One of the best lay explanations of the Trinity that I’ve heard yet
If you ask a lot of people, the concept of the Trinity is one of the most non-intuitive concepts in the Christian faith. God is three separate persons, but He is also one, somehow?
User rainer511 in reddit’s Christianity community posted a great response to the question, “Can you please explain the concept of the trinity to me?” I’ve copied it below. Click to read the rest or here to read the original post.
Can you please explain the concept of the trinity to me?
No, not really.
Since you asked so nicely, I’ll give it a go though. At the very least I’ll explain how I understand it.
The doctrine of the Trinity is not explicitly stated in the Bible. Most doctrines aren’t. I think the earliest recorded mention of the Trinity is by Theophilus in 180 C.E., and it’s really just a mention.
The Hebrew Bible seems to tell of a people who were polytheistic half the time and henotheistic the other half, with religious leaders who were mostly monotheistic. Whatever the history of the theology of the people, by the first century ““Hear, O Israel: the Lord our God, the Lord is one” (Deut 6.4) was constantly recited and was essential to the Jewish faith.
Then along comes Jesus. First he seems to be a prophet, then people start calling him the Messiah (anointed one, King), and then he hints at and sometimes outright states that he and God are one.
Later, Jesus talks about leaving and says that when he leaves, he will send God’s Spirit, “another parakletos”(translated advocate, counselor, comforter). Later epistle writers would talk about Jesus as being our “parakletos”—so whatever the Spirit is, it is whatever Jesus is, and Jesus is whatever God is.
The problem is that they don’t seem to be the same person. The Bible certainly doesn’t treat them that way. Greek verbs are very explicit about who or what is acting and the Bible never talks about Jesus “raising himself” from the grave, God always raises Jesus from the grave. Jesus prays to God, his Father.
This is explained in different ways by different people.
Some people stress that “Jesus”, “God”, and “Holy Spirit” are just three names for the same thing. “The same old fiery bush” as you put it. They try to explain away any moment where Jesus refers to God as something other than himself as Jesus “modeling the way we should live”. Jesus only prays to God as Father because we should pray to God as our Father.
However, here is how I choose to think about it:
Think of flatland.
Imagine someone from flatland suggesting, “I think there might be a shape with three sides, yet at the same time it is one continuous circle”. It just wouldn’t make any sense. How could something have three sides, yet be a circle. A circle can’t be a triangle. A triangle can’t be a circle.
Unless, of course, it’s a cone.
Is it a triangle, or is it a circle?
Yes.
Well, not exactly, of course. It’s a cone. In a sense it’s neither. But if you lived in flatland and you tried to describe a cone you’d end up saying something like, “I don’t know, it’s sort of like a triangle, except if you look at it a different way, it’s a circle”.
Ultimately doctrines are just models we use to talk about Something that we can’t comprehend.
The Trinity is when we answer “Yes” to the question of, “Is God a triangle, or is he a circle?”
Posted on Sep 08, 2010 - 01:25 PM
Comments:
The comment by Eyko is full of win!
By Benny on Apr 26, 2011 - 07:32 PM
