+ Reply to thread
Results 1 to 16 of 16

Thread: What'd be wrong (if anything) with understanding the Trinity this way?

  1. #1
    Member
    Registered
    Mar 2009
    Posts
    35

    Default What'd be wrong (if anything) with understanding the Trinity this way?

    Father, Son and Holy Spirit are three separate entities. But they all have the same personality. And that personality is to be identified as God.

    The difference between the three is not in their personality, but in their circumstance. The Father is what someone like God would be like if they had the powers of... well... a God. The Son is what someone like God would be like if they were a human being. The Holy Spirit is what someone like God would be like if they were a community.

    A couple of sub-questions to help think about this:

    Is this idea compatible with the idea, in the abstract (i.e. divorced from particular verses from the Bible or whatever), that there might be "Three persons with one essence?" In other words, would the idea I just articulated be a good example of the kind of strange logical construction some Christians and most non-Christians have a serious problem with when considering the possibility of something like the Trinity?

    Is it possible to understand the OT God and the NT Christ as having "the same personality?"

    How incredibly unorthodox is it to assimilate the notion of the Holy Spirit to the notion of the "spirit" (so to speak) of a community of people?
    I am Frylock at the SDMB.

  2. #2
    Stegodon
    Registered
    Mar 2009
    Location
    Princeton, NJ/ Oxford, UK
    Posts
    103

    Default Re: What'd be wrong (if anything) with understanding the Trinity

    Full disclosure: I am not a Christian.

    Not that it necessarily pertains to the discussion you seem to want to have, but you'd have to look hard to find a Trinitarian theology in the new testament. I don't think it's there at all.

    Your conception seems as reasonable as any of the others do, to me. However, I think that saying that there is a 'personality' that is 'God' is very much an anthropomorphism. And also a statement which is crying out for further definitions.

    Furthermore, I'm sure there are some Christians who would object to classifying the three persons of the trinity as 'separate entities'.

  3. #3
    Stegodon
    Registered
    Mar 2009
    Location
    Princeton, NJ/ Oxford, UK
    Posts
    103

    Default Re: What'd be wrong (if anything) with understanding the Trinity

    Oh and I have never seen anything remotely related to the 'Holy Spirit' being a community.

    What it is described as certainly varies though. Some say it's the feminine aspect of God, some say it is the animating spark in all humans, other say it is the work of God in the world through people -- which is sort of close to your idea, and other things too.

  4. #4
    Vast Right-Wing Conspirator
    Registered
    Mar 2009
    Posts
    60

    Default Re: What'd be wrong (if anything) with understanding the Trinity this way?

    My understanding of the Trinity is called Modal Monarchianism, and it was officially declared a heresy sometime during the third century AD. I suppose that would bother me if I could figure out the difference between that and Trinitarianism.

    The analogy Mrs. Peterson, my Sunday School teacher, used was fog over a frozen lake. The fog is water, the ice is water, and the water underneath the ice is water. Three forms, one "essence".

    Or else it cannot be expressed in understandable terms.

    Regards,
    Shodan

  5. #5
    Stegodon
    Registered
    Mar 2009
    Location
    Princeton, NJ/ Oxford, UK
    Posts
    103

    Default Re: What'd be wrong (if anything) with understanding the Trinity

    Yeah, Shodan, I've never understood why Patripassianism/Monarchianism was declared a heresy. I'm actually doing a presentation in a few weeks on the guy who's pretty much responsible for that (Tertullian). I'll report back if I uncover any insights as to what the deal is there, though I doubt it.

    As I said, I'm not a Christian, though I am an historian of religion, but I think that the much-maligned Arian heresy is actually the closest representation to the theology of the Christian Bible.

  6. #6
    Prehistoric Bitchslapper Sarahfeena's avatar
    Registered
    Mar 2009
    Location
    Chicagoland
    Posts
    5,891

    Default Re: What'd be wrong (if anything) with understanding the Trinity this way?

    I'm a Catholic, and it has always seemed to me that attempts to analogize the Trinity to concrete concepts are always frowned upon. It takes away the mystery, I guess.

  7. #7
    Vast Right-Wing Conspirator
    Registered
    Mar 2009
    Posts
    60

    Default Re: What'd be wrong (if anything) with understanding the Trinity this way?

    Early church history has a lot of this kind of stuff - heated arguments about distinctions that don't seem to make sense. There was a huge controversy about homoousion vs. homoiousion - the "same" substance, or "like" substance.

    That is one of the (rather few) things I liked about reading the Left Behind series. There was a lot of stuff I think was addressing disagreements in the fundamentalist churches that I didn't even realize existed. Both sides had lots of Scripture to back them up, but they couldn't resolve it.

    I was a member of the Left Behind message boards for some time, and there was debate over OSAS vs. OSNAS - "Once Saved, Always Saved" vs. "Once Saved, Not Always Saved". And they went at it, hammer and tongs, for pages and pages. And both sides would try to recruit me to argue on their side. Whereas I had no idea why the question even needed to be asked. Almost as entertaining as the guy who was utterly convinced that anti-perspirant caused breast cancer in women. And before that, it was shaving cream.

    Good times, good times.

    Regards,
    Shodan

  8. #8
    Stegodon
    Registered
    Mar 2009
    Location
    Princeton, NJ/ Oxford, UK
    Posts
    103

    Default Re: What'd be wrong (if anything) with understanding the Trinity this way?

    Quote Originally posted by Shodan
    Early church history has a lot of this kind of stuff - heated arguments about distinctions that don't seem to make sense. There was a huge controversy about homoousion vs. homoiousion - the "same" substance, or "like" substance.
    Indeed, my favourite -- a part of the Arian heresy I mentioned above. Also the source of the expression 'an iota of a difference'.

    Are the Left Behind boards still active? I'd love to read them, for a research project I'm thinking of doing.

  9. #9
    Vast Right-Wing Conspirator
    Registered
    Mar 2009
    Posts
    60

    Default Re: What'd be wrong (if anything) with understanding the Trinity this way?

    Quote Originally posted by DaphneBlack
    Are the Left Behind boards still active? I'd love to read them, for a research project I'm thinking of doing.
    They went P2P and I dropped off.

    If you got thirty bucks you're not using, you can get their take on things as well as access to the message boards.

    I slogged thru all the books because I could get them free from the library, but it quickly became clear that the authors were milking the darn things for a good deal more than they were worth. Same feeling about dropping thirty bucks on a messageboard - free is one thing, pay is another.

    Regards,
    Shodan

  10. #10
    Banned
    Registered
    Mar 2009
    Location
    Michigan
    Posts
    3,590

    Default Re: What'd be wrong (if anything) with understanding the Trinity this way?

    This is the kind of thing that got people beheaded in the old days.

    Seriously. The early church was rife with conflict over issues in how to understand the trinity, and all the early splits between different churches involved theological issues surrounding the trinity.

  11. #11
    Oliphaunt Rube E. Tewesday's avatar
    Registered
    Feb 2009
    Posts
    7,743

    Default Re: What'd be wrong (if anything) with understanding the Trinity this way?

    And as far as I can make out, pretty much any attempt to understand or explain it was pretty much like Jasper on the "Simpsons": You better believe that's a paddlin'/heresy.

  12. #12
    Banned
    Registered
    Mar 2009
    Location
    Michigan
    Posts
    3,590

    Default Re: What'd be wrong (if anything) with understanding the Trinity this way?

    Quote Originally posted by Rube E. Tewesday
    And as far as I can make out, pretty much any attempt to understand or explain it was pretty much like Jasper on the "Simpsons": You better believe that's a paddlin'/heresy.
    Exactly.

  13. #13
    Member
    Registered
    Mar 2009
    Posts
    35

    Default Re: What'd be wrong (if anything) with understanding the Trinity this way?

    Quote Originally posted by Excalibre
    This is the kind of thing that got people beheaded in the old days.

    Seriously. The early church was rife with conflict over issues in how to understand the trinity, and all the early splits between different churches involved theological issues surrounding the trinity.
    I'm not catching your point.
    I am Frylock at the SDMB.

  14. #14
    Banned
    Registered
    Mar 2009
    Location
    Michigan
    Posts
    3,590

    Default Re: What'd be wrong (if anything) with understanding the Trinity this way?

    Quote Originally posted by Speusippus
    I'm not catching your point.
    Rube made it better than me.

  15. #15
    Member rodak from zortron's avatar
    Registered
    Mar 2009
    Location
    Atlanta Ga
    Posts
    20

    Default Re: What'd be wrong (if anything) with understanding the Trinity this way?

    Whatever you choose to believe is okay but traditionally the idea that Father, Son and Holy Spirit are the same personality would be errant. They are all God but they are separate. 3 in 1, so to speak. And, yes, a full blown enigma.

    I've always thought that "God" refers to a collective rather than the singular. Much like the Universe refers to facets infinitum. Therefore, Father, Son, Holy Ghost are distinct whilst still being wholly God.

    And yes, I am quite mad.
    "Klaatu barada nikto extra cheese."

  16. #16
    Stegodon Boozahol Squid, P.I.'s avatar
    Registered
    Mar 2009
    Location
    Cambridge, MA
    Posts
    474

    Default Re: What'd be wrong (if anything) with understanding the Trinity this way?

    It seems to me that your concept of 'personality' is actually a reversal of of the correct (well, let's say, orthodox) conception of God. While any human attempt at explaining the mystery of the Trinity is bound to failure, a more accurate concept might be to think of them as a single person with three distinct personalities. Consider the way you present your personality around the workplace, around your family, and around your friends. While each of your three presentations might be very different, all three of them are entirely 'you'.

+ Reply to thread

Posting rules

  • You may not post new threads
  • You may not post replies
  • You may not post attachments
  • You may not edit your posts