Thoughts about Trinity beliefs

TheLightWithin said:
Why not?
I mean it is one thing if you could see a phenomenon and just have to accept you couldn't explain it but -
The Trinity is an idea.
So if you can neither see nor understand it -
What is it that obligates people to consider and believe?
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Sorry, I meant that for a Christian, the idea of 'mystery does not 'beggar belief'.

Bearing in mind that the vast number of Christians, 98% apparently, are Trinitarian.

I don't know on what ground the other 2% base their rejection of the idea.
 
Thomas said:
But in Scripture they clearly are spoken of and act as persons – even the Holy Spirit.


Well that is, or should be, a given with any analogy of the Holy Trinity.

The best ones are not wrong, they're just not totally encompassing all the Trinity is. The nature of the Trinity, like the nature of God, is a mystery.

People seem to accept the idea that the human intellect cannot encompass God, but somehow should be able to encompass the Trinity.


Which is why the vast majority of Trinitarian Christians don't fret it.

There is the apocryphal story of St Augustine, who walking along the sea shore was pondering the mystery of the Trinity. Then he sees a small boy, carrying a bucket of water from the sea and pouring it into a hole in the sand.
"What are you doing?"
"I'm emptying the ocean into this hole."
Augustine chuckles. "You'll never be able to empty that entire ocean into that little hole!"
The child looks up, "Well I've a better chance of doing that, than you have of understanding the Mystery of the Trinity."

There are many versions of the legend, but there is a lesson there.


I mean it suffices those who believe it. My mum and dad believed in the Sacrament of the Eucharist, but they never asked how.

I do, I can't help myself, but I wonder about it, rather than expect to arrive at an answer. I absolutely believe it, and I find the
Council of Trent's dogmatic definition of Transubstantiation to be 'problematic', to say the least, but that doesn't effect my belief, it just affirms my belief that when the Church tries to 'define' a 'mystery' it'll get itself into trouble ...


That God is Three and God is One.


Within my contextual belief – upbringing, questioning, doubts and affirmations – it is not ill-founded, irrational or unreasonable... Just not explainable.


One God, Three Persons.


What Scripture says, and what the Tradition reasoned from what Scripture says.

I do not believe some bishops or theologians substituted anything, rather they saw the broader implication.

As an example, again in reference to the Eucharist, I do not accept the conciliar dogmatic definition as a sufficient 'definition', it's too reliant upon Medieval understandings of Aristotelian categories ... I much rather the Orthodox approach ... it's a mystery, therefore you'll never adequately define it.

Going further, my own interpretation of the New Testament goes 'beyond' orthodoxy.

There's the dualist argument of, say, the restoring sight to the man born blind (John 9).

The contemporary dualism, much favoured by the New Age type, is that it's a metaphor. John is talking about 'spiritual blindness', not physical blindness. Christ 'opens his eyes' to the greater truths and realities ... and thus separatist/dualist interpretation can be applied to every miracle. Nothing actually physically happened, it's all metaphor ...

My view is holistic, not dualistic. It's not a case of 'this, but not that', but rather, 'this and that'. The 'spiritual' interpretation of John 9 simply doesn't hold water. The man, his sight restored, has no idea who actually healed him. The miracle is told in the first eight verses, the rest, from 9-41 is the dispute that followed about whether it was the man, whether he was blind from birth, etc, etc. The text makes a nonsense of a purely spiritual reading.

So Jesus performs a miracle, restoring physical sight to a man born blind, with a spiritual lesson in mind. It's both. That's what the Incarnation is. It's this world and that world: "you are from this cosmos, I am not from this cosmos" (John 8:23b).

The trouble with 'spiritual interpretations' is, it's always analogy, it's always dualistic, it's always abstract, because that's the best the human can do.

Jesus, however, is something else. It's not abstract to Him.

That's why I believe in the Incarnation. In miracles. In Sacraments – it's all of a piece.

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I don't consider anything as impossible, including the miracles and the resurrection, but I'm imagining that some of them, like walking on water or changing water into wine, were originally parables that Jesus told His twelve, about Him and them. Not that I don't think He could have done those physically, I just don't think that He did. I don't know how to put my reasons for that into words. As I've said before, I'm confused about what the Bible is saying about the physical nature of His resurrection. I have no doubt that all the healings were physical, and like you say, teaching lessons at the same time.
 
Longfellow said:
I don’t agree with saying that Jesus paid the debt or took the punishment for our sins
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We did discuss it, but I believe I did show you that the Bible says otherwise. Here is some more Scripture..... "But he was pierced for our transgressions, he was crushed for our iniquities; the punishment that brought us peace was on him, and by his wounds we are healed."

How do you understand this Scripture?
 
Yahweh kid said:
We did discuss it, but I believe I did show you that the Bible says otherwise. Here is some more Scripture..... "But he was pierced for our transgressions, he was crushed for our iniquities; the punishment that brought us peace was on him, and by his wounds we are healed."

How do you understand this Scripture?
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I understand it as being grossly mistranslated, and intentionally so, with the excuse that it must mean that because we know that it's true. Then it becomes what theologians consider their strongest proof of what they used as an excuse for making it say that.
 
Yahweh kid said:
We did discuss it, but I believe I did show you that the Bible says otherwise. Here is some more Scripture..... "But he was pierced for our transgressions, he was crushed for our iniquities; the punishment that brought us peace was on him, and by his wounds we are healed."

How do you understand this Scripture?
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If the Hebrew words in this verse are translated the ways that they are everywhere else, it comes out something like this:

But he was wounded by our transgressions,
crushed by our iniquities;
He was responsible for the discipline that brought us peace,
and in His company we are healed
 
Longfellow said:
If the Hebrew words in this verse are translated the ways that they are everywhere else, it comes out something like this:

But he was wounded by our transgressions,
crushed by our iniquities;
He was responsible for the discipline that brought us peace,
and in His company we are healed
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How does God get wounded BY our transgressions or get crushed BY our iniquities... Is it even possible?
Therefore your translation makes no sense at all.
It does not support other scripture either:
"In him we have redemption through his blood, the forgiveness of our trespasses, according to the riches of his grace"
"just as the Son of Man did not come to be served, but to serve, and to give his life as a ransom for many.”

Jesus sacrificed Himself for us, He did not have to do it, but there was no other way for us to get redemption. God made a way....

"the wages of sin is death" it does not say by our good works or anything else. All sinners are doomed, we have to die for our transgressions.... our only hope is Jesus Christ, He who suffered, shed His blood and died on the cross to give us the hope of Salvation.... Jesus paid for our transgressions my friend, if we do not believe it we will stand before God on our own and be judged. We know through His scriptures that the only way we can pay for our sins is to die, so God's judgement will not be a surprise.(HE told us what our punishment will be)
 
Why does theology speak of the Trinity in terms of 'Persons'?

The Three do not share the one divinity among themselves, each of them is God, whole and entire.

Nevertheless, The Three are really distinct from one another – Father, Son and Holy Spirit – and these are not names designating modalities of the divine being, as they really are distinct one from the other.

The idea of a 'divine person' is founded in Scripture, where each of the Three can be read to be and to act, and moreover relate to each other. Each speaks and regards Himself as an 'I' and the other as He, Jesus speaks of the Father and the Holy Spirit as someone distinct from himself:
"when he (Jesus, identifying himself as 'the Son of Man') shall come in the glory of his Father" (Mark 8:38). Likewise Jesus speaks of the Holy Spirit as 'he', again a distinct entity, as someone 'sent by the Father', and who shall 'bear witness' to himself (John 14:7, 15:26, 16:13).

The Holy Spirit is not the Father nor the Son, He proceeds from the Father and is sent by the Son. The Father and the Son are also distinct, when Jesus prays to the Father, He is not talking to Himself (cf Luke 23:34).

The word 'person' is one of the only ways our language has to describe this concept, the best way without getting into technical terms – ousia and hypostasis, persona and prosopon, etc.

The idea that God is love (1 John 4:8), or acts out of love – "Because Israel was a child, and I loved him" (Hosea 11:1), "For God so loved the world, as to give his only begotten Son" (John 3:16) – is intensely personal and relational.

"the real distinction of the persons from one another resides solely in the relationships which relate them to one another" CCC 255

The distinction is according to mission – the Father wills, the Son effects, the Spirit sanctifies.
 
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