1+1+1=1

[BMorel]

Calm… calm. Just repeat after me: Math is fun, Math is fun, mathisfun mathisfun.

So… with an infinite being, no finite thing can be added or removed which would change the grandure of such a being.

So, when the Son, whose infinity was dwindled to infancy (to quote Gerard Manley Hopkins) He became no less because he was still an infinity God. And having 3 persons in the Godhead does not make more Gods. There is one infinite God, 3 persons, but still one God.

 

[Aloysium]

There are not three limitless things to add together.

how about:

1/(1-1) + 1/(1-1) + 1/(1-1) = 1/0 = infinity

 

[davidv]

They’re using the wrong cross in their equation. They need to be using St. Andrew’s cross. 1x1x1=1.

Or, you could have them list out all the things they are at the same time (like being a father, brother, son, husband, male, Catholic, American citizen, veteran) and ask them how it’s possible for them to be 8 different people at the same time.

It is the wrong equation because it assumes that the units on the left are the same as on the right. However they are not. The units on the left are person. On the right the unit is God.

 

[mikeeh]

The Trinity is a mystery. I’ve read and heard many priests try to explain it and always come up short. In a workshop a priest explained that the Trinity can never fully be understood and if he understood the Trinity he would be God.

 

[sw85]

So like the title implies, this is about the Holy Trinity. Many secularist and new agers and, well, frankly most non Catholics, love to point out that the answer to that little equation in the topic line is infact 3. How do I refute them? How can one such as myself, by no means an apologist, explain this idea of the three being one God without getting too into faith, because lets face it, if faith could explain it, it wouldn’t need explaining.

1 + 1 + 1 is in fact 3. You don’t have to deny this.

So, clearly, the nature of the relations between the Trinity is not “1 + 1 + 1.” In other words, to say that the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit are all God but not each other means the nature of “are” is not the same as the nature of “equals.”