Caught off guard -- I couldn't explain the Trinity

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NewSeeker said:
Ask your Mormon friend to think about God existing absolutely alone, with nothing else but God existing. Odds are, they’ll still be imagining ‘something’ floating around or filling an infinite empty space. They’re still thinking like a Mormon. They can’t understand what we believe until they get rid of all that. Get rid of space. Eliminate the concept altogether, along with time and matter - absolutely everything that isn’t God. Get rid of it all. Now try to think of God. If they conclude ‘I can’t, I literally can’t think about God without using those concepts,’ you’ll know they’re finally ready to start contemplating what we mean by God. Only then will they be ready for a conversation about what we mean when we say things like God is one, is in three persons, and is an infinite divine substance.
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This is the most useful explanation I have read, about basic Mormon belief. It helps to know where they’re coming from.
 
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Behold! The Shield of the The Trinity

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@njlisa You might be interested to read an earlier post of mine. (Click on the title to see all of the post and the rest of the thread.)
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What is the best analogy for the Trinity? Sacred Scripture
First, please understand that the Trinity is itself an analogy. It is an anthropomorphic description of God’s three masculine hypostases. Assuming you’re not familiar with this, you can either invest time into studying and contemplating this, which may or may not reveal and confirm the Truth of the Trinity to you, or simply accept it as given. In any case, it is possible in principle to understand the Trinity, so in that sense it should not be labeled an “inaccessible mystery”, as some do. Havi…
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P.S. Read the OP’s question in that thread too; otherwise my post won’t make much sense 😉
 
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I’ll introduce this topic once I get a chance. Thank you for the explanation. Welcome home.
 
can you reference where you read this because its not what Irenaeus stated. His most famous surviving writing is ‘against Heresies’ and deals with the gnostic heresies of his time, and others kicking around, namely 2nd century AD beliefs that Jesus was either not fully human or not fully divine.

Irenaeus also wrote much on the fact that the God that Jesus spoke of and was the God of Christianity , was the God of the Old Testament.

at that a time people were attempting to understand just who Jesus was and how He related to God the Father.

from the website catholic culture
The Trinity

Irenaeus does not give a precise definition of the relation between the Father, Son and Holy Spirit. Writing against the Gnostics, he is concerned primarily to show that the Father revealed by Jesus is one and the same with the God of the Old Testament, who created the world. He proves this over and over again throughout the five volumes of Against Heresies . Likewise, the Christ, the Son of God, the Logos, the Savior and Jesus are one and the same, though we use different names and titles.

He finds ample evidence in the Old Testament not just of the Father but of the Son and the Holy Spirit, whom he calls “the hands of God.” When God said “Let us make man after our image and likeness,” this was the Father speaking to the Son and the Holy Spirit. When God appeared in various forms to people in the Old Testament, it was the Logos whom they saw. And it was the Holy Spirit who, by command of the Father, filled the prophets with inspiration.

Irenaeus considers the generation of the Son by the Father beyond human understanding. Yet he writes, “God has been declared through the Son, who is in the Father and has the Father in himself” ( Against Heresies 3, 6, 2). Thus he teaches what would come to be called the perichoresis or circumincession : the mutual indwelling of the persons of the Trinity.
 
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i think this is one of the best diagrams to explain the trinity,

and it could be rotated to any orientation
 
i think St Augustine, in His confession, questions which part we seek so much to grasp, the “Unity of the Trinity or the Trinity of Unity”, for the Trinity is more than just a simple equation to understand in a lifetime.

there is as well the common comparison to water as gas, solid and liquid, different states; but all water 🙂

However, i think the best would be to pray and ask the Lord for a customized/personalized explanation, I believe He’d give you, He always does.
 
Mary where does that say Jesus is a deity of a supreme deity and the Father alone is the one true God
 
MarySaves said:
God is God in 3 beings. The son is obedient to the father while the holy spirit was forced into submission at some point by the father and son. They are all God now and co eternal

The holy spirit submitted to the fact that the father is the head of the trinity.
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This is heresy. Literally. If you are Catholic, please stop and re-examine what is taught.
 
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Marysaves is not catholic and is being taught these ideas by a Mormon pastor.
 
MarySaves said:
Jesus submitted to the father’s will. This is not Hersey
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Jesus had a human will and a divine will. The human will and nature of Jesus cooperated fully with God’s will. The Divine Person of the Son, however, is not submissive to the Father. They are co-equal and of one will. One must recognize when Jesus is speaking according to his human nature.

God is not three beings, but one being who is three persons.
 
MarySaves said:
The Trinity Delusion: Irenaeus
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The opinion of this piece is (1) not Catholic and heretical, (2) “conveniently” not taking into context the gnostic heresies that Irenaeus was specifically addressing, and (3) twisting Irenaeus’s words and intent to suit their own purposes in ways contrary to the Catholic faith. He also conveniently ignores other specific passages:
But the Son, eternally co-existing with the Father , from of old, yea, from the beginning, always reveals the Father to Angels, Archangels, Powers, Virtues, and all to whom he wills that God should be revealed.
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With these next passages, keep in mind that Jesus is referred to as Lord numerous times in Scripture and by Irenaeus:
Neither did His disciples make mention of any other God, or term any other Lord, except Him, who was truly the God and Lord of all
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He indeed who made all things can alone, together with His Word, properly be termed God and Lord: but the things which have been made cannot have this term applied to them, neither should they justly assume that appellation which belongs to the Creator.
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It is proper, then, that I should begin with the first and most important rule, that is, God the Creator , who made the heaven and the earth, and all things that are in it, whom these men blasphemously style the fruit of a defect, and to demonstrate that there is nothing either above Him or after Him , nor that, influenced by any one, but of His own free will, He created all things, since He is the Only God, the Only Lord
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that He was despised among the people, and humbled Himself even to death and that He is the holy Lord, the Wonderful, the Counsellor, the Beautiful in appearance, and the Mighty God
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The way of precisely speaking of the Trinity had not yet been established in Irenaeus’ day, and only would be to combat heresies, but Irenaeus does understand the Word as Divine, co-eternal with God, and One with God.

The author also keeps highlighting “one God” and that the disciples did not proclaim “another God.” (1) Again, he misses the context of the opposing gnostic beliefs Irenaues is countering and (2) thinks Trinitarians declare there are multiple Gods or that Jesus is another God. We explicitly deny that. There is One God. Fact.
 
MarySaves said:
The son is submissive to the father. That’s the nature of every perfect father son relationship. Otherwise he wouldn’t be the son of his father.
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No, the relationship between Paternity and Filiation is that the Paternity generates and Filiation is generated. That’s it. There is no submission.

Christ was both fully human and fully divine. Christ had two wills, not one. He had two natures, not one. Therefore it is entirely appropriate to recognize when Christ is speaking according to his human nature and when he is not.
 
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