How is the trinity coherent?

[Maxximiliann]

There is no contradiction in the doctrine of the Trinity. Let us look at the two main propositions (and if I recall correctly, Robert in this thread also affirms this):

a       God is one (monotheism)
b       God is tri-personal

Where is the contradiction? I do not see any contradiction concerning the propositions a and b. There is no direct contradiction (e.g., (a & not-a), or (b &  not-b), or anything of that sort). I also do not see how one would imply falsehood of the other. The doctrine is that there basically exists one God consisting of three persons, and they are all divine, and we do not affirm that God exists as one and as three in the same sense.

It is by, the way, easy to think towards tritheism (three gods) or modalism (that one God revealed himself at different times with different modes, opposing the standard trinitarian doctrine). Both of these are normally rejected and not Christian doctrine.

As am I'm sure you're aware, Luke 1:36 states that Mary and Elizabeth are cousins and that John is six months older than Jesus, making John and Jesus second cousins. Luke 3:23 also informs us that John baptized Jesus when this one was about 30 years old, said baptism found recorded in Luke 3:21, 22.

Considering all these historical facts from the lens of your claims we have to ask:
 

[1] John is God's second cousin who is six months older than Him?
[2] Why did God need to be baptized?
[3] John saw God come down in the form of a bird and sit down on top of God's head?
[4] Both John and God heard God saying to God, "This is my beloved Son in whom I am well pleased?

[MCK]

After some 60 plus years as a "Trinitarian" - I must admit that I am now understanding and leaning more toward a "oneness" view of God's nature as Father, Son, and Holy Spirit (not "modalism" as oneness is normally understood to be).. 

I would like to avoid the practice of cutting and pasting links to other articles I have found on the internet.  But to not do so here and still give the subject a good general overview would require a huge post or numbers of posts here.  So I am reluctantly resorting to this common practice in the hopes that the moderator here will allow it after having reviewed the material found there. 

The author of this article, by the way, is a follower of the work of William Lane Craig just as the rest of us here are. 

https://onenesspentecostal.com/ugstsymposium.htm#_ftn2

 

[jayceeii]

I would like to avoid the practice of cutting and pasting links to other articles I have found on the internet.  But to not do so here and still give the subject a good general overview would require a huge post or numbers of posts here.  So I am reluctantly resorting to this common practice in the hopes that the moderator here will allow it after having reviewed the material found there. 

https://onenesspentecostal.com/ugstsymposium.htm#_ftn2

You’re right, the document is a lot to take in! Focusing on the first diagram, I’d point to a presumption that has plagued Christianity all these centuries, namely that to be in a human body would mean Jesus was human. The diagram says:

Son
   -Human mode of existence.
   -Human mind/consciousness.
   -Functions exclusively as man.

My point is that there has been some type of barrier to thinking God could lift a human body, but not be human. Many Christians believe in an invisible soul, though I was shown recently all do not. So, a created soul can animate a human body, and God can too. He doesn’t do it through a soul. This means Jesus does not share man’s emotions or thoughts, fulfilling the scripture, “My ways are not your ways, neither are my thoughts your thoughts.” The Lord may cry, the Lord may laugh, but these are just the only options available for self-expression in this body, and may be fueled by a completely different entity. My guess is the disciples saw Jesus as different, and so they followed.

This is the proposition no one is seeing, that what is inside a human body might not be a man, or that not all those in human bodies, are humans. So you could say the Son had a “human mode of existence,” but that He did not have human mind/consciousness, and functioned as God, not as a man. Most of the trouble appears to be from body-identification, as most when thinking about the human, see no deeper than this body. If Jesus was different from men, He didn’t emphasize this. Possibly He could have proved it, but He left the question open for the time being. No one has ever wondered about this.

[Scoroccio]

It really depends on which Trinity model you are discussing. There many different models.

It's interesting though that  90 % of normal everyday chruch goers will slip in to some form of heresy while trying to explain it. Most of them, are not well-read in trinitarian litterature or apologetic argumentation or the philosophical categories that are necessary to understand the sometimes confused trinitarian claims. That's why, wether they know it or not, they usually become a form of modalist trinitarians. Believing in a single person who takes in different role. This is natural since it's easier to aim your devotion and prayers to a single person. Because despite what they may say, in their minds that's what they imagine God is, being a single person that take on different roles. Of course this was declared heresy a long time ago by many churches.

But the kind of Trinity that WLC and James White proclaim are not necessarily incoherent though, it's just not in the Bible.

The problem often comes down to the word God. They will use this one word in mainly two different ways and will never tell you that each time they use it , it has changed meaning. But the key is to not to allow them to do this and their claim will collapse.

These are the ways the usually use it:

1. God = The "tri personal being"
2. God = an essence/nature

So when they say Jesus is fully God! They do not mean that Jesus just is the Trinity that is incoherent, but then they use the second definition Saing that he is in nature, essence fully God or divine. So it's like saying you are fully human, that is your nature. And you share that nature with 8 billion other persons. However in our case we are also 8 billion different human beings but in God's case according to the trinitarians there are not 3 God beings but only one. So a better comparison would be if you had three brains inside your head each one sufficient to be a real thinking individual. So in your one human body there would be three real persons. Another good analogy would be the three headed dog of Greek mythology. It is ONE dog but it has three sets of rational faculties. Three heads, each head can be called dog, and the whole can be called dog. Trinitarians will probably not like that comparison but it's what is most analogous to something what WLC teaches.

Of course the problem is that in the bible the word God never means any of these things. It absolutely never refers to a tripersonal being. It never refers to som kind of essence and nature. God is spirit, that is his nature, spirit nature not material.

Instead "God" is used as a TITLE in the Bible meaning mighty/powerful. God with a big G is the MOST powerful/mighty. But other individual have been called "gods". Like the angels in Psalms are called gods, the judges, Moses and yes Jesus. Those are titles bestowed on them because of their God given authority and power. Of course there are those who make themselves into "gods" by taking what is not theirs or not given to them by God. They are false gods.

Now some will say isn't that polytheism to believe that there are more than one being called "god"? Maybe according to a modern made up definition of "monotheism" that many adhere to but not according to the form of worship in biblical times. The Jews acknowledge that other beings even humans were spoken of as "powerful ones" or gods but of course they did not worship them in the exclusive sense they were to worship their one God. That is what monotheism really is. Worshipping exclusively one person , God. Like monogamy means you have one wife, not that other wives do not exist.

Hope it helped .

[kravarnik]

http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/b/b3/Shield-Trinity-Scutum-Fidei-English.svg/2000px-Shield-Trinity-Scutum-Fidei-English.svg.png

So basically trinity is:
Jesus is God, the Holy Spirit is God, the Father is God, each of them is a full and perfect God, and Jesus is not the Father, and the Holy Spirit is not Jesus, despite that the three Gods are one God.

That is either internal incoherence or that isn't English.

Lets go through the sun analogy, so the Father is the source of the sun, and the son is the light, and the holy spirit is the heat. Well, the analogy just refuted trinity.

First of all, the sun is what is being described, and heat and light are inseparable properties of the sun. You can't have a man somewhere, and his kindness somewhere else.

Furthermore, heat and light are contingent, meaning that they are created and not eternal. (God is not eternal?)
If we assume that they are part of God's nature (ie. God is wisdom, knowledge and reason is the Son, life is the Holy Spirit). So... can we have a God that doesn't have wisdom, knowledge, or life? So there is no objection in dividing God into more persons then?
If one of them is an actual perfect God, then what is the need for other persons?

X+Y+Z=1, and the three variables are equal then each of them is equal 1/3. If one of them equals one, then the other two are equal zero.
I've heard that it is actually 1x1x1=1, but it is more like 3x1=1, DollarXPennyXEuro=?, or PeachXTomatoXApple=...something else.


Bottom line is: Either the three persons are equal, but they are partially divine (1/3 each), in which no God actually exists.
Or the three persons are equal in essence, and all represents one God, leading to three different Gods.

It is non-sense that the three persons are equal in essence, all represents one God, but their addition equals one God.

You are probably no longer posting, so it would be to no avail to expect a response to the following, but at least for the readers on the sidelines:

- you seem to define personhood as distinct ontological being from the mind, which is not how theism understands personhood


And theism is the metaphysical system under which the Trinity is devised. We believe the Person is a relational extension from the mind. When the intellect comes to know the mind, then in that relation the "person" emerged.


We believe in God there are Three such relations:

1) Between the Divine Mind and the Divine Intellect, which results in the Father.
2) Between the Divine Intellect(=the Father) and the Divine Thoughts/Word, which results in the Son. Thus why, the Son is the Word(the thought/logos) of the Intellect(=the Father). And just like the human intellect gives birth to the human thought, so does the Divine Intellect(=the Father) begets the Word(=the Son)
3) Between the Divine Intellect(=the Father) and the Divine Knowledge, which results in the Spirit.


Of course, that's merely a general outlook, or guideline, and by no means exhaustive of how God's Personhood is actually in detail. However, we believe Personhood to be a relation extension in the mind, not a separate entity.

So, you don't get: 1(separate entity) + 1(separate entity) + 1(separate entity) = 1


But the Father, Son and Spirit are not separate entities from the Divine Mind. They are OF the Divine Mind, but not "apart" of it, or "separate" of it. Justl like you're not separate of your mind. You ARE your mind. Just like the Three Divine Persons are the Divine Mind.

[jayceeii]

You are probably no longer posting, so it would be to no avail to expect a response to the following, but at least for the readers on the sidelines:

- you seem to define personhood as distinct ontological being from the mind, which is not how theism understands personhood


And theism is the metaphysical system under which the Trinity is devised. We believe the Person is a relational extension from the mind. When the intellect comes to know the mind, then in that relation the "person" emerged.


We believe in God there are Three such relations:

1) Between the Divine Mind and the Divine Intellect, which results in the Father.
2) Between the Divine Intellect(=the Father) and the Divine Thoughts/Word, which results in the Son. Thus why, the Son is the Word(the thought/logos) of the Intellect(=the Father). And just like the human intellect gives birth to the human thought, so does the Divine Intellect(=the Father) begets the Word(=the Son)
3) Between the Divine Intellect(=the Father) and the Divine Knowledge, which results in the Spirit.


Of course, that's merely a general outlook, or guideline, and by no means exhaustive of how God's Personhood is actually in detail. However, we believe Personhood to be a relation extension in the mind, not a separate entity.

So, you don't get: 1(separate entity) + 1(separate entity) + 1(separate entity) = 1

But the Father, Son and Spirit are not separate entities from the Divine Mind. They are OF the Divine Mind, but not "apart" of it, or "separate" of it. Justl like you're not separate of your mind. You ARE your mind. Just like the Three Divine Persons are the Divine Mind.

God operates with a deeply divided mind, which can also be called massively parallel function in distinct activities. There can only be extremely limited comparison with the creatures, but if you think about how you can move your hands differently without thinking about it, there’s a minor reflection. So it is not right to say Jesus is the Word and the Father the Intellect, nor are you making a meaningful distinction between Intellect and Knowledge to speak of Spirit so vaguely. However turn it around, and only the Lord can speak authentically from the Father, as Jesus noted. Jesus is the only Word from God that humans or angels can receive. Yet if humans hear the Lord talking they do not like it!

I prefer to say the Lord is the personal extension from the Father, and the Holy Spirit the Father’s spiritual organs of action in the world. The Mind of the Father is behind all this.

[jayceeii]

It really depends on which Trinity model you are discussing. There many different models.

It's interesting though that  90 % of normal everyday chruch goers will slip in to some form of heresy while trying to explain it. Most of them, are not well-read in trinitarian litterature or apologetic argumentation or the philosophical categories that are necessary to understand the sometimes confused trinitarian claims. That's why, wether they know it or not, they usually become a form of modalist trinitarians. Believing in a single person who takes in different role. This is natural since it's easier to aim your devotion and prayers to a single person. Because despite what they may say, in their minds that's what they imagine God is, being a single person that take on different roles. Of course this was declared heresy a long time ago by many churches.

But the kind of Trinity that WLC and James White proclaim are not necessarily incoherent though, it's just not in the Bible.

The problem often comes down to the word God. They will use this one word in mainly two different ways and will never tell you that each time they use it , it has changed meaning. But the key is to not to allow them to do this and their claim will collapse.

These are the ways the usually use it:

1. God = The "tri personal being"
2. God = an essence/nature

So when they say Jesus is fully God! They do not mean that Jesus just is the Trinity that is incoherent, but then they use the second definition Saing that he is in nature, essence fully God or divine. So it's like saying you are fully human, that is your nature. And you share that nature with 8 billion other persons. However in our case we are also 8 billion different human beings but in God's case according to the trinitarians there are not 3 God beings but only one. So a better comparison would be if you had three brains inside your head each one sufficient to be a real thinking individual. So in your one human body there would be three real persons. Another good analogy would be the three headed dog of Greek mythology. It is ONE dog but it has three sets of rational faculties. Three heads, each head can be called dog, and the whole can be called dog. Trinitarians will probably not like that comparison but it's what is most analogous to something what WLC teaches.

Of course the problem is that in the bible the word God never means any of these things. It absolutely never refers to a tripersonal being. It never refers to som kind of essence and nature. God is spirit, that is his nature, spirit nature not material.

Instead "God" is used as a TITLE in the Bible meaning mighty/powerful. God with a big G is the MOST powerful/mighty. But other individual have been called "gods". Like the angels in Psalms are called gods, the judges, Moses and yes Jesus. Those are titles bestowed on them because of their God given authority and power. Of course there are those who make themselves into "gods" by taking what is not theirs or not given to them by God. They are false gods.

Now some will say isn't that polytheism to believe that there are more than one being called "god"? Maybe according to a modern made up definition of "monotheism" that many adhere to but not according to the form of worship in biblical times. The Jews acknowledge that other beings even humans were spoken of as "powerful ones" or gods but of course they did not worship them in the exclusive sense they were to worship their one God. That is what monotheism really is. Worshipping exclusively one person , God. Like monogamy means you have one wife, not that other wives do not exist.

Hope it helped .

The Lord does think separately from the Father, but it is still the Father. The Lord is the personal extension from the Father, bearing His own consciousness and expressing the best and warmest parts of the Supreme Personality of Godhead, as Prabhupada used to say. When the Lord speaks it is what the Father wants the people to be hearing from God.