Jason Pratt, thank you for the response. 
Tho I don’t know what all the 
is about 
edit: just found out that the max number of smilies allowed is 10! I had to edit!
I was never comfortable with the Trinitarian model, and I hold another view, but I actually most appreciate what DaveB said here,
This is not actually a big deal for me now - I worship God the Father through the Son Jesus Christ, with the help of the Holy Spirit - and the sophisticated metaphysics that become a measure of one’s Christianity is, for me, if not trivial, then superfluous.
What if the truth concerning the actual construction/relationship between the Father, the Son and the Holy Ghost, in all reality transcends our definitions, resulting in endless debate without possible resolution 
It might make sense that God is not as concerned with our understanding and defining the details as we are. Where God has purposely left some fuzzy edges to confound us, and even possibly judge us(in the kindest discerning and exposing way) as to whether being correct is as important as we think it is, or even possible, and how we deal with each other over the question of it.
Having studied intensely over the years with Modalists and Unitarians and Trinitarians, I have always gotten a kick out of the evasive maneivers necessary to fully embrace any of those positions in their particular orthodoxy.
I am by no means saying I fully understand it, I am unconvinced it can be, or even should be, fully understood- but I am nevertheless completely thrilled when I get to munch on it with an educated and open mind.
That God would be so indifferent to such an understanding as to leave it for a few centuries out from the new-born church to extrude a detailed definition of it, and then make that (the result of a centuries enduring intellectual and political wrestling match) a salvation essential doctrine makes me wonder if a less impirical approach is preferable to Him. One with a little more child-like mysticism allowed and even appreciated. Jesus spoke of it in a manner destined, and probably intended, to leave a fair amount of room for reasonable, conscientious, differences of opinion.
One thing I am sure of tho. As soon as someone begins anathematizing people over the mystery of the Godhead- whatever their view, they have probably got a spiritual problem much more serious than mere doctrine can resolve. 
Yep… and that likewise goes for a whole bunch of other historic dogma.
Yup.
Yep+1
As I see it, subscription to the doctrine of the trinity is inherently apophatic. It is necessary to posit some cataphatic explanation of God in order to be coherent.
Whereas, as I see it, subscription to the doctrine of the Trinity is inherently kataphatic; otherwise there would be no doctrinal details to be accepted (or rejected) at all! 
(Any proposed doctrinal set is inherently kataphatic, be the proposals right or wrong.)
It seems to me that any complete systematic theology on the Godhead is both. Defining what God is, in one view, represents what He is not(to some extent) in another view.
For instance, if one defines the relationship of Jesus as less than co-equal to the Father, they see it as kataphatic- Jesus is the Son, an image of the Father, a seed out of YHWH, a composite of the Almighty Invisible God. To an orthodox Trinitarian that is apophatic, asserting(in relation to their view) that God is not something(composed of three co-equal persons) that they think He is.
The extreme of either approach is just as deforming to actual truth as the other, one being dogmatic, the other being agnostic.
I am uncertain as to which of the -tics this would fit:
“When someone objects to the trinitarian doctrine on the ground that it makes no sense to them, that is precisely the point. If the doctrine made sense, it would not be speaking of the holy and ineffable three-personed Creator narrated in the Scriptures and experienced in the eucharistic liturgy.”
That was in my post above, selected from Fr. Kimel’s blog. I think he puts a fine point to it. Elsewhere on that page he or another spoke of the truth of the trinity only being know by 'vision".
My only point is this: don’t make a doctrinal necessity out of an experience that cannot be communicated.
One more: we can’t claim someone else has a lesser vision of God because he/she/it is not persuaded to believe in something that we cannot explain.
And one last: we can’t pretend to have reasoned our way into the truth of the Trinity - noone has ever done that. It is speculation, it is vision. I’m not saying the experience or the speculation is not valuable (though HOW one experiences a trinity is puzzling) in itself. But it should not be binding on others. Those that are asked, at their Ordination, if they believe in the Holy Trinity - should be thankful they are not asked to explain it.
The apostle’s creed is a good one, I think.
That’s why I don’t expect, much less ask, anyone to accept a doctrine they haven’t seen the truth of yet. If I or anyone else haven’t communicated it clearly yet, it hasn’t been communicated yet, that’s all.
But I play fair another way, too: I do expect and even ask people to reject a doctrine they honestly think they’ve seen the falsity of, whether that’s universal salvation or trinitarian theism.
What you quoted Fr. Kimel on is pretty much the nadir of apophotic theology – or maybe not quite, because it still recognizes kataphatic content to negate. But you ought to be able to see the difference, yes?
I can’t in good conscience ask people to accept something that in principle cannot possibly make sense. It’s even a self-refuting position to try to take: someone understands a position well enough to see that it makes sense that it cannot possibly make sense?? And that’s why it should be believed?
Having personal faith in someone is different than that. We trust specialists, so far as we have reason (or desperation) to believe THEY KNOW and understand the truth of something even if we don’t, or under the circumstances can’t. But there has to be a point at which we can distinguish the con artist from the true specialist. And throwing up a cloud of unknowing isn’t that point. We’re called to reject falsehood and accept truth, and that means rejecting contradictions, unless and until we see they aren’t really contradictions. Training people to accept contradictions is how cults and false religions, and false philosophies, fool people.
I will also add that while I completely agree that someone should never pretend to have reasoned their way to understanding the Trinity (or pretend to have reasoned their way to understanding anything, unless they’re making a harmless joke); by their own admission, people who think the Trinity cannot even possibly make sense to anyone, are in no position to say that no one has ever done that: that’s either their own sheerly ungrounded assertion, or they somehow understood enough of the Trinity to say that it makes sense that the trinitarian doctrine cannot make sense, which is self-refuting nonsense. It would be better, and more consistent with positively valuing truth, for them to say that (as far as they can tell) the Trinity is a mistake and wrong – and that they understand (they think) where the errors are and so why it’s a mistake and wrong. The agnostic can have an honorable agnosticism, but nothing, so far as that goes, to say about whether the Trinity can be understood by a human reasoning.
Now, if Fr. Kimel only meant that no creature can fully understand the Trinity, I totally agree. No creature can, demonstrably or even in principle, fully understand the keyboard I’m typing on right now, myself included. 
But lots of creatures (myself included) can understand it well enough to distinguish it as a keyboard and not as the holy and ineffable three-personed Creator (for example), even though none of us can fully understand it except the holy and ineffable three-personed Creator – which is not a claim anyone could even possibly truthfully make without a holy and ineffable three-personed Creator making some kind of legitimate sense to them, not-incidentally! No more than someone could even possibly truthfully make a claim about a keyboard without it even possibly making some kind of legitimate sense to them. And a keyboard makes a lot more sense to a lot more people than me, even though none of them (except the Ground of All Existence) can understand it completely.
Is experiential experience of the Trinity (theosis as it’s called in the East; the Beatific Vision as it’s called in the West), better than mere logical understanding of the Trinity? Sure it is! – but no one could legitimately say that who doesn’t also have some legitimately logical understanding of the truth of the Trinity. Otherwise they’d only be making a mistake (even if the mistake happened to be accidentally true anyway, so to speak). My own mystical experiences don’t blot out or discount my logical understandings of the Trinity; often, even usually, they run concurrently – not always, I’m only a creature, but the not-always doesn’t mean the logical understanding is false, it’s just a failure of my attention. That’s a natural limitation, and there’s nothing wrong with that. Typically my meditations on the logical coherencies and implications of the Trinity lead to a mystical experience; other people get there somewhat different ways, and that’s fine – so long as distinct truth isn’t being thrown under the bus thereby. I’m glad Buddhists can have mystical experiences, too, but that doesn’t mean Buddhism (of whatever variety and varieties) is just as true as trinitarian Christian theism. They probably (definitely?) take apophatic theology to its limit, though.
Negative mysticism (like apophatic theology) isn’t inherently bad; it’s useful for keeping positive mysticism (and kataphatic theology) from running rampant into the everything-is-true falsity.
But the ground of all reality is not a mere cloud of unknowing (though the privative aseity endemic to Christianity, and borrowed from classical theism and eastern mysticism alike, where God simply exists uncaused, thus not essentially active in self-existence, would tend to slope toward believing that). And so it doesn’t make sense that the positive reality of the ground of existence is best and primarily experienced by a cloud of unknowing.
Which naturally the proponents of that method typically agree with: of course it doesn’t make sense! It couldn’t possibly make sense! Isn’t that great?
That might be a non-sequitur, Jason. It could be that ‘it’ cannot be communicated, and that’s all. People of like belief can talk amongst themselves, of course, and share a common vocabulary and be jolly; however, that does not give truth-value to the propositions that are formed using that specialized vocabulary. You see that, yes? And though that group of like-minded individuals has the freedom to look down on, condescend to, and deny entrance to, anyone who might seem to be an unjollifier, (thank you, I’ll be here all week ) it would certainly be ungracious. But it is human nature.
I don’t know as I’ve ever said the concept of the Trinity did not make sense to anyone - my paragraph above shows that I think it is possible. But ‘making sense to me’ does not mean I am then in a position of judgment, condescension, and exclusivity. (I am not accusing you of that, JP, in fact I know your eyes are open and you strive for fairness.)
As to the “self-refuting nonsense” - your foe in that paragraph would be the individual who says that the concept “Trinity” : 1)cannot even possibly make sense to anyone and 2) cannot say that no one has ever understood it and 3) if that individual does say that it cannot make sense and never has, then 4) that individual is either spouting ungrounded assertion or 5) understood enough - to them at least - to say that the doctrine ‘cannot make sense’.
I am not THAT foe. The doctrine CAN make sense - in the following way:
Here is a link to a short 4-min video on retrograde motion. Most of us know this - that, at certain times of the year, planets seem to stop moving against the background of the stars, then go backwards, then start forward again - i.e., retrograde motion. The vid explains it. The rather fascinating explanation, early on in science, was that of the epicycles. Again, the vid.
youtu.be/piBBQTkoQ9c
This is an example of ‘saving the appearances’ - I’ve mentioned this before. The epicycles did in fact MAKE SENSE of a very puzzling, almost contradictory state of affairs - the heavens were supposed to be perfect, perfect circles and everything!! So the epicycles, being their own little perfect circles, at least were circles, and made for an elegant and intellectually satisfying explanation.
So: I believe we are faced with a mystery, a state of affairs, and more than that, with Being Himself, that just blows concepts apart. The best we have been able to do to save most of the appearances - tying together in some manner “I and the Father are One” and also “There is one mediator between God and man, the man Jesus Christ” - is to cobble together (sorry, but that is what it seems like to me) a coherent system of propositions that almost ‘saves the appearances’.
I get it. It is a lovely theory that just cannot be explained. I could go much further - but we are not speaking in broadly Aristotelian terminology here - and I’m also agnostic about the efficacy of Aristotelian analysis in helping us either in affirmation or denial of the concept ‘Trinity’ anyway.
Myself - I just kinda refuse to be put into a category on this. I firmly believe the Apostle’s creed as I understand it. And every so often I too get a taste of the Glory of God in the face of Jesus Christ, imparted by the Holy Spirit - and while the term “Trinity” does not enter my mind at those times, I am overcome nonetheless, forgetting all about classification and who is ‘right’. I just want to be THERE.
I’m far from trying to write a simple desultory phillipic (S+G fans will get that) -My point comes down to this question: would it be morally or intellectually right to exclude or denounce a confessing Christian, or even in our hearts alone consider her as lesser in faith or knowledge -somehow not seeing ‘OUR truth’ - SIMPLY on the basis of not believing that the case for Trinitarianism has been made? Is THAT the basis of our fellowship, and the basis of our judging the level of knowledge of another believer?
My problem with the Trinity is not that I can’t plug into the paradigm and make sense of it within the pseudo-logical(imo) framework created for it. I just dont think it fits the whole context of the scriptures.
There is a difference between a cloud of unknowing and a different paradigm based on another way of putting the building blocks together- but the kids just keep throwing those blocks at each other and there is so much blood spilled LOLOLOL
Oddly enough, to me the Trinity is based on a huge cloud of unknowing, since it requires the acceptance of a sort of illogical(for those outside the cloud) statement of a supposed fact, for which a person is supposed to set aside their reason, and the normal meaning of words to accept a construct that might not make sense because it is not-sensible rather than because it is mystical…but I understand the perspective from which Trinitarians view the scriptures on it, and I have no problem with the Trinity as a viewpoint, as long as it isnt represented as a soteriological absolute.
Also, as far as discussing this, there is the common sense issue of leavng room for ones own potential error on a subject over which learned and devoted men of spirit have disagreed for at least 1700 years, and avoiding the error of hammering down dubious authority on verses that can be interpreted with some diversity and also prioritized differently.
As far as I am concerned all one must believe about Jesus as He relates to the Father, is that He is the only begotten Son, of the One True God, YHWH, born of a virgin, who lived a sinless life, died as a propitiation for sin, was raised on the third day, ascended above all heavens as Lord of the Universe, and that in order to be “in Him” we must follow Him- and He will raise us up.
I disagree with Trinarians about the co-equality of the Son( and maybe the co-eternity), I disagree with Unitarians about the pre-existence of the Son(He created all things and had glory with the Father, so He pre-existed), Modalists I disagree with just on principle because their attitude is so obnoxious (LOL jus kiddin), Are there still any Bi-nitarians?
I agree, Eagles’ Way. I don’t think we ought to hit one another over the head with it. It goes both ways. I’ve been assaulted (not here) by non-Trinitarians angry that I can’t accept their beliefs as my own. It is Jesus who saves us; not our correct beliefs. I have no problem with their ideas; I just don’t subscribe to them; can’t subscribe to them. But just because we feel a brother or sister is mistaken about a doctrine is no reason to treat them with anything less than love. If they’re wrong (or if we’re wrong), it’s not because anyone WANTS to be wrong. We just have limited understanding in our present state. All names will sort themselves out in the end (to paraphrase Aslan). Love is the essential. If we don’t have it now, we will have it before we’re able to join the society of the family of God. Until then, we’re not safe to be allowed to play with the other kids.
Well-said
This seemed like as good a place as any to insert this contribution of questionable worth. As always, I’m simply responding to whatever happens to strike me at the moment, and simply trying to offer another perspective, which, though largely redundant, will perhaps nudge the discussion forward another inch, while including perhaps one or two thoughts not yet examined. You decide:
(BTW, it’s going to sound like I’ve lost the thread of this conversation before I even begin. Trust me, I have a point to make, and it will lead me back around to “The Trinity,” the subject at hand, eventually.) Blog rants from angry former Fundamentalists are a dime a dozen. I understand them…I’m often angry too…I bear some of the scars as well. But I often feel as if my ranting now comes from a different position: I no longer self-identify as an Evangelical (although I certainly can and do still learn and glean from those that do), and I no longer consider myself to be drawing principally from an Evangelical’s primary categories of thought. So, for instance, I feel like I’m not being addressed very well, to say the least, when I read something like this article I found once upon a time: gordonatkinson.net/rlp-archive/i … e-for-this. Granted, this particular rant was about a different topic - homosexuality - and I am not trying to dredge up that issue here - but the tenor of the author’s words serves as an illustration of my larger point. He dismissively demands, “Show me what you got, Christian,” and then proceeds to “debunk” a collection of Bible passages - IOW, to speak around, not to, someone like me. My response, should he even care to hear it, would be, “Well, I’m not trying to prove the rightness of a moral [or, in the current thread to which I’m replying, doctrinal] stance by the Bible, because I don’t think the Bible is there for that purpose, and because unlike the average Evangelical, the Bible is not all I have to turn to, nor am I burdened with the necessity of making it ‘agree with itself’ in every detail. So ‘what I’ve got’ is not limited to a few scattered and (obviously) highly debatable excerpts of Scripture. Thanks be to God, I also have 2,000 years of ongoing Tradition within the Church: that is, the still evolving theological struggle of the whole Body of Christ, informed by the indwelling and ever-revealing Spirit of God.” That now carries an authority for me that I couldn’t have begun to imagine in my “evangelical” days. It runs hand-in-hand with the inward testimony or confirmation an individual must feel to see the truth of anything (what GMac called the “doctrine of the Spirit”).
So it is with the Incarnation and the Holy Trinity. If it took centuries (millennia, really) to begin to see the truth of God as Trinity; if St. Paul barely saw it himself, or didn’t see it at all; if the jewel of it is buried in Scripture only in the most recondite, esoteric, and undeveloped references; if God made use of human corruption, intrigue, and heavy-handed religious politics to fully bring it to the world’s attention; if it could only be confirmed in this sinner’s heart by an ecstasy over the beauty of the thought of perfect relationship within God himself…well, what of it? Does any of that make it any less beautiful, or any less true? For me, “Jesus of Nazareth” is not enough; the “cosmic Christ” who holds all things, including me, together, and can answer every need I have because he shares in the very essence of God - in a way I never will, nor ever want to - is infinitely satisfying. For me, inside the Circle of Father, Son, and Spirit is the only universe I care for.
Beautiful, Latecomer.
Sort of like He did in bringing Hell and eternal torment to the world?
(Said in the most humorous and non judgmental spirit possible )
I once thought I was a Binitarian, since I believed that Jesus was divine, and did not believe that the Holy Spirit was a third divine Individual, but was the Persons of the Father and of the Son. However Binitarian thought considers God to be a Binity. In that way it is still subject to the same problems as the Trinity.
I find it so much simpler to believe as Jesus Himself did, in the “One True God.” (John 17:3) and Jesus the Messiah whom He sent.
Or in one God—the Father, the Creator of all things, and in one Lord—Jesus the Messiah THROUGH whom God created all things. (1 Cor 8:6)
Count me in, Paidion.