Needle help understanding and explaning the Trinity

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DaMaMaXiMuS

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Greetings and peace unto you all,

I would like any help I can get in better understanding the Trinity for myself and to edify others. I think that scriptures like Colossians 3:1 and other like it really confuse me in trying to understand how Christ is God Almighty but yet sits on the right side of God.

I would really appreciate any help I can receive in better understanding. If there are any good books that really explain things clearly I would like hear of any.

God Bless You All,

Nelson
 
oh, don’t feel bad… lol

it’s surely the most difficult belief to understand…

i believe the first step is to understand that God
doesn’t play by rules… God is the rule… no time
constraints, no space constraints…

He can be 3 at one time… or a thousand…

He can be now, yesterday or 2000 years from now…
all at the same time…

He can do all…

He is still on the cross, He is in paradise preparing
to return… He is in each of us, and he is everywhere
else at the same time… because to Him, it’s all the
same…

anything He is, is because He chooses to be so…

remember the name He gave himself… “I Am”

yet He chooses to be like the whispering wind…

once anyone kinda gets a grasp on that… then they
can still go crazy trying to understand or put it into
words… lol

🙂
 
In the past, I have explained this to my RE class as playdoh. It all comes from one container, but you can take it out and divide it into 3 separate objects, but each have the same qualities. It all goes back to the same container. I know this is not a fully example, but it helps the kids!
 
Have you read Sheed’s Theology and Sanity book? Read it, the first 30 pages or so should really help you out!
 
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DaMaMaXiMuS:
Greetings and peace unto you all,

I would like any help I can get in better understanding the Trinity for myself and to edify others. I think that scriptures like Colossians 3:1 and other like it really confuse me in trying to understand how Christ is God Almighty but yet sits on the right side of God.

I would really appreciate any help I can receive in better understanding. If there are any good books that really explain things clearly I would like hear of any.

God Bless You All,

Nelson
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In God’s hierarchy we each have different roles while at the same time we are equal . Just as man and woman are equal (Gal 3:26-28) God the Father and God the Son are equal and just as a husband is head of his wife God the Father is head of Christ (1 Cor 11:3)

Gal 3:26-28
For through faith you are all children of God in Christ Jesus. For all of you who were baptized into Christ have clothed yourselves with Christ. There is neither Jew nor Greek, there is neither slave nor free person, there is not male and female; for you are all one in Christ Jesus.

1 Cor 11:3
But I want you to know that Christ is the head of every man, and a husband the head of his wife, and God the head of Christ.

Here are some CA links that give further explanations of God in three persons and the Trinity.
 
This is the way I explained it in the Islam form:

God is Love.
God is Perfect.
God is Infinite.

You can only have one infinity. This is the essence of God. If there were two essences, they could not both be infinite because each one would be to the exclusion of the other and thus not infinite.

Since God is perfect He loves himself. While self love is commendable it is insufficient. Love is not complete until it is given and returned between separate persons. Since God is perfect and deserves perfect Love in return, this can only be accomplished by a separate person with the same essence. This is represented in Christianity as the Father and Son. The perfection of the Love between God and His Son is also infinite and is represented in Christianity as the Holy Spirit.
 
I second what Setentia said about Sheed’s “Theology and Sanity”.
 
"If I could understand God, I’d be God!"

The one thing all Christians must come to grips with – with all our ideas and explanations about the Trinity, we could never come close to understanding it, any more than an ameoba could explain a human being.

I’d second the recommendation on Sheed’s book, although his “Theology For Beginners” addreses this more simply and directly.

Here is also a plethora of articles from Catholic Answers that are sure to help you out:
catholic.com/search.asp?searchType=file&target=sheed+trinity&rc=10&fr=1

Finally, here’s an article from one of my favorite sites “The Rosary Light and Life Page.”
rosary-center.org/ll47n3.htm
They have a series of “Theology For the Laity” articles on numerous subjects that are second to none.
 
From what I understand God is total love but to love you need a beloved. The beloved is God’s own Son, Jesus Christ. The love between them is the Holy Spirit. You need a trinity if God is love. How could God be perfect love if there was not a trinity? Love needs a beloved.
 
Consider a theater, where the Author, Actor, and Director are one in the same agent.

Author is analogous to God the Father
Actor is analogous to God the Son
Director is analogous to God the Holy Spirit
 
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Maranatha:
Can you give some examples of how, when trying to explain the Trinity, people slip in to heresy? TIA
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It’s easy to do. One of the most common is to slip into modalism–saying that the three Person are just different modes in which God is known, or three different ways in which God acts. Or three different ways in which we perceive God. But the Persons of the Trinity are distinct persons, not modes of operation.

Another way is more subtle: it is to say that the three Persons of the Trinity share the one Divine Nature. They don’t. If the nature of God were shared, it would be divided–no longer one. Strange as it sounds, each distinct Person of the Trinity totally and completely possesses the One divine nature of God. But God in his nature–His essence–can only be One.

The example of the shamrock used by St. Patrick is somewhat confusing because the three leaves are parts of the one shamrock, whereas the three Persons are not parts of God, because God has no parts.

It’s also best when beginning a discussion of the Trinity not to throw in the Incarnation until later. Because Jesus has both a human and divine nature, that can confuse the issue of the Trinity in its Divine nature.
 
Thanks everyone, I’ll get those books by Frank Sheed. Hopefully they’ll illuminate me on the subject.

God Bless You All,

Nelson
 
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