http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bUy-H5MmeGU
A Unique and interesting explanation of the Trinity
Discussion in 'General Baptist Discussions' started by quantumfaith, Oct 13, 2013.
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righteousdude2 Well-Known MemberSite Supporter
I explain the Trinity as such!
Although I am one person, I wear three hats. First, I am a father to my children. Secondly, I am a son to my parents. Third, I am a friend and a person to those I run into while moving through life!
I see God as something very similar! Which is how I can best understand Him as being one person with three responsibilities or jobs to do!
Now, if you are going to excommunicate me from the church for seeing God and the TRinity in this way, so be it! It works for me, and the ground has yet to swallow me up. The sky has not released lightening bolts to strike me dead. And I am still moving in HIs power to do His work for His Kingdom! So, He hasn't fired me yet, and that is a good thing!
BTW - Great post! It should garner tons of input, squabbles and debates! :laugh: -
Baptist Believer Well-Known MemberSite Supporter
The explanation seems to be a form of modalism, not the Trinitarian teaching of scripture. In essence, it says that there is only one God (good!) and there is only one Person (bad!) that we see in three different ways.
The big problem here is that this view assumes that God is material, not spirit, and so much conform to the rules and nature of the material world. Yet there is only one Person of the Trinity that has become material - the Son.
It is very hard to get our minds to conceive of anything that is not material, so the idea of a Triune God in eternal relationship is very difficult. The differences between the Persons of the Triune God is more than titles or the way They appear to us. -
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Baptist Believer Well-Known MemberSite Supporter
I touch on RD2's comments regarding the roles he plays in life, but other than that, I am referring to the video.
The video postulates that God is multi-dimensional (which seems to indicate that God is material) and uses the illustration of two dimensional person seeing only one face of a cube. Then it goes on to illustrate the three Persons of God as merely different sides of the same cube. This illustration undermines the distinct nature of the three Persons of the Triune God:
- The Father is not the Son nor Spirit.
- The Son is not the Father nor Spirit
- The Spirit is not the Father nor Son
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Revmitchell Well-Known MemberSite Supporter
This video is the kind of junk that happens when people try to explain things beyond what scripture directly says.
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Baptist Believer Well-Known MemberSite Supporter
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Mathematics is purely a creation of the mind of God. Mathematics is that body of knowledge that is arrived at by pure reason, and does not rely upon any observations of a phenomenal, material world. It is free from the limitations imposed by the particular way human minds create their experience of the underlying. As such it probably the closest the human mind can come to understanding God Himself. -
Baptist Believer Well-Known MemberSite Supporter
That's the problem. The theology behind what you describe is that God is in actuality one and merely presents Himself in three ways because we could not comprehend him as one... which is a strange argument. The reason modalism keeps popping up throughout history is that it is easy to understand. It is easy to understand God as one. However, in the New Testament, we see distinction between the Father, Son and Spirit. They are One but also Three. That doesn't work mathematically (a method of examining and describing material reality), but it doesn't have to since God is spirit.
There is scientific evidence that there may be as many as 11 dimensions, and if we can postulate that many from this three-dimensional existence, there are probably many, many more that we can't begin to imagine, much less fathom.Click to expand...
The next one above our three-dimensional existence is Time. Is it material, from our aspect?Click to expand...
God may very well be material, but above our three-dimensional plane that "material existence" is beyond our understanding. Do you see?Click to expand...
The Father is not the Son, but the Father is God, as are the other manifestations of God not the other manifestations, but all are God. God is the Father, the Son and the Holy Spirit, but none of those Three are the other two.Click to expand...
There can be no "perfect explanation" in an existence not able to define an existence above our own. But it is pretty good.Click to expand...
I believe it is a sophisticated form of modalism which undermines Biblical teaching. As RevMitchell warned, we need to be careful about going beyond what scripture teaches - especially when we ignore the clear teaching that God is spirit. -
Baptist Believer Well-Known MemberSite Supporterthisnumbersdisconnected said: ↑That's a statement loaded with misunderstanding, and explains your objections to the video. You don't understand math, therefore you won't understand the video.Click to expand...
Mathematics is purely a creation of the mind of God.Click to expand...
Mathematics is that body of knowledge that is arrived at by pure reason, and does not rely upon any observations of a phenomenal, material world.Click to expand...
It is free from the limitations imposed by the particular way human minds create their experience of the underlying. As such it probably the closest the human mind can come to understanding God Himself.Click to expand... -
Baptist Believer said: ↑Notice your language... [yadda yadda yadda] ... ignore the clear teaching that God is spirit.Click to expand...
Your problem is that you want to explain God in human terms. It can't be done. I'm not going to try. -
Baptist Believer Well-Known MemberSite Supporterthisnumbersdisconnected said: ↑You have put words in my mouth, misrepresented or deliberately misunderstood what I have said, and claimed I do not believe God is Spirit. I do, but He is also more than Spirit, but in ways we cannot begin to understand.Click to expand...
Your problem is that you want to explain God in human terms.Click to expand...
It can't be done. I'm not going to try.Click to expand... -
Baptist Believer said: ↑The video ignores that God has defined Himself as spiritClick to expand...
From the video ...
A Unitarian once told me that God was just a spirit. Well, if God is just a spirit, He would be no greater than the angels, since that is all the angels are. Lucifer may have had a chance in the war in heaven, if God was just a unitarian spirit, because God would be on the same level as Lucifer. But God created the angels, so He must be more than just a spirit. Emphasis added]Click to expand... -
Baptist Believer said: ↑The fundamental problem here is that mathematics is designed to calculate and describe MATERIAL things. God is Spirit, not matter. Only Christ has taken on matter.Click to expand...
In Linear Algebra, one routinely works with matrices and vector spaces in "n-dimensions". Even though we 3 dimensional creatures are physically limited to the standard three dimensions, our gift of curiosity and rational thought permits us to mathematically (symbolically) represent and "speculate" about additional dimensions. -
Baptist Believer Well-Known MemberSite Supporterthisnumbersdisconnected said: ↑When you have actually watched the video and attempted to understand it without prejudice, we can discuss this. Until then, it's futile.Click to expand...
Clearly the video states He is Spirit, but is so much more than that.Click to expand...
From the video:
A Unitarian once told me that God was just a spirit. Well, if God is just a spirit, He would be no greater than the angels, since that is all the angels are.Click to expand...
Lucifer may have had a chance in the war in heaven, if God was just a unitarian spirit, because God would be on the same level as Lucifer. But God created the angels, so He must be more than just a spirit. Emphasis addedClick to expand...
The writers of the Bible make it clear God is beyond our understanding: "My ways are higher than your ways; My thoughts are higher than your thoughts" (Isaiah 55:9). He "is able to do far more abundantly beyond what we ask or think" (Ephesians 3:20). He provides "peace beyond comprehension" (Philippians 4:7).Click to expand...
But you want to argue as though He is not.Click to expand...
It can't be done. I won't try. Continue to see Him in finite, definable ways if you wish. I choose not.Click to expand...
I am open to correction, especially since you have raised the possibility that I don't understand mathematics. Fundamentally, I think I do, but I know I am not especially knowledgeable about mathematics past Calculus. -
Baptist Believer Well-Known MemberSite Supporterquantumfaith said: ↑I don't think you understand mathematics very well. Mathematics, even at its simplest core is abstract. Can you show me the number "1", no, you can only show a representation of our definition of "1". It only gets more symbolic and "abstract" as we move from simple arithmetic concepts.Click to expand...
In Linear Algebra, one routinely works with matrices and vector spaces in "n-dimensions". Even though we 3 dimensional creatures are physically limited to the standard three dimensions, our gift of curiosity and rational thought permits us to mathematically (symbolically) represent and "speculate" about additional dimensions.Click to expand...
So... how does one use mathematics to define and describe the spiritual? -
Baptist Believer said: ↑One of the engineers I work with can make a series of complicated calculations based on the nature of certain materials and structures and design a bridge that will allow people and automobiles up to a certain size safely cross a river.Click to expand...
It is the nature of the materials, not the materials themselves, that are key to the design and calculation of the bridge design. That nature is intangible. It is not something one can see, hear, feel, taste, or smell. Certainly the materials are of such tangible stuff, but the "things" that make them suitable for what they can do as a bridge are not. You can't touch the tensile strength of titanium, smell the malleability of steel cable, taste the flexibility of the concrete pavement that expands and contracts with traffic, the steel beneath it, and with variations in temperatures.
Neither can you see the thoughts of God, hear the relationship among the Persons of God, and our understanding of mathematics does not permit us to create an equation that explains the very nature of God, the way your engineer can calculate and explain how the nature of the materials in a bridge will cause that structure to function when they are all brought together in its form. Yet that is what you are trying to do. It is what the authors of the Bible attempted to do. Those authors were also wise enough to admit that they were unsuccessful in doing so.
You limit the video to this same frame of reference you have adopted, that of explaining God in human terms. Yet, like the Bible, the video's producers are wise enough to have created it, not to explain God, but to admit they cannot explain God, but may, in some remote and ethereal way, be able to grasp a wisp of His nature. When you accept that, perhaps you can begin to understand what they have said, rather than imposing your own prejudice and misunderstanding on their statements.
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