please explain the Christian Holy Trinity

Factual Questions
21

Just realised I ought to calirfy further.

I am of the school of thought that a.)there is (most likely) a god (but we could be wrong), b.) A divine being that exists beyond our sensory world, is omnicient, etc., is inherently unknowable, c.) therefore, much of God’s nature is simply beyond our capability to comprehend, and we should not obscure the important lessons of our faith(s) by debating such matters.

I believe Jesus was a man, with supernatural traits. He was, physically, a male clone of Mary (having no paternal genetic information). He had no mortal soul, but was an aspect of god’s spiritual being. Upon death, he was “reborn” when he was allowed to visit Mary Magdalen, the Apostles, and so forth in the flesh. He was brought to Heaven, and became one with god once again, his body ceasing to exist as such. His original purpose was to set mankind on the right path, as God’s fire-and-brimstone methods before failed to save the Jews from earthly corruptions. Despite his knowledge of all factual matters, he could no more grasp our experience than we could truly understand what it is to be an ant. Jesus, in his death, gave God that. So God granted redemption and forgiveness to all mankind, not just the Jews, who had been his chosen people until then.

Please don’t misunderstand my statements as being anti-semitic. On the contrary, it is merely my belief that people of Jewish faith are just as flawed as the rest of humanity. Admirable for their long-standing cultural biases on education and firm morals, as well as their determination to hold onto their ways in the face of unimaginable adversity. But still flawed, and capable of sin and err like the rest of us.

22

Mein Gott did that turn into a rant. And I really need to start previewing my posts more consistently, if only to avoid multi-posting like this. :rolleyes:

But catching spelling mistakes like “calrify” would be nice as well. :smack:

23

When I look to the trinity, I contemplate yinyang. The opposites as a whole.

The father (the yang) , the son (the yin.) and their whole represented as dynamic Tao. Their combination: all things becoming and falling away as the spirit or holy ghost.

The Taichitu is the same expression of Jesus. The seperates as whole. If it is not too sacrilegious for your beliefs, I recommend its meditation and consideration.

24

Two analogies which, while not perfect, work for me-

Let’s posit an Eternal Fire- Fire by its nature puts forth light and heat. The Fire burns forever & produces light & heat forever. The Fire is the Father, the Light and Heat are the Son & the Spirit.

Now, how about an Eternal Mind- a fully functioning Mind has both intellect and emotion: the Mind- Father, the Intellect- Son, the Emotion- Spirit. The Mind is Eternal, thus also eternal are the Intellect & Emotion.

Granted, the failings in this are-
that the Son & the Spirit are not merely aspects or attributes of the Father,
nor does this do anything to clarify what role the Son has in processing the Spirit (a main issue between Eastern Orthodox & Western Catholic believers).

So let’s try one more-

Eternal God eternally knows and loves Godself. God’s eternal self-knowledge, God’s self-image, God’s “logos” is the Son. God’s eternal self-love, God’s passion, God’s “lifebreath” is the Spirit.

25

Let me follow up on Polycarp’s note. The point of “begotten”, in this context, is that

To this extent, the word “begotten” is useful. It differentiates the Son from created beings - humans, angels, rocks.

But the phrase “eternally begotten” is an alert that the word “begotten” carries with it rather a lot of connotations, and many of them don’t help us understand in this instance. You’ve noted the plausible connotation “subsequent in time.” Others could be imagined. But this, I think, is an instance in which the word is definitely not identical to the reality it points to. Our connotations for the word “begotten” come from its use in ordinary contexts. Of course. There isn’t any other place we could get connotations from. Which means that when we use it to refer to God, the word breaks down.
“Eternally begotten” is, I think, a way of saying: think about the relationship between the Father and the Son; the relationship between a human father and son will help you understand that. But in this case the relationship is eternal; there was never a time in which the Son did not exist.

Once again, the problem is that no available words really work. What I understand of the doctrine of the Trinity is that we are nevertheless trying to use the only tools we’ve got to keep hold of the data available to us. That means that, while we use words like “begotten”, we’ve also got to red-flag points where the words could mislead us. “Eternally begotten” is such a point.

26

H3Knuckles, please excuse me if this seems a temptation to debate; that’s not my intention. But the original poster seems to be trying to understand the classical Christian doctrine of the trinity; and it should be noted that forms of the assertion “Jesus had no mortal soul” were specifically considered in the discussions leading up to the Nicene Creed, and were not accepted. The classical doctrine of the Trinity does not make this claim.

27

Fair enough. I was just elaborating on my understanding in case tim was curious. My real point was my notion that it doesn’t matter too much whether we have a firm idea of the nature of the Trinity. It just really stuck out in my mind when he stated that he found it disturbing that Christianity, the world’s largest religion (as he said), doesn’t have a clear notion of the idea. I guess it seemed a little like a subtle implication that there was something inherently wrong with it, so I made my first post to argue the notion that such things shouldn’t matter as much as the message and values of a religion.

I only added the latter parts because, well, once I get started on a rant it’s really hard for me to stop. :o

All in all, in retrospect I’m unsure what I was talking about with the whole “hot topic” statement. This thread has been surprisingly free of hotheads and jerks. Even here on the SDMB (which I honestly feel is one of the best MB’s around, as far as user conduct goes), topics like this and politics seem to draw their fair share of goons. Hopefully this thread will continue to be so fortunate.

PS. You and the other guys have had some really interesting points in here. As I said before, I have relatively little real biblical education, but it’s always kinda fun to listen in on serious, mature discussions of the material.

28

I rather suspect that nearly every Christian has his own “take” on understanding the Trinity – after all, it is a mystery explicable in human terms only by metaphorical language. I’ve been highly tempted to say that “God is a fully functional schizophrenic” (implying, of course, multiple personality disorder rather than true schizophrenia) – though offensive, it makes the point that He is capable of being multiple Persons simultaneously.

But what tim314 seems to be seeking, and Grimpen and I have tried to provide, is a handle on the traditional orthodox understanding. (Note that FriarTed provided one of the classic Catholic explications.) Perhaps this needs to have a run-through on the classic heresies and why they are in error, since the orthodox definition was largely spelled out in contradiction to them.

29

I appreciate the posts from Grimpen, Poly and FriarTed. I love me some good Credal analysis. And I agree with Poly that because the creeds were developed to counter specific heresies that the church was struggling with at the time, it’s really helpful to understand what those heresies were saying in order to know what the creeds are saying.

Regarding the difficulty of understanding, let alone being able to put into words the nature of the trinity, I offer the famous story told by Cyril of Jerusalem about St. Augustine (who wrote On the Trinity):

One day, after spending many fruitless nights trying to fully comprehend the Mystery of the Holy Trinity, St. Augustine was walking along the beach as an attempt to clear and sooth his mind. As he was wandering, he came across a young boy playing on the beach. The boy had dug a hole in the sand, and was racing back and forth between the ocean and his hole filling his bucket from the sea and emptying it into his hole.
St. Augustine watched the boy for a few minutes, then approached, asking:“My son, what is it you are trying to accomplish?”.

The boy looked up and said, “I’m going to empty the ocean into this hole”.

St. Augustine laughed, saying, “My dear child, you cannot possibly empty the ocean into that small hole!”.

The boy stopped, looked the saint straight in the eye, and said in a voice that struck St. Augustine straight to his soul, “I have a far better chance of emptying the oceans of the world into this tiny hole, than you have of getting the mystery of the Trinity into your head, Augustine.”

With that, the boy vanished, leaving St. Augustine alone on the beach. The saint realized that he had been visited by an angel, and realized that he had reached the limits of his comprehension of the Mystery.

30

Thank you all for the helpful and interesting replies.

I’m coming to understand that “eternally begotten” suggests that rather than causing the Son to exist (in the temporal sense), it’s perhaps more correct to say that the Father enables the Son to exist by means of His own existence – like the presence of one book on the table enables another to exist above the table in Polycarp’s example. (FriarTed’s examples are also quite helpful.) And the notion of “begotten” (as opposed to “created”) meaning that the Father and Son are of the “same nature” is mostly clear to me, I think.

But what is the difference between the Son being “begotten” as opposed to the Spirit “proceeding”? Isn’t the Holy Spirit also seen as being of the same nature as the Father? And if so, why isn’t the Spirit “begotten”?

31

I am a liberal Christian.

Some scientists think that we are not limited to four dimensions. (String Theory or Theory of Everything – TOE)

Please keep in mind that many, many Christians believe in the Theory of Evolution and suport the teaching of science only in science classrooms. Some of us believe that God is indescribable and unknowable in the symbols of language and the limits of human intelligence.

The Creeds no longer fit me and I haven’t attended church in a long time – although I miss Communion.

I don’t believe in a God with a gender or a bad temper or list of nit-picky rules.

Grimpen, I wish you posted more often. You say it just right.

{b]Polycarp**, it’s always good to see you post. I miss you those times when you are gone.

32

To add to this discussion, The Presbyterian Church recently expanded their definition of the designates of the trinity during their national assembly.

The Presbyterian’s official report.

The paper that was instrumental in this policy change is also linked there- The Trinity: God’s Love Overflowing (PDF). It is a very informative paper and very well written. It definitely added to my understanding of the Trinity.

33

My overly simplistic view of the Trinity is this analogy: Take the example of someone with a family. To his/her spouse, they exhibit one specific personality; to the child, another; and to the employer, yet a third. All three facets are distinct, yet all are materially part of the same being.

That’s how I answer the 3 vs. 1 dilemma. I’m still personally wrestling with the nature of the Son and the Holy Spirit issues. I also view the human Jesus as an avatar, and liken the Holy Spirit to being the antithesis of demon possession, but I doubt that those will be the final working concepts I use.

34

Grimpen, could you shoot me an off-line e-mail? I have an address in my profile, and I’m part of the ELCA flock, too…

35

Well, it’s your thread and your hijack so let me run this down fer a sec. A >3 dimensional being does not have to violate any laws of physics to do some fairly astonishing things, if you accept that more than three dimensions in itself does not violate the laws of physics.

Ever read Flatland? If not, let me give you the Dope’s Digest version. A universe of people live in two dimensions. To you they look like they’re living on a plane but you live in three dimensions (well, four if you count time, hold that thought). OK, that’s it, but you might enjoy reading it anyway. Now, you stick your finger into their universe, and to them a circle appears. You stick in all five fingers and they see five circle beings. Keep going until you’re up to your wrist and they see them merge into one big circle. But it’s all still just you. You look like a zillion different things to them, depending on how you present yourself. In Flatland, the houses are squares, and to Flatlanders the sides of the squares are impenetrable barriers. But you can see what’s inside all of the squares, all at the same time. You could pick up a chair, lift it up into the third dimension, and put it back down outside the house, without ever disrupting a wall of the house. But to them, it looks like the chair disappears and reappears somewhere else. You could look at a person and see his biological workings (the biological workings of a two-dimensional being are somewhat TMI [we need a TMI smiley on this boad] and beyond the scope of this discussion).

You can imagine how you might be perceived as god-like to the Flatlanders.
OK, now imagine a being that lives in more than three dimensions, looking down at us. You can imagine the effect that such a being could have on us. Such a being could present what would be perceived as miracles (i.e., surgically healing someone without making an incision). Could appear in multiple forms, who knows, maybe even die and be resurrected.

Suppose this being somehow transcends the dimension of time. Instead of experiencing time sequentially, it experiences “all at once.” This is a familiar concept to anyone who has studied world lines. So this being sees what people perceive as past, present, future.

In some ways this might be analogous to how the Holy Trinity appears to Christians, maybe like God has three fingers stuck into our universe.

I must add that I do not know if mainstream physics allows for additional orthogonal dimensions beyond three, or for time as a static dimension. Time is probably the most universally and deeply experienced phenomenon without a satisfying scientific explanation of what it is.