The Trinity

Yep, I've come to think that all analogies, when pressed completely, are more heretical than helpful. The water as gas, liquid and solid analogy, for instance, is a better analogy to explain a modalistic God than it is the trinitarian one.

And we should expect all analogies to fall short because the Trinity is utterly unique. There is nothing else like God.

The most helpful thing I've heard (and I first heard it quite recently, and now I've seen it in several places) is that the Trinity is one what (being) and three whos (persons).

I just posted a quiz on the Trinity at my blog, in case anyone cares to try it.

 

1. You are right: fallible analogies cannot capture that which transcends the physical realm.

2. The Scripture does not even have one analogy to capture the deep truths that lie behind the Trinity. And why is that?

 

Sometime tomorrow, I hope.

 

I have heard the egg thing years ago. I do not think it is a good analogy

I have also heard the water analogy years ago. Again...it falls short.

I'll not take the time to poke holes in these, but rather offer another.

The best I have read is by Dr Henry Morris. Though no analogy, will be perfect, Morris comes very close to nailing it in the Space, Time and Matter. A must read. I cannot recall which book it is found. Maybe someone else can help. If not, I will find it tomorrow and post it.

 

The Tri-Universe
by Henry Morris, Ph.D.

In a previous Back to Genesis article, "The Wonderful Truth of the Trinity" (Acts & Facts, November 2005), the Biblical doctrine of the tri-une God (or Trinity) was briefly expounded in terms of some of the key verses of Scripture teaching it. A comprehensive treatment was obviously impossible in three pages (entire books have been written on this subject), but at least the essential truth was presented, namely that the God of Creation is one God, in three Persons—Father, Son, and Holy Spirit.

This is arguably the most important doctrine of Christianity—certainly the most distinctive. This does not mean that there are three Gods; there is only one God who created Heaven and Earth and everything in them. The term "God" as used in the Bible most commonly refers to the Father, but the Son and the Holy Spirit are each also recognized as God. This concept is so difficult for many to accept that some have argued that the three divine Persons are not really three distinct individuals but merely three modes in which the one God can express Himself as occasion demands.

But this also is a false invention. There are many accounts of the Father and Son and Holy Spirit speaking to each other, for example. The doctrine of the Trinity is admittedly difficult (in fact impossible) to comprehend fully with our minds, but it is taught so definitely in God's Word that we believe it with our hearts.

Skeptics can deride the Trinity doctrine as mathematically impossible. One plus One plus One does not equal One, but three. Nevertheless, the Bible reveals God to be a Trinity—one God in three Persons. Are we naïve and credulous to believe such a thing?

Well, not really. It is also a remarkable fact that the divine Trinity, the tri-une God, has created a great universe which is itself a trinity, with each of its three components also structured as trinities. This would not necessarily prove that God is a Trinity, but it is a fact that needs explanation. Could God have created it as a model (or type, or analogy) that would help people understand His own Nature, at least in some degree?

Consider: The created universe is actually a tri-universe of Space, Matter, and Time, each permeating and representing the whole. However, the universe is not partly composed of space, partly of matter, and partly of time (like, for example, the three sides of a triangle). A trinity is not a trio or a triad, but a tri-unity, with each part comprising the whole, yet all three required to make the whole. Thus, the universe is all Space, all Time, and all Matter (including energy as a form of matter); in fact, many scientists speak of it as a Space-Matter-Time continuum.

Furthermore, note the parallels between the divine trinity and the tri-universe in terms of the logical order of its three components. Space is the invisible, omnipresent background of everything in the universe. Matter-and-Energy reveal the reality of the universe. Time makes the universe understandable in the events occurring in it. Note that exactly the same sentence will apply if the words Father, Son, and Holy Spirit replace the words, Space, Matter, and Time.

Space itself is also a tri-unity, comprised of three dimensions, with each dimension permeating all space. The reality of any portion of space is obtained by multiplying the three dimensions together (the "mathematics of the Trinity" is not 1+1+1=1, but rather 1x1x1=1). Further, Space is identified in the first dimension seen in the second dimension, experienced in the third dimension. The same sentence could be used with Father, Son, and Spirit replacing first, second, and third dimensions.

Similarly, Time is future, present, and past. The future is the unseen source of time, manifest moment-by-moment in the present and understood in the past. Again substitute Father, Son, and Spirit.

Finally, Matter is unseen, omnipresent Energy, manifesting itself in various forms of measurable motion, then experienced in corresponding phenomena. For example, light energy generates light waves, which are experienced in the seeing of light. Sound energy generates sound waves which we experience when we hear sound.

Thus, the physical universe is a great "trinity of trinities," with the inner relationships of each element modeling the relationships of Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. All of this (as cautioned above) does not prove that God is a Trinity, but it certainly is a remarkable fact. It is an amazing effect, which can at least seemingly be explained on the assumption that God is a tri-une God, and has made His creation to reflect Himself. In fact it is very hard to explain any other way.

The above several paragraphs have been quoted mostly from the footnotes supporting Romans 1:20 in The Defender's Study Bible. So far as I know, however, this striking analogy was first recognized by Dr. Nathan H. Wood, former president of Gordon College in his book The Secret of the Universe (Warwick Press, 1932), which included a very laudatory Foreword by Dr. G. Campbell Morgan, one of the greatest British Bible teachers of the early twentieth century. This book was also reprinted by Kregel in 1978, under the title The Trinity in the Universe.

It is therefore a fact that the physical universe is a great trinity of trinities. But how about the universe of life? Many expositors have called attention to the fact that each person is a trinity of body, soul, and spirit. Each of these entities is real and distinct, yet each involves the whole person. The prayer of Paul, in one of his first epistles was this: "And the very God of peace sanctify you wholly; and I pray God your whole spirit and soul and body be preserved blameless unto the coming of our Lord Jesus Christ. Faithful is He that calleth you, who also will do it" (I Thessalonians 5:23-24).

The "soul" is that part of the person that is the actual "life" that energizes the "body," which then is the material component that others can see and hear and touch. The classic Old Testament verse relating these two is Leviticus 17:11: ". . . the life of the flesh is in the blood." The Hebrew word for "life" in this verse is the same word as for "soul," and scientists have known for many years that it is the blood's circulation throughout the body that maintains life in the body.

The body's "spirit," on the other hand, is the body's "breath," and this also is essential for maintaining its life (the Hebrew word for "breath" and its New Testament Greek equivalent are each used also for "spirit"). It is sometimes hard to differentiate between soul and spirit for this reason, but the fact that they are different is confirmed especially in Hebrews 4:12, which says that "the word of God is quick, [that is, alive] and powerful [that is, energizing], and sharper than any two-edged sword, piercing even to the dividing asunder of soul and spirit, . . ."

The "spirit" is more than merely the "breath" of the body, however, for the person's spirit somehow is also that entity which partakes of the very image of God. When the first man was yet an inert body formed of the dust of the ground, God "breathed into his nostrils the breath of life; and man became a living soul" (Genesis 2:7). Thus "God created man in His own image" (Genesis 1:27). The breath of God thereby became the image of God implanted in man's body of dust and his living soul.

The analogy with the tri-unity of God is fairly obvious. The soul is the life of the body, unseen and intangible but nevertheless the very basis of the person's existence and actions; the body then is the visible and tangible manifestation of the soul. Furthermore the spirit of the person is (like the soul) invisible and intangible but very real in its capacity to interact intelligibly with others, especially with God, including also the ability to make moral and esthetic judgments.

Now animals also possess soul (that is life), body, and spirit (in the sense of breath). They also in a very limited sense seem able to interact with other animals and even human beings on more than a mere instinctive level; however, they cannot, so far as we know, comprehend moral, or spiritual concepts.

To what extent, if any, this animal tri-unity correlated with that of humans in the beginning we do not know. In any case, the entrance of sin and death into the world made drastic changes. Now there is a vast difference. Death comes to both men and animals, and "all turn to dust again." But then it is "the spirit of the beast that goeth downward to the earth" while the spirit of man and "shall return unto God who gave it" (Ecclesiastes 3:20-21; 12:7), consistently with Paul's prayer noted above.

In any case, we can infer that both human life and animal life are actually trinities (three components in the logical trinitarian order with each also pervading the whole). However, the human tri-unity will be restored to live forever whereas animals (body, life, breath) will not. Only men and women are in the image of the eternal God.

Thus, there is a remarkable tri-unity pervading the physical universe, and also one throughout the biological creation. Neither one is perfect, of course. No model can ever be perfect when the original is God Himself. But they are each real trinities. Each unit is distinctive with its own function, and yet all three are necessary components of the whole, and each pervades the whole.

These trinities pervading the creation may not be perfect reflections of the Creator. But they are good and realistic models of the tri-une God who made them.

It would seem there must be some good explanation for this remarkable fact other than coincidence. A plausible explanation would surely seem to be that they were deliberately created by God to help us understand, in at least some small degree, His own tri-une nature.

*Dr. Henry Morris is Founder and President Emeritus of ICR.

 

1. I respect Dr. Morris's workd great, esp. on the early Chs. of Genesis.

2. But his inductive method of reasoning still falls short. To say space-time-matter reflects the Trinity too obviously dependent on the word Trinity itself.

3. So one can go thumbing through his Bible looking for all the three dimension entities and conclude that they were subtly designed to reveal the Trinity, the divine three-in-one.

4. Speculations at best, I say.

 

Jesus also said in Jn 16 “I have yet many things to tell you, but you can not bear them now”

I’m not going to presume to attempt to answer these questions for you or even try to fully articulate it, but this being of interest I will point to some thoughts I would consider when looking at your questions.

The Spirit descended upon Jesus during baptism, yet wouldn’t the Spirit have already been in Him. Possibly a necessary step of Jesus being both 100% God and 100% man fulfilling the completeness of the Trinitarian Nature in the gift prepared from both heaven and earth. Consider the truth of the Spirit (although being always Omnipresent) but bearing witness in a new way by the manifestation through Christ in the earth to be raised up again from Christ’s death on the earth and thereby those of faith being indwelled on earth by His/the Spirit.

(1Jn 5:6) This is he that came by water and blood, even Jesus Christ; not by water only, but by water and blood. And it is the Spirit that beareth witness, because the Spirit is truth.

(1Jn 5:7) For there are three that bear record in heaven, the Father, the Word, and the Holy Ghost: and these three are one.

(1Jn 5:8) And there are three that bear witness in earth, the spirit, and the water, and the blood: and these three agree in one.

The conviction of the Spirit in those of faith will/does reprove the world of sin since the cross; different from the OT times since back then the Spirit would come and go in those of faith before the cross. Christ when He went into the bowels of the earth and lead captivity captive, then His resurrection…Jesus came into the world, left the world to go onto the Father while having overcame the world…reproved it of sin; I might would use the words that He built a type of bridge? Sorry if I’m rambling.

 

One theology book that I have says this:

Poor Analogies:
--Three states of water (poor due to three modes)
--three links in a chain (three parts)
--Human: Body, Soul, Spirit: (poor because these can separate at death)
--One actor playing three roles

Better Analogies:
--A triangle
--One to the third power (1x1x1 = 1)
--Love: it takes a lover, a beloved, and a spirit of love
--Mind, Ideas, and Words

I lile the last one, personally.

 

I threw the question out there… but my personal thought is that possibly something was added to Christ in the form of Spirit at baptism as further noticed when He immediately and directly went out from that very moment in time to be tempted of the devil.

(but I know this though can be quickly questioned by common reasoning of Christ being 100% God from birth…complete in fullness…classically said to be unchanging… yet within the truths of creation, which included time, He also “became” 100% man from within the Trinitarian Nature and returned unto the Father after death denoting change through manifestation within time as a necessity to fulfill the promise made before the foundation of the world.)

Well, one point would be, that Jesus being the express image of the Father (Heb 1:3) or an exact copy, would have an identical Spirit but still a separate one which would allow the for miracle of God becoming 100% man while being 100% God and at two places within one created time.

Secondly, I think by revealed truths in the Word we have to hold to the distinct persons of the Godhead being separated in some ways, as the Son is NOT the Father, and so accept in faith this difficult concept as being truth, from within our finite understandings, that these Two are distinct in Spirit yet in One, not to disregard the distinctions of the HS also being part of the One.

This analogy gets tough here trying to hold in the 100% God as One at all times doesn’t it, or at least we see a temporarily type of divisional separation while in the process of the necessary act to bring a completeness of this foreknown and promised happening, (Consider: Jesus knowledge even after the baptism and the Spirit descending upon Him is scripturally shown as limited while 100% man in Mark 13:32) This bringing in the kenosis theories, and would otherwise be incomprehensible to me. BTW, just between you and me, this aspect of the Trinitarian Nature of God has for me blown a major hole in the Calvinist position of predestination by foreknowledge coming before election being in Christ within the truths of created time. >Forget I said that.

I think we are in complete agreement here, (maybe not about the rambling as I never know when my points are not coming through) but I tend to believe that communication to the Father from the beginning of creation has always been through the Spirit of the Son in some aspect.

Again from (Heb 1:3) it says rather clearly “He by himself purged our sins” so that part I would say was separately accomplished but would also think the Third was quickly at work after descending upon Him suspecting maybe an empowerment seen here when Jesus then was lead out of the water and went directly to be tempted of the devil. And that the First seems at work when the heavens were opened up to Jesus and even before that was at work hearing and answering Jesus’ prayers.