Struggling with the Blessed Trinity: The Son as an Idea?

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I was reading Frank Sheed’s explanation of the Trinity in his book, Theology and Sanity, because I’ve really been struggling with understanding the idea of the Blessed Trinity, and I feel as confused as ever. Sheed writes that when St. John says in Chapter one of his Gospel that “The Word became flesh,” we identify Christ as the “Word of God.” That Word is not a spoken word, but rather the Idea of God, which comes from His self-knowledge. By knowing Himself, he posits an Idea which is the Son, who is incarnated as Jesus our Saviour. Sheed then writes that the mutual loving of the Father (who generated the Son) and the Son (the Idea of the Father), brings about the procession of the Holy Spirit.

But here’s the question, how can an “Idea” love anything at all? If an idea is an abstract notion of something, how can that Idea by itself love the Father?

It just seems like an “Idea” is less real than the actually incarnated Jesus Himself.

Any thoughts?
 
I read the Nicene Creed - since it says the Son was “begotten” and “born of the Holy Ghost and the Virgin Mary” . . .
 
I haven’t read Sheed’s book, but I wouldn’t take his explanation as anything other than one way to understand the relationship between the Father and the Son.

As I understand it, the Son is personification of the Father’s love, for love needs an object. And that the Holy Spirit is the personification of the love between them.
 
I have trouble that the Father “generated” the Son. This goes against what our Nicene Creed says and the Early Fathers argued about.
 
mikeghiorso said:
I have trouble that the Father “generated” the Son. This goes against what our Nicene Creed says and the Early Fathers argued about.
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No, not at all. This language was used by Early Church Fathers. The Son and the Holy Spirit are both generated by the Father, but not in time. The Son is generated by the Father in that he is begotten of the Father, and the Holy Spirit is generated by the Father by way of procession.
 
Colorad007 said:
I was reading Frank Sheed’s explanation of the Trinity in his book, Theology and Sanity, because I’ve really been struggling with understanding the idea of the Blessed Trinity, and I feel as confused as ever. Sheed writes that when St. John says in Chapter one of his Gospel that “The Word became flesh,” we identify Christ as the “Word of God.” That Word is not a spoken word, but rather the Idea of God, which comes from His self-knowledge. By knowing Himself, he posits an Idea which is the Son, who is incarnated as Jesus our Saviour. Sheed then writes that the mutual loving of the Father (who generated the Son) and the Son (the Idea of the Father), brings about the procession of the Holy Spirit.

But here’s the question, how can an “Idea” love anything at all? If an idea is an abstract notion of something, how can that Idea by itself love the Father?

It just seems like an “Idea” is less real than the actually incarnated Jesus Himself.

Any thoughts?
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That is because we are material beings with bodies. However, the divinity is immaterial. In my opinion, it is exactly because of the fact that we are material beings that the Father chose to achieve our salvation through the Incarnation of the Son, and that he offers his grace to us in material signs (the sacraments). He could have done it in another way, had He chosen to do so, but he saw it fitting for the Son to take upon a body, condescend to 9our material state, and become one of us, because in the limitations of our condition, this is more “real” to us.
 
Colorad007 said:
I was reading Frank Sheed’s explanation of the Trinity in his book, Theology and Sanity, because I’ve really been struggling with understanding the idea of the Blessed Trinity, and I feel as confused as ever. Sheed writes that when St. John says in Chapter one of his Gospel that “The Word became flesh,” we identify Christ as the “Word of God.” That Word is not a spoken word, but rather the Idea of God, which comes from His self-knowledge. By knowing Himself, he posits an Idea which is the Son, who is incarnated as Jesus our Saviour. Sheed then writes that the mutual loving of the Father (who generated the Son) and the Son (the Idea of the Father), brings about the procession of the Holy Spirit.

But here’s the question, how can an “Idea” love anything at all? If an idea is an abstract notion of something, how can that Idea by itself love the Father?

It just seems like an “Idea” is less real than the actually incarnated Jesus Himself.

Any thoughts?
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The Word of God, the Second Person of the Blessed Holy Trinity, has been referred to by some writers from the patristic era as God’s “reason.” I’m guessing this tradition has influenced Sheed’s choice of the term “idea.” However, the Word, who is eternally the Son of the Father, is not merely some “abstract notion of something,” or “idea.” He is eternally one of the three hypostases, or “persons” of the Blessed Holy Trinity.
 
Della said:
As I understand it, the Son is personification of the Father’s love, for love needs an object. And that the Holy Spirit is the personification of the love between them.
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That is indeed the error of St. Augustine. When studying the Trinity, please avoid ‘De Trinitate’. Even Augustine didn’t want it released but was forced by his friends.

I’d advise reading the Cappadocian Fathers and St. Athanasius. They explained the Trinity way better than Augustine did.
 
The word WAS God, and the Word was with him in the beginning. So, the so-called “idea” was capable of giving love and receiving love from the start. Manifesting that love into a human form was another vehicle. The flesh (Jesus) loved and got love.
 
First: the Trinity, the relationships of the Persons in it, and the Persons themselves, are one of the great Mysteries of our faith. We can only stand on the edge of understanding. I forget who it was who said something to the effect that, with God, whatever you understand is so limited that it is more wrong than right.

Given that, the Second Person of the Trinity as Idea or Word of God gives us one glimpse into the Son: the Son as an outflowing, an expression of the Father’s love and knowing. But this idea is not like human ideas; it has depth and force and reality utterly beyond human experience. Hence, perhaps, the idea of “Son” is closer, since human persons have a physical presence like to their parents.

“Idea” or “word” may be an abstraction, but it is only by abstracting from the reality that we can even begin to get our minds around the reality. And we need to remember that it’s always an abstraction, not the fullness of what God is.

And the love among the members of the Trinity is again not like human love, but is far more deep and real and lasting. We can sense only the barest edge of God’s internal love, as if a child on the edge of the ocean feels a few drops of spray, or stands on the top of a great dam, and sees the barest trickle flowing over it: God’s love is the body of water compared to the tiny trickle that flows out to overwhelm the world of creation we know.

I think this is one reason we needed the Son to come to us and take on human nature: so that God himself, in the person of the Son, could find appropriate ways to speak and show to us what God is really like. And notice how often the Bible uses words like Father or Son, Love or Self-giving, and how rarely more abstract ones like Word/Logos. Or, for that matter, Hypostasis.
 
Wesley1982 said:
I read the Nicene Creed - since it says the Son was “begotten” and “born of the Holy Ghost and the Virgin Mary” . . .
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The Latin word in the Nicene Creed is Consubstantialem. It is now translated correctly into the English word “consubstantial” with the Father.

The Mystery of The Trinity is that God is Three Persons, One Nature. The Mystery of Jesus Christ is that He is One Person, Two Natures.

Please do not expect me to explain all this. I consider these Mysteries as part of my Faith in God.
 
I think you’re having trouble because you’re trying to map human ideas and words onto the Divine Idea and the Divine Word. The ideas that we have about ourselves and the words that we speak to express ourselves are always incomplete, inaccurate, misinformed, biased, impotent and do not bear the fullness of the majesty and dignity of the human person.

The Word that God “speaks” bares the utter fullness of who He is and is a whole and complete Divine Person who possesses His love, His truth, His omnipotence, His omniscience, His creativity, His Divinity, His self-gift.

This Word forever unites Himself to human flesh in the Incarnation.
Remember that heavenly realities are the real thing and earthly realities are icons of heavenly realities. True fatherhood is the Divine Fatherhood while earthly fatherhood is its icon. True sonship is the Divine Son while earthly sonship is its icon. True union is the Trinity while human sexuality and human communities are its icon.

Man is made in the image of God not the other way around.
Sheed’s books are Thomistic in style and can be quite a bit to swallow for a beginner in theology. I’d recommend reading his An Introduction to Theology which is an abbreviated version of Theology and Sanity.
 
This sort of analogy can be helpful for some people, but it’s not for everybody. Dorothy Sayers’ The Mind of the Maker has some similar analogies, mostly supposed to be useful to other writers, but not necessarily useful to everyone.

When it comes to analogies, if you don’t find them helpful right away, you’re better off dropping them.
 
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