie,et fili et spiritu sancti..

For pastime I am searching its source in the WWW.

Love,

Susma Rio Sep

 

[Susma Rio Sep]

In nomine patrie,et fili et spiritu sancti".

Here, Zaren, I found it in the WWW with Google:

Google Search: "In nomine patrie,et fili et spiritu sancti".

Results 1 - 10 of about 72. Search took 0.12 seconds

(Hit locations follow... first ten...)

Well, I guess you want to make some kind of a statement with that peculiar phrasing. I won't begrudge you that privilege. So I will not any longer exercise my curiosity about it and its special effect you intend with it.

Susma Rio Sep

 

[enton]

I saw an interpretation, and thought I would throw it in here for discussion...

Is the following a proper appraisal of the Trinity of Christianity?

There is no such thing as trinity of christianity, lol. Or maybe, you are just talking about "trinity" in Roman Catholicism and other trinitarians.

What the Bible gives is this: There are three: God the Father, the Son of God or the Word of God and the Holy Spirit.

God the Father begot Christ Jesus and the Holy Spirit proceeded from the Father, not from Christ Jesus directly, though Jesus Christ sent him in the church.

 

[BlaznFattyz]

I believe that God, that is the father, doesn’t leave heaven because there is no time In heaven. That I don’t pretend to understand. How can we in a world that is completely controlled by time. I don’t agree that they are not one person I believe that Jesus is a human with the soul and understanding of God. But while God at the time may have been greater than him it was because he had at the time a human side and all of the weaknesses that come along with it. When Jesus died and returned to heaven weather or not he a God staid separate entity or if their souls returned in unity it doesn’t change that they are very much the same person. I think that because God doesn’t leave heaven The Holy spirit is his way of communicating and giving emotional strength and happiness to people. I also think that is in fact the same person just with different responsibilities.

_______________________________________
I am the wisest man alive, for I know one thing, and that is that I know nothing.
Socrates

very nice post.

 

[Saltmeister]

There is no such thing as trinity of christianity, lol. Or maybe, you are just talking about "trinity" in Roman Catholicism and other trinitarians.

What the Bible gives is this: There are three: God the Father, the Son of God or the Word of God and the Holy Spirit.

God the Father begot Christ Jesus and the Holy Spirit proceeded from the Father, not from Christ Jesus directly, though Jesus Christ sent him in the church.

Perhaps the Trinity is Christianity's version of the "optical illusion." Some see a Trinity. Other see something different. Yet it's still Christianity.

 

[Quahom1]

There is no such thing as trinity of christianity, lol. Or maybe, you are just talking about "trinity" in Roman Catholicism and other trinitarians.

What the Bible gives is this: There are three: God the Father, the Son of God or the Word of God and the Holy Spirit.

God the Father begot Christ Jesus and the Holy Spirit proceeded from the Father, not from Christ Jesus directly, though Jesus Christ sent him in the church.

Well, I do appreciate your opinion. Thank you for sharing.

v/r

Q

 

[enton]

Perhaps the Trinity is Christianity's version of the "optical illusion." Some see a Trinity. Other see something different. Yet it's still Christianity.

Let me clarify, they were three there: Moses, Elijah, Christ. But God the Father eliminated the two, thereby confirming the New Covenant, Moses being the Old Covenant, and Elijah the bridge of the old and the new.

Moses' and Elijah's appearances there were but just optical illusions.

 

[enton]

Well, I do appreciate your opinion. Thank you for sharing.

v/r

Q

Thanks be to YHWH. Actually, Q, that is what I have learned from our presiding ministers (Brother Eli Soriano and Brother Daniel Razon). They taught the brethren what the early christians learned and practised.

 

[AletheiaRivers]

They taught the brethren what the early christians learned and practised.

Which early Christians?

The Ebionites?

The Proto-orthodox?

The Gnostics?

The post-Nicene Christians?

 

[enton]

Which early Christians?

The Ebionites?

The Proto-orthodox?

The Gnostics?

The post-Nicene Christians?

The christians definitively described in the New Testament of the Holy Bible.

 

[Thomas]

The Trinity is only 'logical' (or otherwise) when one is outside, looking in.

In the same way 'love' is only logical (or otherwise), if one has never been in love.

When in love, or in the Trinity (which in essence is the same thing) one transcends logic.

Love needs a Subject (the one who loves) and an Object (that which is loved) and a medium of relation (love itself).

Simply put, Trinitarian Christianity holds that it is a mistake to assume that God did not love until He made something to love ... God did not make the world, and make 'love' to go along with it, nor make the world and suddenly realised that He never knew He could love, until He made it.

Trinitarians hold that God is Love, that the Subject loved before there was anything to love, therefore the nature of the subject is Love itself ... but here's a problem, how can love be a Divine Quality and not be? For if God is Love potentially, but not actively, then God is not perfect, in that He is not all that He can possibly be, then we must ask what prevents God from being all that He can be ... A thing cannot be all that it is and not be all that it is simultaneously (the First Proof of St Thomas Aquinas, following Aristotle) ... so as God is, love is ... and that love is God himself, whom was made known to us in the Incarnation of the Son, the knowing of God of Himself "All things are delivered to me of my Father" (Luke 10:22) and the Spirit is the Life of the Son in the Father, which is of the Son but not the Son, but everything the Son is; and the Spirit is the Life of the Father in the Son, which is of the Father but not the Father, but everything the Father is ... so the Spirit is not the Father and nor the Son, but is everything that the Father and the Son is...

And thus Father and Son and Spirit are Three, (subject, object, and relation) and One (activity), from all eternally ...

"Believest thou not that I am in the Father, and the Father in me? the words that I speak unto you I speak not of myself: but the Father that dwelleth in me, he doeth the works." (John 14:10)

Love is the medium that holds everything together (the law of attraction, which itself cannot be explained) ... when you are in love, you are in the medium, your being is suffused with it, the whole world is sparkles with it, in fact when you fall in love, the world is made anew ... and when in the Trinity, you are in the Source, you are with the Maker, witness to that eternal act of Creation.

But when we are in ourselves, love becomes mere utility.

Sorry, in lyricial mode again...

Thomas

 

[soma]

I also think the Christian symbol of the Trinity is used to bring us above reason to a nonlinear experience. It serves as an exit point from the physical world of parts to the interrelated multidimensional world of consciousness. It is not possible to govern at the same time all the diverse systems of the universe with only one component so Christians show God as a Trinity. God is represented as the Father, the Creator and the all-pervading consciousness from which everything comes forth. He is revealed in human life by the Son, the individual consciousness and is forever at work in nature through the Holy Ghost.

A chord of love.........3 different notes making one sound........love

 

[Thomas]

It is not possible to govern at the same time all the diverse systems of the universe with only one component so Christians show God as a Trinity.

We need to be careful here that we're not determining what God can and cannot do, nor that Christianity is 'inventing' a trinity, as it were, to explain something it anbnot make comprehensible otherwise - neither is the case.

God is represented as the Father, the Creator and the all-pervading consciousness from which everything comes forth. He is revealed in human life by the Son, the individual consciousness and is forever at work in nature through the Holy Ghost.

It's one representation but it's not quite how Christian theology sees it.

The risk is always in expressing the Trinity as primarily cosmological functions – the Trinity is above cosmology, and this is one of the things that sets it apart from all other triune godheads, which invariably express a cosmological principle.

Thomas

 

[soma]

God and the Trinity are beyond the mind so rationally we can only point to it and try to describe it. I think our descriptions of the Trinity are for our minds to answer questions so they will relax and let us have a spiritual experience.

In a composition we can say that the Father is the subject matter, the Holy Ghost is the action and the Son is the intent. The masterpiece is the unity of the Father, the Son and the Holy Ghost. This is the Holy Trinity, and upon deep inquiry, we see The Holy Trinity trying to make sense of non-duality. This is a logical problem because the mind in time and space only knows duality, but when we say God is everything, we are saying God is one.

 

[Thomas]

Hi Soma -

I'm not trying to nit-pick, by the way, but respond only because your argument could be construed to imply the Trinity is an abstract, an intellectual construct on the part of man, which is not the case.

God and the Trinity are beyond the mind so rationally we can only point to it and try to describe it.

But the Trinity is not beyond faith – we can know in the Trinity. The Trinity Itself is a disclosure made known through faith, not through the reasoning faculty.

This is the Holy Trinity, and upon deep inquiry, we see The Holy Trinity trying to make sense of non-duality.

Again, you seem to be pointing to man when you should be pointing at the Trinity, and at the Trinity when you should be pointing at man! The Trinity makes sense of duality indeed, but that is not the reason for the Trinity - any more than the sun is a necessity to explain the phenomena of light.

Christianity rejects monism and dualism - so in that sense a trinity is the only 'logical' resolution, but the trinity of human logic is a thin and pale shadow of the Trinity of Divine Revelation.

There are many structures we can liken it to - St Augustine spoke of the mind under the aspect of 'memory - intellect - will' as being trinitarian, or even an anthropology of 'body-soul-spirit' - but these are because of the Trinity, not the cause of the Trinity.

Thomas