What's the deal with the Trinity? I've never really understood it.
Imagine three persons with one soul.
>>366958
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KQLfgaUoQCw
It's stupid bullshit. It's something i'd expect an anime writer or something to come up with.
>>366958
God is the Father
>YHWH
No, God originally is Spirit, YHWH is supposedly a lesser deity and as a Gnostic Christian this is so. The Father, much like a sperm in the egg, impregnates the Mother, so the Father Spirit and the Mother Earth (matter) not all matter is bad but, The Father is actually a likely reference to Krsna but you have to read the Gospels and Hindu Scriptures yourself in order to grasp this.
Just like in Hinduism
Brahman - Impersonal force all expanding material and non material is like God.
Bhagavan - personality, the Supreme Personality is in Krsna and Jesus and other great people.
Paramatman - The highest self. God IS Holy Spirit as well that has a personality and we can get to know Him.
>>366958
No one does.
God is Jesus and Jesus is God and the Holy Spirit is both God and Jesus and they are also the Holy Spirit. There was a lot of talk about whether Jesus was merely a man who was blessed by God (this is also the muslim view) or if he was subordinate to the Father or if he was adopted etc etc. Eventually the clergy settled on the following: Jesus is both Man and Divine. Neither is subordinate. He is one with the Father and the Spirit.
>>366975
Thats heresy as multiple persons implies that there can be separation within the trinity.
I'm an atheist but I've always understood it like this.
A person has two lungs, a brain, 2 eyes, a heart and many more pieces but that person is still one entity.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bUy-H5MmeGU
>>367246
That doesnt work though, the Father, Son and Holy Spirit arent components of one God they are each God.
To use your example would you say that the eye itself is a person and the heart itself is a person ect?
Why does the Holy Spirit always get left out? Compared to the Father and the Son, his screentime is pretty minimal.
>>367271
Thats modalism and denies the person hood of the Father, Son and Holy Spirit. In his explanation each person would only be a facet or face of one God rather than God itself
>>366958
http://youtu.be/KQLfgaUoQCw
>>366958
Imagine the Trinity like ice and water, they're the same thing just in a different form
It's exactly how Barbie can be a popstar, a veterinarian and a ski instructor all at once.
William Lane Craig said its like Cerberus the 3 headed dog.
>>367318
TIL that Abby and Brittany Hensel are kind of like the trinity.
Also
> Explaining a theological construct with a mythological construct
>>366958
Read the Quicunque Vult.
>>366958
Christopher Lee played Dracula, Count Dooku, and Saruman. Dracula was not Count Dooku, Count Dooku was no Saruman, and Saruman was not Dracula. Yet they were all Christopher Lee.
>>367315
Yes but a molecule of water cannot be steam, liquid water and ice at the same time.
You are either advocating a polytheism -werein the three persons are separate beings made of one divine substance. Or a form of modalism whereby each of the persons is simply God manifesting in one form.
If your logic was correct a human could be a bady, teenager, adult, old person simultaneously
>>367478
modalism
>>367486
Not that anon but that isn't polytheism just a really good metaphor for life of God, the same substance different form made of the same structure. Even your metaphor is good, essentially when we die, our life flashed before our eyes and we were a baby, kid, teenager, adult, and old person all at the same time
>>367501
Well aside from it being arguably the most serious sin concvieble in the Christian mindset, the kind of lesson you are looking for doesnt require the idea of there being multiple Gods, indeed the whole unitary substance idea goes all the way back to the presocratics.
>Even your metaphor is good, essentially when we die, our life flashed before our eyes and we were a baby, kid, teenager, adult, and old person all at the same time
Memories arent the same as reliving the experience.
>>367290
Holy Spirit is the Word. Basically any prophet who recipes a vision dies si through the Holy spirit
I thought it was an invention of the Catholic Church .
Did Jesus ever say he was god?
>>367662
Yes, he did, not explicitly, but pretty directly multiple times during the Gospels.
Now the more interesting question you should be focused on is if Mark, the earliest gospel, is more authoritative than the others as in it it's harder to pinpoint Jesus' divinity. Now go and learn.
>>366958
Let's assume that each God-person has 2 basic components: divinity and personality.
Now we now that the 1 component is infinite in certain qualities. Now it is not possible for two+ omnipotent, omniscent, omnipresent etc Gods to coexist. Therefore, the divine component is shared, but personality is not.
>>366958
Neither do the Christians. :^)
>>366958
The Trinity was never held to be the 'official doctrine' of Christianity until several centuries after Jesus's death.
Initially, there was a period of "low Christology" where Jesus was seen as a human and mortal prophet by the first Christians. Later, there was a movement towards "higher Christologies", where Jesus went from being seen as a human prophet, to being seen as an "adopted" Son of God, to being an actual associate of God, to being God Himself.
Jesus being worshiped as God (in the way we think about today) was a development that came about much later after Jesus's death.
>>367662
>Did Jesus ever say he was god?
Explicitly, no.
Although there are implicit statements he made ("I am", etc) exclusively in the Gospel of John, and that Gospel is problematic in and of itself, given its historiographical reputation and relationship with the other Gospels.
>>367315
>muh ice and water
I hate when Christians use that retarded argument.
That's called modalism; it's a doctrine distinct from trinity and was declared a heresy by all Orthodox branches of Christianity at the Councils in Nicaea.
>>368167
In fairness, if you look outside of Jesus's speech the gospel of John does have a very explicit high Christology.
> 1 In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God.
That being said it's still not a confirmation of the trinity.
>>368141
>>368157
>>368167
This is bullshit.
"...Be shepherds of the church of God, which He bought with His own blood."
Acts 20:28
Who bought the church with His own blood? Jesus Christ.
"For a child will be born to us, a son will be given to us; And the government will rest on His shoulders; And His name will be called Wonderful Counselor, Mighty God, Eternal Father, Prince of Peace."
Isaiah 9:6
Don't spread bullshit anons.
>>368403
>misquoting Isaiah to shoehorn Jesus as the Jewish Messiah
Why do Christian apologists always do this? It's as cringeworthy as when Muslim apologists try to claim that the Bible predicts Muhammad.
The verse refers to Hezekiah. The following is the actual translation from Hebrew:
>For a child has been born to us, a son has been given to us; and the government is upon his shoulder; and his name is called "A wonderful counselor is the mighty God, the everlasting Father, the ruler of peace"
"A wonderful counselor is the mighty God, the everlasting Father, the ruler of peace" was the actual Hebrew theophoric name that was being used to refer to Hezekiah here.
>>368493
Nice try, but the name is as follows:
Pele-Yo‘etz El Gibbor Avi-‘Ad Sar-Shalom
(Wonder of a Counselor, Mighty God, Father of Eternity, Prince of Peace)
"...(7) in order to extend the dominion
and perpetuate the peace
of the throne and kingdom of David,
to secure it and sustain it
through justice and righteousness
henceforth and forever."
or in other translation
"His power will never end;
peace will last forever."
Which couldn't hardly refer to Hezekiah. Remember there was a huge Assyrian invasion during his rule.
>>368748
Its been used by St Patrick before (Although he used the analogy of a 3 leaf clover) I would say because it seems to offers a quick and simple solution that seems correct at first instance
>>368768
>St. Patrick
>Talking about clovers
That's fucking corny, did he also insist on his monk rob being all green?
water, ice and steam
Just as a body is made of several members, but these members can't exist individually, God is made of the Father (YHWH, who gives, takes and punishes but loves), the Son (Christ, who came among us to spread God's teachings and establish a new treaty) and the Spirit (which gives widsom and prophecy).
I suppose the distinction needs to be made, unlike in Islam, because Jesus was considered to hold the word of God and to not just be a prophet like any other, but the messiah.
>>370952
Or if you want to be a fag
>The Father is the Triforce of Power
>The Son is the Triforce of Courage
>The Spirit is the Triforce of Wisdom
>God is the Triforce
>>368748
It's dumb. It implies the 3 have different minds, when this is absolutely not the case. Jesus the person was just a guy, but Jesus the Son of God was God's word directly to us. And the Holy Spirit is also God's direct influence. They're not like three minds with one body, they're one body with three limbs.
Also wasn't >>367279 's example used by Paul? Was it for that or for something else? I forgot
God is his own son.
It's basically a lazy Christian way of justifying their idolatry, the fact that they worship a human being and not God like they're supposed to. So the obvious solution, that man is God!
>>370960
Reducing the debate of several thousands of years into a fucking Zelda reference. Ouch.
Jesus revealed us that God is the same person after being.
Not three Gods but one God in three persons that share the love.
One image for simple minds, God is the fire with three tongues that equally reach the entire universe but although separated they have the same base.
>>366958
Exactly.
>>366958
Arianism should be the new religion of /his/.
>>371009
Tell me that's not accurate though.
The Trinity is a Pagan Concept.
Its a copy of what the pagans called the Triad.
The Triad was Anu and his sons Enlil and Enki.
Anu of the Anunnaki is El of the Elohim.
His sons are Yahweh and Adonai
The lord of the OT is one of the Anunnaki.
Rome = Pagan
Their Messiah is the son of the Pagan Father god.
Not the Creator of All.
>>367317
Modalims again, stop this heresy.
>>371127
Man Trinity as a concept is present in more than an anonymous pagan religion.
But here we talk about revelation about it from the Divine in human flesh.
The Father almighty eternal and since forever made a son to be happy about Him and share eternal and absolute Love with Him and there is the Holy Spirit for the Father to say, you see isn't He a great Son, and for the Son to say the same about His Father. The Holy Spirit makes The Son greater in the eyes of the Father and makes the Father greater in the Eye of the Son.
The Holy Spirit emanates since forever from the eternal Father and the Son was born from the Father since forever.
We humans are like the Son but we're created from nothing.
> This whole fucking thread
>>367662
>The Father and I are One
> All these Catholics who really are modalists and arians
Top heretical
>>371127
[citation needed]
"I and my Father are one."
- John 10:30
>>371816
That's because any explanation of the trinity that makes logical sense is heresy.
>>366958
The ONLY Three equally uncreated, boundless, and eternal Persons as they are all equally God, not are they parts or forms of one person.
What the Father is, the Son is, and the Holy Spirit is.
Just read >>367477 a couple times until it starts to make sense.
>>373057
Cant have distinction if they are boundless. As thier unique person hood would constitute a boundary
>>373422
If They are truly distinct, would They be gods and not God?
>>373608
Not according to Christians who accept these two points as a matter of faith.
Never really understood the problem. Vaishnavism has the exact same thing, we just accept the God is infinite, and don't try to limit Him to only three aspects.
> Isopanishad Invocation — The Personality of Godhead is perfect and complete, and because He is completely perfect, all emanations from Him, such as this phenomenal world, are perfectly equipped as complete wholes. Whatever is produced of the Complete Whole is also complete in itself. Because He is the Complete Whole, even though so many complete units emanate from Him, He remains the complete balance.
>>366958
>>366958
Think of the opening lyrics from I am the Walrus
That's the Christian God
You have to understand, if someone is truly God, then He must necessarily be transcendent (though not contradicting) of full human comprehension. The only reason we would know anything about Him, is if He chose to reveal it us Himself. If there is a god that we could fully comprehend, like Zeus or Brahma or whoever, then it would not actually be god.
I think to use the mystery of the trinity as an argument against Christian God is redundant. Surely if someone were to invent a god, they'd invent one far more simple and easier to understand, as every monotheistic religion outside of Christianity did.
>>367486
Look up the triple point of water
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Triple_point
>>366958
An epistemological circle jerk.
It's defined in the negative. Any coherent explanation (modalism or unitarianism) is denounced as heresy, so the only spiritually correct way to consider the trinity is not to think about it, just accept it.
It's cognitive dissonance in order to justify having multiple gods but still call your religion monotheistic.
>>375525
t. jew/mooselimb
Old Testament was the Father, harsh Judge who is pissed off about humanity
New Testament is the Son, full of forgiveness and peace and appeases the angry Father
Holy Spirit is the Church
>>375770
pottery
>>375770
(not true, by the way)
>>374324
>Sicut NON tres increati, NEC tres immensi, sed VNVS increatus, et VNVS immensus.
>>375770
> The Church is God
This is a new level of heresy
>>367540
no, The Son is the Word, reread the first chapter of John
>>366958
ITS RELIGION WHATS THERE TO GET FUU
>>367149
The trinity is three persons.
>The Christian doctrine of the Trinity (from Latin trinitas "triad", from trinus "threefold")[1] defines God as three consubstantial persons,[2] expressions, or hypostases:[3]
>>374760
What a crock of shit. God has to be completely illogical to be 'truly' god? This is a new step in apologetics where nonsense is a point of strength.
>>367149
Oh, and by the way, what you're suggesting is actually heresy, it's called Sabellianism.
>>376752
Inability for human minds to comprehend a lot of things is integral to Christianity, especially in Orthodox Christianity. Christianity is an existentialist religion, if you can't handle God being beyond human capacity for reason, then it's not for you.
>>376752
I'm guessing he's that Orthodox poster.
>>376752
Why would love be logical?
>>374760
> "Surely if someone were to invent a god, they'd invent one far more simple and easier to understand, as every monotheistic religion outside of Christianity did"
>There is and only has been one unified interpretation of the Christian God
>It takes effort to invent a God that needs no complete explanations
>>376796
In no other situation am I asked to love something no one is sure exists and who's existence doesn't make any sense.
Specifically though, the argument that the christian god is more likely than other gods because he doesn't make any sense is purely idiotic. Like humans are incapable of making shit up that falls apart under further scrutiny.
>>376896
God is actually the same thing as love, from a Christian perspective.
Nobody actually has a fucking clue.
They couldn't say the God, the Son and Holy Ghost weren't the same being, but once they actually started thinking about it they honestly had to go through massive amounts of mental gymnastics to get it to work.
>>376912
I thought god was literally everything including good, truth, kindness, etc. Is he specifically love more than anything else?
>>376928
Yes. He is good truth, and kindness if you affirm love to be synonymous with these things. Being a Christian first of all requires that you affirm love as all that matters in your value system and all you want to live for. Without that, Christianity is impossible to affirm. Rational argument would have very little effect because you can't rationally convince someone that love is all that matters, that is something which they have to affirm existentially.
Here is a good model I got from /pol/ the other day. It doesn't necessarily explain the trinity itself, but it sheds light onto the nature of the trinity and how the trinity is beyond human comprehension.
>>366958
I'm not even christian, but I never understood what's so hard to understand once you're willing to believe in a God that is above this world.
>>376969
The trinity as different aspects of God is pretty fucking heretical
>>367662
The catholic church as we know it comes after the trinity being a thing. Unless you're claiming the orthodox churches were the ones to separate from catholicism, for some reason.
>>368783
It's the other way around family. The irish like clovers because it's a St. Patrick's thing, not the other way around.
>>371009
Pretty sure that the japs made the triforce inspired by the Trinity. If it's interpreted well or not that's another thing.
Ok so what I'm getting from this whole thread is that the trinity is inherently illogical, and requires faith. This seems to mean that Christianity must be inherently illogical, and all attempts to define it logically are futile at best and most likely heretical. Wouldn't this make the kind of theology practiced by medieval philosophers borderline heretical? And the fact that the Catholic Church basically has a "yeah, what he said" policy toward Aquinas, wouldn't that make them borderline heretical? But then the Catholic Church is the one that defined that sort logical explanation of the trinity as heretical in the first place...
I don't know, maybe all that's a bit of a stretch.
Anyone with a brain knows that Arian Christianity, or the "Arian Heresy" as the Catholics liked to call it, was the right path.
I mean come on Trinitarians. wtf man
>>377089
Logic for some stuff and faith of the other stuff
>>377101
It has to be borderline polytheism, without being polytheism. Unless you're muslim and not christian of course.
>>377101
wew lad that's pretty heretical.
>>377147
I mean, the Bible has God insisting on his oneness in the OT, then Jesus knowing God's knowledge but still being a man (anguished at having to die, asking God why he left him once crucified), and the Holy Spirit coming from God. In that case it's not crazy to say God is basically like the Triforce, and the Trinity is necessary due to Jesus' divinity, but then why is this actually a basic misconception and the Son, Father and Holy Spirit are really three separate things but all part of God?
>>377102
"Saint" Augustine was such a cunt. His "apology" doesn't actually argue for Trinitarianism at all. But he gets tons of credit for shooting down Arianism.
Seriously, his argument amounts to just repeating himself over and over and insisting Arius was wrong. Fuck Augustine.
>>376927
I've never been sure why they introduced the Holy Spirit. It just seems like some random character that has no reason being there, like My Poopypants in that one episode of Rick and Morty/
>>375126
The tripple point referes to conditions that all you to change water from a solid to liquid to gas to another state at the same temperature by modifying pressure.
The H20 in this stage is still only liquid, solid or gas at one time.
>>376749
Notice how thats prefaced as consubstantial person rather than just person as that poster suggests.
>>376757
Theres no modalism in that statement of mine as I don't state that these persons are merely a form taken by the one divine substance. see
>>377003
The "is not" part is what I am refering to when I say seperation.
>>376969
Literally modalism and not in accordance with Christian belief on the matter.
>>366958
The trinity doesn't exist, what does exist is the evil demon that interacts and creates our world known as "God", then there's the benign God that exists outside of the evil demon, Jesus comes from the benign God from afar, to show us the ways to get past the trappings of the material world and meld our souls with the benign God.
The Holy Spirit is the evil demon's hatred and contempt for its creations.
>>377003
Because it involves contradiction, in the same way it would be hard to understand God creating a square circle.
>>377101
Because the Triforce of Power is not the Triforce but only one component of it. Whereas Jesus *is* God. With your analogy you equate God to being the collective product of the Father + Son + HS. which as described earlier is heretical.
>>377147
Even Aquinas the king of Christian Logic held the Trinity as something that can only ever be accepted as a point of dogma based on divine revelation and not logic.
>>377101
>>376969
That's sabellianism. It's heretical.
>/pol/
Figures.
The best explanation I've heard uses the concept of states of matter. Specifically water which can be liquid water, solid ice, or gaseous steam but still remains water.
It's still bullshit if you think about it, but it's the most reasonable.
>>366958
It's like a koan. It isn't meant to be understood. You meditate on it to grow closer to God.
>>367292
maybe not if you think that the notion of facet is not valid in dynamic 4+ dimensional configurations.
I found his argumentation less strong when he said "there are only 3 concepts to understand in the trinity because thats all we need to understand"
>>379716
>maybe not if you think that the notion of facet is not valid in dynamic 4+ dimensional configurations.
It would only work if you could say something like one side of the cube being entirely the cube in its own right.
>>379701
>It's like a koan. It isn't meant to be understood. You meditate on it to grow closer to God.
Its a point of dogma, and unlike a koan not believing in it is extremely serious to the point of it being damming/ enough to get one booted out of the church.
You dont get sent to the realm of hungry ghosts if you say that a tree that falls in a forest with one one around does make a sound.
>I found his argumentation less strong when he said "there are only 3 concepts to understand in the trinity because thats all we need to understand"
but this is the important part because it reveals the dogmatic assumptions being made and the disengenousness of their use of reason.
>>379687
This is a heresy that's been mentioned very many times in this thread.
>>367662
He claimed to be the Son of Man, which in the context of the Judaism at the time is either claiming to be God or claiming to be equal in status to God.
>>374642
The Holy Spirit is knowable? It always seemed to be the most mysterious and ineffable aspect of God, to me.
>>374642
The phrase "fundamentally beyond our understanding" is just a nice way of saying an irreconcilable contradiction that can only ever be justified in by faith in dogma.
It's basically a huge correction done by the Catholic Church to explain the inconsistencies regarding the identity and form of the biblical god as described in the Old Testament vs the New. This isn't surprising considering the Bible in it's entirety was written over the course of hundreds of years, just image the plot holes that would appear in a work of fiction if you wrote a book today and a guy two hundred years from now attempted to finish it.
I.e it may well be one of the biggest plot hole corrections of all time.
>>380687
what plot holes does it fix and how?
Can anyone answer this.
What is the offficial stace for the Catholic, Orthodox, and Protsetant for these questions
"Will we have physical bodies in heaven or spiritual bodies?"
"Will we have the same body we spent our time on earth with or a new one?"
>>381371
Heaven isn't a place in Orthodoxy, it's a state of one's spirit. You could theoretically be in heaven right now, sin is all that is holding you back. If you are in total love and communion with God and humanity, that is heaven.
The physical and the spiritual aren't mutually exclusive.
We'll have a new body, or if it's our old body, it will be so transformed that it won't be comparable to what we have now. The material after the corruption caused by original sin is washed away, is too difficult to describe. Heaven and earth will no longer be a dichotomy, but two totally complementary dimensions of existence.
>>380770
Not him, but it's the plot holes of trying to combine two religions into one. Judaism makes it quite clear that God is the only god to be worshiped (Early Jews believed there to be multiple gods but only YHWH should be worshiped, modern Jews don't believe in other gods anymore though) and that there is only God and no one else beside him or his equal. But then you had these certain Christians who come along who say that Jesus is equal to God, which is contradiction with prior teachings, so they then have to say he actually is God, but that doesn't make any sense because he refers to God separate from himself and also because how can he suffer and be tempted if he's God, so they then say that they're all God, but then when people try to give a logical explanation how they can be that way they get butthurt and say you can't use reason for this shit you gotta use faith because it's a Divine Mystery yo! Also the Holy Spirit fits into here somewhere but no one ever fucking talks about him because he's only mentioned a few times in the Bible so they just use him to fit any gaps in the plot. So basically you have different authors writings different parts of the story and sometimes they just write shit that's never finished (like the Holy Spirit) but they all want the story to go into different directions but they can't contradict each other so they gotta keep on explaining how there is no plot holes and that it's all written by God so of course it makes sense.
>>382008
(but it also sometimes it really isn't supposed to make sense and they call those times "Divine Mysteries" and you're just supposed to use faith for those times. It's the ultimate hack fraud retcons)
