The Evangelical Universalist Forum

Is the Trinity unintelligble nonsense?

Theology Philosophical
#61

Precisely. We will always be creatures, made by Christ.

Yes. The Christ in me will always be divine, but the “me” in which this Christ lives will always be a creature. If I am the bottle, Christ will be the wine.

Love and election makes my dog part of my family, but it does not and cannot make my dog human. In the same way, love and election makes humanity part of God’s Family, but it does not and cannot make humanity divine.

I’ll bear that in mind.

Let’s suppose you’re right, and that pagan thinking has influenced the doctrine of the Trinity. Why does that make it false? No doubt pagan thinking has influenced your view of right-angles triangles. Perhaps God, in his grace and humility, revealed something to Plato that he hid from Moses.

God is life and love. Life and love are dynamic, personal and relational. This self-reinforcing feedback loop is the root of the Trinity, the creative engine at the heart of all reality.

Unitarian Gods must be both unchangeable and impersonal in essence, more like the laws of physics than like a family.

I’m getting a bad feeling about this conversation. :laughing:

The Eternal Father begets the Eternal Son. The Eternal Son proceeds from the Eternal Father. Pure Trinitarianism.

#62

The Eternal Father begets the Eternal Son. The Eternal Son proceeds from the Eternal Father. Pure Trinitarianism.

??? :open_mouth: What ??? I know what you are thinking…You should have taken the other pill… :mrgreen:

#63

Yeah. I got that proceed bit wrong (though the eternal Son does come from the eternal Father.) . :laughing: I should have googled the Nicene creed.

But anyway, we’re saved by the grace of God, not by our knowledge of God. Which is just as well.

#64

As a non-Trinitarian, non-Binitarian, non-Modalist, and non-Arian, I have been trying to make sense of Trinitarianism (the late-comer) for decades. (I don’t know what you’d call my position. I suggest “Historic Theist”).

Jason, I know you are a passionate Trinitarian. Your response leads me to believe that from your point of view (and perhaps that of many other Trinitarians), my syllogism is invalid, not because its form is not valid, but because it contains a fallacy known as equivocation.

Here is the argument again:

Trinitarians do affirm the premises. Jason, you admit that you, too, accept premise 2, as “shorthand”.

Thus “God” in premise 1, has a meaning which differs from “God” in premise 2.
For Trinitarians, in premise 1, “God” means “The Trinity”, and in premise 2, “God” means “The Pre-incarnate Son of God”.
Thus my argument is invalid (fallacy of equivocation)

Perhaps my greatest difficulty with trying to make sense out of the Trinity is Trinitarian statements such as you yourself have submitted in your quote above. “The distinct person of the Son is still the one and only God Most High”. What exactly does this statement mean? How can the person of the Son be “the one and only God Most High”, when the Son Himself addresses His Father in prayer as “The only true God”?

And this is eternal life, that they may know You, the only true God, and Jesus Christ whom You have sent. (John 17:3)

And not only does He address His Father as “The only true God” but supplements it with “and Jesus Christ” as if "Jesus Christ was someone OTHER THAN “the only true God”. So how can the person of the Son be “the one and only God Most High” when Jesus Himself recognizes His Father as “The only true God”?

Not only that, but the apostle Paul writes:

… yet for us there is one God, the Father, of whom are all things, and we for Him; and one Lord Jesus Christ, through whom are all things, and through whom we live. (1Cor 8:6)

In brief, Paul says that we Christians have one God, the Father, and one Lord, Jesus Christ.

So how can the person of the Son be “the one and only God Most High” when Paul states that for us, the Father is the One God, and doesn’t state that the Son is, but rather that the Son is the one Lord?

#65

I would also like to ask the following question:

If God is a Trinity in reality, why does the word “God” in the Scriptures never refer to the Trinity (or if it does, it doesn’t appear to do so).

And why does the phrase “ho theos” (the God) where “God” has only “the” as a modifier, ALWAYS refer to the Father, and never to the Son or the Holy Spirit or the Trinity itself (himself?)? If God is a Trinity, one would expect “the God” to refer this “Triune Being”.

#66
#67

I can go with that pretty far. :slight_smile: (There’s an amazing chapter of David’s tragedy with his son Absalom, where a pagan female prophet shows up at his court to berate King David up one side and down the other for behaving the way he’s doing toward Absalom: her ground is that David has a responsibility to show the world how YHWH behaves, and this is not how YHWH behaves!! Granted she was doing it because one of Absalom’s friends paid her to do so, but after all she was taking the risk of showing up to lambaste the king, and the fact she would even be seriously listened to at all is astonishing.)

#68

I will simply repeat my earlier post here:

#69

The various analogies of the supposed Trinity have never made sense to me since they don’t illustrate what Trinitarians actually believe.

One of these is the supposed trichotomy of every person: “body, soul, and spirit”. One human being, but three aspects. This is supposed to illustrate that “one” can be “three”. However a human being is a single person. Even if the trichotomy belief is true, body, soul, and spirit are not three persons.

Another is that water exists in three forms: solid, liquid, and gas—yet it is only one substance, namely H2O. Fine, but again the three forms are not persons.

Finally I came up with an illustration which seems to fit the Trinity concept better than any other I have encountered.
Suppose a male baby were born with three heads, each with a separate brain. Let’s say the baby survives and grow up into adulthood. It is given the name “Triplehead”. Each head is a different person. These persons are named Alpha, Beta, and Gamma.

So Triplehead is a single human being, and yet three persons. When Triplehead is walking down the street people say, “Here he comes!” They even refer to Triplehead as “he”, although Triplehead is actually three persons. To be more precise, other people say, “Here they come!”

If Beta has a toothache, it could be said that Singlehead has a toothache, even though only Beta has one; Alpha and Gamma do not. This is analagous to saying, “God was born as a human being” even though only the Son was born as a human being, and not the Father or the Holy Spirit.

So Triplehead seems to be a pretty good analogy to illustrate the Trinity and seems to fit the Trinity concept in many respects.

The only problems I could find with this analogy, are two:

It doesn’t fit with Jesus calling His Father “The only true God” (John 17:3). Would it make sense if Beta were to call Alpha “the only true Triplehead”? Why wouldn’t Beta and Gamma be just as “true” as Alpha?

Then Paul says that for us Christians there is one God, the Father, and one Lord, Jesus Christ (1Cor 8:6)
Would it be correct to say there is one Triplehead, Alpha, and one (something else) Beta?

Does anyone see how either Jesus’ words to the Father or Paul’s words about one God and one Lord can understood either in terms of the Trinity or Triplehead?

#70

You only found two problems; not three? :laughing:

#71

Rats! I must have missed one! :wink:

#72

Jesus said, “Who do people say that I am?” His disciples replied, “Some say you are John the Baptist returned from the dead; others say Elijah or another of the prophets.”

Jesus replied, “But who do you say that I am?”

Jason answered and said, “You are the Logos, existing in the Father as his rationality and then, by an act of his will, being generated, in consideration of the various functions by which God is related to his creation, but only because Scripture speaks of a Father, a Son and a Holy Spirit, each member of the Trinity being coequal with every other member and each acting inseparably with and interpenetrating every other member, with only an economic subordination within God, but causing no division which would make the substance no longer simple.”

And Jesus answered, saying, “What?”

#73

The trinity is unintelligible to me because it tries to combine two contradictory concepts: unity and division. The idea of three SEPARATE beings or substances at the same time being ONE substance is incoherent to me. Either the things are separate (though of course related) or there is only one thing.

Jesus is God
The father is God
The holy spirit is God
God is the Trinity
Jesus is not the Trinity
The father is not the Trinity
The holy spirit is not the Trinity

See the incoherence?

A person is a unified being - at least in the way that we understand the term - and is simultaneously itself and not another person. Indeed, it is only by there being more than 1 person that relationships or interactions with people can take place. Take 3 people in a relationship: they are not somehow one being, but 3, INTERACTING with each other.

It is impossible for a thing to be altogether itself and not something else, and yet also not itself and that something else. If words have any meaning, ONE being (God) cannot be at the same time THREE beings (father, son, holy spirit). At some point there is grave equivocation going on with these terms.

Either there is polytheism being described, or there is monotheism, but for the life of me I cannot understand how there can be monotheism and polytheism simultaneously. I think that the “manifestationists” who deny the distinctions of the Trinity make infinitely more sense - though I disagree that Jesus was God the Almighty incarnate.

In regard to Allan who asked how God could be love itself without a lover: why does the trinity have to exist in order for God’s nature to INCLUDE love? I disagree that ALL of God’s nature is ENTIRELY love in the sense a father has for a son. There are many other kinds of love: for friends, for family, for spouse, for animals, for nature, etc. If what you imply were true - namely, that God could not possess a characteristic unless that characteristic were eternally manifested in some external object - then how could Jesus have ever become a man? He wasn’t always one. I don’t think your argument is water tight at all. God is what he is, regardless of any external object, although, one could argue he has eternally been creating the world, in the sense that there was no time in which the universe did not exist.

Well what would he LOVE then, you ask? I think you’re trying to subject God to time and cause division in his nature. Before God created the son, he loved the idea he knew he would bring into existence of the son, as well as the creation, etc. If the classical doctrine is true, then there is no division in God’s mind like there is on ours, there neither was nor is any time in which he is lacking something or gaining something.

#74

Of course, you’re stating that you’re perfectly comfortable in asserting your proof with a blatant misrepresentation of what Trinitarianism actually is to the vast majority of orthodox Trinitarians. The fact that you’ve held tenaciously to this misrepresentation is proof that you;re being disingenuous, at best, Paidion.

This continued misrepresentation of what orthodox Trinitarianism actually holds, by your nonsensical and circular argument, proves to the world that your doctrine is nothing more than man-made frippery, which serves to do nothing more than cause divisions in the Body.

Of course, the need to hold to orthodox Trinitarianism as a proof of “true faith” in God is as big of a load of bollocks as what you’re presenting, Paidion. Jesus Himself never once said that it is necessary to hold to Trinitarianism, nor any other concept of the Godhead for salvation; He told us only to believe in Him.

#75

Light is a wave. Just ask Young and Maxwell. It reflects like a wave, refracts like a wave, diffracts and interferes like a wave. It’s made by oscillating a charge.

Light is a particle. Just ask Planck and Einstein. It has a quantum of energy, like a particle. It has momentum, like a particle. It can behave just like a billiard ball.

See the incoherence. (Hey. I just made a light joke.)

An electron is a particle. We know its mass. It behaves just like a particle in every way, except when it doesn’t. Then it acts like a wave.

In fact, every particle is a wave. This is easy to say, but hard to believe if you actually think about it. In what way is a brick is like a ripple in a pond?

When I walk through a door, I diffract. Really? How incoherent! Suppose I have two doorways in my house. I walk through one at noon, and walk through the other at midnight. The noon event will interfere with the midnight event (how?) creating an interference pattern made up entirely of me. Do I feel like I’m smeared out in space every time I walk through a door?

The real world is a very funny place. When he walked this earth, was Jesus a particle or a wave? Wherever he is now, is he human or divine?

Jesus says, “If you have seen me, you have seen the Father.” But he also says, “The Father is greater than I.” He says, “The Father and I are one.” But he also says, “Why do you call me good? There is none good but God.”

Unitarians want to keep things simple, and they do so by ditching half the data. ie. Jesus is man. He’s not God.

Trinitarians don’t ditch the data, but work with what they’ve got. They are happy to believe things which seem to be incoherent until given more information, bigger brains, or both. ie. Jesus is both man, and God.

#76

I don’t think you’ve read me carefully, Eric. Or if you have, it would seem that you didn’t understand me. I haven’t “held tencaciously to this misrepresentation.” I have held tenaciously to the logical FORM of the argument. I have admitted that if “God” is used in a different way in premise 2 than it is used in premise 1, then my argument is INVALID. And Jason, an avid Trinitarian has indicated that “God” IS in fact being used in two different ways. For when Trinitarians affirm premise 1, they use “God” to mean the Trinity. But when they affirm premise 2, they use “God” to mean the Son. So “God” is used in two different ways, and thus my argument is invalid. Therefore, how can you say that I have “held tenaciously to this misrepresentation”?

Don’t you think it wise to try to understand a person’s statements before pronouncing them as “disingenuous” (deceptive)?

#77

Let’s keep things friendly, folks.

We’re all talking bollocks, most likely. :blush:

We’re saved by His grace, not by our cleverness.

#78

Hi, gang. Been away for several weeks and dropped in to see what was going on. I can’t resist a thread on the doctrine of the Holy Trinity, especially as I have been immersed in Sts Athanasius, Basil of Caesarea and Gregory of Nazianzus for well over a year now.

As soon as I see the syllogisms being employed and the doctrine of the Trinity being treated as a logical problem, my theological antennae pop up. I honestly do not think this is the appropriate way to approach the doctrine of the Trinity. I remember reading Richard Swinburne’s book on the Christian God after it was first published. My initial reaction was–this guy doesn’t get it. The doctrine wasn’t invented in order to solve a philosophical conundrum: it was formulated to protect the mystery of God and articulate the grammar of Christian worship and discourse during that time in history when the gospel was being proclaimed and interpreted within Hellenistic culture. In Dale Tuggy’s categories, patristic trinitarian reflection may be properly described as mysterianism. It ain’t about formulating a metaphysic. It’s all about finding the least inappropriate language to speak of the God who radically transcends the world he has made ex nihilo but who has enfleshed himself in Jesus of Nazareth.

Hence I note the frequent use in this thread of the word “person” to speak of Father, Son, and Spirit. But the Greek word used in patristic reflection is hypostasis, which was a synonym of ousia (substance). That should immediately alert us to the fact that we are not speaking of three “persons.” In fact, it’s probably best to simply avoid using the word “person” and simply use the word hypostasis. In one sense we don’t need to know what hypostasis means when applied to God (though it’s helpful to know what it does not mean), just as we do not know what ousia means when applied to God. We just need to know that we do not know what it means. Dense accounts of hypostasis and ousia simply are not possible. Perhaps the best way to understand the trinitarian dogma is to point out the various heretical formulations that the dogma excludes. What we end up with then is the divine mystery of the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit.

I am not promoting a radical apophaticism here, as I do not believe that the key 4th century Greek Fathers taught a radical apophaticism. But all of the Fathers, Greek and Latin, taught that God is incomprehensible in his eternal substance. We cannot know what he is. And if we cannot and do not know what God is, then we cannot pretend that we understand what it means for God to be three hypostases in one ousia. All we can do is to pray to the Father with and through the Son in the Holy Spirit. All we can do is to praise the God who is Holy Trinity.

I commend to you Lewis Ayres’s Nicaea and its Legacy and John Behr’s The Nicene Faith.

#79

youtube.com/watch?v=KQLfgaUoQCw&feature=youtube_gdata_player :laughing:

Well, that settles it, then!