what is the trinity?

[iepuras]

I have so many questions about the trinity, I’ve heard many explanations of the trinity that all seem to contradict each other, so I’d like to know, what is the true belief of the catholic church on God, The Eternal father, His Son, Jesus Christ, and The Holy Ghost. I’ve heard the explanation that one person can have three titles. For example, a man can be a father, a son, and a brother… But that made me wonder, how can Jesus be his own father? And why would he say that his Father is greater than him if he was just talking about himself? I’ve also seen a picture that says, none of them are each other, but that they are all God, that one makes more sense, three people with the same title. And I’ve also heard of a trinity that God is like water, can be solid liquid, or gas.That one means that God is a shape shifter and is one person but can change his form from The father, to the son, to the holy ghost, and back again. Also, why don’t catholics just use the biblical term for them, “The Godhead”? In my religion, we call it that and we believe that The Father has a body of flesh and bone. And has begotten The Son in flesh and bone. And that the Holy Spirit has not a body of flesh and bone Thanks for reading my question! Please respond!

The Trinity can be difficult to understand coming from the LDS perspective. Most Mormon critiques of the Trinity actually are critical of the heresy of modalism and not the Trinity itself. I have frequently heard Mormons criticize the Trinity by saying that Jesus wasn’t praying to Himself in the Garden (which is modalism). As Catholics, we do not believe that Jesus was praying to Himself while in the Garden of Gethsemane. He was praying to His Father, another person in the Trinity.

Also, as an FYI, when a Catholic talks about a “mystery”, he is talking about a truth we would only know if God revealed it. With regards to God, we can reason our way to the existance of One God; however, we can only know that God is a Trinity of three Persons because He revealed this truth to man.

Tim Staples recently wrote an article for Catholic Answers Magazine on the Trinity. Here is a link to a blog post he wrote due to an error in the print magazine. I’m not sure the entire article is included in this blog post, but if not, most of it is. catholic.com/blog/tim-staples/explaining-the-trinity

I found the two analogies in this post, while imperfect, are the best in making sense of the Trinity at least from my perspective.

For me, the best way to understand the Trinity is to remember that God is love (see 1 John 4:8). Love cannot exist with only one person. The Son is begotten from the Father and the Spirit proceeds from the Father and the Son. In a sense, the Trinity is a family.

 

[baronne]

The fire analogy for the Trinity is vivid and meaningful for me. I can envision God the Father as the divine Fire-- the eternal ground and power behind all being-- the Creator of suns, stars, universes, all necessary for our existence here on this Earth where we can place our feet on a solid piece of ground. But the vulnerable flesh we are made of cannot withstand such a direct fiery force-- so we are carefully nurtured in the gentler Warmth (the Divine made flesh) that comes from the Fire-- a Warmth that comforts and sustains our physical and spiritual being in tender, motherly arms, a warmth tempered and life-giving. And, there is the Light (the Holy Spirit)-- the guiding light that teaches and leads us to shared understanding. I would love to know which saint first offered the analogy.

 

[porthos11]

The fire analogy for the Trinity is vivid and meaningful for me. I can envision God the Father as the divine Fire-- the eternal ground and power behind all being-- the Creator of suns, stars, universes, all necessary for our existence here on this Earth where we can place our feet on a solid piece of ground. But the vulnerable flesh we are made of cannot withstand such a direct fiery force-- so we are carefully nurtured in the gentler Warmth (the Divine made flesh) that comes from the Fire-- a Warmth that comforts and sustains our physical and spiritual being in tender, motherly arms, a warmth tempered and life-giving. And, there is the Light (the Holy Spirit)-- the guiding light that teaches and leads us to shared understanding. I would love to know which saint first offered the analogy.

Yes, perhaps, but the Fire analogy is also heretical (Arian).

 

[baronne]

I’m not very knowledgeable on heresies. Is the Fire analogy itself on a list of church heresies or is it a personal interpretation and opinion that the analogy is a heresy? I looked up the Arian heresy. The Fire, the Heat, and the Light all seem one and inseparable to me. The difference is in our experiencing. I don’t want to be a heretic.

 

[Razanir]

I’m not very knowledgeable on heresies. Is the Fire analogy itself on a list of church heresies or is it a personal interpretation and opinion that the analogy is a heresy? I looked up the Arian heresy. The Fire, the Heat, and the Light all seem one and inseparable to me. The difference is in our experiencing. I don’t want to be a heretic.

The fire analogy is not a heresy. Nor is the common clover analogy. They both, however, leave out details or have other flaws. The clover subtly implies modalism, or at least something similar, because the three leaves are not the entire clover. And the fire subtly implies Arianism, since you can argue that the heat and the light are not actual parts of the fire.

BUT, that’s to be expected. If we could come up with a perfect earthly analogy, the Trinity wouldn’t be a Mystery. So any analogy we make will be flawed in some way, and thus comparable to various heresies. Does this mean they’re bad? No. We just need to understand that God isn’t exactly like the three leaves of a clover or a fire and the accompanying light and heat.

(Lutheran Satire actually explained that pretty well at the end. Seriously, St. Patrick’s Bad Analogies was a pretty funny video)

 

[baronne]

---

Amoto quaeramus seria ludo

 

[LivingWaters7]

I have so many questions about the trinity, I’ve heard many explanations of the trinity that all seem to contradict each other, so I’d like to know, what is the true belief of the catholic church on God, The Eternal father, His Son, Jesus Christ, and The Holy Ghost. I’ve heard the explanation that one person can have three titles. For example, a man can be a father, a son, and a brother… But that made me wonder, how can Jesus be his own father? And why would he say that his Father is greater than him if he was just talking about himself? I’ve also seen a picture that says, none of them are each other, but that they are all God, that one makes more sense, three people with the same title. And I’ve also heard of a trinity that God is like water, can be solid liquid, or gas.That one means that God is a shape shifter and is one person but can change his form from The father, to the son, to the holy ghost, and back again. Also, why don’t catholics just use the biblical term for them, “The Godhead”? In my religion, we call it that and we believe that The Father has a body of flesh and bone. And has begotten The Son in flesh and bone. And that the Holy Spirit has not a body of flesh and bone Thanks for reading my question! Please respond!

The Trinity is the belief that there is only one God, who eternally exists as three distinct Persons: Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. These three Persons are distinct, which means that they are not each other. This is why the Trinity rejects any notion that Jesus is His own Father, nor did Jesus pray to Himself, or any other caricatures of the Trinity. The Trinity is often confused with modalism, which views Father, Son, and Holy Spirit as “faces” or "roles that the one Person plays depending on the situation. We reject any notion that God is one Person. The Trinity explicitly teaches that God is three distinct Persons who are not each other.

 

[porthos11]

The fire analogy is not a heresy. Nor is the common clover analogy. They both, however, leave out details or have other flaws. The clover subtly implies modalism, or at least something similar, because the three leaves are not the entire clover. And the fire subtly implies Arianism, since you can argue that the heat and the light are not actual parts of the fire.

BUT, that’s to be expected. If we could come up with a perfect earthly analogy, the Trinity wouldn’t be a Mystery. So any analogy we make will be flawed in some way, and thus comparable to various heresies. Does this mean they’re bad? No. We just need to understand that God isn’t exactly like the three leaves of a clover or a fire and the accompanying light and heat.

(Lutheran Satire actually explained that pretty well at the end. Seriously, St. Patrick’s Bad Analogies was a pretty funny video)

That’s why analogies for the Trinity are really a bad idea because they are by nature limited. The clover is partialism (three parts of God). They do confess some heresy. I’m of the opinion that Trinitarian analogies are indeed bad and should not be used, especially on formative people like children.

 

[porthos11]

I’m not very knowledgeable on heresies. Is the Fire analogy itself on a list of church heresies or is it a personal interpretation and opinion that the analogy is a heresy? I looked up the Arian heresy. The Fire, the Heat, and the Light all seem one and inseparable to me. The difference is in our experiencing. I don’t want to be a heretic.

There is Church heresy called “the fire analogy.” It’s only that what it’s illustrating actually is.

But the flame, heat and light are not the Fire itself, if you can even call the Fire a thing. The analogy itself is not a heresy, but what eventually results in being an analogue of is heretical (as with all other analogies for the Trinity). Most analogies end up confessing some form of partialism (shamrock, egg), or modalism (water, man). The Fire and Sun analogies are Arian/polytheistic so are a bit rarer. The “light source-beam-spot” analogy is less troublesome but still heretical because the source, beam and spot are still the same light beam, but “viewed” from three different angles so is not much better than modalism.

It can’t be helped because analogies are constructs of the finite human brain, using finite objects and concepts within the confines of time and space. God is way beyond all that, which makes proper analogies pretty much impossible.

 

[baronne]

:hug3:
I guess the subject of discussion has more or less veered toward the use of analogies. Proper analogies, by definition, are no more than resemblances between otherwise dissimilar things. If perfect, they would cease to be analogies and in theory become mysteries. But analogies, metaphors, and the like can be very helpful in bringing some measure of understanding and appreciation of the ineffable to the finite human brain, I think. Parables are not completely dissimilar. “For now we see through a glass darkly…”