Can you help me better explain the Trinity?

  • Thread starter Thread starter rweltzin24
  • Start date Start date
Status
Not open for further replies.
R

rweltzin24

Guest
PMy nephew and neices have been asking alot of questions about our belief in god and want to know him. They were raised in a anti god home and now that they live with us, god is coming to them. They suprised me and i kinda froze when they asked if god and jesus are the same. I said yes and no. I think i confused them more. I dont know how to explain to someone that has no idea.
I
 
The Trinity is perhaps the greatest mystery in history. Christianity contains a number of “mysteries.” The idea of One God in Three Persons is not something mankind, by reason, can deduce. So how do we know it? Because God revealed it to us. Jesus is God—God made man. We do not have an understanding of “how” this can be so, or how the mechanics “work.” That is not the goal of theological understanding. Here are some pertinent paragraphs from the Catechism:*CCC#237 The Trinity is a mystery of faith in the strict sense, one of the “mysteries that are hidden in God, which can never be known unless they are revealed by God”. To be sure, God has left traces of his Trinitarian being in his work of creation and in his Revelation throughout the Old Testament. But his inmost Being as Holy Trinity is a mystery that is inaccessible to reason alone or even to Israel’s faith before the Incarnation of God’s Son and the sending of the Holy Spirit.

CCC#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.”*
 
Legend says that St. Patrick used the clover to demonstrate the Trinity. 3 distinct petals, part of one single leaf. Just as the Trinity is three distinct persons (or attributes) all part of the same God.

The father is the invisible creator
Jesus is the visible that man could touch and see
The spirit is the guiding that directs our hearts
 
Three Persons, being One God, consubstantial and co-eternal with the others.
 
In a most simplified and crude explanation it would be like how I try to explain it to my children.

I am a man.
I am a son to my parents.
I am a husband to my wife.
I am a father to my children.
I am an uncle to my nieces and nephews… etc…

I am still the same person but have many rolls… hence

Father, Son, Holy Spirit… 3 persons… 1 God.

Hope that kinda makes sense on a very basic and not a very theological basis.🙂

Paul
 
All the responses are pretty good.

Some other earthly analogies…
  1. Water - 3 forms, all still the same thing.
    Ice
    Liquid
    Steam
    3 forms, but all still of the same substance.
  2. Egg - 3 parts, but all still considered ‘egg’
    Egg Shell
    Egg Yoke
    Egg White
    But any of these we call an Egg. If you have just Egg Yoke - we still say you have an egg.
    If you only have a shell – still an egg. etc. etc.
    We can clarify further by saying you only have the Egg White, but not the Yoke, sure. Just like we can say God the Father - but all 3 parts are still ‘egg’ in their essence.
  3. If you can find some good explanation… talk clarify the difference between “person” and a ‘nature’ – This can get really tricky and why I don’t explain this myself. But God has but one “nature” – all 3 persons of the trinity share that nature. This is WHY God is one.
    We do not experience life like this. In our physical existence, there is only 1 nature per person or being. But God is not bound by our understanding or our existence. So his nature can be in 3 beings.
    This can get tricky…so make sure you define each term, carefully.
  4. One’s nature - God’s nature is divine. We are said to have a human nature. Our offspring have the same nature as we do. If I am Human… then my offspring are human for they inherit my ‘nature’ (this is why defining this term is KEY, so they understand this point) A nature is not fractional… that is, it can not be divided. My child is note ‘partly human’ because it only inherited ‘part’ of my nature. NO, it is FULLY human, because that is what I am.
    God is…well… GOD. That is his nature. That is all he can give to his Son. Therefore Christ is not merely the “son of God” that is… a lesser God… He is FULLY God, for this in his very nature… his essence of who he is. Just like I am human and my offspring also human… so is the Son of God… GOD, because that is God’s nature.
    The Holy Spirit which proceeds from the love between the Father and the Son is therefore also God, because that is all that they can give.
    This may seem circular…and in part it is… but that is also the beauty of it. Something can only give to its offspring its nature. In God’s case…that makes his son ALSO GOD. They can not give or share a fractional nature…just like we can’t.
Now if being God is not who he is, but a job or role he fulfills, like a King - then yes, Jesus could be seen as a Prince or ‘demi-god’ until God dies. Similar to the son of a King is not TRULY the King until his father dies. BUT… God is eternal, and being the Supreme being is not a role or a job he fills or something he was born into… NO> it is WHO He is… therefore his son is God also.

Make sense?

The bible says we are sons and daughters of God…but in an adopted way, not literally his ‘only begotten son’ and therefore we do not share in his divine nature the same way.
We WILL share in PART of his divinity, in a limited way when we get to heaven, as in we will be in communion with him and live eternally, but we will not be God or demigods.
 
rweltzin24 said:
PMy nephew and neices have been asking alot of questions about our belief in god and want to know him. They were raised in a anti god home and now that they live with us, god is coming to them. They suprised me and i kinda froze when they asked if god and jesus are the same. I said yes and no. I think i confused them more. I dont know how to explain to someone that has no idea.
I
Click to expand...
Here is an additional concept to consider: It is trying to demonstrate the concept of 3 distinct and co-existent persons in one purpose.
The sun, full moon, and a mirror.

The sun is light and has the image of a circle. It shares light to all that witness it.
The moon shares light to all that witness it and has the exact same image (circle) as the sun. The moon’s light is exactly the same as the sun’s light because it is reflecting the sun’s light.
A mirror can be made in the same exact image as the sun, as well as moon. If directed properly, can share the same exact light as the sun and moon to those who witness it.

The greater challenge in pondering the Holy Trinity is aligning both: 3 persons in one single person (roles of living) and 1 person in 3 distinct co-existent persons (unified purpose)
To do this one must ponder the question of why did Jesus create us? He wants True Friends.
The next question becomes: How does one create True Friends given the state of complete solitude and being forced to having to think of everything in complete detail before creating it?
The solution to the later reveals the fullness of the Holy Trinity.
 
rweltzin24 said:
PMy nephew and neices have been asking alot of questions about our belief in god and want to know him. They were raised in a anti god home and now that they live with us, god is coming to them. They suprised me and i kinda froze when they asked if god and jesus are the same. I said yes and no. I think i confused them more. I dont know how to explain to someone that has no idea.
I
Click to expand...
On a filioque thread in Eastern Catholicism someone had a river analogy. That and St. Patrick’s shamrock analogy are the best I have heard/read.
 
Paul2274 said:
In a most simplified and crude explanation it would be like how I try to explain it to my children.

I am a man.
I am a son to my parents.
I am a husband to my wife.
I am a father to my children.
I am an uncle to my nieces and nephews… etc…

I am still the same person but have many rolls… hence

Father, Son, Holy Spirit… 3 persons… 1 God.

Hope that kinda makes sense on a very basic and not a very theological basis.🙂

Paul
Click to expand...
That’s modalism. Modalism teaches that God is one person. The Father, Son, and Holy Spirit are three roles of one God. The Trinity teaches that God is actually three distinct persons. There’s a big difference.
 
Imagine the most perfect family. An eternal and totally harmonious exchange of love.
 
Status
Not open for further replies.
Back
Top