[Serious] The Trinity

[Belacqua]

This seems to be treating the Persons of God as if they're [infinite] components of the [infinite] whole, like how body and spirit are components of a human being, rather than each being God.

Yes, this is the weak point in my understanding. I don't honestly know why the three are referred to as "persons" rather than as aspects or roles or something like that. Other than saying that a person is a "who" rather than a "what," I don't understand it.

This also raises the question for me as to why three and not more? Why not, say, have the Good be the fourth Person of God and therefore have something beyond just the Trinity? But that's probably another discussion.

I'll take a guess on this one. 

I think it's because many of the terms are different names for the same thing. So God is Being, which is one name for him. He's also the Good, which is another name for the same thing. (How all of these things end up being only one big thing in the end is also a big discussion.) 

Or strictly speaking, to differentiate terms like "good" from what we think of as their meaning in this world, Dionysius uses the term "over-good," "over-being," etc. 

I suspect that the reason human beings need these different terms is just good old Neoplatonic limited perception. Since we are embodied and live in division, whereas God is one, we are not currently able to see all the different names as being the single thing they are. So while the trinity is three-in-one, the names are many, yet merely different labels for the same thing.

Or I may be wrong.

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@Belacqua I thank you for the depth of explanation

It's my pleasure! Thank you for your kind reply! 

You're right that most Christians don't do a very good job of explaining this, I think. There is a sort of rank-and-file Christianity which seems to be satisfied with very fuzzy ideas. These days it takes some effort to work out the serious careful theology, which has been so important to smart people over the centuries.