Question:
How many Christians can truly explain Trinity?
Caboto
2015-10-18 20:54:52 UTC
I have never met a Christian who could really explain it from either a logical or a theological point of view. Most just believe in it (and try desperately to explain it) just because someone told them to. However, not even the great theologians could explain it. The book "On the Trinity" (De Trinitate) is perhaps the most difficult work that St. Augustine ever wrote just because the theology of the Trinity is a difficult subject to explain or discuss. References to the Trinity in the Bible are few, and their meaning is not always obvious, they can easily be read as contradictory. The traditional view of the Trinity (as three persons in one God) is an inferential conclusion from the Bible that took generations to assemble. This problem is sufficiently difficult that many people in the time of Augustine opted to classify it solely as a Mystery of Religion that would be understood in the next life but not in this one.
Eighteen answers:
TeeM
2015-10-19 07:13:01 UTC
Actually in the book "Religions of America" edited by Leo Rosten



According to William B. Lipphard and Frank A. Sharp whom both are Baptists.



In their answer to the question "Do Baptists Accept the Doctrine of the Trinity?



"Most Baptist do. ... The sublime mystery of the trinity ,. . . they leave to theologians to interpret. He (the Baptist) accepts them."



If as some have commented "The trinity can be explained" then it wouldn't be a mystery. Yet honest theologians ready admit "It is a mystery".



Actually the only trinity I've found in the bible is:



Harper’s Bible Dictionary



Baal / Bel ,



“Baal translated into English is Lord”



“Baal comes from two words meaning: “the son of” and “god,”



“Baal is worshiped as a triad / trinity.”



Baal worship is from Satan.



Now the question is:



Do you worship the Lord?



Do you worship the Son of God?



Do you worship a trinity of God?



Are you a Baal worshiper?



Where did I hear this teaching recently?



*** w58 10/15 p. 621 Baalism, Ancient Materialistic Religion of Canaan ***

To complete the trinity of major gods, El and Asherah had an outstanding son, Baal, also considered a god.



Who is fulfilling this prophecy?



(Jeremiah 23:27) 27 They are thinking of making my people forget my name by means of their dreams that they keep relating each one to the other, just as their fathers forgot my name by means of Ba´al.



(Psalm 83:18) 18 That people may know that you, whose name is Jehovah, You alone are the Most High over all the earth.



Even if ‘Sam’ is a Grandfather, Father, and a Son, Sam still has only one will, unless he is mentally disturbed or Sam is three different individuals. Sam Sr., Sam Jr., & Sam III.



John 5:19 Therefore Jesus answered and was saying to them, "Truly, truly, I say to you, the Son can do nothing of Himself, unless it is something He sees the Father doing; for whatever the Father does, these things the Son also does in like manner. . . . 30 "I can do nothing on My own initiative. As I hear, I judge; and My judgment is just, because I do not seek My own will, but the will of Him who sent Me.



When was the last time you heard God say? “I can do nothing of myself.” or “I seek not my own will, but the will of Him who sent Me? Who has the authority to send God anywhere?
nameless
2015-10-19 03:31:07 UTC
How many Christians can truly explain Trinity?

I have never met a Christian who could really explain it from either a logical or a theological point of view. Most just believe in it (and try desperately to explain it) just because someone told them to. However, no



~~~ 10 Bible Passages That Might Be Totally Bogus



http://listverse.com/2015/08/11/10-bible-passages-that-might-be-totally-bogus/



10 The Triune Formula





Known as the “Great Commission,” Matthew 28:19 describes Jesus sending his disciples out to preach the Gospel, instructing them, “Teach ye all nations; baptizing them in the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Ghost.” In other words, the three persons in one God. This formula is an important piece of scriptural evidence for the doctrine of the Trinity.



However, the rest of the New Testament refers to baptism only in the name of Jesus. For example, in Acts 2:38, Peter preaches that believers should “repent and be baptized, every one of you, in the name of Jesus Christ for the forgiveness of your sins.” This has led some to suspect that the Triune baptismal formula was added later in order to shore up the doctrine of the Trinity, which was rejected by the Arians and other early Christian sects. The fourth-century Church historian Eusebius quotes the text thus: “Go ye into all the world and make disciples of all the Gentiles in My Name.”



However, it’s considered questionable whether Eusebius was quoting verbatim, since he was sometimes prone to paraphrasing. Eusebius also quoted the longer reading elsewhere. Additionally, the Didache, a Christian text believed to have been written in the first century, contains the long form, as do writings by many of the early Church fathers. In light of this evidence, it can’t be said with any certainty that the text was added later, although various Pentecostal groups continue to insist that it was.





1 The Johannine Comma



The highly nuanced doctrine of the Trinity is a bit hazy in the Bible, so some scholars think scribes might have resorted to fabricating the scriptural proof themselves. Notably, they might have added the famous Johannine Comma to I John 5:7, which reads: “And there are three that bear record in heaven, the Father, the Word, and the Holy Ghost. And these three are one.” This is one passage where the case for inauthenticity is virtually a slam dunk.



Only eight extant Greek manuscripts from the 10th century onward contain the Comma. Four of these have the text only on the margin. All appear to be translations of the Latin Vulgate, itself a late text. No Church Father quotes it in debates with anti-Trinitarian heretics like the Arians. It is supposed that the Comma originated as a marginal note in certain Latin versions, eventually making its way into the Vulgate.



The few proponents of the Comma accuse the Arians of suppressing the text. They argue that Bishop Cyprian appears to reference the Comma around AD 250. In the late fourth century, St. Jerome was aware of copies with the Comma and raged against scribes who were deleting it, calling them “unfaithful translators . . . who have kept just the three words water, blood and spirit in this edition, omitting mention of Father, Word and Spirit.”



But is it really believable that the Arians could have expunged so many Greek manuscripts, even with their dominance of the Eastern Roman Empire for half a century? Textual critics think not. Modern critical versions of the Bible now usually omit the Comma. For example, the English Standard Version reads: “For there are three that testify: the Spirit and the water and the blood; and these three agree.”
DP.
2015-10-19 12:46:20 UTC
Wow here's irony!



A superficial question that demonstrates little more than limited flawed thinking asking about something that's intrinsically complex and profound!



Well if anyone is going to answer your question about the Trinity at the level of intellect displayed the answer would be yes... three people one God. I can understand multiple into one concepts not least because they are found in everyday life and in the bible! A married couple are one.. they become one when they join together and they can be known as one couple and yet there are still two of them. Likewise one family, one audience, one congregation, one crowd, one church, etc. The simplest aspect of the Trinity is simple and yet it's beyond the grasp of many who oppose merely because they cannot understand the simplest element of it. Such are the JWs who constantly ask "When Jesus spoke to the Father was He speaking to Himself" and fail to see the limit logic they deploy.



Alas your assertions rise so little above the limited logic of the JWs that anything more than the simplest of explanations would seem to be lost.



..and yet you (and many like you) claim that since the Trinity is not entirely understandable it is highly probably untrue which is like equating the splash of sea lion entering the water with pollution in the rivers on the other side of the planet. The obvious and logical reality is that if there be a God of any consequence then He would have to be so infinitely more complex than the small space between any mans ears could squeeze understanding. Thinking anything different to this is like an ant claiming satellites are not possible because he cannot understand them!



So little ant welcome to the world!
Annsan_In_Him
2015-10-19 00:00:23 UTC
If you ask whether any Christians can explain the Trinity doctrine to your satisfaction, the answer is probably "None". That is because the deep things of God are revealed by the Spirit of God and of Christ. And God is under no obligation to explain anything about Himself to anyone. He HAS chosen to reveal certain things, but every Christian knows that we won't know the full truth about the Godhead until we enter eternity and see Him as He is - dwelling in unapproachable light.



As it is, the Bible shows the Godhead to be complex, not simple. Further, if we could totally explain our God, could He be God? Or would we not have invented a God of our choosing? There was an article in our monthly Church magazine on this. The editor said:

"Several Christian doctrines are hard to understand and some are beyond our ability to grasp... [such as] the Trinity - three divine persons in the Godhead, the same in substance, equal in power and glory... thinking about the Godhead can stretch and stagger the minds of those with the greatest intellects...

"Each of the divine persons honours the other two, and never says or does anything to promote himself at the expense of the others. In this, we have the model for how the members of a church should behave...

"Another feature revealed about the Trinity is the harmony and unity that the divine persons enjoy as they participate in the success of the gospel. It can be argued from our limited perspective that the success of the gospel has always been the focus of the Trinity. This was what they were thinking about and anticipating even before they made the universe together. It is what they are thinking about now as the kingdom of God extends more and more."



Anyone wishing to delve deeply into this could try Tertullian (c. 160-220). He was the first significant theological writer in the Latin language and established much of the terminology that was used in western discussions of the Trinity. However, we English speaking people will stumble due to our different understanding of some Latin words we translate as 'persons'. In Latin, that did not mean what we take it to mean today! So, when the Trinity is succinctly explained as, "The one Being of God subsisting in the three 'persons' of the Father, the Son and the Holy Spirit... we impose our thoughts of what a person is on the formula.



The best explanation I read of all of this is in the book below. However, the clearest illustration I had was given by a Yahoo user, Bobby Jim, who gave me permission to copy it:

"As a Fire Fighter (now retired) I learned of the trinitarian nature of fire. In order for fire to burn, it must have three things: heat, fuel, and oxygen. Whether it's a fire in your furnace, or a forest wild fire, that's what fire requires.

Fire extinguishment attacks any one of those three things, depending on the situation.

Water cools the temperature of the fuel.

The mediums contained in fire extinguishers generally seek to block out the oxygen surrounding the fuel.

A less popular but equally effective method is to physically remove the fuel from the source of heat and oxygen.

The flames will go out with any of these three methods.

In much the same way, the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit operate in conjunction with one another. Remove any one of the three, you do not have a fire, and you do not have the God of the Bible."

Hope that helps!
Roberta B
2015-10-18 21:26:17 UTC
The Athanasian Creed explains this doctrine, in its earliest official statement. But the Creed has no basis in inspired scripture. If the same Holy Spirit that inspired the Bible inspired this Creed, then it is contradicting itself. But the Holy Spirit does not contradict itself.1 John 4:1



It is not true that each is not greater than the other, or are co-eternal, or co-mighty or anything else that the Creed stated. Simply speaking, there is NO SCRIPTURE that say that there are three persons in one God. Jesus did not know things that his Father knew. Jesus called his Father the only true God. Jesus called his Father his God, both on earth and in heaven. This doctrine is man made and False - The true God is One, and Almighty, and Most High period Deuteronomy 6:4, Mark 12:29, Revelation 4:11; Psalm 83:18
keyjona
2015-10-18 23:50:50 UTC
THERE IS NO TRINITY. The Holy Spirit is like ever-present energy from God. The Holy Ghost is incapable of disobeying the Father: Christ the Son can disobey His Father, but he doesn't.
?
2015-10-18 21:34:08 UTC
If you read through the gospel books, you can see the unity that exists between Jesus, the Father and His Spirit. To say that Jesus is not God is to take away the perfect unity that exists between them and the Holy Spirit that dwells in them. The Bible is consistent on the fact that there is God the Father, His Son Jesus, and His Spirit; and if you have seen Jesus, you have seen the Father (John 14:9). The "One" represents unity, not a mathematical singularity.



Trust in Jesus Christ to lead you into all Truth and understanding. God bless.



http://www.amazingfacts.org/media-library/book/e/53/t/the-beast--the-dragon-and-the-woman
shelby
2015-10-18 21:09:57 UTC
Anyone with there eyes open can clearly see the trinity is false. When you try to talk it out with a trinity believer. and stay the course with them, they will finally except the idea that there are somethings that we just can't explain. This is a cop out because they have been backed into a corner.
?
2015-10-18 21:25:00 UTC
St. Tertullian explained the Holy Trinity as persons and substance in which there are three distinct Divine Persons the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit are one in substance as God.



I explained this even a elementary student could understand once but people still didn't get it. Think of the substance as being your body and your organs being your brain, your heart, and you lungs representing each of the three Divine Persons they are of the same substance which would represent your body. Is you brain part of your body? Yes. Is your heart part of your body? Yes. Is you lungs part of your body? Yes. The brain is not the heart or lungs, the heart is not the brain or lungs, the lungs are not the brain or heart they have their own function but they are still part of the same body. There you go it's explained.
Tyvern
2015-10-18 21:07:19 UTC
The Trinity is indeed difficult to comprehend, and trying to define it without falling into modalism, partialism, etc. is tough. I'm certainly no expert on the subject, but the the Athanasian Creed sums it up best: http://www.crcna.org/welcome/beliefs/creeds/athanasian-creed
2015-10-18 22:55:30 UTC
there is an old saying ," If trying to understand the trinity you may lose your mind ." in dismissing the trinity you may lose your soul ." it is Faith that helps one to believe
2015-10-18 20:58:38 UTC
The early church invented this story so that their new god of pagan Rome would not usurp God the Father ( remember the 1st commandment , thou shalt have no other god before me) so they gave him equal billing with GTF by inventing the holy trinity story, then they immediately declared it to be a mystery to avoid any embarrassing debate or discussion on the subject.
?
2015-10-18 20:59:21 UTC
I simply think of the Trinity as three separate persons who are somehow connected as one God. Energy clouds? I believe that one day, Physics will be able to explain it.
BJ
2015-10-18 21:00:05 UTC
No mystery, Jesus & His Father explains why there is no such thing as a trinity.



Jesus said he was God's son, Almighty God said that Jesus was his son.



Jesus plainly stated that he was more than a good man. He said: “I am God’s Son.” (John 10:36) Of course, anyone could claim to be the Son of God. But if Jesus’ claim were false, what would that make him? Really, not a good man, but a great fraud!



The most reliable testimony came from God himself. He twice said concerning Jesus: “This is my Son.” (Matthew 3:17; 17:5) Just think: The Scriptures report only a few occasions when God’s own voice was heard on earth yet on two of them he affirmed Jesus as his Son!



This is by far the best proof that Jesus was who he said he was. Jesus never claimed to be God, but he repeatedly spoke of himself as “God’s Son.” Even his enemies acknowledged this.



Jesus never even suggested that he was God or was equal to him. So to teach such a thing dishonors Jesus.



When Jesus was a man on earth, did he know all that the future held? No, for he humbly acknowledged: “Concerning that day and hour nobody knows, neither the angels of the heavens nor the Son, but only the Father.” (Matt. 24:36)



When the writers of the New Testament speak of God they mean the God and Father of Jesus Christ. When they speak of Jesus Christ, they do not speak of him, nor do they think of him as God.



He is God’s Christ, God’s Son.
Ricardo
2015-10-19 09:31:05 UTC
You have to actually read the bible and few of them have ever done it.
David at Your Service
2015-10-18 21:47:22 UTC
None.



Similarly, no one can truly explain how God could simply speak light into existence (Gen 1:3). Speaking light into existence is impossible, so how would any human be able to truly explain it? Humans have trouble enough explaining the possible, forget them explaining the impossible. But that does not mean the impossible did not happen or does not exist.



With that said, let me continue to offer at least something to think about.



“In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God ... The Word became flesh, and lived among us. We saw his glory, such glory as of the one and only Son of the Father, full of grace and truth” (Jn 1:1,14).



These verses indicate the dual nature of God as both a Heavenly Father and Human Son. Of course, such seems an impossibility with us humans. How can anything “be something” and at the same time “be with that something”? But as Jesus said, “With men this is impossible, but with God all things are possible” (Mt 19:26).



In the Old Testament, we have these two passages. “In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth. Now the earth was formless and empty. Darkness was on the surface of the deep. God’s Spirit was hovering over the surface of the waters” (Gen 1:1-2). “Do you thus repay the LORD, you foolish and senseless people? Is not he your Father, who created you, who made you and established you?” (Dt 32:6).



These verses indicate the dual nature of God as both a Heavenly Father and a Holy Spirit. For whatever reason, most people don’t quibble with this dual nature of God, but many outright reject the dual nature described in John 1.



In the world of science, there is something called the “dual nature” of light. In some ways it acts like a wave and in other ways it acts like particles. If that were not enough, the electron too, a tiny sub-atomic “particle”, at times acts like a wave. It too has a “dual nature”. Scientists really cannot explain the paradox, but just accept it as fact. Therefore should it be any real surprise that the creator of such things also has a dual nature, or even a tri nature? Although those scientists do not fully understand the dual nature of light and electrons, they don’t let that stop them from continuing their work as scientists. In the same way, although a Christian may not fully understand the tri nature of God, he or she doesn’t let that stop them from being servants of The Almighty.



When you think about it, should we honestly be surprised that there are some things about the Creator of the Universe and the heavenly realms that we do not completely understand? For instance, how can something speak a universe into existence? Obviously we have no clue how that worked, but the Bible is clear that that is exactly what God did.



"’No’, the angel replied. ‘You don't need to know my name. And if you did, you couldn't understand it’" (Jdg 13:18, CEV).



"Can you compare me to anyone? No one is equal to me. You cannot understand everything about me. There is nothing like me” (Isa 46:5, ERV).



I mean, how would one describe the color red to a person born blind? However, with the above background, maybe you’ll find the explanation below helpful.



God wants a proper father-child relationship with humans. There are two ways of going about that. One is to provide an example of that, and the other is to write a “How To” manual that explains what he (God) is looking for. The New Testament accomplishes both. As prophesied hundreds of years earlier (Isa 9:6), God sent himself in the form of a “son” to provide a perfect example for us humans so that we could observe exactly what he (God) was wanting in a relationship with human beings as his children. This perfect sinless “son” also was able to be used as a sacrifice to atone for the sins of mankind. We read about this example, named Jesus, in the gospels. The rest of the NT is basically a “How To” manual that complements the gospels in showing humans how to have the kind of relationship God desires with everyone.



This teaching that Jesus is God isn’t just interesting theology, but very important--actually a matter of eternal salvation. Below are the key verses:



“God said to Moses, ‘I AM WHO I AM,’ and he said, ‘You shall tell the children of Israel this: “I AM has sent me to you”’” (Ex 3:14).



“He said to them, “You are from beneath. I am from above. You are of this world. I am not of this world. I said therefore to you that you will die in your sins; for unless you believe that I am [he], you will die in your sins.” They said therefore to him, “Who are you?” ... The Jews therefore said to him, “You are not yet fifty years old, and have you seen Abraham?” Jesus said to them, “Most certainly, I tell you, before Abraham came into existence, I AM.” Therefore they took up stones to throw at him, but Jesus was hidden, and went out of the temple, having gone through their midst, and so passed by” (Jn 8:23-59). (Note that the word “he” as in “I am he” is not in the original Greek. The Jews did not immediately catch what he was really saying until he put the phrase in a more obvious context.)



The reason why the Jews wanted to immediately stone Jesus was that in their minds he was blaspheming, calling himself “I AM” (i.e. God; see also Jn 5:18 and Lev 24:16). Unless one believes Jesus is who he says he is (the Great I AM), they will die spiritually. Those Jews failed to understand Isaiah’s prophecy about Jesus about 500 years before where a “son” would be born into the world who would also be called “God” and “Father” (Isa 9:6).



So Jesus was both “the Son of God” as well as “God”. When you find someone who has a complete 100% understanding of God, ask them about it.



This is just extra. Even non-Christians recognized that the early Christians believed in Jesus as if he were God.



“Pliny then details the practices of Christians (sections 7-10): he says that they meet on a certain day before light where they gather and sing hymns to Christ as to a god.”



http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pliny_the_Younger_on_Christians
2015-10-18 21:02:34 UTC
Not even one of them.
2015-10-18 21:13:24 UTC
God is one and three at the time.


This content was originally posted on Y! Answers, a Q&A website that shut down in 2021.
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