catholics, orthodox, and protestants: can you explain the trinity?

[Unveiled Artist]

In Trinitarian theology, no - because if the wording is flawed or not properly articulated, then the implied meaning can change drastically, in a polytheistic fashion in one extreme (which is heretical to the staunch monotheism of Trinitarianism) and a modalism on the other (which gravitates towards a Jewish or Islamic unitarianism, that is heretical to Trinitarianism for denying the Trinity).

For sake of simple conversation, though, I was just going by how the bible defines the relationship between creator, savior, and holy spirit and how they are the same in divinity even though the creator isn't a human being.

Unity just means everything is one and the same. For example, one of the most commonly quoted bible verses is the father and I are one. They are the same but they also denote two separate entities as each other in divinity (essence, whatever). Using the word trinity to describe that essence from a simplicity view would be secondary to the concept I'm describing... which, without the word play, is the same as Meandflower except for the issue with tritheism which totally doesn't represent the trinity in any regard of creator/jesus/spirit having the same essence aka what relates them to each other.

 

[Starlight]

That would make jesus the creator?

Yes since the Father, Jesus, Holy spirit is the one God who created the universe/universes, named Jahve.

Jahve is only one Being shared by three persons

(According to the trinity)

 

[Unveiled Artist]

For Trinitarians like myself, yes.

I actually don't hear that from many trintarians unless they are literalists. Most say jesus is god, creator is god, spirit is god, but they are three separate people (creator/spirit/human) yet they are god.

It's like talking about the substance and essence of the Eucharist. Of course they are each other but just basic conversation, we can talk about the substance separate from the essence while maintaining their relationship (their unity) without discrediting that they are the same.

 

[Unveiled Artist]

Yes since the Father, Jesus, Holy spirit is the one God who created the universe/universes, named Jahve.

Jahve is only one Being but at the same time three persons

(According to the trinity)

That would mean there is no incarnation and no medium between god and man.

 

[Unveiled Artist]

Yes since the Father, Jesus, Holy spirit is the one God who created the universe/universes, named Jahve.

Jahve is only one Being shared by three persons

(According to the trinity)

Okay. Here's my experience in this when I think of trinity (not specifically from theology books)

When I was in the catholic church as a pre-matured convert I'd go to Mass.
The beginning of Mass, the priest says the blessings and the ritual proceeds.
The mass is one body of christ
When we get to communion the body of christ (the Mass of people), Christ (represented by the priest), the substance (the bread and wine), and essence (of jesus) are all in union. So when you take communion-you become one body of christ through the blessings and experience of the holy spirit and christ at the head.

I see the trinity in those regards. We are not christ. Christ is not bread/wine, and the priest did not die on the cross. But for all intense in purposes, there is no separation. The three entities (lack of better words) are one and the same.

Regardless the name, there is always been a connection between body/mind/soul, creator/spirit/human, communion/mass/christ, etc that are, well, one. I can only explain it in layman's terms, though. Most christians I speak with have their own "scripture-poetic language" I can't always decipher. So we could be speaking of the same thing but maybe some haven't heard of it explained differently than what they are familiar with.

 

[Starlight]

Okay. Here's my experience in this when I think of trinity (not specifically from theology books)

When I was in the catholic church as a pre-matured convert I'd go to Mass.
The beginning of Mass, the priest says the blessings and the ritual proceeds.
The mass is one body of christ
When we get to communion the body of christ (the Mass of people), Christ (represented by the priest), the substance (the bread and wine), and essence (of jesus) are all in union. So when you take communion-you become one body of christ through the blessings and experience of the holy spirit and christ at the head.

I see the trinity in those regards. We are not christ. Christ is not bread/wine, and the priest did not die on the cross. But for all intense in purposes, there is no separation. The three entities (lack of better words) are one and the same.

Regardless the name, there is always been a connection between body/mind/soul, creator/spirit/human, communion/mass/christ, etc that are, well, one. I can only explain it in layman's terms, though. Most christians I speak with have their own "scripture-poetic language" I can't always decipher. So we could be speaking of the same thing but maybe some haven't heard of it explained differently than what they are familiar with.

Have you become catholic? I thought you did not believe in God

 

[Vouthon]

They are the same but they also denote two separate entities as each other in divinity (essence, whatever).

What I would personally object to, from a Trinitarian perspective, is your statement that Jesus and the Father denote two separate entities.

Trinitarians do not understand the verse you cited to mean that.

We believe Jesus and the Father are subsisting relations of the one selfsame Being / entity, of which the former is the incarnation thereof (literally God made man, the eternal assuming a human form).

There aren't three people or minds, but one personality and Mind, God, who is Father, Son and Holy Spirit (existing in three instantiations, or relations, of the one being / essence to Itself). That's Trinitarianism.

Three people / minds / beings equals Tritheism, to our understanding.

The Catholic Church at the Fourth Lateran Council in 1215, actually declared as heretical a belief I find, myself, to be very similar to that which you espouse in this thread, which had been ascribed to Joachim of Fiore.

The council proclaimed the Nicene doctrine of the unicity of God having one single, undivided divine essence which each of the three just is whole, entire and undivided: three "distinct manners of subsisting" of that same divine essence, entity, being and mind in relation to Itself.

See:


Fourth Lateran Council : 1215 Council Fathers - Papal Encyclicals

We therefore condemn and reprove that small book or treatise which abbot Joachim published against master Peter Lombard concerning the unity or essence of the Trinity, ...

Abbot Joachim clearly protests that there does not exist any reality which is the Father and the Son and the holy Spirit-neither an essence nor a substance nor a nature — although he concedes that the Father and the Son and the holy Spirit are one essence, one substance and one nature.

He professes, however, that such a unity is not true and proper but rather collective and analogous, in the way that many persons are said to be one people and many faithful one church, according to that saying : Of the multitude of believers there was one heart and one mind, and Whoever adheres to God is one spirit with him...

We, however, with the approval of this sacred and universal council, believe and confess with Peter Lombard that there exists a certain supreme reality, incomprehensible and ineffable, which truly is the Father and the Son and the holy Spirit, the three persons together and each one of them separately...

This reality neither begets nor is begotten nor proceeds; the Father begets, the Son is begotten and the holy Spirit proceeds. Thus there is a distinction of persons but a unity of nature. Although therefore the Father is one person, the Son another person and the holy Spirit another person, they are not different realities, but rather that which is the Father is the Son and the holy Spirit, altogether the same; thus according to the orthodox and catholic faith they are believed to be consubstantial

​

Compare the belief declared heretical to orthodox Trinitarianism above, that the Father, Son and Holy Spirit are merely united as a "collective and analogous, in the way that many persons are said to be one people", with your statement above:

Most say jesus is god, creator is god, spirit is god, but they are three separate people (creator/spirit/human) yet they are god.

​

What you describe there is not Trinitarianism but Tritheism from our perspective.

 

[Unveiled Artist]

Jahve is only one Being shared by three persons

I've heard Jehovah used for the name of the creator and the term "god" as a synonym for essence, divinity, etc in which creator/savior/spirit share.

God the creator
God the son
God the holy spirit

But, like I said posts ago, it depends on the person's relationship with god and their interpretation of the bible as trinitarians. Protestant interpretation and catholic interpretation are different. JW just as much different if not more.

 

[Unveiled Artist]

Have you become catholic? I thought you did not believe in God

About twenty years ago or so ago, my former friend, a roman catholic, invited me to her church. I was never indoctrinated and never believed god existed, but I fell in love with the theology and practices of the church. I made the jump, read the bible, and studied some. Went on retreats and things like that. Our parish was a bit more open so they started bible studies and such. That's when I finally "got" what they meant. After four years, I came to terms with how I understood god isn't how abrahamics understood it and I did not have any personal relationship with scripture, so I left. If I knew then what I know now, I would have never been part of the church. But it did teach me about spirituality, "spiritual awakening," and things of that nature. Mostly good experiences.

I never got into the theology of the church and christianity for that matter. It's always been an experiential thing whether it be good experience or a dead one. So, if you asked me about the trinity, sacraments, etc, I couldn't tell you from a theoretical perspective just personal experience.

But you're right, no. I don't believe god as an entity-but that's not how I understood it in the church. Protestants are the one ones I know that speak of god like a ghost or something separate than oneself interacting with creation. I never experienced that because Mass is interactive not passive.

 

[firedragon]

Answer, there are multiple modes of being. Jesus is fully human, and fully divine at the same time. As human, he is Jesus of Nazareth, a human like all of us. As Divine, his is the Christ, the Son of God, the Word, the Infinite One. That is Jesus' and Buddhas' "Buddha Nature". The Cosmic Divine Essence. This is known as the hypostatic union in Christian theology.

The hypostatic union in Christianity is the one ousias of three hypostasis. Not Jesus. Jesus is one of the hypostasis.

How I see the Trinity would be like this. God the Father is the Unformed essence, the "Dharmakaya". That is the Source of all creation, the Divine Will, the Infinite and unknowable by the human mind.

Dharma means teaching. Kaya means body. And it is one aspect of the Buddha in the Mahayana teachings, unlike the trinity.

I view the Trinity doctrine as very much along the same lines of the Three-Body doctrine, or Trikaya, of Mahayana Buddhism. Trikaya | Buddhism

Trikaya, (Sanskrit: “three bodies”), in Mahāyāna Buddhism, the concept of the three bodies, or modes of being, of the Buddha: the dharmakaya (body of essence), the unmanifested mode, and the supreme state of absolute knowledge; the sambhogakaya (body of enjoyment), the heavenly mode; and the nirmanakaya (body of transformation), the earthly mode, the Buddha as he appeared on earth or manifested himself in an earthly bodhisattva, an earthly king, a painting, or a natural object, such as a lotus.

The concept of trikaya applies not only to the historical Buddha, Gautama, but to all other buddhas as well.

This is not like the trinity.

IN the trinity of the athanasian creed, God, son and spirit are one but three separate beings altogether with one usia. So your explanation is similar to a Christian heresy called Modalism.

@Meandflower

The trinity is not one person in three modes like the Thrikaya in Mahayana Buddhism. I think you may of course know all of this. But the concept of the trinity is that it is one ousia or essence in three separate beings, vis a vis, the father, son and Holy Spirit. The father is NOT the son, the son is not the father, the Holy Spirit is neither of them. They are separate beings, but of the same essence or usia so they are not three lords. In the church history, believing the trinity is three modes of the same person like the Thrikaya spoken of above is called modalism. Its a very serious heresy and you can be excommunicated for believing in such a thing. I will cut and paste part of the Athanasian creed for you from Marquess's translation directly.

"So the Father is God, the Son is God, and the Holy Ghost is God. And yet they are not Three Gods, but One God. So likewise the Father is Lord, the Son Lord, and the Holy Ghost Lord. And yet not Three Lords but One Lord. For, like as we are compelled by the Christian verity to acknowledge every Person by Himself to be God and Lord, so are we forbidden by the Catholic Religion to say, there be Three Gods or Three Lords. The Father is made of none, neither created, nor begotten. The Son is of the Father alone; not made, nor created, but begotten. The Holy Ghost is of the Father, and of the Son neither made, nor created, nor begotten, but proceeding.

So there is One Father, not Three Fathers; one Son, not Three Sons; One Holy Ghost, not Three Holy Ghosts. And in this Trinity none is afore or after Other, None is greater or less than Another, but the whole Three Persons are Co-eternal together, and Co-equal. So that in all things, as is aforesaid, the Unity is Trinity, and the Trinity is Unity is to be worshipped. He therefore that will be saved, must thus think of the Trinity."

 

[blü 2]

Catholics, ortodox, protestants can you explain the trinity in this tread? Explain the trinity in the way you understand it

The Trinity doctrine says that "the One God exists in three Persons and one Substance". It means that there is only one God, and that each of the three Persons is (the one) God. The Persons are Father, Jesus / Son and Holy Ghost.

Since it asserts that The Father is 100% of God, and that Jesus is 100% of God and that the Ghost is 100% of God, and that the Father is not Jesus or the Ghost, and that Jesus is not the Ghost, the doctrine is incoherent. Oddly, the churches acknowledge this, by calling it "a mystery in the strict sense". A "mystery in the strict sense" means something that "cannot be known by unaided human reason apart from revelation, nor cogently demonstrated by reason once it has been revealed" ─ which, as a moment's consideration reveals, is the same thing as a nonsense.

To be clear, the Trinity doctrine does NOT say that Father, Son and Ghost are each 1/3rd of God; nor that God is a partnership with three partners; nor that God is a corporation with three shareholders or a board of three; nor that the Father, the Son and the Ghost are three different manifestations of the one God.

The Trinity doctrine is not found in the NT, where on the contrary all five versions of Jesus say out loud that they're not God and never say that they are God. It was invented in the 4th century CE in response to constant political pressure to elevate the central figure of Christianity to God status.

It entails a number of absurdities ─ eg the Jesuses of Mark and of Matthew saying on the cross, "Me, me, why have I forsaken me?" and since Jesus is the son of God, and Jesus is 100% of God, Jesus is his own father, and the Father has no more claim to the title Father than Jesus or the Ghost do.

There is also the problem that although hypothetically each of the three has [his] own will, there is never dissent between them ie there is ONLY one will; in which case there aren't three persons at all, just three manifestations of the one being.

 

[RestlessSoul]

In Trinitarian theology, no - because if the wording is flawed or not properly articulated, then the implied meaning can change drastically, in a polytheistic fashion in one extreme (which is heretical to the staunch monotheism of Trinitarianism) and a modalism on the other (which gravitates towards a Jewish or Islamic unitarianism, that is heretical to Trinitarianism for denying the Trinity).

But clearly there are elements of polytheism in the Roman Catholic and Eastern Orthodox Churches? If not in the doctrine, then certainly in both the culture and practice. We see this in the relationship with the Saints, and most particularly in the status of the Blessed Virgin.

Christianity, it has been said, is far more a Hellenic than a Semitic religion. After the Reformation, some Protestant sects made a conscious decision to root out all pagan iconography from practice and doctrine, as well as from the physical spaces in which they worship. You won’t even see a crucifix in, say, a Friends Meeting House.

Much as I admire the Quakers, and much as I sympathise historically with groups like The Levellers, I’m still drawn to Catholicism because of the aesthetics; many of which are undoubtedly pagan and polytheistic. Even the classic Renaissance era depiction of God the Father is inspired by Roman imagery of Jupiter - Deis Pater, Lord of Light and Sky. So I don’t think it’s heretical to consider the mystery of the trinity as something not entirely commensurate with the strict monotheism of Jews and Moslems.

Just my take, really. I’m not challenging the orthodoxy of church teachings; but it is the Roman Catholic Church.

 

[Clara Tea]

Catholics, ortodox, protestants can you explain the trinity in this tread? Explain the trinity in the way you understand it

God (father) had sex with a married woman (Mary) and had a son (Jesus), and Christ was the soul in Jesus.

Today, people pray to Jesus. But, Jesus died 2000 years ago, and did not rise again. His spirit (Christ) presumably rose shortly after the death of Christ, then ascended to heaven. So, they should not pray to Jesus, they should pray to Christ.

Some insist that the son of God is God. There are many parts of the bible that disagree with this. God says that he (God) is the only God, and there shall be no other. Jesus was considered the son of God, but had God-like powers (walk on water, cure, make a cheap dinner of an inadequate number of fish and bread), but was not "the" God. Nonetheless, Jesus was called Lord, which doesn't mean that he is "the" God.

The assistant pastor of the local Greek Orthodox Church told me that God split himself into three parts, and all were God. I disagree.

When Jesus was being crucified he asked God "why hath thou forsaken me?". Clearly, he wasn't talking to himself.

On the other hand, some say that he wasn't talking to God at all, but some person who he thought should get him off of the cross. At the time, it is said that the apostles thought that he was talking to a person, not God.

One has to wonder why Jesus didn't use his God-like powers to rescue himself.

 

[Terrywoodenpic]

What's wrong?

I can list where the bible talks about relationship between creator, Jesus, and the spirit thereof.

Are you looking for a fundamentalist definition that says Jesus is the creator itself?

The Bible does not state the Trinity at all.

 

[firedragon]

Yes since the Father, Jesus, Holy spirit is the one God who created the universe/universes, named Jahve.

Jahve is only one Being shared by three persons

(According to the trinity)

Thats not correct.

 

[Vouthon]

There is also the problem that although hypothetically each of the three has [his] own will, there is never dissent between them

In respect to that point, I would need to correct you.

No one hypostasis in God is able to subject or dictate to another because the "will" belongs to the divine nature and is common, not distinct in the individual hypostasis.

The only way in which the hypostases differ, are really distinct from one another, is in their eternal relations of origin - Father is Begetter / Filiation, Son is begotten / generated and the Holy Spirit proceeds / spirates.

In everything else, they are perfectly one. In no other way do they differ. As St. Thomas Aquinas notes in his Summa: "in God there is no real distinction but that of origin".

There is only one God, and so there is only one divine nature which each simply is. Each subsisting hypostasis has the common nature of God, namely, His single spiritual nature, mind, will, and intellect.

"Will" is common to the ousia (essence, being) and not individuated to the hypostases (persons) along with everything else about God save these "subsisting relations of the one essence" to Itself alone.

 

[Vouthon]

But the concept of the trinity is that it is one ousia or essence in three separate beings, vis a vis, the father, son and Holy Spirit

With respect, you have described Tritheism and not Nicene Trinitarianism.

Ousia refers to the one being and essence, which precludes three separate beings. The Persons are consubstantial, of one being - not three. Hypostases are not separate beings but rather distinct manners of subsisting of one single Being to Himself, in three real and eternally distinct relations of origin.

It appears that you have misunderstood the condemnation of modalism, evidently (which denies the distinct relations of that one essence to Itself (Father, Son, Holy Spirit) and makes them out to be mere "masks" by which one divine person reveals Himself fo us) that distinguishes our dogma of God from Jewish and Muslim unitarianism.

This does not mean that we believe in three separate beings, which is polytheism (the opposite heresy from our perspective).

 

[Vouthon]

I fully understand that the Trinity dogma is not the easiest to grasp, given that it claims to be providing a window into God's divine inner life (as he relates to Himself, rather than to us), but this is as simple as I can define the doctrine and the two "extremes" which deviate from it, to the left and right:

Trinitarianism - we're talking about three distinct manners of relating of the one and same Being to Himself, which are called subsisting relations - Filiation or Begetting (the Father), Sonship or Begotten (the Son) and Spiration (the Holy Spirit). Unity of the one essence is consubstantial between the three hypostases (persons), each of which is that one, singular and self-same supreme reality, God.

Tritheism - three separate divine beings united, like three different human persons, together by a shared plan. Unity of essence can only be meant analogously in this case, not literally.

Modalism - one divine person simply "manifesting" himself in different temporary guises in relation to us (His creation) with no real distinction of relations in Himself. This is Unitarianism, God has no distinctions of hypostases, only the one essence and attributes (i.e. Father, Son and Holy Spirit are merely "masks" He assumes or temporary ways in which he reveals Himself to us).

Trinity - God relating to Himself, Tritheism - three gods relating to one another, Modalism - God relating to us.

 

[RestlessSoul]

When Jesus was being crucified he asked God "why hath thou forsaken me?". Clearly, he wasn't talking to himself.

He was quoting the first verse of Psalm 22. The last verse of the Psalm is as follows "They shall come, and shall declare his righteousness unto a people that shall be born, that he has done this".

In attributing these words to him, the Gospel writers may be said to imply that Jesus was human, and that being human, he despaired; that he was fulfilling Old Testament prophecy; that he was conversant with Hebrew scripture; and that his message would be heard by a people yet to come.

 

[firedragon]

With respect, you have described Tritheism and not Nicene Trinitarianism.

Ousia refers to the one being and essence, which precludes three separate beings. The Persons are consubstantial, of one being - not three. Hypostases are not separate beings but rather distinct manners of subsisting of one single Being to Himself, in three real and eternally distinct relations of origin.

It appears that you have misunderstood the condemnation of modalism, evidently (which denies the distinct relations of that one essence to Itself (Father, Son, Holy Spirit) and makes them out to be mere "masks" by which one divine person reveals Himself fo us) that distinguishes our dogma of God from Jewish and Muslim unitarianism.

This does not mean that we believe in three separate beings, which is polytheism (the opposite heresy from our perspective).

"So the Father is God, the Son is God, and the Holy Ghost is God. And yet they are not Three Gods, but One God. So likewise the Father is Lord, the Son Lord, and the Holy Ghost Lord. And yet not Three Lords but One Lord. For, like as we are compelled by the Christian verity to acknowledge every Person by Himself to be God and Lord, so are we forbidden by the Catholic Religion to say, there be Three Gods or Three Lords. The Father is made of none, neither created, nor begotten. The Son is of the Father alone; not made, nor created, but begotten. The Holy Ghost is of the Father, and of the Son neither made, nor created, nor begotten, but proceeding.

So there is One Father, not Three Fathers; one Son, not Three Sons; One Holy Ghost, not Three Holy Ghosts. And in this Trinity none is afore or after Other, None is greater or less than Another, but the whole Three Persons are Co-eternal together, and Co-equal. So that in all things, as is aforesaid, the Unity is Trinity, and the Trinity is Unity is to be worshipped. He therefore that will be saved, must thus think of the Trinity."

Thats from the official creed. If you disagree with it that's your prerogative