Is a trinitarian God logically possible?

[The_Augustinian]

My friend, trained in mathematics and a hardcore atheist, argued that the Trinity is inherently illogical:

Most Christians also believe that Jesus Christ was “fully God”; he’s not a demi-god, or an angel, or a good teacher or what have you. The transitive property – a rule of logic that Josh says constrains God’s omnipotence – tells us that two or more things that are equal to the same thing are equal to each other. Thus, “2+2” is equal to “3+1” is equal to “10-6” is equal to four. If A=G and B=G, then A=B. But this is precisely what the trinity violates. Okay, we can have claim (1) that God can be revealed in three persons who are eternally distinct; let us call them A (“God the father”), B (“Jesus Christ”), and C (“the Holy Spirit”). And A need not equal B or C. But once we also endorse claim (2) that both God the father (“A”) and Jesus Christ the Son (“B”) are “fully God” (which I’ll call “G”) then both are equal to the same thing, “G.” And the transitive property tells us that if A=G and B=G, then A=B. So God cannot be “revealed in three persons who are eternally distinct” if any of those three persons are actually “fully God.”

What would you say to that? My first instinct is to cry “equivocation”, but what would you say, as probably more learned than me?

 

[thistle]

The Augustinian:

My friend, trained in mathematics and a hardcore atheist, argued that the Trinity is inherently illogical:

What would you say to that? My first instinct is to cry “equivocation”, but what would you say, as probably more learned than me?

Tell your friend to read Theology for Beginners by F.J. Sheed. Everything you need to know about the Trinity is there.

 

[Magicsilence]

Just as one could argue ANYTHING using maths, take his answer with a pinch of salt.

Not only is the Trinitarian God possible, it is also VERY logical.

It stems from the belief that God is infinite, since his love is infinite it was expressed as Jesus, the sort of father part as the father, and the Holy Spirit is like the will of the two.

Its much more complex than that, and i just woke up, and forgot it, so thats just off the top of my head. Im sure someone will update me.

 

[Br.Rich_SFO]

Is a trinitarian God logically possible?

No! Our human mind cannot possibly understand the Trinity from reason alone.

 

[mlchance]

Your friends argument defeats itself:

And the transitive property tells us that if A=G and B=G, then A=B.

A = The Father. B = The Son. G = God.

Let’s add another equation: C=A, in which C is the Holy Spirit.

Thus, A=G, B=G, and C=G, which is precisely what the doctrine of the Holy Trinity states.

Now consider:

A = 1+3. B = 2+2. C = 0+4.

All of these statements have the same answer. They are equal. Nevertheless, they are also distinct. Each one is both different and equal.

IOW, your friend’s “math” doesn’t demonstrate anything other than his a priori conviction to have all of his arguments equal one thing: There is no God.

What’s truly illogical? Deciding ahead of time what the answer must be, and then constraining the debate so that only that answer is the “right one.”

– Mark L. Chance.

 

[Grace_and_Glory]

Here’s a “mathematical proof” I once saw of the Trinity. It’s not really a proof, but just a way of showing that the Trinity is not mathematically impossible.

1+1+1=3
BUT
1x1x1=1
As for your friend’s argument, I think that most transcendent realities cannot be reduced to mathematics or logic. I’m in a logic class, so I’ve seen how much of the sense of even an ordinary English sentence is lost when you translate it into a form that can be used in symbolic logic. Furthermore, I don’t understand why God has to be bound by rules of logic, which were, after all, developed by humans to describe realities humans saw around them.

 

[RyanL]

Grace and Glory:

1x1x1=1

You beat me to this!!

Furthermore, I don’t understand why God has to be bound by rules of logic, which were, after all, developed by humans to describe realities humans saw around them.

Wrong. God is subjectively bound by logic, which is our objective reality. God cannot do nonsense, because it is contrary to Hs nature. He can’t make a four sided triangle, or a “rock bigger than He can lift”. That’s nonsense, and God doesn’t do that.

Logic, however, is a description of Truth, which is God.

Just my 2 cents.

God Bless,
RyanL

 

[Pug]

But once we also endorse claim (2) that both God the father (“A”) and Jesus Christ the Son (“B”) are “fully God” (which I’ll call “G”) then both are equal to the same thing, “G.”

This assumes that the phrase “fully God” means the entirety of God, to the exlusion of anything distinguishable being there. It is a circular argument.

Your average Christian does not say that the Father is the entirety of God, to the exlusing of anything distinguishable being there. They specifically deny this. Jesus is there and is distinguishable from the Father, by manner of person.

N.B. The transitive property does not hold true for every mathematical relation.

 

[batteddy]

Your average Christian does not say that the Father is the entirety of God, to the exlusing of anything distinguishable being here.

I think I know what you are saying, but be careful with words. Each of the Persons is the entirety of God. They are distinct, by their relations to one another, but they each fully possess the entire Divine substance, and even the Persons are in one another. Its true, no one Person can claim to be the Only Person who is God, but they each entirely possess the entire substance of Divinity.

 

[Pug]

I agree, I have trouble trying to explain. Your point is well taken. The Father is the entirety of God, I do not mean otherwise, just that there is this something, some opposition, like how the Father has a logical precedence to the Son in a relationship kind of way, like, ug!, I am very lame with the Trinity as you can tell. I guess maybe like the Father sent his Son and the Son doesn’t send the Father, but I wasn’t really thinking of that, just of relationship when I wrote it.

I guess I mean that there is no claim of exclusion of these things in the saying that the Father is the entirety of God, so to say that there is, sort of begs the question. Sigh. This time I am probably being no clearer.

 

[itsjustdave1988]

Is a trinitarian God logically possible?

Ask the math guy to explain how the square root of -1 = i (imaginary number). No number multiplied by itself = -1. Yet, mathematics asserts there’s an answer to the square root of -1, because by doing so it helped to explain things that previously were not mathematically explainable.

Are imaginary numbers logically explainable? No. Are they true? They must be.

Truth is not limited to that which is only logically explainable or perfectly understandable. Truth is that which corresponds to reality. Imaginary numbers and a Trinitarian God correspond to reality, whether we can explain it logically or not.

 

[Maranatha]

Although we can not have come to in to the knowledge of the Trinity without revelation, the Trinity is not inconsistent with logic.

God is love, God is perfect and God is infinite.

Since God is perfect and His love is perfect, His deserves to be perfectly loved. Self love is good but not perfect. Perfect love requires a separate person to share that love. The Father therefore has the Son and they love each other perfectly.

Since They are infinite and Their love is perfect it is also infinite which is the Third person of the Holy Trinity.

The Trinity is shadowed in the joining of the a man and woman in Holy Matrimony and the creation of a child.

 

[canadianlife]

St Augstine was walking along the beach one day, trying so hard to figure out the Trinity, when he saw a little boy running to and fro. Curious, he went up to the boy and asked him what he was doing. “I’m trying to get that entire ocean into this little whole I’ve dug.”
“Well that’s ludicrous,” said Augstine, “Child do you know how stupid that is, that entire ocean cannot fit inside this tiny little hole!”
“Exactly,” replied the child, “So why are you trying to fit the Trinity, a concept as big as the ocean, into your mind, which is as small as this hole?”
The boy disappeared
It was an angel, and a true story apparently.

The Trinity will never be understood, even when in heaven if God reveals it to us, it will still somewhat be mysterious.

 

[Gottle_of_Geer]

The Augustinian:

My friend, trained in mathematics and a hardcore atheist, argued that the Trinity is inherently illogical:

What would you say to that? My first instinct is to cry “equivocation”, but what would you say, as probably more learned than me?

God is Spirit - the text is proceeding on the assumption that God is a body.​

The Father is in the Son and the Spirit
The Son is in the Father & the Spirit
The Spirit is in the Son and the Father

• IOW, each Person fully indwells the other two, both of Whom fully indwell that other Person.

A (very faint) analogy is that I am thinking of you while writing this. That does not in the slightest limit you: and to the extent that you are in my thoughts, you are present in my intellect.

With God, the indwelling is not intellectual, but Personal. Each Person is totally Present to the other two, equally fully. And it is an indwelling through Love: the whole of each Person is poured out into the other two. We get a glimpse of this on the Cross: for Jesus shows us what it is to serve the Father with unlimited, unreserved, self-forgetting Love. He was utterly open to the Father, and so withheld nothing whatever from Him. In a fallen world, this translates into vulnerability - the man who so totally loves God and is able to because He is God, is going to be hurt, misunderstood, persecuted, because to love without limit means having no defences. And He was hurt, as the NT makes clear. The readiness of Christ to give absolutely everything in order to obey His Father to the full, is a glimpse of the life of the Trinity. The Love is the same, and it is limited by nothing: God loves God with a Love that is God.

The mystery of the Trinity is the mystery of God’s “interior Life” - so it is impossible to say much about it. Not because logic is bad, but because logic is miserably insufficient to appreciate Who the Trinity is. We are talking about something too real, too rich, to be fully appreciated by logic, valuable as it is up to a point. The Trinity can be known only in its own terms. As the OT asks, “Canst thou by searching find out God ?” No. That is why revelation in Christ is needed. ##

 

[stanley123]

Why is it that the Jews had no knowledge of the Trinity?

 

[Ghosty]

The Jews actually do have a concept of the “multiplicity” of God, but not of the trinity specifically. It’s rooted in Kabbalah, however, and isn’t universally proclaimed by Orthodox Jews. It’s so complex that I couldn’t even begin to do it justice, nor could I honestly recommend any good websites on the matter.

Peace and God’s love!

 

[Character_Zero]

God invented math… he certainly is not constrained by it!

At the Miracle of Lanciano, the accidents of the Precious Blood were changed into Blood. They are dried into a few clumps, all weighing different amounts. If you put any amount on either side of a scale, in any combination, the scale always balances out perfectly.

Have you heard the story of when Augustine saw a child trying to fit the ocean into a small hole in the sand? Check it out - it is relevant.

 

[stanley123]

Ghosty:

The Jews actually do have a concept of the “multiplicity” of God,…

However, does that include the idea of a divine Jewish Messiah? My understanding is that they do not accept this. On the one hand, they were supposed to be the chosen people of God, but on the other hand, they do not accept many Christian ideas and claim that they are foreign to Judaism.

 

[mlchance]

stanley123:

However, does that include the idea of a divine Jewish Messiah? My understanding is that they do not accept this. On the one hand, they were supposed to be the chosen people of God, but on the other hand, they do not accept many Christian ideas and claim that they are foreign to Judaism.

The major reason why the Jewish population of the Roman Empire declined dramatically between the 1st and 5th centuries A.D. is precisely because so many Jews did “accept this” and became Christians.

That certain people reject any given proposition is not proof that the proposition is wrong.

– Mark L. Chance.

 

[Grace_and_Glory]

RyanL:

Wrong. God is subjectively bound by logic, which is our objective reality. God cannot do nonsense, because it is contrary to Hs nature. He can’t make a four sided triangle, or a “rock bigger than He can lift”. That’s nonsense, and God doesn’t do that.

Logic, however, is a description of Truth, which is God.

Just my 2 cents.

God Bless,
RyanL

I agree with you that God cannot do what is logically impossible. I’m having trouble articulating what I’m trying to say, especially because this kind of thinking requires so many subtle distinctions. I guess what I was trying to say was something along the lines of “God isn’t reducible to rules of logic, so applying the rules of logic to him in a mechanical way doesn’t always work accurately.” I’m not even sure if that’s the right way of saying it, but maybe it’s a little closer to what I meant.