About the Trinity?

  • Thread starter Thread starter dollarian
  • Start date Start date
Status
Not open for further replies.
D

dollarian

Guest
someone asked my about the Trinity and i answered like this:

assume that i have the ability to travel time
there was the “i” of yesterday
there is the “i” of today
there will be the “i” of tomorrow
the “i” of yesterday traveled forward time to meet the “i” of today
the “i” of tomorrow will travel back time to meet the “i” of today
so there are 3 “i” today
They are three persons,but actually they are only one being-“i”
They share one nature-the nature of “i”.They can communicate with each other.They are three but they also are one
i think because God is above time.He is the one who was and who is and who is to come.So the Trinity maybe like that

did i mislead the asker?
i want to know the official doctrine of the church about the Trinity
 
dollarian said:
someone asked my about the Trinity and i answered like this:

assume that i have the ability to travel time
there was the “i” of yesterday
there is the “i” of today
there will be the “i” of tomorrow
the “i” of yesterday traveled forward time to meet the “i” of today
the “i” of tomorrow will travel back time to meet the “i” of today
so there are 3 “i” today
They are three persons,but actually they are only one being-“i”
They share one nature-the nature of “i”.They can communicate with each other.They are three but they also are one
i think because God is above time.He is the one who was and who is and who is to come.So the Trinity maybe like that

did i mislead the asker?
i want to know the official doctrine of the church about the Trinity
Click to expand...
Interesting theory but God is outside of time altogether. With your explaination, one would have to ask, "which person of God was in the past originally? Which person of God was in the future prior to the three coming together “today?”
 
I’ve explain the Trinity to my children using a triangle.

The Triangle has 3 sides…each of the side are the same, yet they are different this is side 1 (God the Father) side 2 (God the Son) and side 3 (God the Holy Spirit).

I ask my kids how many Triangle’s are there they say 1
I say there is 1 God, but like this Triangle He as 3 parts.

If you take away “God the Father” (side one) then you do not have God (you do not have a triangle).

This has it’s flaws I know, but my children are only 4/5 so it’s start for them. I feel it would be a start for anyone that doesn’t understand the “Trinity”

Saint Patrick told the people that the shamrock (3 leaf clover) was like the idea of the Trinity – that in the one God there are three persons: the Father, the Son and the Holy Spirit.

I don’t have any shamrock arounds, so I use 3 tooth-picks and made a triangle out of them, or draw a triangle…
 
I have heard it explained that God the Father is Love and since Love cannot have no object, he begot the Son (from all eternity) and since the Father and the Son love each other their shared Love is also a person–the Holy Spirit, who is Love and encompasses both the Father and the Son in his Love, so the three are Love personified in the one God.

Here is the link to the Catechism definition of the dogma of the Holy Trinity.
 
You will have to read paragraphs 238-260 of the CCC to see what the Church has to say about the Trinity.

Here is just the section related to the Dogma of the Trinity: (paragraphs 253-256)
253 The Trinity is One. We do not confess three Gods, but one God in three persons, the “consubstantial Trinity.” 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.” In the words of the Fourth Lateran Council (1215): “Each of the persons is that supreme reality, viz., the divine substance, essence or nature.”
Click to expand...
254 The divine persons are really distinct from one another. “God is one but not solitary.” “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.” 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.” The divine Unity is Triune.
Click to expand...
255 The divine persons are relative to one another. Because it does not divide the divine unity, the real distinction of the persons from one another resides solely in the relationships which relate them to one another: “In the relational names of the persons the Father is related to the Son, the Son to the Father, and the Holy Spirit to both. While they are called three persons in view of their relations, we believe in one nature or substance.” Indeed “everything (in them) is one where there is no opposition of relationship.” “Because of that unity the Father is wholly in the Son and wholly in the Holy Spirit; the Son is wholly in the Father and wholly in the Holy Spirit; the Holy Spirit is wholly in the Father and wholly in the Son.”

256 St. Gregory of Nazianzus, also called “the Theologian,” entrusts this summary of Trinitarian faith to the catechumens of Constantinople:
Above all guard for me this great deposit of faith for which I live and fight, which I want to take with me as a companion, and which makes me bear all evils and despise all pleasures: I mean the profession of faith in the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit. I entrust it to you today. By it I am soon going to plunge you into water and raise you up from it. I give it to you as the companion and patron of your whole life. I give you but one divinity and power, existing one in three, and containing the three in a distinct way. Divinity without disparity of substance or nature, without superior degree that raises up or inferior degree that casts down . . . the infinite co-naturality of three infinites. Each person considered in himself is entirely God . . . the three considered together. . . . I have not even begun to think of unity when the Trinity bathes me in its splendor. I have not even begun to think of the Trinity when unity grasps me. . . .
Click to expand...
Click Here for those paragraphs from the CCC, plus the paragraphs that I suggested you read. This might help you out.
 
dollarian said:
did i mislead the asker?
Click to expand...
Well, probably; because the time travel “I’s” don’t really correspond to the facts of the Trinity.

I’ll once again recommend Frank Sheed’s book: Theology for Beginners, which has a pretty good secion on the Trinity.

Philosophically speaking, you are one being, one entity–one human being. You are also a human person: there is some faculty in you which can say “I,” and which is aware of being a subject.

But your personhood, the “I” within you, is not a separate entity from the human being which you are. You are still one being, not two.

With God, He is still one being, but three Persons, not three natures. Read Frank Sheed and contemplate it for awhile.
 
Mommyof02green said:
I’ve explain the Trinity to my children using a triangle.

The Triangle has 3 sides…each of the side are the same, yet they are different this is side 1 (God the Father) side 2 (God the Son) and side 3 (God the Holy Spirit).

I ask my kids how many Triangle’s are there they say 1
I say there is 1 God, but like this Triangle He as 3 parts.

If you take away “God the Father” (side one) then you do not have God (you do not have a triangle).

This has it’s flaws I know, but my children are only 4/5 so it’s start for them. I feel it would be a start for anyone that doesn’t understand the “Trinity”

Saint Patrick told the people that the shamrock (3 leaf clover) was like the idea of the Trinity – that in the one God there are three persons: the Father, the Son and the Holy Spirit.

I don’t have any shamrock arounds, so I use 3 tooth-picks and made a triangle out of them, or draw a triangle…
Click to expand...
I like the triangle explanation but as you stated, it is not completely accurate. I also find the old symbol below to be a good one, though as with the triangle, it’s not complete.
(Please Note: This uploaded content is no longer available.)
The 3 individual rings represent the 3 persons of God. Each ring having no beginning and no end, which represents the timelessness of each (they all were there at the beginning, the present, and in the future). All three are intertwined and you cannot separate any one of them from the others. Together, they form one God. Where this symbol falls short, is that individually they are also God.
 
Tietjen said:
I like the triangle explanation but as you stated, it is not completely accurate. I also find the old symbol below to be a good one, though as with the triangle, it’s not complete.
http://i46.photobucket.com/albums/f131/Tietjen01/Trinity.jpg
The 3 individual rings represent the 3 persons of God. Each ring having no beginning and no end, which represents the timelessness of each (they all were there at the beginning, the present, and in the future). All three are intertwined and you cannot separate any one of them from the others. Together, they form one God. Where this symbol falls short, is that individually they are also God.
Click to expand...
I like that one too…
It’s hard to explain the Trinity that’s what makes it a “mystery”. 😛

I just do the best with the knowledge I have…
The triangle worked for my 4/5 years old, it gave them a simple “beginners” understanding of the Trinity.

If someone doesn’t understand the “Trinity” you have to start him or her off somewhere. I just think it’s good to start them off simple.

So the triangle and the “old symbol” you gave are not perfect, but they are a simple start, a place for a beginning, and a place to build on.

It’s hard I know to explain the “Trinity”, however you have to be able to have a starting point. Starting at point A, and then move to B, then C, D, E etc…

At best the “triangle” and the “old symbol” are point A.
Therefore from there you move to B, then C, then D etc….
 
so the Trinity is a mystery?
i don’t intent to show him that three equal one is possible
i think the most confusing part is " three equal one"
 
sorry i mistyped
i don’t intent to explain him about the Trinity,i only show him that “Three equal one” is possible.:o
thanks
 
The way St. Maximilian Kolbe described the Blessed Trinity was approximately the following:
God the Father, from eternity, is gazing upon God the Son, giving him all that He is. And God the Son, who eternally proceeds from the Father, gazes upon God the Father in return, giving him all He is. And since this exchange of Love between them, is, in essence, everything each one of Them are, that exchange of love is the Holy Spirit.

That is why we say that the institution of the family ( man, woman, child) is an image of the Divine Trinity. When a man and a woman gaze lovingly upon each other, that love produces a child, which is their love. And that is why when you contracept, you lose the life of Grace. Remember the the 3rd Person of the Blessed Trinity, as we confess in the Creed, is the “Lord, the Giver of Life” - that is also why we are called “co-creator” with the Lord.

Conclusion: if you contracept (whether it is the pill, putting limits on your number of children, etc) the Giver of Life leaves because there is no love.
 
Every time that someone provides a model or a “way of thinking” about the Trinity that makes it easier to understand, it is always flawed. It will always either emphasize the oneness over the threeness or vice versa. This is because it is absolutely impossible to “boil down” the mystery of the Trinity to make it easy to understand without losing something of its essence.

At the same time, I think we need to be able to think about the Trinity somehow. The mystery of the Holy Trinity is so rich in meaning - we can take so much away from it even though we can’t understand it. It is a model for marriages, for families, of charity, et cetera, ad infinitum.

For this reason, I think that using models or ways of thinking about the Trinity is ok, in spite of the limitations of these. However, we should always understand the limitations of the model that we are using, so as not to lose the mystery.
 
All attempts to describe the trinity by resorting to physical things are of course somewhat flawed. That doesn’t mean they aren’t useful, however.

The most helpful image for me, and for me to use in explaining the reality of one being in three distinct things,
is a TREE.

A tree is ROOT, TRUNK, and BRANCHES.
Three things, yet all one nature or being (a Tree).
The root is fully “tree,” the trunk is fully “tree”
and the branches are fully “tree”. Yet there are not three trees,
but ONE tree.

Similarly, we can, using the image of a tree, show the ONE GOD as three distinct persons having the same essence.
The ROOT = God the Father
The TRUNK = God the Son of God, eternally begotten of the Father.
The BRANCHES (which proceed from the root and the trunk)
equal The Holy Spirit who proceeds from the Father AND the Son.
Three distinct persons yet having one nature or being, namely,
GOD.

I hope this is helpful.
Love,
Jaypeeto4 (aka Jaypeeto3)
 
now he’s come up with the idea:
1+1+1=3
i think that it wrong to use maths to explain God like that
i explain:
infinity + infinity+infinity=infinity
you can’t measure infinity and you also can’t measure God

i thinks they have most problem about: God +God+God= 1 God
and they intent to limit God into a measurable being
 
Status
Not open for further replies.
Back
Top