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Razanir
Guest
I just used this one on another thread
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TimothyH
Guest
Matrimony.
Marriage and family life are divine institutions which mirror the Trinity and have the Trinity as a model for how it should properly function.
God the Father loves God the Son perfectly, holding nothing back. God the Son loves God the Father perfectly, holding nothing back. The fruit of that love is the Holy Spirit. The word ***spirit ***in latin is spiritus which means breath. The breath of God, the heavy breathing betweek God the Father and God the Son is the Spirit.
We profess this in the creed at every Mass.
*I believe in the Holy Spirit, the Lord, the Giver of Life, who proceedes from the Father and the Son. *
Marriage is the same. The fruit of the love between husband and wife is children, the result of their “heavy breathing”.
Matrimony is more than just an analogy for the Trinity. It is a participation in the divine life of the Trinity. Family life is Trinitarian life - sacrifice, putting God first, active love, justice, mercy, being “naked and without shame”, etc.
-Tim-
Marriage and family life are divine institutions which mirror the Trinity and have the Trinity as a model for how it should properly function.
God the Father loves God the Son perfectly, holding nothing back. God the Son loves God the Father perfectly, holding nothing back. The fruit of that love is the Holy Spirit. The word ***spirit ***in latin is spiritus which means breath. The breath of God, the heavy breathing betweek God the Father and God the Son is the Spirit.
We profess this in the creed at every Mass.
*I believe in the Holy Spirit, the Lord, the Giver of Life, who proceedes from the Father and the Son. *
Marriage is the same. The fruit of the love between husband and wife is children, the result of their “heavy breathing”.
Matrimony is more than just an analogy for the Trinity. It is a participation in the divine life of the Trinity. Family life is Trinitarian life - sacrifice, putting God first, active love, justice, mercy, being “naked and without shame”, etc.
-Tim-
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Razanir
Guest
Unfortunately, though, the thread was later deleted for being spamAwesome!I am glad that you have found it helpful.
It happens.Unfortunately, though, the thread was later deleted for being spam
Save it for another thread.
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Mike_from_NJ
Guest
My understanding is that the fire/heat/light analogy is an example of Arian heresy where two parts were created by the first and aren’t one in nature with that part.
My understanding is that the three leaf clover analogy and the egg analogy are examples of partialism, where each is a part of God but not wholely God themselves.
My understanding is that the three leaf clover analogy and the egg analogy are examples of partialism, where each is a part of God but not wholely God themselves.
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Razanir
Guest
Except, when have you ever seen a fire without heat or light? Just as a fire cannot exist without heat or light, so the Son and the Holy Spirit are just as natural and important as the Father. The only problem I immediately notice is that it leaves out the filioque.
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Judas_Thaddeus
Guest
I might agree on the fire/heat/light comment, maybe, but again this is about Analogies,
which aren’t perfect. The three leaf clover for example was the best Saint Patrick could
use to explain to the Pagans, give him a break.
Again: Analogies, not necessarily perfect comparisons.
Try this out:
If you were sent on a mission to convert a newly discovered tribe that just come out
of hiding and they have no clue about what’s been going on the past 500 years with-
in a 300 km radius, what would you use to help them understand the Trinity?
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Cavaradossi
Guest
The analogy of fire, heat, and light is patristic.
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Judas_Thaddeus
Guest
okay, I said “maybe” I’ll buy the fire thing being Arian, now I don’t, thank you for clarifying.
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SoMissCatholic
Guest
This video from Lutheran Satire explains how the familiar analogies often express some form of heresy. It’s pretty funny too.
youtube.com/watch?v=KQLfgaUoQCw
youtube.com/watch?v=KQLfgaUoQCw
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SoMissCatholic
Guest
I also think the familial union is a good analogy. Another one I like is the musical chord, where you have three distinct notes but when played together they produce one harmonious sound.
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TimothyH
Guest
It is more than an analogy. It is a participation in Trinitarian love. It is a participation in the life of the Trinity. It is the most perfect model of the Trinity here on earth.
-Tim-
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Aloysium
Guest
It is another way in which we were made in the image of God: Eve from Adam in a state of mutual love.
No offense intended but this is not a sound analogy. The Holy Spirit would be two spirits because of the two breaths or he would be one spirit from the mixture of two breaths. The Council of Florence says that there is only one spiration/breath.
“The Latins asserted that they say the holy Spirit proceeds from the Father and the Son not with the intention of excluding the Father from being the source and principle of all deity, that is of the Son and of the holy Spirit, nor to imply that the Son does not receive from the Father, because the holy Spirit proceeds from the Son, nor that they posit two principles or two spirations [breaths]; but they assert that there is only one principle and a single spiration [breath] of the holy Spirit, as they have asserted hitherto. Since, then, one and the same meaning resulted from all this, they unanimously agreed and consented to the following holy and God-pleasing union, in the same sense and with one mind.”
- The Council of Florence, Session 6 (6 July 1439)
Mixing this with human marriage would imply that there was a time when the Holy Spirit did not exist since there is a time before the two lovers produced a child. The Holy Spirit is not begotten of the Father and the Son but, rather, he proceeds from the Father and the Son. St Augustine of Hippo taught against this:
“For the Father alone is not from another, and therefore He alone is called unbegotten, not indeed in the Scriptures, but in the usage of disputants, who employ such language as they can on so great a subject. And the Son is begotten of the Father; and the Holy Spirit proceeds from the Father principally, the Father giving the procession without any interval of time, yet in common from Both [Father Son]. But He [the Spirit] would be called the Son of the Father and of the Son, if – a thing abhorrent to the feeling of all sound minds – Both had begotten Him. Therefore the Spirit of Both is not begotten of Both, but proceeds from Both.” (On the Trinity, xv; 26)
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Aloysium
Guest
Eve was not made anew; she was begotten from Adam. There is one spirit given to Adam, from which all humanity sprang. I do believe we were made in the image of the Trinity, not as individual beings, but as self-and-other joined in love with God and with each other (as His church).
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TimothyH
Guest
No offense taken. The analogy is imperfect.
Matrimony and family life are the best approximation we have, which is to say imperfect and incomplete, as is much else in life.
For we know partially and we prophesy partially, but when the perfect comes, the partial will pass away. (1 Corinthians 13:9-10)
We profess that the Holy Spirit proceedes from the Father and Son in the creed.
I believe in the Holy Spirit, the Lord, the giver of life,
who proceeds from the Father and the Son,
Three persons, one God, one breath. The Hebrew scriptures called it the ruah (roo-ah) of God, a life giving force. No argument with St. Augusine there.
Husband and wife unite and children proceed from that union. The analogy is imperfect, as is any analogy about fire, light, a three leaf clover, or any diagram. The best we can do is a shadowy approximation, yet God gave us family life as the primary means by which we not only know, but experience Trinitarian love and the life of the Trinity here on earth.
Anyone who has read Theology for Beginners and F.J. Sheed’s explanation of the Trinity knows where I am coming from.
-Tim-
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JakeG
Guest
How about three dimensional space as an analogy?
We need up-down, north-south, east-west.
We need up-down, north-south, east-west.
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Peebo
Guest
I’ve heard the analogy using water…
Water in it’s liquid form is… God
Water when frozen becomes a solid…Jesus Christ the son
Water when heated becomes steam…the Holy Spirit
Water in it’s liquid form is… God
Water when frozen becomes a solid…Jesus Christ the son
Water when heated becomes steam…the Holy Spirit
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Jozefo
Guest
If what I’m about to say conflicts with Church teaching, please feel free to correct me. I feel that the Trinity is in itself a mental model used as an analogy to describe one of the attributes of God: his threefold existence.
We hold there is one God in three persons. Now a person is a metaphysical construct. It is an idea that we use to describe an aspect of a being. A person is never the man, rather it is the image he projects. A man has a person, but he is not the person. Person comes from persona, which was a mask used by actors in a play.
So the analogy I like is one God playing three roles in revealing himself to his creation.
We hold there is one God in three persons. Now a person is a metaphysical construct. It is an idea that we use to describe an aspect of a being. A person is never the man, rather it is the image he projects. A man has a person, but he is not the person. Person comes from persona, which was a mask used by actors in a play.
So the analogy I like is one God playing three roles in revealing himself to his creation.
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