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[Serious] The Trinity
#21
RE: The Trinity
Correct; depending on what one means by that. For example, the identify of the whole atom is embodied in the number of protons (12 Protons = Carbon).
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#22
RE: The Trinity
That does help with the visualization part of trying to work out the concept of it. So at least it's not floating around in my head as "there's three guys but just one but they're different but all the same guy" kind of mess I was trying to define before. So, thank you, @John 6IX Breezy . And I agree, that nitty gritty of categorizing it does bring up trouble but only so far as defining terms we can all agree on.

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#23
RE: The Trinity
(January 16, 2021 at 10:36 pm)John 6IX Breezy Wrote: Correct; depending on what one means by that. For example, the identify of the whole atom is embodied in the number of protons (12 Protons = Carbon).

Can we still say then that the atom-particle example is a good way to explain/illustrate the Trinity?

What's your view on the following? Agree or disagree?

Quote:Each Person is fully God. If God is three Persons, does this mean that each Person is “one third” of God? Does the Trinity mean that God is divided into three parts?

The doctrine of the Trinity does not divide God into three parts. The Bible is clear that all three Persons are each one-hundred-percent God. The Father, Son, and Holy Spirit are each fully God. For example, Colossians 2:9 says of Christ, “in him all the fullness of deity dwells in bodily form.” We should not think of God as a “pie” cut into three pieces, each piece representing a Person. This would make each Person less than fully God and thus not God at all. Rather, “the being of each Person is equal to the whole being of God” (Grudem, Systematic Theology, 1994, page 255). The divine essence is not something that is divided between the three persons, but is fully in all three persons without being divided into “parts.”

Thus, the Son is not one-third of the being of God; he is all of the being of God. The Father is not one-third of the being of God; he is all of the being of God. And likewise with the Holy Spirit. Thus, as Wayne Grudem writes, “When we speak of the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit together we are not speaking of any greater being than when we speak of the Father alone, the Son alone, or the Holy Spirit alone” (Ibid., 252).

https://www.desiringgod.org/articles/wha...he-trinity
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#24
RE: The Trinity
(January 15, 2021 at 1:11 pm)Five Wrote: I'd like the human interaction and to be able to ask questions. 

For Christians, calling God the "Father" is an analogy. Like a lot of theological terms, it's expressed by analogy to things we're familiar with, since the case of God is absolutely unique. 

God is the Father because the existence of everything in the universe depends on him being prior. Just as the existence of all children depends on the prior existence of a father. The analogy ends pretty quickly, since in the case of human fathers the priority is different. Human fathers are only temporally prior, meaning that if they die the children can go on existing. God is essentially prior, meaning that if God stopped everything else would stop too. But he's called the father because he is that which is necessary for his dependents to exist. 

(Note that this doesn't say that God is an object which exists, like a human father. God is the Ground of Being, existence itself, not an additional thing that exists. So that's another way in which the analogy is limited.) 

"Son" of course is also analogous. The second person of the Trinity is the Logos, which is often translated as "word" but is more closely related to the older Greek meaning of the term. It's the full set of logic and principles by which the world operates. As you can see, you can't have existence (the Father) separate from the principles by which existence operates (the Son). Stuff exists, and the principles exist simultaneously with it. So the fact that 2+2=4 logically, unchangeably just is, whether we want it to or not, depends on Logos, which is the Son. 

The part that can't be explained logically, only by a miracle which Christians accept on faith, is that the Logos could undergo kenosis and manifest itself as a human person for 33 years. The idea here is that Jesus, as an embodied person, acted fully in accord with the principles of the universe. Unlike every other embodied person, who is fallible, every choice Jesus made was exactly the correct choice, in accord with how the universe runs. 

Sometimes Christians speak of the Holy Spirit as a sort of disembodied thing like a ghost or demon, which can fly around and enter into a person's soul. Other times they speak of it as a kind of force or power. Both are analogies. Either way, the Spirit is the way in which the Father and the Logos affect living people. Only Jesus, as a person, was fully Logos. The rest of us may or may not be in accord with the principles of things and how we ought to act. 

It may be useful to think of the Holy Spirit analogously to "school spirit" or something like that. "We strive to act in the spirit of Dr. King." This is not being haunted by a ghost, but having the wisdom to act according to the principles of the model. So when the Holy Spirit was said to enter into the disciples at Pentecost, we could say in modern language that the disciples entered into the spirit of God. They got into the spirit of the thing. 

The thing, the principles by which it operates, and the spirit of the thing, can't exist separately. And since they are not material objects with extension and location, we can't talk about them being separated and isolated from one another. They are more like ideal objects -- like numbers, for example, or the rules of logic -- which are everywhere and eternal without being physical. 

You just recently shouted that apologetics is all lies, so I wonder if you're really interested in this discussion.
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#25
RE: The Trinity
It's unclear why a discussion on the trinity has to go to apologetics in the first place. Trinitarian beliefs were a compromise that proto christian authorities made in order to build a great enough mass of believers to effect government policy in the roman state.

It never had to be logically arrived at, was not logically arrived at, and is maintained to be impossible to logically arrive at. It was declared to be a mystery of the faith for the convenience of the mob. Asserted to be true but unknowable by man outside of divine revelation.
I am the Infantry. I am my country’s strength in war, her deterrent in peace. I am the heart of the fight… wherever, whenever. I carry America’s faith and honor against her enemies. I am the Queen of Battle. I am what my country expects me to be, the best trained Soldier in the world. In the race for victory, I am swift, determined, and courageous, armed with a fierce will to win. Never will I fail my country’s trust. Always I fight on…through the foe, to the objective, to triumph overall. If necessary, I will fight to my death. By my steadfast courage, I have won more than 200 years of freedom. I yield not to weakness, to hunger, to cowardice, to fatigue, to superior odds, For I am mentally tough, physically strong, and morally straight. I forsake not, my country, my mission, my comrades, my sacred duty. I am relentless. I am always there, now and forever. I AM THE INFANTRY! FOLLOW ME!
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#26
RE: The Trinity
The early Christians DID view the Holy Spirit as a thing that manifests itself in people. Imagine a state of mind -- fear, hatred, lust. These are all non-holy states of your spirit. They might be demonic or devilish influences. If you are thinking of Godly things (and you are saved), then you are in communion with the Holy Spirit.

For modern Pentecostals, this Spirit literally tells you things, and can be prayed too directly spirit-to-spirit by praying in tongues (without your sinful mind getting in the way).
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#27
RE: The Trinity
(January 18, 2021 at 7:34 pm)HappySkeptic Wrote: Imagine a state of mind

Yes, this is what I was thinking.
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#28
RE: The Trinity
(January 18, 2021 at 7:21 pm)Belacqua Wrote: The thing, the principles by which it operates, and the spirit of the thing, can't exist separately. And since they are not material objects with extension and location, we can't talk about them being separated and isolated from one another. They are more like ideal objects -- like numbers, for example, or the rules of logic -- which are everywhere and eternal without being physical. 

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.

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.
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#29
RE: The Trinity
@Belacqua I thank you for the depth of explanation and I did find this useful to further conceptualize the ideas we're talking about. Like how Christ was fully logical. I've never heard it framed that way before. Nor have I heard the Holy Ghost described as anything other than a member of the godhead. So, it helps break it down for me but now, the language no longer resembles what I hear from Christians when describing it. But I guess in order to explain it, the language sort of has to change what we're referring to in order to make it fit.

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#30
RE: The Trinity
(January 18, 2021 at 8:37 pm)Grandizer Wrote: 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.

Quote: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.

(January 18, 2021 at 9:24 pm)Five Wrote: @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.
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