Explaining The Holy Trinity

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But Jesus is only the Son, he is not the Father, the Father and Son are two. There has to be another way that the Father and Son are ‘one’

Blessings

Eric
Hi Eric!

You have mentioned a few times the highlighted quote above. An alternate way of explaining it is the name of God in tetragammaton, which is the INITIAL name of GOD. The only true God’s name as revealed in religion of HINDUISM, ISLAM, JUDAISM, CHRISTIANIY, JAINISM, BUDDHISM, etc… in all regilion is the same name of GOD!. It is in the name of JESUS as well. 🙂 The first initial is the first letter of the son’s name, the second is the first letter of the father’s name, meaning, first and last name. I hope this revelation(which i’ve been hesitating to tell) helps a little bit as you seem to be looking for something specific from reading your comment. 🙂

jE333
 
God is one spiritual being, comprised of three essentials; mind, will and heart. We receive these from God as created in his image.

God as God gives life and sentience to himself; his mind gives sentience to his will, which denotes relationship.

In relationship within himself between sentient mind and will God has heart and love. Love and heart come from relationship, and since God is in relationship within himself via Mind and Will he give life to his own Heart.

God loves himself - his heart of love is sentient, has life, and will and self-awareness.

God is a single eternal sentient being who’s essential attributes (mind, will and heart) are as eternal and self-aware as the other.

It’s not complicated nor difficult to understand. God is simply a spirit being who’s essential attributes - mind, will and heart - are sentient, are in a relationship with the other, are equal, each having the fullness of intelligent sentience, will, life, awareness, etc etc.

Jesus man and God became incarnate via the will of God, the eternal sentient attribute of the eternal God who as Will of God is the one who’s action of communicating God’s will to us as word was acting most properly to his ‘station’ of God’s will.

Holy Spirit as sentient heart of God is acting in his proper station when he acts as healer, for healing is an act of love. Holy Spirit as sentient heart of God is acting within his proper station when he seeks to bring us into relationship with God, for the heart of God is love and relationship is proper to the Holy Spirit.

I’m fairly certain that describes the trinity of God, and I think it is possible, not impossible, that we can understand God in his triune nature. It makes sense to me. In fact I think it cannot be any other way than God is trinity.

He is creative power to the nth degree, an infinite degree, an eternal degree. He gives life and awareness to his essential attributes.

As God, what Jesus is saying is these are the essential attributes of God, no more and no less. And when you think about it, you realize Jesus is correct. God is Mind (father), God is Will (Jesus himself Son), and God is Heart (Holy Spirit).

God being is in it’s essential nature consists of Mind, Will, and Heart.

God, this eternal, infinitely creative being, simply gives life to his essence. So God’s essence, each essence is Sentient, Alive, Aware, and because each essence is Alive and Aware, there is Relationship.

The reason Jesus did not use Mind as a description of God his father is because Jesus knew that emphasizing God as relationship was the highest priority. God is in relationship within himself. That is the truth of trinity God. Therefore Jesus used Father and Son to denote the essential nature of God - he is relationship. God’s nature is relationship.

That is another truth of God as trinity. God’s nature is relationship.

To clarify, God as three person’s in one is correct. Personhood is a description of sentience, and will, and life and self-awareness. God is three person’s (sentience, self-awareness etc) in one.

There are clues in the Nicene Creed when we say God from God - light from light. God’s mind gives his Will life (in an eternal process - begetting) and so to Heart is given the same life. Life in this sense denotes fullness of life as only God can give. Full awareness, sentience, intelligence, power, etc etc…
 
addition to my above description - There really is no useful analogy to describe the Trinity.

An analogy which does not exist in nature would be if we had these three sentient attributes within ourselves, a sentient Mind (which we already have), a sentient Will (which we do not have), and a sentient Heart (which we also do not have).

We could not co-exist within ourselves very well I suspect, if we were to have a truly sentient triune nature within ours being. Sin would cause all sort’s of disharmony and imagine trying to get something completed. We’d probably be arguing for hours within ourselves over triviality. 😊
 
mackbrislawn;
Okay, you have to have a car in order to drive your car! And you can’t drive your car unless the tires put force on the road, and the road pushes back on the tires and the car accelerates. All conceptually separate, but all equally contributing to one end.
The how questions are good for engineers, but the why questions search for meaning. Tou can ask how do you build a tank and set it in motion. You can ask why would you build a tank, and that is to defend yourself or to attack.
What is greater than motion? "
Jesus said there are two greatest commandments, he did not mention a greatest motion.
The Spirit of God swept across the face of the deep." God is motion, dynamism. Without motion the universe would not exist.
But why did God set the universe in motion, was it to sit back and watch us be evil towards each other, and kill each other, or can there be some greater purpose behind creation?

Blessings

Eric
 
I have to say I don’t fully understand The holy Trinity. I understand that it’s dogma. What I know is that it’s three entities in one being. Hopefully I am saying the truth.

Can someone explain the church’s teaching on the Holy Trinity with a good explanation please?
The problem is we cannot understand as the normal use of words fails at this level of reality which we have never experienced. We have only ever experienced one person belonging to one nature.

The basic doctrine of the trinity states Three Persons in One Nature.

“Nature” answers the question “what are you?” Thus God would reply “I am God.”
There can only be one God by definition - if there were three which would be all powerful?

“Person” answers the question “who are you?” In which case you would get three different responses from each of the Divine Persons.

The problem for our minds is that we can only distinguish on the basis of the qualities and properties of the Nature. Thus anything that can be predicated of the Father MUST by definition also be predicable of the other Persons. And every action of one MUST be an action of the other.

So the problem for our limited minds then becomes, on what basis are these Persons really distinct? The greatest minds of the Church on this philosophical problem (Augustine and Aquinas) realised that **internal relationship **is the only basis by which we can make this discrimination.

That is why the Father is “Father” or “Originator”, the Son is “Son” or “Word” (just as matter doesn’t exist without a shape) and “Spirit” is … pretty nebulous as far as I am concerned which is probably why called “Ghost” (its really the attraction between the two).

Clear as mud?
 
Further to my description. God in his tri-une nature has Will in each of his essential attributes. That is why Jesus incarnate Word of God has his ‘own’ will, but that his will and the Father’s will are united.

God as triune being has freedom within himself - but as God, knowing all, etc etc he never comes to disunity. Therefore God can still be truly said for each of his person’s to have their own will, and mind, and power, but since God knows all eternally, he will never come to disunity.

Also God as an eternal triune relationship, has always been self contained in perfect relationship. A question which arises from time to time is why god created nature if he needed nobody else? The truth is God is eternally happy within himself, as relationship, and he truly needed nobody else. However, as his being is relationship, he longed to share his relational being with ‘others’, since he is in essence and being a relational being in nature.

I hope I’m not confusing anyone. It’s really quite simple. 🤷
 
jochoa;
My great friend, I encourage you to continue to develop your theology on the Greatest Commandments, as well as your practice of living! Your understandings are excellent and continually basing life on the Greatest Commandments will lead you to understand all the Mysteries of Faith, as well as gain Tremendous amounts of peace and happiness!
Thank you my friend, I have searched for meaning behind the greatest commandments for the last fifteen years, and they explain all the mysteries of faith. But they are still beyond my understanding, and they are so hard to live by. On rare occasions I have experienced an inner peace that surpasses all my understanding.

Does the creation of the universe hang and depend on the greatest commandments?
Does the forgiveness of sins hang on the greatest commandments?
Does the Gospel of the Transfiguration hang on the greatest commandments?
Can the greatest commandments be a greatest truth for God the Father and God the Son and God the Spirit?
Can the Trinity hang on the greatest commandments?

The way to test the power of these commandments is to try and destroy them, search for something greater?

Every blessing

Eric
 
Further to my other points: the Church and individuals within her has done a wonderful job down through time of clarifying and explaining the nature of God as triune.

It seems the most confusion and difficulty in understanding the triune nature of God comes mostly from how personhood can exist three in one being.

Another difficulty is there truly is no analogy at all in existence, apart from God, which resembles a triune nature. So we try and imagine three people crammed into one being etc etc and it just doesn’t work very well.

But a triune God, when you think about it, actually makes the most sense. God exists in essentials only. He exists in essentials only and in these essentials he exists to an nth degree. So his mind is raised to the nth degree. This we always knew, since we have mind and we can understand God’s mind raised to the nth degree.

It becomes more difficult to imagine, for we can only imagine what we don’t possess, God giving his Word (or Will) the same elevated status to the nth degree as his mind. Islam, and Judaism have difficulty with this attribute (not sure if attribute is correct in describing God’s nature) of God.

Then with the revelation of Holy Spirit, as revealed by Jesus, we receive the final revelation of God’s nature as triune. Many have difficulty with getting their head’s around how a triune being can exist, since as I pointed out, no such being exists in nature, only in God does a triune being exist.

It is God existing in his essence. And it is each of his essential attributes to the nth degree. God existing in his essence only, whatever God is, is essential, no more and no less. So God has Mind, and Will, and Heart and these are God’s essentials, no more that that and no less than that.

A Trinity God is God’s perfection in essence raised to the nth degree.

God is saying I am Mind, I am Will, I am Heart. I am one being composed of these essentials only, I am spirit, not physical, and these are the essentials for Being, for Existence.

God is revealing his nature as composed of these three essential attributes only. We know this only through Jesus.

The difficulty is when it comes to attributing ‘personhood’ to each of God’s attributes. But the truth is, each of God’s essential attributes really does have personhood, fully and eternally, each with the full power and divinity of God as their being. Because each of these ‘persons’ of God really and truly is fully sentient, and each has the full capacity and intellect and knowledge and power of God.

But within God, the only triune being in existence, God has the ability and the unity, and the co-ordination to be a triune and yet single being.

What God is, is himself - he is Mind, he is Will, he is Heart. And as befits God, he continually and forever raises his essential attributes to the nth degree. Each of them.

If we as human were triune we would have these attributes raised to the same level as our minds, but God did not see fit to give us a triune nature. That as befitting God is reserved for him and him alone.But if we did have a triune nature, our will and our hearts would simply be sentient in equal measure to our minds sentience. We would be able to think with full sentience with our hearts. And our hearts would be intelligent in heart matters, relationships, loving others, etc etc.

Just as God reserved sentience of the mind for humanity and denied it to animals, so too has God reserved his triune nature for himself.

It may be that God has granted an elevation of sentience to the angelic creatures, maybe an elevation of sentient Will, so that the angelic creatures have a dual type of sentience, I’m not sure about this, and I’m only speculating, since God made humans higher than animal, and as God made Angels higher than humans he may have given them dual type of sentience that he has denied us. Possibly, and it would fit in with the hierarchical order within God’s creation.
 
The orthodox Judaic and Islamic, and Monotheistic vision of God has always been a slightly anthropomorphic vision of God. That is with Mind elevated, and this is Father Creator, Almighty and Powerful. This vision of God sees God with heart with small letter h and will with small letter w.

God’s Mind in this vision of God subverts God’s heart to a lower order. Above all in this vision, the Mind of God, the dignity of God’s almighty power is The most important attribute. Even historically, God is the Judge, the Male authority, the King. But in the Triune God, Heart truly does have equal place with the traditional Almighty type understanding anthropomorphic vision of God.

Even today, 2000 years after Jesus revelation, we are still quite stuck on the traditional Almighty Father anthropomorphic vision of God, where the HEART of God is relegated to secondary position. Yet as revealed by Jesus, the Triune nature of God shows that the heart of God has equal place with the Mind of God. Somehow we today we still don’t ‘get’ that.

And we don’t ‘get’ it because we don’t possess a triune nature, maybe that’s an excuse that God may allow us some pardon for the times of our failing to understand how mighty is his love, the sentient person in the name of God as Love as Heart as Holy Spirit.
 
What is the meaning of Genesis 2-24; how does a husband become one flesh with his wife?
Genesis 2-24
24 That is why a man leaves his father and mother and is united to his wife, and they become one flesh.
Possibly the greatest commandments describe a greatest oneness.

The husband loves God the Father with all his heart, soul, mind and strength.
The husband loves his wife as he loves himself.

The wife loves God with all her heart, soul, mind and strength.
The wife loves her husband as she loves herself.

Does this feels like a Trinity relationship?

blessings

Eric
 
I don’t want to get too far off topic, but even the way we measure ourselves against God’s judgement shows how stuck we still are on the anthropomorphic understanding of God, the pre-triune revelation old testament vision of God.

How many sins we commit, how many Our Fathers we need to pray, what categories our sins fall under, whether our sins are mortal or venial. None of this thinking shows any understanding of God as sentient Heart, as fully equal in power and authority to God’s Mind.

It has taken us 2000 years to come to our current understanding of God, whatever that may be.

I’ve thought, and I’m probably not the only one to think this, that the old testament was the Father’s revelation of himself to the people of God, in the original covenant with the Jewish nation.

The new testament onward has been the time of Jesus 2nd person of the trinity, and his revelation to us in the last 2000 years dedicating this time to Jesus’ Word disseminating across the globe.

The next millenia will be dedicated to the Holy Spirit’s name being made known across the globe, so that the entire people of Earth will be aware of the nature of God as triune, as Love in the person of God.
 
What is the meaning of Genesis 2-24; how does a husband become one flesh with his wife?

Possibly the greatest commandments describe a greatest oneness.

The husband loves God the Father with all his heart, soul, mind and strength.
The husband loves his wife as he loves himself.

The wife loves God with all her heart, soul, mind and strength.
The wife loves her husband as she loves herself.

Does this feels like a Trinity relationship?

blessings

Eric
We are made in the triune image of God, imperfectly so, but even so God’s nature does reflect in his creation. God disseminates his nature throughout creation, because we are singly unable to fully image God, for what can possibly image God?
  • This husband - wife love reflects the relationship nature of God.
  • The way the planets revolve around the sun reflect the relational nature of God.
  • The way gravity attracts and holds us to the earth reflects the relational nature of God. * Atoms have nuclei of protons and neutrons which live in relationship with eachother.
 
But you are still one person, Jesus and the Father are two separate beings, just like you and your father are two separate beings, how can you be one with your father?
Strictly speaking, God the Father and God the Son are not separate beings. They are distinct persons within one being.

One of the earliest responses on this thread had it very right – God is one, but God is not solitary. God is a relationship, even without considering any of the non-God creatures with which He also has relationships. Otherwise God, in and of Himself and without Creation, could not be Love, and we know that He is.

As a being, a “what,” God is singular. He has one nature, one mind, and one will. He does not have parts or divisions, He does not change within Himself, and He experiences no internal conflict.

As Persons, the “who” of God, God is three. Not only can we relate to God in three different ways (as Father/Creator, as Son/Redeemer/Brother, and as Spirit/Guide/Sanctifier), but those distinctions and relationships actually exist within God – not as parts or conflicting beings, but solely as love relationships within the one being of God. (That’s the main difference between orthodox Trinitarianism and Modalism – the Trinity isn’t just a fact about our relationship with God, but a fact about God Himself apart from any creature.)
But Jesus was fully man and fully God, this seems to be two natures.
Yes, since the Incarnation, Jesus has two natures. But even though they come into contact when we consider the question “Who and what is Jesus,” we must not confuse the Trinity and the Incarnation.

God, as God, has one nature (one “what”) but is three persons (three “whos”). That’s the Trinity.

At a specific point in time, one of the three Persons (the one revealed to us as the Son) took on a human nature in addition to the divine nature He shares with the other Persons. He’s now one “who” but two “whats” (divine and human). That’s the Incarnation. Jesus’ human nature does not infiltrate or change His divine nature, which remains the same eternally, but is now inextricably united to it in such a way that everything experienced by Jesus as a human (birth, death, anxiety, obedience) can truly be said to have been experienced by God, and the attributes that apply to God (universal kingship, power over life and death, etc.) can truly be applied to the human.

When we see Jesus speak of God as greater than Himself, or distinguish His will from God’s, that’s not referring to a conflict between the Son and the Father (who are co-equal and always in agreement) but between Jesus’ human nature and will and His divine nature and will.

God is three Persons who are distinct enough to have true relationships with each other, but share one nature, mind, and will. Jesus is one Person (the same one that is the Second Person of the Trinity) with two natures, two minds, and two wills.

That’s how I understand the orthodox belief now, but it wasn’t always clear in my upbringing (first Protestant and later Catholic). For a very long time, I thought Jesus’ title of Son stemmed from the Incarnation (that he had been, in a non-sexual sense, fathered by God in the womb of Mary), and I think that’s what a lot of other people mean when they call him the Son of God, too. That’s also where you get the comparisons of Him with various demigods of mythology, like Dionysus or Heracles, who had a male god and a human woman as parents. But according to the Trinity doctrine, the Son is Son from all eternity, because His relationship with the Father is analogous to begetting/being begotten among humans. (Or, more likely, our father/son relationship is an imperfect analogy of theirs, but the relationship was revealed to us using human relationship terms.)
Blessings

Eric
Usagi
 
The how questions are good for engineers, but the why questions search for meaning. Tou can ask how do you build a tank and set it in motion. You can ask why would you build a tank, and that is to defend yourself or to attack.

Jesus said there are two greatest commandments, he did not mention a greatest motion.

But why did God set the universe in motion, was it to sit back and watch us be evil towards each other, and kill each other, or can there be some greater purpose behind creation?

Blessings

Eric
I suppose I don’t really understand your comments–they seem to be going off in different directions from mine.

According to Paul, “Ever since the creation of the world his invisible nature, namely, his eternal power and deity, has been clearly perceived in the things that have been made.” Therefore I think it is appropriate to look for comparisons to God’s nature in creation, in the things that have been made. It makes sense to do so, since God would put His image in the things He has made.

What is the Trinity? It is insight into the structure of the Godhead. Yes, structure in the Godhead, for without structure, nothing can happen. It has been revealed that there is Father, Son, and Holy Spirit in the Godhead. We call it the Trinity, but that is simply a convenient label. We must find a relationship among natural elements that exist that way by necessity.

So, in nature is there anything that compares to the revelation of the relationship of the Father and Son? Where the son is the same nature as the father, sharing his exact image, and doing only what the father does? But not the same person? By necessity?

I see it in the principle of action and reaction, force and counterforce. Force exists conceptually prior to the counterforce and brings the counterforce into being, but the two coexist together, are equal and simultaneous. The counterforce is the image of the force, and doing only what the force does. The Father and the Son. The Holy Spirit corrresponds to the the acceleration which proceeds from the action and reaction, as in a rocket.

Note that these are all equal, simultaneous, and they all depend on one another for existence. None can be without the other. By necessity. Just as there can be no force existing by itself, there can be no singular Jehovah or Allah without structure.

This analogy avoids the danger of modalism that many explanations here have gotten into. It explains why the Trinity exists because it has to, and is not just something we have to believe in.

Maybe someone else’s mind will find other analogies in nature, in the things that have been made. My explanation does not address deep questions like why, nor how. But I think it does answer objections to the Trinity.
 
Thank you my friend, I have searched for meaning behind the greatest commandments for the last fifteen years, and they explain all the mysteries of faith. But they are still beyond my understanding, and they are so hard to live by. On rare occasions I have experienced an inner peace that surpasses all my understanding.
Keep up the focus and drive, and we will be rejoicing in the Fullness of Heaven with the resurrected body of Jesus sooner than later!
Does the creation of the universe hang and depend on the greatest commandments?
Simply answered, yes. Please consider the following concepts: One can interpret the Greatest Commandments as: Always freely choosing to be and spreading the means to freely choose to be perfectly patient, kind, and motivated with all the body, spirit, thoughts, and will equally towards others and the self for the experience of happiness without ever losing any peace in any relationship, including the self.
Since God was perfectly this before the universe existed, He had to think of a plan to spread the means to freely choose to be… When one is the only being in existence, the only method to spread the means to freely choose to be this is to create a highly complex universe.
Does the forgiveness of sins hang on the greatest commandments?
Simply stated, yes. Please consider the following: Forgiveness is an act of patience and kindness. It restores peace in the world. Peace which was lost by actions of impatience and meanness. Since Heaven is unbreakable peace, we must have peace throughout our body, spirit, thoughts, and will. Therefore, we must be forgiving with our body, spirit, thoughts, and will. To be forgiving with our body, we must seek to remove all accidental tensions (ie. headaches, anger tensions). To be forgiving with our spirit, we must seek to be known by others as being full of forgiveness. To be forgiving with our thoughts, we must completely remove all resentment. To be forgiving with our will, we must physically grant forgiveness to those who seek it, as well as treat them with kindness following.
Does the Gospel of the Transfiguration hang on the greatest commandments?
I have yet to perceive a relation to the Gospel of the Transfiguration, however, there is a relation to transfiguration. Please consider the following: Immediately following Holy Communion, the priest is one with the body of Jesus, the spirit of Jesus, the thoughts of Jesus, and the will of Jesus, therefore he is Jesus. Simply stated, the priest is the Holy Spirit because he is one with the Holy Spirit.

I will follow up with responses to the other questions soon. Thanks for the excellent food for thought!
 
Can the greatest commandments be a greatest truth for God the Father and God the Son and God the Spirit?
Yes. The Greatest Commandments are the Greatest Truth for any living being because they fulfill the purpose of living without causing any disturbance to anyone…ever!
Can the Trinity hang on the greatest commandments?
Simply stated, yes. The revelation of the Holy Trinity is initially found in the Greatest Commandments. The reasoning for the Holy Trinity hangs on the Greatest Commandments. The nature of the Holy Trinity is the Greatest Commandments. The Holy Trinity as Universally the Greatest Being of Society hangs on the Greatest Commandments. Please consider the following concept which reveals a working concept of the Holy Trinity based on the Greatest Commandments:
Since:
-God is the Holy Trinity
-The Holy Trinity is the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit
-The Greatest Commandments is God’s Nature
-The Greatest Commandment states to love with all the heart, soul, mind, and strength
-God the Father knows everything
-God the Son has the exact body of God
-God the Holy Spirit does the will of God
-The Word is God
-The Word was made flesh
And one can generate the following interpretations…
-Heart is the center of the body, which in the past has an image
-Soul is the center of the spirit, which can be further defined as image, knowledge, and past-actions, as well as the nature by which one wills.
-Mind is the center of the thoughts, which in the past is knowledge
-Strength is the center of the will, which in the past is past-actions
Therefore…
As God is made flesh:
-The knowledge of God is physically revealed as everything that happens
-The body of God is physically revealed as Jesus
-The will of God is physically revealed as actions which occur in oneness with the natural growth towards perfecting the Greatest Commandments
 
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