If God is one, and a pure spirit can't have parts, then how is the Trinity possible?

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vincent10395

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I know that we can’t fully understand the Trinity, but How could it be possible?
Thanks ahead of time, God Bless!
 
I don’t see why a pure spirit can’t have many parts. Many people show the spirit of love, but are separate individuals. As Catholics, we are called to be one in Christ even though we serve Him in different ways.
 
With God, all things are possible. To say something like “God cannot be a Trinity.” is putting a limit on God’s power. God resides out side of Space and Time and is not confined to what we think is possible.
 
Because the Trinity doesn’t involve parts. There’s no sharing or division of the one divine nature among them. It’s not like God the Father is one third God, God the Son is one third God, and God the Holy Spirit is one third God, and when you put them all together that makes one God. That would involve divisions.

But that’s not how the Trinity works. Each person totally, perfectly possesses the one same divine nature.
 
vincent10395 said:
I know that we can’t fully understand the Trinity, but How could it be possible?
Thanks ahead of time, God Bless!
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I think perhaps a more interesting question, apart from its possibility, would be: does a Triune G-d have its roots in the Hebrew Bible; that is, does it have a biblical foundation? Jews and Muslims say no; Christians say yes. And much ink has been spilled to explain why or why not.
 
The Triune God is one substance with three essences, if I were to speak like an Aristotelian. You just discovered the 800 year old puzzle in medieval philosophy. Take a look at some medieval philosophy.
 
Robyn_p said:
Because the Trinity doesn’t involve parts. There’s no sharing or division of the one divine nature among them. It’s not like God the Father is one third God, God the Son is one third God, and God the Holy Spirit is one third God, and when you put them all together that makes one God. That would involve divisions.

But that’s not how the Trinity works. Each person totally, perfectly possesses the one same divine nature.
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Indeed. Each Person of the Trinity is fully God, not 1/3rd God or 1/3rd of God. I realize that 1+1+1=1 sounds illogical to some people, but the fact is that we must remember that we are created in God’s image, not the other way around. Just because we are limited to being one 1 person per being doesn’t mean it’s impossible for the nature of God’s existence to be different. Furthermore we must remember that God isn’t three beings adding up to one, but rather one infinite being eternally existing as three persons.
 
Pure spirit has NO parts. And God is One Being. He is three Persons. Personhood is not a part of a being. It is an expression of who a being is.

Human beings are somewhat analogous. Each of us is one human being. We are also one human person. That does not make us two human beings, just one, because our personhood is not a ‘part,’ rather it is an expression of our being. Not all beings are expressed in personhood. Human individuals are expressed in one person. God is expressed in three persons.
 
meltzerboy said:
I think perhaps a more interesting question, apart from its possibility, would be: does a Triune G-d have its roots in the Hebrew Bible; that is, does it have a biblical foundation? Jews and Muslims say no; Christians say yes. And much ink has been spilled to explain why or why not.
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Some say that the Trinity is prefigured in the Hebrew bible. I do not know. It seems to me rather that the Trinity was not revealed until the second person of the Trinity became man. Had it not been for that event, I don’t think humanity could have learned of it, except of course through divine revelation. In this case, revelation came in the form of a Person.
 
We wrestle with the concept of the Most Holy Trinity, but don’t forget, it goes WAY beyond our understanding. That’s probably why they refer to it as a “mystery”.
 
Meltzerboy:

Jesus instructed his apostles saying:
"Go therefore and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the
Holy Spirit," RSVCE
-Matthew 28:19
:bible1:

More info: catholic.com/tracts/the-trinity
 
I don’t think the New Testament matters much to Jewish People. And he was asking about the Hebrew Bible.
 
I’ve mentioned ad infinitum the night my father died, he turned up in my room. He started with an apology, we argued and conversed, and at the end he gave this terrifying scream and disappeared.

You might wonder why I’m putting this here in a thread on the Trinity. The reason is that we’re made in God’s image, and if so, there is going to be a Trinitarian makeup in us. Of course there’s the Trinitarian family (Father, Mother, Child) which reflects in part the Divine Trinity (Father, Son, Holy Spirit).

But in regard to my father, he “materialised” near the door. Now he didn’t take solid form, as I could see through him if I chose to, but it was definitely him.

Now his body was dead, and lying several kilometres away in another suburb on the northside of Brisbane, whereas I was living in a suburb on the southside. So he had no physical presence.

But somehow we were talking and hearing, arguing etc. I don’t know what the means of transmission was between his spiritual being and my physical being, but I assume God made a pathway somehow.

To be fully him though, he needed his body. It was clear he had a soul - that had been made visible to me, and he was right in my bedroom. It was equally clear he had a mind -
that was obvious by the things he was saying. But it wasn’t fully him. He couldn’t have picked up a rock and thrown it at me even if he’d wanted to. He even lost his temper at one stage, which was a facet of his character I was very well acquainted with. But he couldn’t do anything with it - his power to intimidate physically was gone.

So you could say that for us to be a Trinity make in the image of God, all 3 components need to be working - body, mind and soul. They are both dependent and interdependent, but not identical. Each is different.

I think in a similar way the Father, Son and Holy Spirit are not completely identical, and yet for the Godhead to work fully in complete harmony, all three persons need to be present.

I remember my old pastor commenting that he thought “The Father can be pretty tough at times”. I think perhaps Christ has an ameliorating role on His Father’s judgement (you may remember HIs plea to HIs Father on the cross - “Father, forgive them, for they don’t know what they’re doing.”)

In turn the Queen of Heaven, Mary, may have an ameliorating role in restraining the wrath of all three of them, but she’s not part of the Godhead herself. I also think at this time of mass abortion, and a very rebellious world, she’s got her work cut out for the moment.

I don’t think all three Persons of the Godhead are identical, in the sense of rubber stamps or clones of the original (Father?). But just as we need body, mind and soul to be whole persons, I think God also needs all three persons to be fully God.

And I have no intention of trying to work it all out. I’ve just started reading “In the Beginning was Information” by Werner Gitt, and he points out about a pretty well mindless spider -
“Every spider is a versatile genius: it plans it web like an architect, and then carries out this plan like the proficient weaver it is. It is also a chemist who can synthesise silk employing a computer controlled process, and then use the silk for spinning. The spider is so proficient that it seems to have completed courses in structural engineering, chemistry, architecture, and information science. But we know this is not the case. So who instructed it? Where did it obtain the specialised knowledge? Who was its advisor? Most spiders are also active in recycling. They eat their web in the morning, then the material is chemically processed and re-used for a new web.”
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When we’ve worked out how the programmed information the spider needs to do it’s job came to be, then I’ll think about figuring out how the Trinity works. Personally I think it’s a waste of time even trying.
 
It reminds me of St. Augustine’s dream:
While walking on the beach contemplating the mystery of the Trinity. Then he saw a boy in front of him who had dug a hole in the sand and was going out to the sea again and again and bringing some water to pour into the hole. St. Augustine asked him, “What are you doing?” “I’m going to pour the entire ocean into this hole.” “That is impossible, the whole ocean will not fit in the hole you have made” said St. Augustine. The boy replied, “And you cannot fit the Trinity in your tiny little brain.”

Thanks for your help guys!👍
 
vincent10395 said:
I know that we can’t fully understand the Trinity, but How could it be possible?
Thanks ahead of time, God Bless!
Click to expand...
St. Thomas Aquinas offers this analogy:

We, as rational creatures, have 1) general awareness 2) awareness of ourselves as an “I” and 3) a relationship with ourselves based on our knowledge of ourselves (i.e. we love, or sometimes hate, ourselves.)

Our awareness of ourselves proceeds from our general awareness. Our self-love proceeds from our self-awareness.

Similarly, God’s awareness is the base (Father) from which His self-awareness proceeds (Son), and from the relationship between these two proceeds God’s love (the Holy Spirit).

Just as we have these 3 distinct levels of consciousness and are nevertheless one being, so it is with God. The difference, however, is that for God, being absolutely perfect, each of these “processions” is so equally perfect that they are each a complete person. They are, nevertheless, one indivisible being.

This is, of course, a rough paraphrasing of Aquinas’ treatment on the Trinity, but I hope it’s helpful.
 
prodigalson2011 said:
St. Thomas Aquinas offers this analogy:

We, as rational creatures, have 1) general awareness 2) awareness of ourselves as an “I” and 3) a relationship with ourselves based on our knowledge of ourselves (i.e. we love, or sometimes hate, ourselves.)

Our awareness of ourselves proceeds from our general awareness. Our self-love proceeds from our self-awareness.

Similarly, God’s awareness is the base (Father) from which His self-awareness proceeds (Son), and from the relationship between these two proceeds God’s love (the Holy Spirit).

Just as we have these 3 distinct levels of consciousness and are nevertheless one being, so it is with God. The difference, however, is that for God, being absolutely perfect, each of these “processions” is so equally perfect that they are each a complete person. They are, nevertheless, one indivisible being.

This is, of course, a rough paraphrasing of Aquinas’ treatment on the Trinity, but I hope it’s helpful.
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Thank you for your help! God Bless!
 
For the 167th time…😦

The Persons of the Holy Trinity are distinguished from each other only by relationship, not substance. There is only one divine substance and each Person has the full God.

Creatures are beings who do things.
God is what he does. God is love, God is truth, etc etc So the Persons are what they do, yet fully God who is supremely one. The Son is the Word or Knowledge of God which is infinite, but only God can be infinite, so the Son/Word is God. Etc etc.
 
meltzerboy said:
I think perhaps a more interesting question, apart from its possibility, would be: does a Triune G-d have its roots in the Hebrew Bible; that is, does it have a biblical foundation? Jews and Muslims say no; Christians say yes. And much ink has been spilled to explain why or why not.
Click to expand...
I think that the plurality of God definitely has its roots in the Old Testament - maybe not 3-in-one as is believed in the Trinity.

In the Shema, (‘Hear oh Israel the Lord our God, the Lord is one’) the word ‘Echad’ actually means ‘a compound unity’. It is also used in Numbers chapter 13, verse 23 where the spies are instructed to cut down a cluster of grapes. One (echad) cluster with many grapes. Also in Ezra 2:64 where the ‘whole congregation (echad) together was forty and two thousand’.

The name El means ‘God’, but the name ‘Elohim’ is the plural form of God and is used around 2500 times in the ‘Old Testament’. God uses the word Elohim to describe himself–a plurality.

Another example in Genesis where God says, Let Us make man in Our image.
 
andyklein said:
The Triune God is one substance with three essences, if I were to speak like an Aristotelian. You just discovered the 800 year old puzzle in medieval philosophy. Take a look at some medieval philosophy.
Click to expand...
No, that is wrong.

God, according to Thomism, which roots itself (among other things ) in Aristotelianism, has ONE Essence and such Essence corrisponds to His existence as well, so God is not even ‘Essence joined to Existence’ like a pure spirit like an Angel would be, but truly metaphysically simple since God’s Essence is God’s Existence as well.

IF God had 3 essences he would be metaphysically complex. God is purely simple, also metaphysically (which goes even further than just ‘being one substance’, sicne one single substance can have metaphysical parts…).

–

The way to understand the Trinity is understanding the RELATIONS among the “persons of the Trinity”, i.e. the ‘processions’ as they are known.

In VERY SIMPLE terms (reiterating what also prodigalson2011 said):

1- Procession of the Son (aka Generation or Filiation): God “'knows Himself”"and such knowing is also God (since God has no parts, as said). That is why God the Son is called the ‘logos’.

2- Procession of the Holy Spirit (aka Spiration): God knowing Himself loves Himself and this love is also God (mind you love here is meant as an act of the will). This is why the Holy Spirit is often associated with the acts of God and God’s love.

These two relations occur not once, but eternally.

MIND YOU: this explaination above is very basic and not entirely rigorous!!! It’s just to ‘get the idea’.
 
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