Guys how should I explain Trinity to my non-Christian classmates?

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Especially some Muslims. They keep saying Jesus himself called the Father the only God.
I told them God is one divine nature but three divine persons but they wouldn’t listen. 🤷
 
=Isla;8938719]Especially some Muslims. They keep saying Jesus himself called the Father the only God.
I told them God is one divine nature but three divine persons but they wouldn’t listen. 🤷
Only ONE GOD who loves us so much that he makes Himself present and known to us in three ways:
Father Creator
Son Redeemer
Holy Spirit Sanctifyer

Matt. 3:13-17
Then Jesus came from Galilee to the Jordan to John, to be baptized by him. John would have prevented him, saying, “I need to be baptized by you, and do you come to me?”
But Jesus answered him, “Let it be so now; for thus it is fitting for us to fulfil all righteousness.” Then he consented. … And when Jesus [God the SON] was baptized, he went up immediately from the water, and behold, the heavens were opened and he saw the Spirit of God descending like a dove, [God the HS]and alighting on him; and lo, a voice from heaven, saying, “This is my beloved Son, with whom I am well pleased.” [God the Father]

God Bless you,
Pat
 
Only ONE GOD who loves us so much that he makes Himself present and known to us in three ways:
Father Creator
Son Redeemer
Holy Spirit Sanctifyer

Matt. 3:13-17
Then Jesus came from Galilee to the Jordan to John, to be baptized by him. John would have prevented him, saying, “I need to be baptized by you, and do you come to me?”
But Jesus answered him, “Let it be so now; for thus it is fitting for us to fulfil all righteousness.” Then he consented. … And when Jesus [God the SON] was baptized, he went up immediately from the water, and behold, the heavens were opened and he saw the Spirit of God descending like a dove, [God the HS]and alighting on him; and lo, a voice from heaven, saying, “This is my beloved Son, with whom I am well pleased.” [God the Father]

God Bless you,
Pat
Thanks but they kind of like to say those verses are the evidence that Jesus was adopted/chosen by the only God. ugh…
 
The Trinity is one of the deepest mysteries of our faith. A lot of very deep thinkers and apologists have tried to explain it and only partially succeeded. It’s a big task to try and explain this great mystery to people who don’t want to be enlightened.

🙂
 
Give 'em the ole Saint Patrick: use a compound leaf (like a three leaf clover) as an example. The leaves are all distinct, and each has its own place and importance to the whole, but each is only a part of whole, which is greater than the sum of its parts. 🙂
 
Give 'em the ole Saint Patrick: use a compound leaf (like a three leaf clover) as an example. The leaves are all distinct, and each has its own place and importance to the whole, but each is only a part of whole, which is greater than the sum of its parts. 🙂
umm… I’ll try this. Thanks!
 
The Trinity is one of the deepest mysteries of our faith. A lot of very deep thinkers and apologists have tried to explain it and only partially succeeded. It’s a big task to try and explain this great mystery to people who don’t want to be enlightened.

🙂
:hmmm:
 
DON’T use the water explanation, as that’s just promoting the heresy of Modalism. The overused shamrock illustration really isn’t much better.

Assuming the classmates you’re talking about are actually curious to learn and not just throwing an automatic “no” in your face regardless of what you say (my experience with Muslims has been very much the latter), then here’s where to look. Frank Sheed’s book Theology and Sanity which contains the best explanation of the Trinity I’ve ever read… he explains what the Trinity actually IS, rather than resorting to the common pitfall of trying to describe what it might be “like.” You can actually read it online here → katapi.org.uk/TandS/ShortContents.html
 
Jesus also said, “I and the Father are one”.John 10:30.
 
DON’T use the water explanation, as that’s just promoting the heresy of Modalism. The overused shamrock illustration really isn’t much better.

Assuming the classmates you’re talking about are actually curious to learn and not just throwing an automatic “no” in your face regardless of what you say (my experience with Muslims has been very much the latter), then here’s where to look. Frank Sheed’s book Theology and Sanity which contains the best explanation of the Trinity I’ve ever read… he explains what the Trinity actually IS, rather than resorting to the common pitfall of trying to describe what it might be “like.” You can actually read it online here → katapi.org.uk/TandS/ShortContents.html
Don’t even know the water explanation. Well, um… I’ll read the book. Thanks!🙂
 
Jesus also said, “I and the Father are one”.John 10:30.
Yup actually many verses in John imply Trinity. including the word became flesh that stuff. I tried to use these verses but some of them just don’t understand the difference between “nature” and “person”. That’s what I’m trying to explain to them.
 
Don’t even know the water explanation. Well, um… I’ll read the book. Thanks!🙂
It is, I think, a wonderful explanation. It isn’t perfect, but nothing on earth will be perfect.

Water has 3 states: ice (solid), vapor (gas) and liquid (duh, liquid:D). If you imagine an ice cube, it has solid, liquid and gas all at once. All are equally water, but all are distinctly different. At the same time. Sounds like the Trinity to me. 😉
I actually think that God made water this way on purpose, to give us a dim idea of what He is like; an idea that our limited intellects can “get around”.

Again, perfect? Nope. But not awful, either.
 
The Trinity is one of the deepest mysteries of our faith. A lot of very deep thinkers and apologists have tried to explain it and only partially succeeded. It’s a big task to try and explain this great mystery to people who don’t want to be enlightened.

🙂
This is so very true. I would simply say, “This is a mystery of our - “my” faith. I believe it to be true. I hope that God’s Grace will lead you to believe as well.”

To argue about this would be like arguing the existence of God with an atheist. It will only lead to hard feelings and leave both you and your friend frustrated and angry.

Having said that however:

I have often thought that each one of us mirrors God - how be it imperfect.

We are each one person consisting of a soul, a body, and an intellect. The holy spirit - the soul, Christ - the body and the Father - the intellect.
 
Ask your Muslim friends and classmates to explain their difference between Sunni and Shia, and the Wahabi form of Islam. Ask them why their Quaran has so many shiria quotes from our Holy Bible, 700 to over a 2100 years later. (The old and new Testments). Ask them why Mohammed, the last messenger of Allah, is long different from God’s only Son and our Lord and Savior Jesus The Christ who came to die for all our sins. Did Mohammed rise from the dead and ascend into heaven to be sit on the right side of Allah?

That is why we have the Holy Trinity, God the Father, Jesus, God the Son who was sent to die for our sins, and the Risen Jesus, God, the Holy Spirit (because we humans cannot understand God’s ways of bringing part of himself back to him so we refer to him as two different entities, a human, and a spirit in human thinking).

Let’s face it. Our Father is much older in belief than Allah, and is the first to be worshiped by humans as Our Father Which Art In Heaven. Even when Martin Luther placed the 95 theses upon the church door at Worms, they still referred to Our Holy Father.

We used to have our women cover themselves so that only their husband could see their beauty, but that was about a thousand years ago. True, there are religious sects in Christianity that favors a certain form of dress, but that is what they are, sects, not a religion. Even in our own Holy Church our women until recently had to cover their heads before entering. Some ladies still adhere to that tradition. In the Jewish religions this also holds true of certain headdress for men and coverings for ladies. However, it is not a tradition in Islam, it is a law, and if that law is broken, the woman will be stoned to death.

Recently we have seen “honor killings” of female Muslims. Young women killed by their own fathers and brothers because they were "becoming too western"and bringing shame upon the family. How many Christian women have been killed just for that reason in the last 500 years?

The problem is when you try to discuss religious differences with Muslims, it quickly becomes a “Jihad” with them, a form of retaliation because of their current form of Islam, Wahabism, that states anyone who disagrees is an infidel and must be exterminated like the vermin of the earth. Wahabism has a saying: “You may kill me, but then you have to kill my son, then his son, then his son.” Unfortunately that is the revised Islam teaching we are seeing today. The original form of Islam spoke of peace just as our Holy Scriptures. However that original has been ursurped, much like the Inquisition 500 years ago.
 
That is why we have the Holy Trinity, God the Father, Jesus, God the Son who was sent to die for our sins, and the Risen Jesus, God, the Holy Spirit (because we humans cannot understand God’s ways of bringing part of himself back to him so we refer to him as two different entities, a human, and a spirit in human thinking).
Jesus is not the Holy Spirit. They are distinct persons. Unless I have misunderstood what you wrote. :o
 
The image I have often used with some success is to picture a lover who wishes to express his love to the beloved. God, the Father, is the lover who desires to express his love. Jesus, the son, is the expression of the Lover’s love to the beloved, his words and actions of love. The Holy Spirit is the emotion of love itself, that which calls for a response from the beloved. The state of being in love cannot be fulfilled unless all three aspects, or persons, of the act are present. It can only be fulfilled if there is a lover. It can only be fulfilled if the lover expresses his love to the beloved. It can only be fulfilled if love, or the emotion of love, is actually present, calling forth a response. The beloved in this equation is, of course, humanity, whom God desires with a fierce passion. Our response to his love is what our lives should be about. This is how I picture the Holy Trinity.
 
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