Not to say anyone’s individual understanding of the trinity is better than anyone else’s, but if the OP is asking about the Trinity as defined in the doctrine of most Christian churches, then it is certainly not three aspects of a single person or three parts of a single object or anything like that. The Trinity is in fact not like anything other than itself. That’s kind of the point.
It is three persons, one substance. God is the Father. God is the Son. God is the Holy Spirit. The Father is not the Son. The Son is not the Holy Spirit. The Holy Spirit is not the Father. If you think you understand that, you probably don’t.
The question addressed so far has been “What does the triune dogma mean, theologically?” There is also the questions of where the concept originated from, and why it is accepted by many Christian sects. I think some concept like the trinity is necessary to reconcile Jesus Christ being elevated to godhood in a monotheistic religion.
The idea of the trinity seems unnecessarily complicated until you release it came about as a way to reconcile the metaphysics of Judaism (Thou shalt have only one god) and the idea of an elevated Christ.
In Christian theology, Jesus was not elevated to godhood. He has existed as part of the triune godhead along with the Father and the Spirit for all eternity. “In the beginning was the Word. And the Word was with God. And the Word was God.” Christ is the Word.
One of my favorite theological writers, the late David Chilton said that if you can draw a picture of your concept of the Trinity, then your picture is heretical. (I know that my pic would be Jesus, an Older Man who resembles JC & a Woman, either matronly or spritely or both- Tritheist & maybe a wee bit LDS-ish.) He added that maybe M.C. Escher could come close but he’s still be cheating.
I’ll make my attempt at an analogy later- I gotta sleep now.
By elevated, I am not speaking him changing from mortal to god, I am referring to people believing he was divine. The concept Christianity hold of Jesus is not the same concept that Jews had of a Messiah. When you take a religion that says there is only one god, and then you add a second individual that is very god-like, you must come up with an explanation. The Catholic/Orthodox answer was the concept of the Trinity that is being discussed. Other Christian sects, old and new, have come with different answers.
My point is that this is not something that was ever explained in the scriptures, it was something that was reasoned out by religious people later to reconcile the issue that a divine Jesus Christ presents to a religion that can allow only one god.
And just to add to the discussion, from what I remember from my LDS upbringing, here is the how the Mormons deal with the Trinity:
Father, Son, and Holy Ghost are three separate individuals. The Holy Ghost is an unborn soul that chose to serve rather then becoming mortal. The Son was originally (pre-creation) just one of the multitude of souls but was chosen to be special* by having God as both spiritual Father (as all souls do) and physical father (making him unique). In Mormon theology Christ will rule over the souls of just this world in the next phase of creation, but God rules over all.
Thus God the Father is the only God and Jesus was not a God, but a mortal given some of God’s essence on earth.
Note: It has been many years since I really studied any of that and I may only remember a child’s understanding of Mormon beliefs.
Jonathan
*The reason given to me as to why he was chosen was that he advocated for free will in opposition to Lucifer pre-creation.
Ok, so now we have these intricate analogies, like so many before.
Why is that Jesus never described himself as part of a Trinity, and why are there quite literally hundreds of texts in the OT and NT that conflict, contradict and refute the Trinity Doctrine?
“If” God is existence then Yes, and so are you, A poor anology but if the ocean is made of water drops then yes, Ocean would be made up of water drops or It’s molecules. A drop of water is still water even if it were no longer in the ocean.
“If” God is existence then Yes, and so are you, A poor anology but if the ocean is made of water drops then yes, Ocean would be made up of water drops or It’s molecules. A drop of water is still water even if it were no longer in the ocean.
Jesus specifically says on many occasions that he is of one nature with God the Father. “Whoever has seen the me has seen the Father” and so forth. He also makes many references to the Holy Spirit, specifically saying that “I will be with you”, by which he means that the Holy Spirit will be with us. So He did claim to be one with the Holy Spirit.
As for the hundreds of texts in both testaments that conflict, contradict, or refute the Trinity Doctrine, I’m not aware of them. I’d have to know which ones you’re referring to before I can answer that.
Passages like those seem to support a Oneness view rather than a trinitarian view. The Trinitarian doctrine specifically denies that the father, son and holy spirit are identical. That makes it difficult to understand how the holy spirit’s being with someone can be the same as Christ himself being with that person, or how seeing Christ can be the same as seeing the Father.
I don’t mean to say this is a knock-down against the Trinity, I’m just pointing out that taking those two passages by themselves will tend to confuse people about the doctrine.
The expression of the Trinitarian Doctrine, at least in the Catholic Church and all major churches that I know of, is that God is “one nature” and “three persons”. This seems to be supported by Jesus, since he ascribes the same laws and the same desires to Himself and to God. Yet, he aslo gives different specifics. The Father is in Heaven while the Son is on earth. After Jesus ascends to Heaven, the Holy Spirit will be sent to earth.
But the doctrine holds that the three parts of the Holy Trinity are identical in nature. There differences arise from the way that they relate to each other. This is from the Catechism of the Catholic Church:
So what Jesus means when he says “Whoever has seen me has seen the Father”, is that whoever has experienced the message of Jesus Christ has experienced the Father.
As it happens, there have been a lot more attempts in history to deny that the three are one, than to deny that the one is three, which explains why the church typically puts more emphasis on the ‘togetherness’ aspect than the ‘apartness’ aspect.
Which, in light of what you quoted from ITR, could be interpreted to mean, “You realize, don’t you, that when you call me good, you’re calling me God.”
