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

[Isla]

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). 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.

There is another example I got from a friend.
Sun - the star itself is sun, but the light, the heat can also be considered sun.
Kind of alike?

 

[Isla]

Jesus is not the Holy Spirit. They are distinct persons. Unless I have misunderstood what you wrote.

might be a typo.

 

[Isla]

To argue about this would be like arguing the existence of God with an atheist

So true

 

[Luigi_Daniele]

There is another example I got from a friend.
Sun - the star itself is sun, but the light, the heat can also be considered sun.
Kind of alike?

Interesting.

But no

Light is not “sun” in the way that ice is water

 

[DWGarvin]

From Genesis, 1 verse 2: “And the earth was without form, and void; and darkness was upon the face of the deep. And the Spirit of God moved upon the face of the waters”
In the second sentence of the Holy Bible, there is reference to God’s Holy Spirit. Later, same chapter, verse 26, “And God said, Let us make man in our image, after our likeness” Us. Our likeness. Not “Let me make man in my image, after my likeness”. Now, this may be the “royal” we, but that’s not how I read it.

So, in short, from the beginning of the Bible to the very end, and all throughout, the references are there to the Holy Trinity.

I hope this helps in any small way!

 

[Isla]

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.

very similar to a video Leegal suggested me to watch.

 

[Isla]

From Genesis, 1 verse 2: “And the earth was without form, and void; and darkness was upon the face of the deep. And the Spirit of God moved upon the face of the waters”
In the second sentence of the Holy Bible, there is reference to God’s Holy Spirit. Later, same chapter, verse 26, “And God said, Let us make man in our image, after our likeness” Us. Our likeness. Not “Let me make man in my image, after my likeness”. Now, this may be the “royal” we, but that’s not how I read it.

So, in short, from the beginning of the Bible to the very end, and all throughout, the references are there to the Holy Trinity.

I hope this helps in any small way!

Thanks! But for the “let us make man” I prefer the explanation that God was talking to the angels. Ha. Anyways Gen 1-11 are prehistory.

 

[Isla]

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.

 

[Isla]

Interesting.

But no

Light is not “sun” in the way that ice is water

lol
well but if you take away the light from the sun it’s no longer a sun. right?
like you cannot take away Jesus from God. We Christians believe God is three in one.

 

[Pitcharan]

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.

HOLY TRINITY EXPLAINED
When three persons function in perfect harmony full of humility, mutual love and trust, they will function like ONE being.

Consider this example of a small family comprising the father, the mother and son:
• The father is the head of the family and takes all decisions
• He has completely entrusted implementation of all decisions to his son
• The father is counseled by the mother who supplies him with accurate information needed for deciding. She also provides similar counsel to the son for executing the father’s decisions
• The son executes the father’s decisions exactly as willed by the father and receives from the mother, all counsel required.
• The father and son, have full trust in the counsel given by the mother and never doubt her or seek better advice
• The mother supplies ONLY truth to the father and son; she never colors it with her own views
• The son’s only desire is to fulfill the father’s will without any deviation and does it in humble obedience full of sincerity and love and hence the outcome is always perfect
• The father, the mother and the son love one another, trust one another and ALWAYS agree with one another; whatever they possess belongs to all three and whatever they do is just like that of ONE being.

Consider a very simple task – ‘throw’. To perform it, one must firstly know some details like what / where to throw, decide to do it and then do it. This is true of every task and we can easily see that there are three common basic elements that constitute a task – Knowledge, Decision and Implementation. Thus, whenever something is done, it involves discerning, deciding and doing.
The HOLY TRINITY comprises three persons in ONE GODHEAD and this is exactly how they function:
• The Father wills and controls everything for good
• The Son obediently implements the Father’s will, be it creation, redemption or judgment
• The Holy Spirit counsels the Father, the Son and whoever the Father chooses by discerning truth, exposing falsehood and convicting guilt.
… and the three agree as one” (1Jn 5:8)

 

[TheRealJuliane]

But on earth, 3 people are 3 people. 3 bodies, 3 minds, 3 souls. It is not a trinity in the spiritual sense of the word. That analogy simply does not work to understand God the Father, God the Son and God the Holy Spirit.

Our earthly minds will never fully grasp this concept, but I anticipate we will understand perfectly when we get to Heaven.

 

[exoflare]

The ice/water/steam distortion summarized:
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sabellianism

Nothing original here.

 

[sinnseanair]

In the movie, “Rudy”, I think I heard it best. “In this world, I have found that there are only two indisputable truths: There is a God, and I am not him”.

I, like every other genus homo, on this earth think and reason as a human, some better than others. However, we are limited by that human reasoning. He, who has no name, made our world in six days and on the seventh he rested. Impossible by human standards and must be taken on faith. However, while we a fairily certain how long our day is, we do not know how long his day is. It is the same with the Holy Trinity. First there was God, then Jesus, then the Holy Spirit. In human terms that makes three. We understand that an can digest that in human form. But, in he who has no name’s infinite universe human rules of counting to three may be far different. Our Holy Bible is written and translated several times. While He who has no name gave the original words, they are in human terms. So, it just might be that three is one in God’s time.

I don’t know, but I do have undisputable faith that it will become known to me in his time, not mine. Until then, In nomeni Patri, et Fili, et Spiritu Sancti Amen.

 

[SecretGarden]

Bishop Dowd from Montreal, Quebec provides a good analogy: with an iPod, you need three things to listen to music, headphones, music and the iPod. All three are three different elements for example, you use the headphone to listen to the music, you need music to listen to, and the iPod to store the music on. They function separately and yet when you want to listen to music, you need all three to work together.

Here is his website/blog.

bishopdowd.net/blog/

There is a place where you can message him for further clarification. I know he will be more than happy to help you further. He is a really cool knowledgeable person. He has answered many of my questions over the years. He is well respected in the Montreal area. He is a teacher therefore this guy knows how to explain things in ways that are easy to understand.

 

[Pitcharan]

But on earth, 3 people are 3 people. 3 bodies, 3 minds, 3 souls. It is not a trinity in the spiritual sense of the word. That analogy simply does not work to understand God the Father, God the Son and God the Holy Spirit.

Our earthly minds will never fully grasp this concept, but I anticipate we will understand perfectly when we get to Heaven.

The analogy I posted is my own and …

Since we are all created in the image and likeness of God, we are all trinitarian by design. We can easily identify three persons within ourselves. Our spirit counsels, our mind decides and heart (body) does.

 

[puppysocks]

The way I’ve always made sense of it in my head is thus:

There is a big circle labelled “God”. Inside this circle there are three individual circles labelled “Father”, “Son”, and “Holy Spirit”. While the three circles are separate circles, they also make up the big circle of God.

I’m no theologian and it’s obviously much more in-depth than this but I think it works as an introduction to the confusing concept of the Trinity to someone who knows little to nothing about it. I’m not well-versed on Catholic teachings so what I am saying could be incorrect; it’s simply my way of making sense of it from what I’ve been taught.