The Holy Trinity.

[Trouble .gc]

My Professor said something brief today about monotheism...that we claim to worship 1 God, but pray to the Father, Son and Holy Spirit...

 

I guess i just always thought of them as 1 person mixed together, (to put it loosely.)

 

so would this mean that our religion is polytheistic....but not in the sense that we are worshiping many gods like the greeks...

make sense at all, my thoughts are not so fresh at the moment...too much relious debate in class today...

 

*on a side note, this class is very interesting...there are many religions in my class, it is interesting to hear so many different views...alot like these forums. we discussed a book "When Religion Becomes Evil" today....good read if you have a chance.

[auggybendoggy]

trubs,

I've wondering about the whole trinity thing myself.

 

at this point I'm not sold that its all important. Some (even family) try to make it that by saying if you don't believe that then you think lower of Jesus and you get this "this mean you think that which means you think this which means you believe that thus you arent saved".

 

I just don't see this issue are all important. what the protestant church calls an essential.

 

I'm not saying their wrong I'm just saying I dont see it.

 

Auggy

[appalachian_fox]

It's an interesting topic, and there are lots of views on it. Different churches take it different ways. Look into the creeds of each church, they usually include something about "who Jesus is" in relation to God the Father. For example, the Roman Catholic Church says, "We believe in one Lord, Jesus Christ, ... eternally begotten of the father ... begotten, not made, one in Being with the Father" (they really want to drive that one home) while the Jehova's Witnesses (I pick on them because I just remember this one) believe that in Colossians 1:15 Paul tells us that Christ was created by God ("He is the image of the invisible God, the firstborn over all creation" (NIV Col 1:15). The Greek is (apparently, I don't read much of it) a little clearer in determining that Jesus wasn't God's creation, but these are both parts of the gamut of opinions on "Who Jesus is". It's really interesting!

 

Personally, I see them as faces of one God, which is like saying I have two bodies if I count my hands separately. I think if any one part was missing, He wouldn't be the God He always claims to be.

[Bubblegum Bandit]

C.S. Lewis talked about this in Mere Christianity. He said think of it like water. There are three phases of water.....water, ice, and steam. We call them three different things, but they are still H2O.

[appalachian_fox]

Good call! That C.S. Lewis, smart man...

[dwEEziL]

WARNING, THIS IS BASED ON WHAT I BELIEVE TO BE TRUE:

 

That's a very good analogy BGB but a little flawed in the fact that the same water molecules can not exist in all three phases at the same time (unless you create a vacuum so that the freezing point and the boiling point are the same temperature).

 

Honestly though, I believe in a Triune Godhead, the Holy Trinity. God the Father, God the Son, and God the Holy Spirit. They are three distinct and separate personalities and beings but yet all three are one and the same. Each is fully complete by themselves but also each is a intergral part of each other.

 

How can this be? Well, me being human and in an earthly, imperfect body, my mind can't fully grasp how this can truly be but I believe there are a lot of things about my God that are beyond my mortal comprehension right now. It's not that I don't want to put my God in a box where everything is cut and dry. It's that I CAN'T. It's kind of like those M.C. Escher paintings where he draws something that is not possible to construct in real life. Our mind can conceptualize something without having to know how it can come about or even if it can come about, at least in this age. The explanation for somethings will only be revealed to me when I have been given my new, glorified body.

 

Impossible waterfall

 

That being said, there are some analogies, like BGB's above (which again, is a very good one) that can help explain the trinity. An egg is a good example. An egg is composed of the shell, the white, and the yolk. All three are needed to make it an "egg". With out any one component, it is not an "egg" any more but just parts of an egg. This is where the analogy fails though because while God, Jesus, and the Holy Spirit are intergral parts of one another, they are also fully God by themselves (this is the part the mind can't fully comprehend as being possible although I believe that it is without having to see how).

[appalachian_fox]

A good thing to think about, if perhaps simplistic...If God has created everything, putting Him outside of space and time (He would have to exist before space and time at the bare minimum), could we ever honestly claim to be able to comprehend Him? I.e., can we honestly wrap our minds around the extents of the universe (another noun we humans have not been able to fully explain). There have to be inherent mysteries if we cannot contain God in an equation.

 

I really like how Dweez explained it from a believer's perspective...I think this issue has to be tackled that way.

[Playaa]

I think dweez's painting there really explains it well...or illustrates I should say.

I think there are ALOT of things that we can't understand about God because we are human and try to put things in our universe...

good topic here

[Trouble .gc]

Honestly though, I believe in a Triune Godhead, the Holy Trinity. God the Father, God the Son, and God the Holy Spirit. They are three distinct and separate personalities and beings but yet all three are one and the same. Each is fully complete by themselves but also each is a intergral part of each other.

 

thats pretty much what i was trying to say when i said

 

I guess i just always thought of them as 1 person mixed together, (to put it loosely.)

 

Thanks