Who Is Jesus? How Does The Trinity Work?

[monkeygirl]

OK I went to Christian School most of my life and to church my whole life. I have a pretty good understanding of what the Bible says but I've always struggled understanding the Trinity. When I questioned it and tried to understand it I was told our minds can't really imagine how it works. So here is my questions.

 

Alright the trinity is God, Jesus and the Holy Spirit. They are all God. That is the way I understand it. Is that right?

 

So how is Jesus God's son if Jesus is God?

 

If Jesus is God the Fathers son then why is it the Holy Spirit that helped conceive him?

 

Why is Jesus called the Son of Man? That doesn't seem like a Godly title.

 

When there is a move of the holy spirit or people say they feel the holy spirit are they really saying they feel God? Like my old pastor was talking about a Holy Spirit Vortex (not something he was partaking in but something he saw on the internet and may have been making fun of) Would this Holy Spirit Vortex also be considered a God Vortex?

 

Oh yeah one more question. If god is omnipresence like i was taught then isn't God all 3 everywhere all the time, and if so then why do people say God showed up at there revival or church service?

 

 

Obviously I don't believe any of this stuff to be real so it very well may not make any logical sense because its been made up and added to over the years. I'm just curious as to what Christians try to say there understanding of it is.

[Guest Davka]

OK, it's like this: Jesus is God and the Holy Spirit is God, so God impregnated His own Mother so that he could be his own Father.

 

A better word than "Trinity" is "Clusterf__k"

[NotBlinded]

Although Davka speaks the truth , it might be something like different aspects of the same essence. Hinduism is seen as polytheistic but no more so than Christianity. They have the head dude, Bramman and then the creator Brahma, and the preserver Vishnu and the destroyer Shiva and all the little sub-gods that these cohert with.

 

Christianity also has a destroyer, but they don't like to think of him as an aspect of God.

[GraphicsGuy]

Ever heard the egg description of the Trinity? 3 parts: shell, white, yolk = 1 egg?

 

Yeah...I still don't get it either...

[oddbird1963]

OK I went to Christian School most of my life and to church my whole life. I have a pretty good understanding of what the Bible says but I've always struggled understanding the Trinity. When I questioned it and tried to understand it I was told our minds can't really imagine how it works.

 

 

There are two reasons why it would be something our minds cannot imagine.

 

 

 

1. The trinity is an imaginary construct. It is not real and therefore it can possess inherently contradictory traits and attributes. It can be both incoherent and a part of some theological treatise because it is no more than a day dream. Any explanation of how the Trinity works is the equivalent of explaining how George Jetson's flying car works.
   
2. It exists, but in a way that we do not understand. Just like most people do not comprehend the attributes and behaviors of quantum particles, the Trinity is a mystery to ALL people, even the ones who teach the doctrine. We shall have to wait until there is more evidence in to actually explain HOW the Trinity Works.
   
3. Wait, there is no evidence. This is dogma, not quantum physics. I guess we're back to #1.
    
   

[Guest Davka]

The trinity was invented by the early church sometime around 200-300 AD. It was an attempt to reconcile the (relatively new) teaching that Jesus was God Incarnate with the fact that Jesus prayed to YHWH, and the stories about crowds hearing YHWH's voice telling them to listen to Jesus.

 

Some were arguing that YHWH was God alone, and Jesus was the anointed, the Messiah, the second Adam - a creation of God, not God Incarnate. They used the fact that Jesus talked to God to prove that he could not have been God. So the people who taught that Jesus was God Incarnate tried to explain things by claiming that God was a 3-in-one Deity, and that we could not wrap our heads around it because it was a "mystery."

 

The real roots of the Trinitarian doctrine are political, not theological. Once Christianity became the official state religion of the Roman Empire, being the high holy muck-a-muck of the Church became a powerful political position. In the process of solidifying their power, the early Popes had to eliminate the opposition. Trinitarian doctrine was a great excuse to excommunicate the Christians who weren't falling in line behind the Pope.

[Guest marabod]

The trinity was invented by the early church sometime around 200-300 AD. It was an attempt to reconcile the (relatively new) teaching that Jesus was God Incarnate with the fact that Jesus prayed to YHWH, and the stories about crowds hearing YHWH's voice telling them to listen to Jesus.

 

Some were arguing that YHWH was God alone, and Jesus was the anointed, the Messiah, the second Adam - a creation of God, not God Incarnate. They used the fact that Jesus talked to God to prove that he could not have been God. So the people who taught that Jesus was God Incarnate tried to explain things by claiming that God was a 3-in-one Deity, and that we could not wrap our heads around it because it was a "mystery."

 

The real roots of the Trinitarian doctrine are political, not theological. Once Christianity became the official state religion of the Roman Empire, being the high holy muck-a-muck of the Church became a powerful political position. In the process of solidifying their power, the early Popes had to eliminate the opposition. Trinitarian doctrine was a great excuse to excommunicate the Christians who weren't falling in line behind the Pope.

 

I was reading a different explanation of this matter. Trinity as a concept comes from famous Mathematician Pythagoras of Samos (5-6 centuries BC). He was basing the Creator of the world on a so-called Monad , a Unit, a One, which then splits in a contradiction, an antagonistic pair called "Diad" - pretty much like mathematically |x|= +x;-x, |x| being a Monad and its split in two opposed numeric forms would be a Diad. All 3 entities, Monad + Diad are making a Triad, which was a popular concept in Hellenistic paganism, later borrowed by Christianity. In Pythagorean Triad (practically Trinity) Monad is God-father, the abstract brainless Creator, and the Diad is the Created World, consisting of Matter (God-Son) and Life (holy ghost).

 

Christianity was smartly based on a play on words - Jesus few times said he was "a Son of God", probably in the same sense as each of us theoretically can call oneself a son or daughter of God (basing on the idea that God created us), but these words were completely inverted and he was equated to the God-Son of the Trinity, which in original sense was simply the Material World, not any sort of "god" at all, as Pythagoras was not a religious person at all, but simply had his own complex Cosmogony and Cosmology and tried to describe Creation mathematically, pretty much like our physicists and mathematicians are mulling big bang thing.

[centauri]

OK I went to Christian School most of my life and to church my whole life. I have a pretty good understanding of what the Bible says but I've always struggled understanding the Trinity. When I questioned it and tried to understand it I was told our minds can't really imagine how it works. So here is my questions.

 

Alright the trinity is God, Jesus and the Holy Spirit. They are all God. That is the way I understand it. Is that right?

 

The Athanasian Creed sums the theological gibberish up fairly well:

http://www.newadvent.org/cathen/02033b.htm

http://www.ccel.org/creeds/athanasian.creed.html

Athanasian Creed

 

1. Whosoever will be saved, before all things it is necessary that he hold the catholic faith;

 

2. Which faith except every one do keep whole and undefiled, without doubt he shall perish everlastingly.

 

3. And the catholic faith is this: That we worship one God in Trinity, and Trinity in Unity;

 

4. Neither confounding the persons nor dividing the substance.

 

5. For there is one person of the Father, another of the Son, and another of the Holy Spirit.

 

6. But the Godhead of the Father, of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit is all one, the glory equal, the majesty coeternal.

 

7. Such as the Father is, such is the Son, and such is the Holy Spirit.

 

8. The Father uncreated, the Son uncreated, and the Holy Spirit uncreated.

 

9. The Father incomprehensible, the Son incomprehensible, and the Holy Spirit incomprehensible.

 

10. The Father eternal, the Son eternal, and the Holy Spirit eternal.

 

11. And yet they are not three eternals but one eternal.

 

12. As also there are not three uncreated nor three incomprehensible, but one uncreated and one incomprehensible.

 

13. So likewise the Father is almighty, the Son almighty, and the Holy Spirit almighty.

 

14. And yet they are not three almighties, but one almighty.

 

15. So the Father is God, the Son is God, and the Holy Spirit is God;

 

16. And yet they are not three Gods, but one God.

 

17. So likewise the Father is Lord, the Son Lord, and the Holy Spirit Lord;

 

18. And yet they are not three Lords but one Lord.

 

19. For like as we are compelled by the Christian verity to acknowledge every Person by himself to be God and Lord;

 

20. So are we forbidden by the catholic religion to say; There are three Gods or three Lords.

 

21. The Father is made of none, neither created nor begotten.

 

22. The Son is of the Father alone; not made nor created, but begotten.

 

23. The Holy Spirit is of the Father and of the Son; neither made, nor created, nor begotten, but proceeding.

 

24. So there is one Father, not three Fathers; one Son, not three Sons; one Holy Spirit, not three Holy Spirits.

 

25. And in this Trinity none is afore or after another; none is greater or less than another.

 

26. But the whole three persons are coeternal, and coequal.

 

27. So that in all things, as aforesaid, the Unity in Trinity and the Trinity in Unity is to be worshipped.

 

28. He therefore that will be saved must thus think of the Trinity.

 

29. Furthermore it is necessary to everlasting salvation that he also believe rightly the incarnation of our Lord Jesus Christ.

 

30. For the right faith is that we believe and confess that our Lord Jesus Christ, the Son of God, is God and man.

 

31. God of the substance of the Father, begotten before the worlds; and man of substance of His mother, born in the world.

 

32. Perfect God and perfect man, of a reasonable soul and human flesh subsisting.

 

33. Equal to the Father as touching His Godhead, and inferior to the Father as touching His manhood.

 

34. Who, although He is God and man, yet He is not two, but one Christ.

 

35. One, not by conversion of the Godhead into flesh, but by taking of that manhood into God.

 

36. One altogether, not by confusion of substance, but by unity of person.

 

37. For as the reasonable soul and flesh is one man, so God and man is one Christ;

 

38. Who suffered for our salvation, descended into hell, rose again the third day from the dead;

 

39. He ascended into heaven, He sits on the right hand of the Father, God, Almighty;

 

40. From thence He shall come to judge the quick and the dead.

 

41. At whose coming all men shall rise again with their bodies;

 

42. and shall give account of their own works.

 

43. And they that have done good shall go into life everlasting and they that have done evil into everlasting fire.

 

44. This is the catholic faith, which except a man believe faithfully he cannot be saved.

 

So how is Jesus God's son if Jesus is God?

 

If Jesus is God the Fathers son then why is it the Holy Spirit that helped conceive him?

 

Why is Jesus called the Son of Man? That doesn't seem like a Godly title.

 

When there is a move of the holy spirit or people say they feel the holy spirit are they really saying they feel God? Like my old pastor was talking about a Holy Spirit Vortex (not something he was partaking in but something he saw on the internet and may have been making fun of) Would this Holy Spirit Vortex also be considered a God Vortex?

 

Oh yeah one more question. If god is omnipresence like i was taught then isn't God all 3 everywhere all the time, and if so then why do people say God showed up at there revival or church service?

 

 

Obviously I don't believe any of this stuff to be real so it very well may not make any logical sense because its been made up and added to over the years. I'm just curious as to what Christians try to say there understanding of it is.

I always found the Trinity to be one of the most inane aspects of Christianity.

It cannot in any way be proven yet it must be believed.

There are several Christians that visit this forum who promote the "Triune God" as reality.

It's defined as being incomprehensible but that doesn't stop them from comprehending it anyway.

The Trinity can be supported by some verses but is undermined by many others.

It won't matter what the Bible says when it undermines the Trinity because Trinitarian pushers will simply claim that the verses don't mean what they say.

Then they'll accuse you of not understanding God, which they have no trouble comprehending while at the same time defining "god" as incomprehensible.

God will always be whatever an apologist says it is.

[NonXNonExX]

Here are 44 pieces of pseudo intellectual self-contradicting crap, equal in noxious odor, not 44 noxious odors but one eternal noxious odor. And you have to swallow this to be a "True Christian?"

 

The NT clearly specifies that JC didn't know everything his pop did and only a slur against HS is unforgivable. Besides, how can you sit on the right side of yourself? How can you send yourself to be tortured, crucified and resurrected? The trinity can't be explained b/c it's an intellectual trap the RCC created for itself.

[FreeLily]

I don't know if you saw Bill Maher's "Religulous," but at one point he's interviewing a bunch of raving Christian truckers and one of them comes out with a description of the Trinity as being like water ... it takes different forms as solid, liquid, and gas.

 

It kinda made sense to me, in a strange way.

[Non-Redneck]

"Son of Man" is a messianic title. Jesus was claiming to be the Jewish messiah by using it. It comes from Daniel 7:13-14, in which this Son of man (Bar Enosh) has access to Yahweh. Jesus is implying he has access to God by using this term.

 

On conclusion I reached on my own (and this is my interpretation/opinion) is that "Son of Man" is also the literal translation of an Hebrew/Aramaic phrase for "human being". However, it's not the standard phrase for human being in Hebrew (Ben Adam or "Son of Adam"). It's slightly different as it implies Jesus is different from those descended from the biblical Adam (assuming the genealogies were actually true)

 

Either way, I think it's a messianic claim.

[Shyone]

"Son of Man" is a messianic title. Jesus was claiming to be the Jewish messiah by using it. It comes from Daniel 7:13-14, in which this Son of man (Bar Enosh) has access to Yahweh. Jesus is implying he has access to God by using this term.

 

On conclusion I reached on my own (and this is my interpretation/opinion) is that "Son of Man" is also the literal translation of an Hebrew/Aramaic phrase for "human being". However, it's not the standard phrase for human being in Hebrew (Ben Adam or "Son of Adam"). It's slightly different as it implies Jesus is different from those descended from the biblical Adam (assuming the genealogies were actually true)

 

Either way, I think it's a messianic claim.

It is and for the reason you state, but I thought it was backwards when I was studying the Bible. Why didn't Jesus just say "Son of God"? Well, other than people would have thought he was nuts.

 

Also, "son of man" (and I think using the same words in Hebrew) is scattered throughout the old testament, and in some passages not too flatteringly.

[Midnight-mindwanderings]

It's why you need childlike faith. Because as I kid, I didn't get it, but it didn't matter to me that I didn't get it. When you get older you realize that its bull crap unless you manage to lock your brain into childlike unquestioning faith mode. Thats my theory anyway.

 

I dig this whole god = water thing. Its a double trinity: 3 forms (solid, liquid, gas) and is made of 3 atoms. And it leads my brain to the quote from V for Vendetta: "God is in the rain." Plus it could give Christians something to work with when explaining how god is in everything and exists everywhere. It wasn't a horrific flood in Noah's ark, god was just giving the world a hug. Jesus could walk on water cause he is water. It all makes sense!

 

I'm running low on god so I'm going to get a drink. The more hydrated you are the more god is inside you!

 

 

Ps. I don't know why my mind wandered there. A good apologetic could make it seem quite sensible to some people.

 

Also, Jesus didn't ascend, he evaporated. That is all.

[Shyone]

It's why you need childlike faith. Because as I kid, I didn't get it, but it didn't matter to me that I didn't get it. When you get older you realize that its bull crap unless you manage to lock your brain into childlike unquestioning faith mode. Thats my theory anyway.

 

I dig this whole god = water thing. Its a double trinity: 3 forms (solid, liquid, gas) and is made of 3 atoms. And it leads my brain to the quote from V for Vendetta: "God is in the rain." Plus it could give Christians something to work with when explaining how god is in everything and exists everywhere. It wasn't a horrific flood in Noah's ark, god was just giving the world a hug. Jesus could walk on water cause he is water. It all makes sense!

 

I'm running low on god so I'm going to get a drink. The more hydrated you are the more god is inside you!

 

 

Ps. I don't know why my mind wandered there. A good apologetic could make it seem quite sensible to some people.

 

Also, Jesus didn't ascend, he evaporated. That is all.

 

I think I pissed off god.

[SEEtheScorn]

I love discussing the Trinity because it makes no sense! I remember a Bible Doctrines class I took at my college. I can't remember if I still considered myself a Xtian then or not, but I remember not being able to find anything that made sense in the professor's explanation. When I asked a question, I got this look that basically said "Christians don't ask that, we just buy the BS and swallow." I almost got a stomach ulcer from the stupidity of that class.

 

Anyway.

 

Why is Jesus called the Son of Man? That doesn't seem like a Godly title.

 

What a beautiful question! I could write half a book just answering. It's been discussed and debated by so many wonderful scholars, if I get my hands on a specific book that I can remember, I'll let you know.

 

First of all, you are right, it is not a Godly title. Nor is it, in the OT, any lick of messianic. Don't buy the connection Christians make to Daniel. Daniel THE only time in the Bible where the son of man even remotely seems to be messianic. But you have to ask yourself, what is the influence of the book of Daniel? For one, it's such an out of place book in the Bible. Second, it has very obvious Babylonian influences. Christians impose their own interpretation of the term son of man onto Daniel and make it a beautiful circular argument. Don't buy it. Son of man throughout the OT has always and only meant a human being, that's it.

 

HOWEVER! Check out Hebrew writings after the, as they call it, canon ceased, i.e. after the OT writings. Also, check out the newly discovered Gabriel's Vision. These start using Son of Man in a messianic term, particuarly the book of Enoch. SO, it Jesus did try to use the Son of Man in such a way, it was probably based of this tradition which the Hebrews at that time would understand, but Christians might not know about.

 

Son of God refers to angels, kings, and priests. Occasionally it would refer to Israel or the Chosen Ones. So ask yourself, what did Jesus and others mean by using the term son of God? It definately, again, definately did not mean the literal son of God.

 

Why do people say God showed up at there revival or church service?

 

As I've heard it explained, there's a difference between God's manifest pressence, and his omnipresence. Don't ask me. I guess it's a varying degree. Like how you can have varying degrees of light, blinding and dim.

 

My biggest problem(s) with the trinity is 1.) Why limit God to only 3 manifestations of himself? and 2.) why make Jesus God?

 

#1 Completely obliterated my belief in the Trinity, way before my leaving Xianity. #2 still boggles my mind, especially since it seems very clearly to me to be a completely fabricated belief that doesn't have anything to do with what Jesus wanted, nor what the NT says.

[Shyone]

I love discussing the Trinity because it makes no sense!

 

<snip>

 

My biggest problem(s) with the trinity is 1.) Why limit God to only 3 manifestations of himself? and 2.) why make Jesus God?

 

#1 Completely obliterated my belief in the Trinity, way before my leaving Xianity. #2 still boggles my mind, especially since it seems very clearly to me to be a completely fabricated belief that doesn't have anything to do with what Jesus wanted, nor what the NT says.

I like the way you write. It is sensible, well reasoned, and concise.

 

I have read a wonderful passage on the Trinity that sums it up nicely, but I can't recall it in detail. The essence is that God sent himself on a suicide mission to die as a sacrifice to himself to atone for something done by people that died long ago.

 

That doesn't do justice to the passage as I vaguely remember it, but you get the gist.

[FiddlingAround]

 

I think I pissed off god.

[SEEtheScorn]

I like the way you write. It is sensible, well reasoned, and concise.

 

I have read a wonderful passage on the Trinity that sums it up nicely, but I can't recall it in detail. The essence is that God sent himself on a suicide mission to die as a sacrifice to himself to atone for something done by people that died long ago.

 

Why thank you! I try to be concise. I don't like reading walls of text myself, so I try to make my typing aesthetically pleasing and therefore easier to read and understand.

 

As for your passage, you mean biblical passage? If so, 1 Peter 3:18-20a comes immediately to my mind. One of my favorite confusing passages.

 

For Christ also suffered for sins once for all, the righteous for the unrighteous, that He might bring you to God, after being put to death in the deathly realm but made alive in the spiritual realm. In that state He also went and made a proclamation to the spirits in prison who in the paste were disobedient... (etc)

 

If it's not a biblical passage, then I don't know, but I'd love to read it!

[Shyone]

I like the way you write. It is sensible, well reasoned, and concise.

 

I have read a wonderful passage on the Trinity that sums it up nicely, but I can't recall it in detail. The essence is that God sent himself on a suicide mission to die as a sacrifice to himself to atone for something done by people that died long ago.

 

Why thank you! I try to be concise. I don't like reading walls of text myself, so I try to make my typing aesthetically pleasing and therefore easier to read and understand.

 

As for your passage, you mean biblical passage? If so, 1 Peter 3:18-20a comes immediately to my mind. One of my favorite confusing passages.

 

For Christ also suffered for sins once for all, the righteous for the unrighteous, that He might bring you to God, after being put to death in the deathly realm but made alive in the spiritual realm. In that state He also went and made a proclamation to the spirits in prison who in the paste were disobedient... (etc)

 

If it's not a biblical passage, then I don't know, but I'd love to read it!

IIRC, it was just an atheists understanding of how the whole trinty thing jived with the sacrifice of Jesus. It sounded silly when I read it, and after reflection I realized that the reason is that is closely approximates the theology and stories.