Understanding the Trinity

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scameter18

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I have been contemplating and studying the Trinity alot during my time in RCIA, and this is my current view of it, I’d like to know if it is valid or not:

If God were not Father and Son, God would not have a relationship within Himself; He would be alone. But, in order to be even more perfect than God would be if He were alone, He consists of a Father and a Son, who while both God, form a familiar relationship, and their love is expressed as the Holy Spirit. If God were just God, as in Islam and some other monotheisms, He would not be as perfect as the Trinitarian God.

In Trinitarianism, God is an essence, composed of three persons. In polytheism, deities are individual persons called gods, each being a god. But in Trinitarianism, being God is being a specific sort of being, which is a Divine being. The God-essence is a set of characteristics that makes something perfectly and completely divine, and there are three individual persons that are God: the Father, Son and Holy Spirit. Just as Bob, Joe and Sarah would all three be human, the Trinity are all three God. Not distinct essences or souls from one another; not individual gods. Just God, in three persons.
 
You have a good understanding of the Most Holy Trinity. The best advice I can give you is to be very precise with your language when discussing theology. I studied theology under the Dominicans for about a year and I was always told to use the formulations that the Church had produced. When discussing the Most Holy Trinity, I always refer to this prayer:

It is truly meet and just, right and for our salvation, that we should at all times and in all places give thanks to Thee, holy Lord, Father almighty, eternal God: Who together with Thine only begotten Son and the Holy Ghost, art one God, one Lord: not in the Oneness of a single Person, but in the Trinity of one Substance. For what by thy revelation we believe of Thy glory, the same do we believe of thy Son, the same of the Holy Ghost, without difference or separation; so that in confessing the true and eternal Godhead, in it we should adore distinction in Persons, unity in Essence, and equality in Majesty…

This prayer is the Preface of the Most Holy Trinity taken from the Roman Missal of 1962. This is a prayer said during the Extraordinary Form of the Mass, which is commonly known as the Tridentine Mass or the Ancient Latin Mass.

I wanted to share this with you because I believe it is a rich expression of our faith in the divine truth of the Most Holy Trinity. In it you will find a perfect explanation of the Mystery of the Most Holy Trinity.
 
God is the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. Because He is three Persons, each Person is God. Hence we say God the Father, God the Son, God the Holy Spirit. The Father is first because He dose not come from the Son or the Spirit, the Son is second because He is the Son of the Father, the Son of God, and through Him from the Father proceeds the Spirit. The Holy Spirit is third because He comes from the Father and the Son, He is the Spirit of God, being the Love of the Father and the Son for Each Other and of God for all good things. Each Person is God so each Person is equal in all Divine Things, including the divine work of creation, redemption, and sanctification. God is Love, and the Spirit is Love, and this better illustrates the Oneness-Unity of God: God is One and Unity, One in Unity and Unity in Oneness. Each Person is distinct in Himself: the Father is the Father, the Son is the Son, and the Holy Spirit is the Holy Spirit. The Father is not the Son, noris the Son the Father, nor is the Holy Spirit either the Father or the Son. The three Persons do not share the Divinity, but each is God, yet they are not different Gods, for there is only One God. God is not one person, nor two persons, but three Persons, for if He was one He would not be Love, and if He was two His Love would be imperfect, but as three Persons He is perfect Love, and He is not four Persons because, humanly speaking, four is worldly. We cannot fully comprehend the Trinity, for the Mystery of Love is infinite, since God is Infinite.

The Son is the only-begotten Son of God because He is the Word of God. Just as through His Word comes His Wisdom, so too, through the Son God creates, redeems, and sanctifies: for God commanded the world to be created (“Let there be light”) and it was; for through His Word Incarnate God brought peace in the world and brings peace into the world (“This is My Body”); for He forgives sinners and gives them new graces (“Whosever sins you forgive are forgiven”). The Holy Spirit is the Spirit of the Lord because He is the Wisdom of God. Just as in His Wisdom God works, so too, in the Holy Spirit God creates, redeems, and sanctifies: for God in His Wisdom created the world; for in His Wisdom He redeemed man; for in His Wisdom He makes all things holy. His commands, His word, is so great, so divine, that it is a Person. His wisdom, His mind, is so great, so divine, that it is a Person. God works through His Word, in His Wisdom: the work of the Lord is the cooperation of the three Persons and the cooperation of the three Persons is the work of Lord, for each Person is God and God is One.
 
The Holy Spirit is third because He comes from the Father and the Son,
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From the Creed:

**And in the Holy Ghost, the Lord and Giver of Life, Who proceeds from the Father and the Son.

Et in Spiritum Sanctum Dominum et vivificantem: qui ex Patre Filioque procedit.**

The Filioque (“and the Son”) clause does not refer to the dual procession of the Spirit. It simply means that the Holy Spirit proceeds from the Father through the Son. The Holy Spirit does not proceed equally from the Father and the Son.
 
To clarify my speculation:

God works in His Wisdom, because He dose not work in foolishness.

God speaks to man through His Word; the words are not His Word, for the words are passing and created while the Word is eternal and uncreated, but rather, the words come to man through the Word. The Scriptures is the Word of God, the written Word, in that it is God’s message or revelation to man of Himself, it is a single word in ancient Hebrew (for there are no spaces or capitals in ancient Hebrew), and it is in the verses that God speaks to man. But the written Word is not the eternal, uncreated Word.

The Word is God and the Wisdom is God, and no other attribute of God is a person - neither Justice is a person nor is Holiness a person - for Wisdom is the Source and Summit of Knowledge and Love and Word is the Source and Summit of Action and Power. Of the Father, He is the Principal of God, for Principal is the Source and Summit of all Divine Things. But the Father is not the beginning or end of God, for each Person is God; rather, He is the Principal in that the Son and the Holy Spirit, the Word and the Wisdom, have their eternal origin in Him. And I say “eternal origin” because there was never a time when the Son and the Holy Spirit were not: the Son is always begotten, the Spirit always proceeds. This is possible not only because God is timeless, outside of time, wherein there is cause and effect, but also because God is perfect, and so, there can be no imperfection in Him. A shadow of the understanding of the eternity of the two Persons goes like this: In your mind you speak, but no words escape your lips, yet your voice box moves as if words are formed.

This is all my speculation, of course.
 
Human language words are incapable of describing the relationship between the Persons of the Godhead. It is a mystery. The Godhead exists outside of space and time is not discernible. This is why the heartburn over the Filioque is ultimately meaningless. Words can’t do the job anyway. We use necessary words understand our functional relationship with God, but an exhaustive description of the Trinity is quite impossible in human language.
 
Human language words are incapable of describing the relationship between the Persons of the Godhead. It is a mystery. The Godhead exists outside of space and time is not discernible. This is why the heartburn over the Filioque is ultimately meaningless. Words can’t do the job anyway. We use necessary words understand our functional relationship with God, but an exhaustive description of the Trinity is quite impossible in human language.
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You are correct. However, the Church has articulated her faith in human words. Her articulations on the Sacred Deposit of Faith are extremely precise and are designed to prevent us from falling into error. This is why it is always best to quote from the Creeds or from the documents of the Church when discussing theology.
 
Dempsey1919 said:
However, the Church has articulated her faith in human words. Her articulations on the Sacred Deposit of Faith are extremely precise and are designed to prevent us from falling into error. This is why it is always best to quote from the Creeds or from the documents of the Church when discussing theology.
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I agree. It is necessary in a utilitarian sense to articulate the Faith and the Church’s understanding of the nature of man and his/her relationship to God. How else would we know who we are? But these articulations are distinct from attempts to plumb the depths of the Trinity and assuming that we can understand the nature of His relationship with Himself ontologically. You point though is well taken.
 
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