[center]Introduction to the Trinity[/center]

The core belief

The doctrine of the Trinity is the Christian belief that:

[center]There is One God, who is Father, Son, and Holy Spirit.
Stained glass window with three sections representing the Trinity Trinitarian stained glass window ©
Other ways of referring to the Trinity are the Triune God and the Three-in-One.[/center]

The Trinity is a controversial doctrine; many Christians admit they don't understand it, while many more Christians don't understand it but think they do.

In fact, although they'd be horrified to hear it, many Christians sometimes behave as if they believe in three Gods and at other times as if they believe in one.

Trinity Sunday, which falls on the first Sunday after Pentecost, is one of the few feasts in the Christian calendar that celebrate a doctrine rather than an event.

Find the date for Trinity Sunday 2014 in the multifaith calendar

A fundamental doctrine

The doctrine of the Trinity is one of the most difficult ideas in Christianity, but it's fundamental to Christians because it:

[center]states what Christians believe God is like and who he is
plays a central part in Christians' worship of an "unobjectifiable and incomprehensible God"
emphasises that God is very different from human beings
reflects the ways Christians believe God encounters them
is a central element of Christian identity
teaches Christians vital truths about relationship and community
reveals that God can be seen only as a spiritual experience whose mystery inspires awe and cannot be understood logically
Unpacking the doctrine[/center]

The idea that there is One God, who is Father, Son, and Holy Spirit means:

[center]There is exactly one God
The Father is God
The Son is God
The Holy Spirit is God
The Father is not the Son
The Son is not the Holy Spirit
The Father is not the Holy Spirit[/center]
An alternate way of explaining it is:

[center]There is exactly one God
There are three really distinct Persons - Father, Son, and Holy Spirit
Each of the Persons is God
Common mistakes[/center]

The Trinity is not

Three individuals who together make one God
Three Gods joined together
Three properties of God

Bible and why Christians believe in the Trinity

The Bible and why Christians believe in the Trinity

Christianity adopted this complicated idea of God because it was the only way they could make sense of One God in the context of the events and teaching of the Bible.

The idea of the Trinity does not supersede monotheism; it interprets it, in the light of a specific set of revelatory events and experiences.
Keith Ward, Religion and Creation, 1996
Encounters with God

Humanity met God in three different forms:

God the Father: revealed by the Old Testament to be Creator, Lord, Father and Judge.
God the Son: who had lived on earth amongst human beings
God the Holy Spirit: who filled them with new life and power
What the Bible taught

The Bible taught that Christians were to worship Father and Son and Holy Spirit. It also taught that Christians should only worship God. Finally, it taught that there was only one God:

We must worship only God
We must worship God the Father
We must worship God the Son
We must worship God the Holy Spirit
There is only one God
This seemed to put Christians in an impossible position from which they were rescued by the doctrine of the Trinity, which solved the puzzle by stating that God must be simultaneously both Three and One.

Scripture and the Trinity

For obvious reasons the Trinity is not referred to in the Old Testament, although many writers think that the Old Testament does drop heavy hints about it - for example when it uses a plural Hebrew noun to refer to God.

The New Testament of the Bible never explicitly refers to the Trinity as such, but it does contain a number of references to the Economic Trinity:

Go therefore and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit.
Matthew 28:19
The grace of the Lord Jesus Christ and the love of God and the fellowship of the Holy Spirit be with you all.
2 Corinthians 13:14
One text that is often quoted to provide scriptural authority for the doctrine of the Trinity is now thought to have been added to the text much later, and with the specific purpose of justifying the doctrine.

For there are three that bear record in heaven, the Father, the Word, and the Holy Ghost; and these three are one
The mystery of the Trinity: (1+1+1=1) = Nonsense!

This idea that three persons add up to one individual seems like nonsense. And logically, it is.

So Christians don't try to understand the doctrine of the Trinity logically or as a problem of arithmetic.

Unfortunately most other attempts to explain the Trinity don't really capture the concept either, or are very difficult to understand.

God is not like us

One way out of the problem is to say that God is not like human beings and human beings get in a mess when they try to describe God using the same sort of language and understanding that they use to describe other human beings.

But human beings don't have any other language available, so they have to do the best that they can with it. That's fine, as long as they remember that the whole truth of the nature of God is simply beyond them.

So the doctrine of the Trinity only attempts to provide a rudimentary sketch of the mystery of God's nature, rather than a full description of what God is like. God is a mystery, before which humanity should stand in awe.

Why the Trinity is important

Before trying to understand the doctrine of the Trinity, it's vital to realise why it's important.

Its purpose is not to provide factual knowledge of God's hidden nature of the sort that describes a dog as "having 4 legs, fur, barks, bites, domesticated by humankind etc".

The doctrine of the Trinity has other functions:

it brings humanity face to face with the mystery of God
it helps humanity recognise the God they meet in the Bible, in history and in their own lives
it helps humanity understand God's complexity, otherness and mystery
it helps humanity worship God
it steers humanity away from wrong ideas of God, such as:
a patriarchal/hierarchical God
a God who can be logically understood
it is the foundation of much Christian worship and liturgy
it helps humanity understand its own nature as made in the image of God
it provides a model for human relationships, both as individuals and in community
So, for example, one might be inspired by the doctrine of the Trinity to come up with an understanding of human relationships that was something like this...

Human beings are made in the image of God
God is a community of persons in a mutual loving relationship
Therefore the essence of humanity is to be found in human relationships with others, with God, and with God's creation
These relationships are filled with transforming power
For human beings to live truly in the image of God, these relationships must be mutual, generous and just
These relationships must acknowledge and value difference as well as sameness
These relationships must accept as well as give
That's one way in which contemplating the Trinity might provide useful information for a Christian as to how they should try to live their life.


Making use of the Trinity

Is the Trinity a useful idea?

The Christian doctrine of the Trinity is not just an abstract belief, but something that has real practical use for those who believe it.

Absolutely nothing worthwhile for the practical life can be made out of the doctrine of the Trinity taken literally.
Immanuel Kant, Der Streit der Fakultätencite>
...the doctrine of the Trinity so easily appears to be an intellectual puzzle with no relevance to the faith of most Christians.
Karen Kilby
Until quite recently, many theologians thought that the doctrine of the Trinity was pretty pointless.

And the churches themselves disagree about the content of the doctrine; the most common Western statement of the Trinity is not accepted by the Eastern churches.

And yet somehow it remains at the heart of the Christian faith:

It is impossible to overemphasise the importance of the Christian doctrine that God is one in three persons. This has correctly been called the teaching distinctive of the Christian faith, that which sets the approach of Christians to the "fearful mystery" of the deity apart from all other approaches.
Gerald S. Sloyan, The Three Persons in One God, 1964
The Trinity and worship

Christian worship is inherently Trinitarian. Christians worship God in the presence of Christ and with the Holy Spirit within them.

So for example:

Worship and praise are offered "to God through Jesus Christ in the Holy Spirit"
Blessings are given "In the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit", the sign of the Cross is a Trinitarian gesture.
The creed, the fundamental statement of Christian belief, sets out the Trinitarian nature of God.
Baptism is carried out "in the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit".
Eucharistic prayers are firmly Trinitarian in concept. The traditional doxology is Trinitarian:

[center]Glory be to the Father, and to the Son, and to the Holy Ghost;
As it was in the beginning, is now, and ever shall be,
World without end. Amen
Trinitarian doxology[/center]
Many hymns are explicitly Trinitarian, such as this one:

Holy, holy, holy! Lord God Almighty!
Early in the morning our song shall rise to thee;
Holy, holy, holy! Merciful and mighty,
God in three Persons, blessed Trinity!
Or this

I bind unto myself today
the strong name of the Trinity,
by invocation of the same,
the Three in One, and One in Three.
Or this

Firmly I believe and truly
God is Three, and God is One;
and I next acknowledge duly
manhood taken by the Son.
Or this modern classic

Shine, Jesus, shine,
fill this land with the Father's glory;
blaze, Spirit, blaze,
set our hearts on fire.
The Trinity as a lesson to Christians

The Trinity expresses the way Christians should relate to God:

worship God the Father
follow the example set by God the Son
God the Holy Spirit lives in them
The Trinity as a recipe for life

The doctrine of the Trinity teaches human beings how they should shape their lives.

Many Christians see the relationship between the persons of the Trinity as providing a recipe for the best sort of human relationships. These are relationships in which individuality is balanced with relationship; relationships whose basis is mutual love and perfect communication.

The relationship that exists within the Godhead is the basis for unity in every human relationship, be it marriage, family, or church.
Patrick Henry Reardon
The American theologian Catherine LaCugna suggested that the doctrine of the Trinity helps humanity answer the question

How are we to live and relate to others so as to be most Godlike?
Catherine LaCugna, God For Us: The Trinity and the Christian Life
She suggested that the Trinity taught:

a theology of relationship, which explores the mysteries of love, relationship, personhood and community within the framework of God's self-revelation in the person of Christ and the activity of the Spirit.
Catherine LaCugna, God For Us: The Trinity and the Christian Life
And the key teaching within this doctrine of relationship is that the best relationships are those of equality and mutuality.


Social implications

The Trinity as a power structure

The relationships within God as a Trinity discredit any hierarchical power structure in which those lower down are dominated and oppressed by those above them.

Instead, using the example of the Trinity leads to an ideal structure of mutual interdependence and support in pursuit of a common aim.

Thus the Trinity shows the way God wants the world to be run and the power structures that he recommends to human society.

This seems to contradict the traditional idea of God as one Supreme Being, Lord of all, but should be seen as demonstrating the non-hierarchical nature of God in himself, without diminishing God's status in relationship to others.

This idea can be developed in Church life:

in the hierarchical model power and authority in the church flow in one direction from God, through senior and junior clergy, down to the lay people
in the Trinitarian model there is a church of mutual self-giving and equality that emulates the community of the Trinity.
In this the members communicate with each other in a spirit of love that accepts responsibility for the well-being of each individual and that of the whole community.
In this way the Church, and each church and community become a unity in which diversity flourishes and in which differences are seen as valuable and essential elements in the substance of these institutions.
The Trinity and Liberation Theology

The liberation theologians thought it was essential to start thinking about the Trinity by focusing on its three-ness first, then its oneness.

They saw the Trinity as first and foremost a community of divine persons whose essence was in their shared existence, their shared relationship and their surrender to each other.

They objected to the hierarchical model of One God, because they thought that it justified political power structures that oppressed the poor and allowed the Church to continue with a patriarchal model that was out of date and unhelpful to the poor.

So the liberation theologians took the Trinitarian theology of relationships to a grand scale. They used it to promote the ideal human society as a closely related and unified group of equal people living so as to promote the good of society as a whole.

The leading liberation theologian Leonardo Boff said the Trinity was a "model for any, just, egalitarian (while respecting differences), social organisation." It provided a "prototype of human community dreamed of by those who wish to improve society".



Essential and Economic Trinity

Some of the problems of the Trinity arise from confusion between the internal life and nature of the Trinity itself and the external life or "self-revelation" of God. The only thing humankind can directly know of God is his external life.

There are two ways of looking at God in Trinitarian terms:

The Essential (also called Immanent or Ontological) Trinity looks at the essence or substance of God; at what God is actually like in himself as he stands outside the created universe. It's how God appears to God.
Warning: This is an unusual use of the word immanent, which Christians often use to refer to God's actions in the world.
The Economic Trinity is concerned with humanity's experience of God; in human lives, in creation, in salvation; and derives the nature of God from that experience. This is how God appears to humanity.
Some theologians point out that only the Son and the Spirit are directly met in the Economic Trinity.
The Economic and Essential Trinities are not two separate entities - just two ways of looking at God.

Are these two the same? Victor Shepherd (Professor of Systematic Theology at Tyndale University College, Toronto) put the question like this:

[center]Is God's revelation merely the "face" God wears as he turns to us, or is it who God is in himself?
Is his face something he merely displays, or does his face unambiguously disclose his heart?
Victor Shepherd[/center]
The Western Churches believe that they are pretty much the same and that human beings meet God fully and completely as he is through his actions.



To put it another way: God's actions reveal who God is. And since God acts as a threefold God, God himself must be threefold.

Some Western writers hint at the idea that there is no more to God than his actions in the world.

The Eastern Churches disagree, and teach there is much more to God than human experience can reveal.



Trinitarian heresies

Some theories of the Trinity are so wrong that they have been declared heretical.

Modalism

The proponents of Modalism were Noetus and Praxeas (late 2nd century CE) and Sabellius (3rd century CE).

Modalism teaches that Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit are not distinct personalities, but different modes of God's self-revelation.

The idea is that there is only one God, but that this one God reveals himself in different ways and different forms - sometimes as Father, sometimes as Son, sometimes as Holy Spirit.

Father: The creator and the law giver
Son: The revealer, the Messiah and the redeemer
Holy Spirit: The sanctifier and giver of eternal life
One of the standard analogies for the Trinity is a good example of modalism: The Trinity is like water because water comes in three forms - ice, water, steam. This is Modalism because these are three states or modes of the substance water.

Some modalists believe that God revealed himself differently at different times in history, others believe that during any particular period of history God can reveal himself in different ways; so when God is acting as redeemer, that's God the Son, and so on.

Warning: Some modern writers refer to the different persons of the Trinity as different "modes of being", but they aren't guilty of Modalism because they are not referring to different modes in which God appears to humanity, but different internal ways in which God is to him/herself.

Tritheism

Tritheism portrays Father, Son and Holy Spirit as three independent divine beings; three separate gods who are linked together in some special way - most commonly by sharing the "same substance" or being the same sort of thing.

People often make this mistake because they misunderstand the use of the word "persons" in defining the Trinity; it does not mean that Father, Son and Holy Spirit are three separate personalities.

Partialism

This is the idea that Father, Son and Holy Spirit together make up God. This would suggest that each of the persons of the Trinity is only part God, only becoming fully God when they are together.

Monarchianism

Monarchianism stresses God as One and downgrades the idea of the Trinity; it comes in various versions:

Adoptionism

Christ was born human and adopted by God at his resurrection (or baptism).

Arianism

This isn't a strictly Trinitarian heresy but it's relevant because it's the idea that the Son is in some way less fully God than the Father.

Source: http://www.bbc.co.uk/religion/religions/christianity/beliefs/trinity_1.shtml

HOW DOES THIS MAKE YOU MORE HOLY THAN POPE OR ADEBOYE...... people be wasting time on stories when POWER is lacking..... TRINITY or no TRINITY FUEL is still scarce, abeg bring a better Gospel that will show us the Grace of God and Holiness in these end times.....

tripplephi:
HOW DOES THIS MAKE YOU MORE HOLY THAN POPE OR ADEBOYE...... people be wasting time on stories when POWER is lacking..... TRINITY or no TRINITY FUEL is still scarce, abeg bring a better Gospel that will show us the Grace of God and Holiness in these end times.....

What informs you that Pope and Adeboye are holy?

Can you worship a God you do not know?

You want to talk about worship without knowing who you are worshiping. I think it is important to get ones theology right in this end times as there are many contrasting beliefs all claming to be true

@ op , do you read before you copy and paste ; i doubt it , if you had read that trash you will know how contradictory it is . Anyway trinity belivers demselves are confuse

FOR EXAMPLE :
The trinity is not logical .

belabela

The Idea that three persons add up to one individual seem like nonsense , [size=25] And logically it is [/size]

------------------

The trinity is logical

Why the trinity is important

... A God who can be logically understood

Na wa for belivers of 3 Gods ( LOL , remember each is fully God )

Jozzy4:
@ op , do you read before you copy and paste ; i doubt it , if you had read that trash you will know how contradictory it is . Anyway trinity belivers demselves are confuse

FOR EXAMPLE :
The trinity is not logical .



------------------

The trinity is logical



Na wa for belivers of 3 Gods ( LOL , remember each is fully God )

A fool is considered wise until he opens his mouth

belabela:


[s]
A fool is considered wise until he opens his mouth [/s]

Am not suprised with the nonsense you wrote above , you know the contradicton is very clear