A Child's View of the Trinity

  • Thread starter Thread starter freerf
  • Start date Start date
Status
Not open for further replies.
F

freerf

Guest
Here is very simple understanding the idea of God as a Trinity.

We are made in God’s image, yes? Well, what is a very common way of describing “man”?

Man = Mind, body and spirit = A trinity.

God = Father, Son, and Holy Spirit = A Trinity

Short and sweet.
 
This isn’t quite accurate. Within the Trinity, all the persons are God, while still distinct. What you talk about within man are constituent parts of man–we do not say the soul is man, the body is man, or the spirit is man, but all of these together constitute man. The Father is God, the Son is God, the Holy Spirit is God; the Father is not the Son or the Holy Spirit, the Son is not the Father or the Holy Spirit, and the Holy Spirit is not the Father or the Son.

For more, see here:
scborromeo.org/ccc/p1s2c1p2.htm#237

and here:
ccel.org/creeds/athanasian.creed.html

-ACEGC
 
The dogma of the Holy Trinity

253 The Trinity is One. We do not confess three Gods, but one God in three persons, the “consubstantial Trinity”.83 The divine persons do not share the one divinity among themselves but each of them is God whole and entire: "The Father is that which the Son is, the Son that which the Father is, the Father and the Son that which the Holy Spirit is, i.e. by nature one God."84 In the words of the Fourth Lateran Council (1215), "Each of the persons is that supreme reality, viz., the divine substance, essence or nature."85

254 The divine persons are really distinct from one another. "God is one but not solitary."86 “Father”, “Son”, “Holy Spirit” are not simply names designating modalities of the divine being, for they are really distinct from one another: "He is not the Father who is the Son, nor is the Son he who is the Father, nor is the Holy Spirit he who is the Father or the Son."87 They are distinct from one another in their relations of origin: "It is the Father who generates, the Son who is begotten, and the Holy Spirit who proceeds."88 The divine Unity is Triune.

It is a mystery.👍
 
It is a mystery, which means that our ways of talking about it will be greatly limited. This does not mean, however, that those ways cannot at least somewhat line up with reality–and so it is important to get our language correct as much as we can. Saying that “body, mind, and soul” within a man is a Trinity is incorrect.

-ACEGC
 
My new st joseph catechism says it’s one nature(god) in three persons father, son, holy spirit.kind of like the human race is one altogether but in 6 billion persons. Bujtt still that doesn’t make much sence to me lol, I guess it’s just our human minds cannot comprehend it.
 
edward_george said:
It is a mystery, which means that our ways of talking about it will be greatly limited. This does not mean, however, that those ways cannot at least somewhat line up with reality–and so it is important to get our language correct as much as we can. Saying that “body, mind, and soul” within a man is a Trinity is incorrect.

-ACEGC
Click to expand...
I agree with yur premis though not with your conclusion. For clarity the OP - to confirm that I’m not equating humans with divinty - probably should have used “Triad” rather than trinity. However, trinity (with a lower case t) does not imply divinity, and my use of the word is therefore appropriate. Trinity after all comes from the latin trinitas, meaning a triad.

Therefore it is accurate to describe the human person as a trinity of body, mind, and spirit. (Though I agree for clarity it would be better to use the word triad.)
 
freerf said:
I agree with yur premis though not with your conclusion. For clarity the OP - to confirm that I’m not equating humans with divinty - probably should have used “Triad” rather than trinity. However, trinity (with a lower case t) does not imply divinity, and my use of the word is therefore appropriate. Trinity after all comes from the latin trinitas, meaning a triad.

Therefore it is accurate to describe the human person as a trinity of body, mind, and spirit. (Though I agree for clarity it would be better to use the word triad.)
Click to expand...
It might be accurate to refer to a human being as a sort of trinity of body, mind, and soul, but it is incorrect to refer to the Holy Trinity, Father, Son, and Holy Spirit as being analogous to this. That’s what I’m getting at.

-ACEGC
 
freerf said:
Here is very simple understanding the idea of God as a Trinity.

We are made in God’s image, yes? Well, what is a very common way of describing “man”?

Man = Mind, body and spirit = A trinity.

God = Father, Son, and Holy Spirit = A Trinity

Short and sweet.
Click to expand...
I never struggled with the doctrine of the Trinity again after I prayed for the faith that I needed to accept it. After I was given the necessary faith I was able to reason through it, and today I find that teaching to be one of the most reasonable dogmas in Catholic theology.

That being said, have you thought about tweaking your presentation here to:
Mind, Body, Soul = Human tri-unity
Father, Son, Spirit = God tri-unity
Tradition, Scripture, Magisterium = Church revelation tri-unity

This would make more sense to me, but that is why we have different strokes for different folks. God Bless!
 
edward_george said:
It might be accurate to refer to a human being as a sort of trinity of body, mind, and soul, but it is incorrect to refer to the Holy Trinity, Father, Son, and Holy Spirit as being analogous to this. That’s what I’m getting at.

-ACEGC
Click to expand...
point taken. 👍
 
I think this is great, You’re on the right track. It’s a great way to explain it in a very simple and understandable way and since it’s an analogy it’s “similar in a certain respect” not having to be a perfect comparison
 
Could the greatest commandments possibly describe how Christ is one with the Father, part of the Trinity.

Jesus loves God the Father with all his heart, soul, mind, and strength.
Jesus loves each and every one of us as he loves himself.

God the Father loves God the Son with all his heart, soul, mind, and strength.
The Father loves each and every one of us as he loves himself.

Could the spirit be the power of love working through the greatest
commandments? Here is a short passage that links the spirit and the second commandment.

1 Samuel 18

1 After David had finished talking with Saul, Jonathan became one in spirit with David, and he loved him as himself.

Blessings

Eric
 
Eric_Hyom said:
Could the greatest commandments possibly describe how Christ is one with the Father, part of the Trinity.

Jesus loves God the Father with all his heart, soul, mind, and strength.
Jesus loves each and every one of us as he loves himself.

God the Father loves God the Son with all his heart, soul, mind, and strength.
The Father loves each and every one of us as he loves himself.

Could the spirit be the power of love working through the greatest
commandments? Here is a short passage that links the spirit and the second commandment.

1 Samuel 18

1 After David had finished talking with Saul, Jonathan became one in spirit with David, and he loved him as himself.

Blessings

Eric
Click to expand...
Intersting. . .thanks!
 
i like to also use:

the Trinity is like Water (H2o)
it can be LIQUID(water) , SOLiD (ice) or Vapor

in the same way, God is the Father the Son & Holy Spirit !
 
I don’t like to think of the Trinity in terms of analogies. I think we should understand what the Trinity is and what it isn’t, but anything beyond that almost seems fruitless. I understand that God is three co-equal, co-eternal persons with one divine nature. I can also give you a list of things the Trinity is not, along with popular misunderstandings. I can even tell you why your analogy fails (man is not tridichotomous, man’s soul is made in the divine image not his body) and why the water analogy fails (solid/liquid/gas are states or modes, this teaches the heresy of modalism). The only thing I can’t do is actually comprehend the Trinity itself. It’s totally beyond my ability. Theology gives us enough to define it but not enough to understand it. Nothing can do that.

I would really recommend staying away from analogies actually. There isn’t a single analogy out there that doesn’t teach some form of condemned heresy.
 
Trinity = the most perfect family. Multipersons. Separate wills, mind; perfect harmony. And a perfect and eternal exchange of love.

God gave us the family to help us understand His Trinitarian nature.

Just a thought.
 
I’ve found that most young children don’t really need any analogies, and they don’t struggle with the mysteries. They are very concrete in their thinking and just absorb the lessons of the catechism flat out. Just like kids seldom worry too much about how Santa will arrive if you don’t have a chimney. And if they do, they are pretty satisfied with, “its a mystery” or “its magic.”

At a certain age, perhaps the teens, maybe earlier for some children, they begin to struggle with theology a bit more, and that is the time to turn the mysteries that really can’t be understood or adequately explained (such as the Trinity) over to the power of prayer and the Holy Spirit.

My son is 14 years old with Down syndrome, and he accepts the fact of the Trinity exactly as it is explained in his Religious Education books. When asked, he’ll tell you that the Father is God, and Jesus is God and the Holy Spirit is God; that they are all the same God but that they are different persons. He has been taught that since he was a baby, and so he just accepts it. All this business about water/ice/steam, or 3 leaf clovers actually confuses him more.

I used to help with children’s catechism, and we hardly ever had kids asking for clarification of the Trinity - especially those who were catechized at home as well as at the Church.

I think sometimes we worry too much about making things “easy and simplified” for our kids and don’t trust that the basics of our faith are accessible to the young, to the mentally disabled, to the blind and the deaf at some correct level without having to water them down. If the correct teaching is used (with some definitions of new words, of course), the Holy Spirit will be help with the teaching. Analogies have their place, of course. But when it comes to some stuff like the Trinity, I just hate to have it watered down too much.
 
Status
Not open for further replies.
Back
Top