You Opinions on the Trinity???

I was reading carm.org and I think I know how to answer:

" As a man, Jesus needed to pray. When He was praying he was not praying to Himself, but to God the Father.

They are not three gods, but one God. Each is a separate person, yet each of them is, in essence, divine in nature.

A close analogy of the Trinity can be found by looking at the concept of time. Time is past, present, and future. There are three "aspects" or "parts" of time. This does not mean that there are three "times," but only one. Each is separate, in a sense, yet each shares the same nature, or essence. In a similar way, the Trinity is three separate persons who share the same nature."

 

Is she asking about how Jesus prays to himself when he prays to the Father in the NT? The way he does that is that he is not praying to himself! God the Father and Jesus the Son are two distinct (though not separate) beings in the Godhead.

I read once in a pamphlet written by a Jewish man who became a Christian that he understood the Trinity when he saw that the Hebrew word for "one" as in "God is one" is the word used also for one cluster of grapes. It is one cluster but has several grapes. This is not an exact analogy - because it is not a Godhead with 3 Gods - but it helped him. He said that "one" in this case did not mean single in the sense of alone. Don't know if that helps.

Glad the carm site helped. I think they have scriptures there that maybe you can show your friend so that she sees it in the Bible.

 

God in three person blessed Trinity

 

It does help, I am from Central NY, my front yard and back yard were vineyards

Honestly, I think my friend tries to find topics that are hard to comprehend, she claims she is a Postive Athiest :tear:

 

"roles" wasn't the best word to use. I agree with you that The Trinity is three distinct Persons...all God. That is just one analogy that I remember that describes the three in one.

 

Sometimes we as humans try to put everything about God into our own understanding when in fact, "who hath known the mind of God and who hath been His councelor". There are some things we look through a glass darkly in this life and that is just how it is. They are one but yet they are three. We don't even know what we will look like in Heaven and the same is to try and completely understand the Trinity. I am just glad all three are there, for we need a Comforter, we need and advocate and we need God. I liked what Mishelly said about time, past, present and future. Sound like a good way to put it to me. peace

 

Granted not everyone likes this analogy, but it's always worked for me and I apologize up front if it has already been stated, but the Trinity was explained to me as a pie.

If you have a cherry pie and cut it into three equal pieces you still have a cherry pie in three pieces. It's all one pie just cut in three pieces.

Works for me, I don't know about anyone else

 

I believe in the Trinity, I was flabbergasted to discover so called Christian groups who do not believe this.....flabbergasted because I held that this is a tenet of Christian belief.....wrong AGAIN!

 

Christians are greatly divided on the issue of Baptism but not so much on the issue of the Trinity. Yet baptism is explicit and mentioned often in the NT - and the word Trinity - not once!

So how is it that a clear and explicit doctrine is much disputed and yet a much more subtle truth like the Trinity - much harder to define and read into any one text - is so easily accepted?

Could it be that it is because the Trinity is one of the Bible truths that the RCC did NOT obliterate? Without the need to correct that teaching - there is much less division.

 

Karl Barth explained it best to me, That we CONFESS God, the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit; that we BELIEVE in God, the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit; and that there is NO bridge between belief and unbelief but CONFESSION and FAITH.

'God' would be a useless concept, had He not been a living, loving, saving, personal almighty, and ONLY God and Saviour. That's why I believe in Jesus Christ - not in Him too, but in Him, AS I believe in the Father and in the Holy Spirit.

If not a mystery, Faith in God, would not have existed.

 

I thought that was from James White. That's who Hank Hanegraaf quotes it from (the Forgotten Trinity). Hard to imagine confusing those two with each other (I must associate them too much with their Calvinism/Arminian debate)!

Anyway, that is a very bad phrase, because then it denies that there is any personal unity in God. "God" as a unified whole, is a what (a THING) only containing "who's"! Then:

"Being" would more correspond to the concept of the whole Godhead, so three beings would almost suggest three Gods.
All of this actually would be very compatible with Armstrong's "God Family" concept: God is one family (what), containing more than one "being" (who). We're better off just saying "one who three who's"; "one being, three Persons", rather than trying to rationalize it like that, then claiming "mystery".
http://members.aol.com/etb700/triune.html

 

Eric, I think it's Norman Geisler who says that, but I could be wrong. Naturally, that is not his complete statement on the Trinity, nor is it mine. I was just trying to explain using that along with other statements.

All explanations and analogies will fail in some way when describing the Trinity. I know Geisler says this: We can apprehend the Trinity even if we don't comprehend it.

I certainly do not support the Armstrong family view!

You have to be really careful that the description does not sound like 3 Gods nor that it sounds like modalism. It's a fine line sometimes.

 

Please do not get me started on Herbert Armstrong! AUUUUUUGH!

 

"Just write me at Box 111, Pasade...!"

:laugh::laugh::applause::laugh:

Ed

 

NOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO!!!!!!!!!

 

Marcia,
You said...

Well, for me its that I believe to lift a certain Trinitarian *articulation* of the Godhead, and to use that as a standard to judge whether someone is a christian or not, is to make judgments based on tradition rather then scripture.

Here is what I mean. Here is a standard articulation of the Trinity...

Personally, I say "amen!" to all of that. I personally believe that the concept that men have called "the Trinity" is the best articulation we have as to the nature of God.

However, what I just posted there...from the CARM website...is not a passage of scripture. And there is nowhere in the scriptures where any extended explanation of the Godhead is given in concise and detailed form like that. And I know of no place where we are instructed by God to use anything like statement up there to "draw a line in the sand" with regarding others, to determine if they are christian or not.

And keep in mind, God does not shrink back from giving us "line in the sand" type of information to use for that purpose.

God has said, regarding Christ...

And...

And...

And...

And...

And regarding the necessity of the Spiritual new birth...

And....

Regarding the true saving gospel, justification through faith alone...

And...

And...

I could go on and on of course. I'm not trying to present an exhaustive list, I'm just making the point that God gives us in the scriptures truth that is so important that he clearly presents it...and He clearly speaks of the eternal consequences of rejecting it.

In other words, God makes clear that we can and should draw a "line in the sand" regarding certain issues. But I see nowhere in the scriptures where the "Trinitarian" articulation of the triune nature of God is clearly given, with the clear intention being to use as a "line in the sand" issue.

I acknowledge that the triune nature of God is alluded to many many times. Such as when Christ said...

...but I'm just not comfortable drawing a "line in the sand" over something that is just a tradition (although true, imo) and not an admonition clearly given to us by God via "sola scriptura"

Hence, I certainly "draw a line in the sand" regarding the Jehovahs Witnesses, because of the clear admonition regarding denying Christs divinity. But I do not "draw a line in the sand" regarding the Oneness Pentecostals, since they clearly acknowledge the divinity of the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit.

They just believe that Gods triune nature works itself out in a different way than we do. I think we are right and they are wrong, but I do not disfellowship with them over it, since I do not have clear "sola scriptura" instruction to do that.

God bless,

Mike

 

It is human reasoning to say that the Holy Ghost is the Father of Jesus Christ, but does not line up with scripture. The Holy Ghost did not create Christ therefore you logic is flawed.

 

It has been said that any analogy of God falls short of reality and I believe this is so. The best analogy I have heard is the egg.

The egg has three parts. The shell, the yoke, and the white. All three have their own specific uses. the shell is used in craft making and in compost piles. The yoke gets used independently in cooking as does the white.

Yet as a whole it is still just one egg. With even three individual essence we do not refer to it as eggs plural but one egg.

 

Are you oneness?