The Trinity

[Taliesin]

1. this contradicts what you said below: "the divine that is in every human". You would seem to actualy have that knowledge innately, and are just reluctant to proclaim it in this nest of nay sayers.

2. You already have. One contains the other. Now, how are the flesh and the logos different?

3. OK, Jesus kindled the flame. Is he the only one who could, did? Can you do it on your own?

4. Why can't Jesus and you both be god personified? Maybe he knew it and you just dont, yet.

1. Well, if I have faith in anything it is in this, but I am reluctant to make a doctrinal claim, because there is always the possbility that I am very wrong.
2. A good question. The "word", or soul, or the divine, is immaterial, and in our case is somehow separated from God, trapped in maya, or the physical, or the world of necessity. I won't give a cosmological account of the Fall of Man, because I honestly have no idea how such a thing could happen, and I would be talking through my beaver-pelt hat. It also raises the problem of what it means exactly for the immaterial to be "trapped in the material", and of how our souls could direct our bodies.
3. Anyone can find God, and anybody's divinity can shine like a lantern for others to follow. The fact that most people don't in any given lifetime merely reflects that it seems to be difficult to do. Jesus is not the only one who did; Buddha, Mohammed, the Bab, Zoroaster, and countless people of less fame have all been exceptionally holy guides.
4. Well, we are all God personified. I guess I wasn't clear. I meant that Jesus does not belong in a special class-- it's a difference of degree between him and me. It doesn't make sense to me to make a special claim for Jesus' divinity.

If I'm not entirely clear, or perhaps somewhat in error, please pardon me. I was an atheist a mere year ago, and so I'm still figuring these things out for myself.

 

[Birdjaguar]

i heard this one really good analogy of the trinity. Picture life as a play (not very hard) and God as a whole being the writer. On one hand there's God hte father outside writing the play, then imagine he worte a charecter into his play that was exaxctly like himself, like Jesus, and as he writies he puts a little bit of time and effort into each charecter and scene, a little piece of himself, the holy spirit. all of those things are a part of him, let'as say the writer's name was jim, if you were in the play and you askedthe charecter jim worote into the play "are you jim?" he would respond yes. if you somehow amaged to get out of the play and into the reality and asked the writeer if his name was jim he would say yes. if you then asked him whether the caring he out into the paky was a apart of him he would say yes. wha-la

Or perhaps....
"I am the song, its words and its melody, and I am the singer. I am the
musical instruments and the players and the listeners."—God

 

[Birdjaguar]

Hmm. I think I see what you are saying: That, instead of viewing human and divine as opposites, and merely determining at what level they are opposites, I should view them as halves of a whole? It sounds appealing, but again, I'd have to think about it. Although it may fit in with what I've thought of before: That humanity is a corruption of the divine. If I do not consider this corruption in the negative sense - that we are corrupted by something...

"Halves" would imply separateness or distinctness between the "parts". Could the "whole" have "states"? Appearances or manifestations that are foggy or incomplete to us? What would the nature of the "whole" be to show itself in multiple ways without actually being different? What is the nature of human and divine if each is a manifestation of a single unifying "thing" that doesn't change?

 

[Birdjaguar]

1. Well, if I have faith in anything it is in this, but I am reluctant to make a doctrinal claim, because there is always the possbility that I am very wrong.

the mind can get in the way, can't it. What's "wrong" got to do with it? right and wrong, and faith live in separate worlds.

2. A good question. The "word", or soul, or the divine, is immaterial, and in our case is somehow separated from God, trapped in maya, or the physical, or the world of necessity. I won't give a cosmological account of the Fall of Man, because I honestly have no idea how such a thing could happen, and I would be talking through my beaver-pelt hat. It also raises the problem of what it means exactly for the immaterial to be "trapped in the material", and of how our souls could direct our bodies.

"separate from", "trapped in", "fall of" all denote a specific perspective and orientation to the question. Try choosing other words and see how your thinking might change. Are there positive words rather than negative ones?

3. Anyone can find God, and anybody's divinity can shine like a lantern for others to follow. The fact that most people don't in any given lifetime merely reflects that it seems to be difficult to do. Jesus is not the only one who did; Buddha, Mohammed, the Bab, Zoroaster, and countless people of less fame have all been exceptionally holy guides.

I would concur. If you haven't read this book, I think you would enjoy it, even if you don't subscribe to the theology. Check your public library. It's short and very easy reading.

http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/tg/detail/-/0394404289/103-7838576-1542223?v=glance

4. Well, we are all God personified. I guess I wasn't clear. I meant that Jesus does not belong in a special class-- it's a difference of degree between him and me. It doesn't make sense to me to make a special claim for Jesus' divinity.

I agree, if he is divine, so am I. Perhaps the difference is in consciousness. He experienced the universe differently. His "knowledge" was more complete.

 

[Speedo]

Hmm, I didn't realize the Trinity was taken lightly by Christians. I was under the impression that it's one of the religion's core facets.

It is. CFC is, shall we say, not very representative of Christian beliefs.

Referring to your original question, if you can convince me why I should spend time explaining my beliefs to someone who isn't really interested in the first place, then I'll consider doing so.

 

[cgannon64]

I can understand creating a clone or copy of yourself (which actually wouldn't have all of your properties---it'd occupy different space for one thing), but creating something that IS yourself?

Well, for one, I don't consider the space I occupy a property of myself. The only property it would violate would be my individuality - if there are two of me, I am no longer unique, and that is an important property.

But anyway, don't look it as a copy that was created. Look at it as a human vessel for his spirit, I guess. Something he put himself into.

Hmm...Yep, although I have no interest in becoming a deist of any sort.

Oh well. I was pretty sure of this point, but I wanted to make sure that it wasn't because of this.

Birdjaugar: You're right. I didn't put enough thought into the post to consider the exact meanign of 'halves'.

What is the nature of human and divine if each is a manifestation of a single unifying "thing" that doesn't change?

That is true, and I didn't consider that. I have long thought that humanity can become divine, or at least can become as near to it as possible. I should have realized that, if this is possible, then a combination of humanity and divinity is possible as well.

(How I develop my religious thoughts often depends on where I do them...when its here, I consider the idea rationally first, then see if I can personally beleive them, which often results in my holding ideas intellectually but not emotionally. I'd say this happened a while back, when I could consider God plausible but not beleivable. But, if I get my ideas off the forum, which is where I think most clearly, I have the emotion first, and I rationalize it second. And that works out best, because I think a religion should be a rationalization of an idea, not a pure rationalization.)

 

[WillJ]

It is. CFC is, shall we say, not very representative of Christian beliefs.

Well then I suppose I shouldn't be listening to you either?

Referring to your original question, if you can convince me why I should spend time explaining my beliefs to someone who isn't really interested in the first place, then I'll consider doing so.

When did I say I wasn't interested? I may not be interested in becoming a deist myself, but thinking about theology can still be interesting exercise of the brain.

Well, for one, I don't consider the space I occupy a property of myself. The only property it would violate would be my individuality - if there are two of me, I am no longer unique, and that is an important property.

Okay, fair enough.

But anyway, don't look it as a copy that was created. Look at it as a human vessel for his spirit, I guess. Something he put himself into.

But not a separate entity?

 

[A'AbarachAmadan]

The easiest way to think of it is if you've studied 'light' mathematically. It has the properties of both continuous and discrete functions. Seems counterintuitive, but light is that way in reality.

 

[Azadre]

There is no trinity.

There Is no god but Allah

 

[JohnRM]

There is no trinity.

There Is no god but Allah

If I convert to Islam, do I get a free AK-47 and bomb-laden belt?

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[Birdjaguar]

The easiest way to think of it is if you've studied 'light' mathematically. It has the properties of both continuous and discrete functions. Seems counterintuitive, but light is that way in reality.

Very creative approach to describing how something can be two ways at once. I will keep it in mind.

 

[Quasar1011]

The trinity can be somewhat illustrated using geometry. Let's go visit Flatland.

Flatland is made up of 2 dimensions. It is inhabited by Flatlanders. They exist along the planes of length and width, but have no height, as humans do. Let us imagine the Flatlanders living on your computer screen.

Let's say I choose to interact with the Flatlanders. I press 4 fingers against the computer screen. The Flatlanders are startled, as they see the manifestation of what they view as god. They see 4 fleshy-coloured dots appear in their planes of existence. Therefore, the Flatlanders develop a theory, that there are 4 gods.

I drew up this quick picture to illustrate this, but read on to the next post, please:

 

[Quasar1011]

Now, let's say I press my hand into the monitor screen, so that all 4 fingers are pushed fully across the plane of the Flatlanders existence. They would see the 4 dots eventually merge into one sausge-shaped figure. Some Flatlanders may run off and found the Church of the 4 Dots; others will say that god is one being; and others still will claim that god is 4-in-1.

I have only subtracted one dimension from our human existence to illustrate this. Imagine how much greater that God can be, given He has access to many more dimensions than we do!

 

[wilbill]

Like many Christian doctrines, the history of the Trinity idea is based in the divisions of the early church as much or more than it is in Biblical laws.

There's not much support in the Bible for the "God the Father/God the Son" idea. It was a creation of the Council of Nicea in the 4th century AD to try to put an end to the teachings of Arias of Alexandria who proposed that Jesus was a creation of God and thus inferior to God.

The Holy Spirit is mentioned several times in the New Testament, but incorporating it into a "Trinity" was the creation of another council of bishops a couple of hundred years later. Christian denominations differ over the exact nature of the Holy Spirit - whether it's just "God's spriitual presence" or whether it's a separate entity.

No wonder the concept is a little difficult to come to terms with for some people.

 

[WillJ]

@Quasar: So God and his three forms are analogous to my hand and its four fingers?

Or the American government and its three branches?

If so, then I retract my earlier skepticism toward the logical coherence of the Trinity. But if I was right in thinking that the Trinity is more like saying that each of my fingers is the same as my all-encompasing hand, then we're back to square one. That is, until I read this post:

The easiest way to think of it is if you've studied 'light' mathematically. It has the properties of both continuous and discrete functions. Seems counterintuitive, but light is that way in reality.

Hmm, that's a very interesting comparison. It seems like my argument against the Trinity would also have to apply to the nature of light.

...which doesn't really mean that I now think the Trinity makes sense, but rather that I think that light doesn't make sense.

 

[Keirador]

Hmm, I didn't realize the Trinity was taken lightly by Christians. I was under the impression that it's one of the religion's core facets.

Its only a core facet in so far as it influences the real core beliefs- those being that we are all sinners, Jesus Christ died so that we may know the truth, and to come into perfect union with God we must repent for our sins and beseech forgiveness.

First I should probably focus on what is meant by all this different "forms" of God stuff. Does each facet of God concern a part of God or all of God? For example, if you say that I have four "facets"---my head, my arms, my legs, my torso---you are breaking me down into four parts that concern four separate, non-overlapping things of mine.

Is this what the Trinity is? If so, then I see nothing illogical with it at all, and certain interesting questions that I've heard such as, "Why did Jesus pray to God?" would no longer be a mystery. But I've always thought the nature of the Trinity is that each component of God encompasses all of God, in such a way that Jesus actually EQUALS God, etc.

As far the Trinity itself, I personally am not God or the Pope, but from my understanding (which, not to toot my own horn, is built on several years of formal study, reading of Scripture and modern theophilosophical texts, and intense personal meditation) the Three Persons do not overlap. Each glorifies and informs the other, but insofar as one being can be seperate (your analogy of a person works to a degree- the Father being the mind, Jesus being the face, the Holy Spirit being the hands) they are distinct and seperate entities.

Jesus IS God, though. If the Father (Yahweh) is the mind, Jesus is the face, and the Holy Spirit is the hand, then the person is God. Each has a legitimate claim to the title of God.

 

[Keirador]

Anything becoming clearer?

 

[Erik Mesoy]

One thing not mentioned here is actually in my religion textbook, and should be spread.

Ice, water, steam. Different forms, same material. Underused analogy.

 

[Keirador]

Good analogy. The problem with describing such things in human terms is that our language simply falls short, as do our minds. We have trouble conceptualizing ideas that aren't possible in our realities.

 

[Quasar1011]

@Quasar: So God and his three forms are analogous to my hand and its four fingers?

No. That was simply an exercise showing that, how one being possessing dimensional advantages and capabilities that another one does not, could be thought of as single and plural at the same time. Such is the trinity.

Now, go figure this: the Spirit of God is sevenfold! This means that God is at least a trinity!

Revelation 3:1
"To the angel of the church in Sardis write:These are the words of him who holds the seven spirits of God and the seven stars. I know your deeds; you have a reputation of being alive, but you are dead."

Revelation 4:5
"From the throne came flashes of lightning, rumblings and peals of thunder. Before the throne, seven lamps were blazing. These are the seven spirits of God."

Revelation 5:6
"Then I saw a Lamb, looking as if it had been slain, standing in the center of the throne, encircled by the four living creatures and the elders. He had seven horns and seven eyes, which are the seven spirits of God sent out into all the earth."