Sure. You’re not hearing what I’m saying, but it could be my inability to clearly express what I’m getting at.
No problem, peace to you.
Grace and peace to you brother Dave!
Getting around what? The idea that paradoxes exist in reality? They don’t.
Paradoxes are not reality; rather they express that our limited comprehension of some reality is not completely understood. But Christ said, “I am the truth (reality)…” So He is no paradox.
Whose trying to figure Him out? All I’m affirming is that all statements about God, in order to be meaningful, must make sense.
To me the trinity means God the Father is the source and at some point in the distant past the Spirit and the Word came out of God. They are called “of God” because they came out “of God.”
I mean literally out of God, that’s what gives them their divinity. Spirit of God and Word of God. All divine but from one source, one God.
I believe all of that, for that is the teaching of early Christianity, and not particularly that of Trinitarianism. A Trinitarian believes in a tri-partite, compound God, who is somehow three Persons and yet One — three Persons who are co-existent, co-eternal, and co-equal. They say that God is a Trinity, and yet refer to God in the singular as “He”. Though historic Trinitarians spoke of the Son and the Spirit proceeding from the Father and the Son (or from the Father alone), many modern Trinitarians seem to think that nobody came out of anyone.
hough historic Trinitarians spoke of the Son and the Spirit proceeding from the Father and the Son (or from the Father alone), many modern Trinitarians seem to think that nobody came out of anyone.
Right as i heard Hank Hannegraff many times talk about the Spirit and the Son existing eternally as separate persons, yet even without a calculator that adds up to three gods. Just claiming that it’s a mystery does not make sense of it, at least not to me.
Yep! 1=3 A great mystery! A paradox! But “God’s mathematics is different from man’s mathematics.” 
I was just about to bring that up steve7150. I recently read an article articulating the early Christian’s concept of how God the Father, the Lord Jesus Christ, and the Holy Spirit relate to one another. This was called by some church fathers (correctly, I believe) the trinity, but the idea seems much different. Reading the Nicene Creed one wonders how we missed it. They start right off the bat affirming, “We believe in one God, the Father Almighty”, then they go on to affirm that the Son was begotten “before all ages” (which in effect means He is eternal since He ‘was’ before time existed). Yet today I’m quite sure most Christian don’t believe that version of the trinity, even their wording contradicts it! The early Christians saw that God the Father was called, “The only true God”, and yet Jesus and the Holy Spirit were at times as well called “God”. They also realized the preexistence of the Word (which in effect so did the Arians), the heresy debated was whether Jesus was begotten (created) from nothing or from the same substance (essence) as the Father. Of course the result we get is the Nicene Creed (which I am inclined to agree with). If I were to formulate a quick understanding of the Nicene trinity, I think I would say: There are three persons who are one in divine substance: the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit. There is only one God, the Father of the Son, and Source of the Spirit. One Lord, Jesus Christ, the Son of God, born of the Father before time. One Spirit, the Giver of life, whose source is the Father. This is the Trinity, one Divine Substance revealed in three persons.
The confusion comes when we contradict biblical language by saying, “There is one God in three persons.” The bible never uses the term “God” to refer to a trinity, it almost always refers to the Father (and with exception the Son and the Spirit). What the doctrine of the original Trinity did was explain how there could be one God, but two other persons referred to as God as well. But the idea “one God” only fits the Father. As Paul so elegantly put it, “There is one Spirit, one Lord, one God and Father of all”. The Son and Spirit both are one substance with Father, both come from His being.
(P.S. One final interesting thought. Would it be wrong to say, “The Father, Son, and Holy Spirit make up the fullness of God”?)
Another interesting development in Trinitarian thought concerns the Holy Spirit. Have you ever noticed that the Biblical writers as well as Christian writers during at least the first three centuries of Christianity, never addressed the Holy Spirit in prayer? Yet in our churches today, the Spirit is addressed both in prayer and in song. “Come Holy Spirit, we need Thee…” , etc.
Why do you suppose the Spirit was never addressed in the first three centuries (or maybe more)? Could it be that the Spirit was not regarded as a third divine Person, but as an extension of the Spirit of the Father and the Son? That may be the reason that Jesus said that the Advocate (Holy Spirit) would not come to the disciples unless He first departed this life. (John 16:7). For while Jesus was fully human here on earth, He could not extend His Spirit or Divine Personality beyond the confines of his physical body.
It is also written that the Lord (Jesus) IS the Spirit. (2 Cor 3:17,18)
That’s interesting, and I think, a good point. The identity of the Spirit as a third person is actually much more problematic to me for the doctrine than the relationship between father and son.
I recently ran across an amusing quote: “anyone who can believe in a trinity and claim their religion is monotheistic can believe anything; just give them time to justify it.”
EXCELLENT!! 
. The identity of the Spirit as a third person is actually much more problematic to me for the doctrine than the relationship between father and son.
A couple of things to ponder might be , if the Holy Spirit is a person then why is He not the Father of Jesus? Also the spirit of Christ and the Spirit of God sound very similar in the bible, almost to similar.
Lastly we hear about The spirit of fear and the spirit of many many things in scripture yet none of these are thought of as a person, could the Spirit of God be used in the same way?
Something like that. To quote Paidion:
The Trinity doctrine is something I’ve been ‘working through’ lately.
I just cannot trust Christianity to tell me what to believe about the Lord.
I’ve been through so many denominations and am just sick of all the BS which you have to pay for.
I believe that in my weakness and lack of understanding fully… God sees my heart, and knows that I come to Him acknowledging my sins and trust that what Christ did was for me, 2000 years ago. Amen to that.
If someone asked me to articulate the Trinity… I’d probably decline and say, umm… read verses X,Y and Z and good luck!
I don’t feel comfortable with the way some people describe the Trinity.
I am scared that if I get it wrong… I’ll lead people astray.
I don’t know if I’ll ever feel content in my understanding of the Trinity doctrine.
I think all I can do is ask God to settle my mind… knowing that whatever knowledge I lack, He can make up all the difference. haha.
I know one thing… I don’t know a whole damn lot. haha
For me, there is only one God, a Holy Spirit who is the Father and creator of the heavens and the earth. We ( man/the son) being created in the image of God as is stated in Genesis 1:27 “So God created man in His own image; in the image of God He created him; male and female He created them.”, have the same spiritual nature as that of our Father. Love, compassion, truth, forgiveness, law, order, liberty, creativity, knowledge, etc. etc. that we find in our hearts and minds are all gifts of His Spirit. As Jesus ( God in the flesh ) has taught us, if we follow His Spirit and the example that He set for us, we become the sons of God that He has created us to be; princes and rulers of the earth as Genesis 1:28 states “Be fruitful and multiply; fill the earth and subdue it; have dominion over the fish of the sea, over the birds of the air, and over every living thing that moves on the earth.”
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[size=120]Yes, Jesus the Son of God also addressed His Father as “the only true God.” (John 17:3)[/size]
And behind these doors, we have 3 attempts to explain the Trinity! Pick one and vote on which you like the best 
Door # 1
Door # 2
Door # 3
[size=120]Maybe this picture explains the Trinity:[/size]
[size=120]Or perhaps this one:[/size]
[size=130]Or we might come to the conclusion that there is nothing to explain.[/size]
It depends.
Which picture - if any - belongs to Salvador Dali 
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And which - if any - belongs to Picasso 
Correct theology is important. So important that I think we’ll be learning more and more and more about God forever. Since I think we all agree that He is infinite, that only makes sense. Paul describes the church as “one new man” whose head is Christ. We are one with Christ. I don’t know that the Trinity is something that CAN be understood fully by us temporal, individual beings. I think of it as a family–a perfect and perfectly unified and eternally extant family. Three persons; one God. I realize the picture is inadequate, but I also realize that in my present form, I am not capable of comprehending eternity, nor the Trinity, nor even the love of God.
To the non-Trinitarians here, I tip my hat. You are wrong 
but I love you; God loves you. We don’t have to all agree on everything in order to travel together, so long as we love one another.
Path, I wouldn’t worry too much. If you tell people, “I’m not sure,” then that’s quite good enough. God is who we want to know–you remember, the God who is LOVE? He’s not going to fault us for doing our best, trusting in Him, and failing to get it perfectly right yet one more time. We’re His kids. It’s up to HIM to conform us to the image of Christ, and He will do His job. Trust Him.