About the Trinity and being Christian

[kramerfan86]

I always thought the idea Jesus WAS God was a bit silly, why then proclaim that God sent his son down rather than just saying God came down in a mortal vessel to redeem his creation? Ive always just considered them separate beings.

 

[_random_]

Yeah, that's the point of the Trinity. There's one God, but He exists as three distinct persons.

 

[Leoreth]

Christianity, or anything else that has been around for so very long, has a lot of "baggage" that it drags along with it. The nature of the Trinity or even Christ's divinity has been the subject of rancorous and long lasting argument between the faithful and heretics throughout it's history. Yet issues settled a thousand years ago are often revisited by the uninformed.

You say that as if this particular issue was "settled" by some kind of revealing insight that newcomers just aren't aware of, instead of what was essentially a popularity contest.

 

[Borachio]

Oh I don't know, maybe there's this whole science of metaphysics that we, more mundane people, just have no inkling of.

I don't like to think of all those bishops and such just sitting around and coming up with...what?...something. Like God^3.

 

[Crezth]

As it was explained to me, the existence of the trinity is the reason why things tend to come in threes. Time is seen as past, present and future, distance is measured in three dimensions, a person has a mind, body and a spirit and a person's personality has three aspects, how they are seen, who they think they are and who they really are.

This strikes me as something of a contrivance because it really does boil down to how you look at it.

 

[Borachio]

A bit like everything, then?

 

[Crezth]

Well, yes, but if you're going to get all relativist on me then that rather precludes the absolutism of Christianity, eh?

 

[Borachio]

Oh, sorry. I was forgetting. Silly me.

 

[Leoreth]

This strikes me as something of a contrivance because it really does boil down to how you look at it.

It's actually way more likely that people came up with the idea of the trinity because humans are conditioned to think in threes.

 

[anandus]

It's actually way more likely that people came up with the idea of the trinity because humans are conditioned to think in threes.

Indeed, it's a common theme in human constructs like stories and religions.

Stooges, bears (Goldilocks), musketeers, witches (Shakespeare).
Or, if you look at other religions you see it as well, take for instance the Hindu trinity of Brahma, Vishnu and Shiva. Or the Roman Capitoline trinity of Jupiter, Juno and Minerva.
And it's also a big factor in Judaism (three prayers a day, three major festivals, the Torah was given in the third month of the year to the third child in the family (Moses) to a people consisting of three groups (Cohen, Levi and Israelite)).

 

[timtofly]

At what point in time though, would the concept have been thought out? When God was talking to himself in the creation, why was there not another form of putting it as one? A person does not usually talk about themself in the plural. Most references of God are in the plural though. When Moses saw the burning bush, it was considered the Angel of Adonai. It then says that when God saw Moses approaching the bush, there was a voice coming from the bush. When Moses realized it was God, he turned away because he was afraid to look at God. There seems to always be a voice, a physical presence that can be looked at, and then a fear that cannot be accounted for. Moses was not afraid to look at the burning bush itself, it is only the realization that God was represented that Moses had fear.

Jewish history points out that God walked with people, but in what form? God has the form of a spirit that can be heard. A physical form that can be seen. And a form that can be seen with only fear and dread of being consumed.

I do not see how Christianity could have "made it up". They did not form the thought of Judaism. Judaism rejects the "christian" view, which would seem to preclude that they "made it up".

Now some may assume that Christianity just replaced what was already "made up" by Judaism. I would like to say though, that early christians messed up. They should have totally destroyed all manuscripts of the former religion, if they were just replacing it. IMO, they were not replacing Judaism, neither were they adding to it. They saw the OT as an important Word from God.

It seems that Jesus was God in human flesh. The Holy Spirit was given to the Christian as God in the Spirit. God no longer walks with man, but lives inside. I take it a step farther than most and accept the Bible as a representation of God in the physical form. Not that the printed page has any power, nor the communion is God in the physical. It is what reading the Bible and taking of the communion represents. It is a physical form of God that can be approached by a human.

When God "speaks" it is usually not audible, but when one hears it, they will begin to understand that it is God who is communicating. They will then understand that God is to be feared, but one also knows that they will not be consumed by God, but will become like God originally created them to be. Hopefully that was not too meta for some.

 

[Glassfan]

You say that as if this particular issue was "settled" by some kind of revealing insight that newcomers just aren't aware of, instead of what was essentially a popularity contest.

"Settled" as orthodox doctrine (and mystery) of the Church at the First Council of Nicaea (325) and the Forth Lateran Council (1213). Something like, "mathematician's agreement on zero as a divisor."

Today, with the multiplicity of myriad sects, cults and beliefs, every conceivable variation of heterodoxy exists, including the peculiar situation of atheists and agnostics and general non-believers entering religious debate.

"Insight" itself is a debatable thing, since every new sect founder, from Martin Luther to Joseph Smith to Earnest Angley have based their breakaway groups on "Insight" (personal and often mutually-exclusive "divine revelation").

 

[timtofly]

"Settled" as orthodox doctrine (and mystery) of the Church at the First Council of Nicaea (325) and the Forth Lateran Council (1213). Something like, "mathematician's agreement on zero as a divisor."

Today, with the multiplicity of myriad sects, cults and beliefs, every conceivable variation of heterodoxy exists, including the peculiar situation of atheists and agnostics and general non-believers entering religious debate.

"Insight" itself is a debatable thing, since every new sect founder, from Martin Luther to Joseph Smith to Earnest Angley have based their breakaway groups on "Insight" (personal and often mutually-exclusive "divine revelation").

What is wrong with a personnally tailored "religion"?

Even people that own pets do not view them as an indistinct group. They look at each pet and their own individual characteristics. Not that we are God's pets. One can use children and parent relationships, a teacher and their interaction with their students. An employer employee relationship. However unless one recognizes God as interacting with humans, God is just an indifferent man upstairs.

People view God like he needs to fit into their perspective. They do not view God as existing and interacting with each person on an individual basis.

 

[Borachio]

They do not view God as existing and interacting with each person on an individual basis.

Eh? Did you mean this? I thought that was the whole idea of a personal God. Or indeed, of any God at all, that she interacts with individuals.

I can't see much point to an impersonal God.

 

[warpus]

It's actually way more likely that people came up with the idea of the trinity because humans are conditioned to think in threes.

"Alright guys, so we have God the father, then Jesus.. that seems rather odd, don't you think? Things just don't come in twos!"

"How about Moses?"

"Nah.. Too Jewish"

"THE HOLY SPIRIT"

"The what?"

"Who cares, let's just go with it"

 

[Save_Ferris]

God is one being in three forms.

 

[civ_king]

So God's kinda like the three classic states of water represented by water? He's got a solid form, a liquid form and a gas form, but it's still water regardless of the form.

 

[Save_Ferris]

So God's kinda like the three classic states of water represented by water? He's got a solid form, a liquid form and a gas form, but it's still water regardless of the form.

Yeah. If you have multiple gods, then it's a polytheism.

 

[Glassfan]

What is wrong with a personnally tailored "religion"?

http://religion.blogs.cnn.com/2012/09/29/my-take-im-spiritual-not-religious-is-a-cop-out/?hpt=hp_c2

 

[bhsup]

You mean personally tailored like the Roman Catholic Church, then? It's simply tailored to what a bunch of old guys in the 300s thought, and then more old guys in the later centuries added to it.