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HighJumper
Registered Member

Date Joined Mar 2003
Total Posts : 7

Posted 3/26/2003 6:25 PM (GMT -6)

Hello everyone. This is my first post.

I was referred to this by a new friend of mine that I met via work. Interesting in that we were at lunch the other day doing the usual networking thing when we both realized that we were christians. It was extremely interesting in how much more closer we felt and how our conversation took a different course.

Anyway, on with my question....

What is the Trinity? Why can't we have just God or Jesus or the Holy Spirit? Why make it confusing?

I am sure that this has been asked before many times but this has really troubled me. I am an engineer type by trade and I cannot help but approach my beliefs from this stance. (I think I am wired this way).

fyodor
Registered Member

Date Joined Dec 2002
Total Posts : 179

Posted 3/26/2003 6:53 PM (GMT -6)

quote:
What is the Trinity? Why can't we have just God or Jesus or the Holy Spirit? Why make it confusing?

I don't think the attempt has necessarily been to make it confusing, rather, the Trinity is simply what many have understood the relationship of God, Jesus, and the Holy Spirit to be... It's based in scripture not merely in an attempt to create a trinitarian theology...

†††"To have a self, to be a self, is the greatest concession, an infinite concession, given to man, but it is also eternity's claim upon him." – S. Kierkegaard

HighJumper
Registered Member

Date Joined Mar 2003
Total Posts : 7

Posted 3/26/2003 7:07 PM (GMT -6)

<<I don't think the attempt has necessarily been to make it <<confusing, rather, the Trinity is simply what many have understood <<the relationship of God, Jesus, and the Holy Spirit to be... It's <<based in scripture not merely in an attempt to create a <<trinitarian theology...

I did not mean to imply that the Trinity was something that we created. (if I understand your comment correctly)
I just don't get the connection between the three (God, Jesus and the Holy Sprit). Here is what I have as a current understanding. They are all one in the same but God sent his only son to die for us. Then while Jesus was on earth he had conversations with God? I have attempted to talk to pastors about this over the years and they really have not been able to explain it very well either.

SeanG
Registered Member

Date Joined Dec 2002
Total Posts : 278

Posted 3/26/2003 8:22 PM (GMT -6)

This paper was done for a Jehovah’s Witness at a site… we were debating the topic, but he kept mis-interpreting the doctrine, so this paper was written to clarify terms and understanding… I end with an example for thjis JW to chew on.

The Trinity

What I am attempting to do: I am going to try to define the doctrine of the Trinity. I will do this by isolating examples, analogies, and statements by (for the most part) modern Christian theologians. Why modern? Because this doctrine isn’t the easiest to comprehend, so modern language and examples seem fitting for the modern mind. Also, I will define other theologies commonly mistaken with the concept of the Trinity.

What I am not attempting to do: I will not defend this doctrine wholly; I want merely to define it. The reader must enter into the following posts not to attack what is here, but to accept these definitions, and then use these definitions in later posts. I want to stress that this doctrine isn’t 100% explainable either. A strong element of mystery (and an equally strong possibility of misunderstanding) will always be present when considering God’s “threeness” because we have no adequate word in English to express the nature of the different existences within the Godhead. This is not a cop-out, by far, instead, it recognizes that trying to reduce God to finite concepts is an exercise in futility. But I will define all this in the following paper.

The Shema
This is probably thee most known verse to the religious Jew. It comes from Deuteronomy 6:4, and simply reads: “Hear, O Israel: The Lord our God, the Lord is one!” (NKJV). I will come back to this verse, but I want to throw the proverbial cog into this statement. In Isaiah 6:8 we find the prophet Isaiah was commissioned to his ministry by non-other than God. Isaiah heard God say, “Whom shall I send? And who will go for us?” Likewise in Genesis we find man being made in the image of God, but God specifically states, “in our image… in our likeness.”

So what about this Shema then? Doesn’t this verse in Deuteronomy make it plain and simple that the concept of the Trinity is the invention of man? It would seem that way, but lets pick this verse apart a little more, and then we’ll move on. This verse may seem to contradict the doctrine of the Trinity, but in fact, it does exactly the opposite. The word “one” used to express this fundamental doctrine is the Hebrew word “ehad,” [or, echad – “compound unity; united one] which means not one in isolation but one in unity. The word “stresses unity while recognizing diversity within the oneness.” (Theological Workbook of the Old Testament, vol. 1, p.30) James Montgomery Boice tells us that “It is never used in the Hebrew Bible of a stark singular entity.” (Foundations of the Christian Faith, “The Sovereign God,” p.139). As a good example of its use, the Bible says that in God’s plan for interpersonal relationships within marriage, “A man will leave his father and mother and be united to his wife, and they will become one flesh” ( Genesis 2:24), a statement which could hardly mean that they become one person. Okay, now that I sparked some interest in this matter (hopefully), I will move on.

The Trinity Defined?

essence

persons

nature

centers of consciousness

what

whos

“I”

When Cultists Ask

This is a mystery, but not a contradiction. It would be contrary for Jesus to say that God was only one person but was also three persons, or that God is only one nature but that he had three natures. But to declare, as orthodox Christians do, that God is one essence eternally revealed in three distinct persons is not a contradiction.

The three personal “substances” (as they are called) are coequal and coeternal centers of self-awareness, each being “I” in relation to who are “you” and each partaking of the full divine essence (the “stuff” of deity, if we may dare call it that) along with the other two. They are not three roles played by one person (that is modalism), nor are they three gods in a cluster (that is tritheism); the one God (“He”) is also, and equally, “they,” and they are always together and always cooperating, with the Father initiating, the Son complying, and the Spirit executing the will of both, which is also His will (Concise Theology: A Guide to Historic Christian Beliefs, by J. I. Packer).

Those were some attempts at formulas that go beyond the traditional “three in one, one in three” that Thomas Jefferson looked forward to seeing thrown out. So when Jesus is praying to the Father, He is not praying to Himself, but he is praying to God, in his human nature (I feel I have adequately explained the incarnation and the dual nature-ship of Christ in a previous few posts with Mughi3). Keep in mind that in Trinitarian thought, The Son is not the Father or Spirit, The Father is not the Son or Spirit, and the Spirit is not the Son or Father.

Jean-Jacques Rousseau even picked up on this fact when he said, “Can the Person whose history the Gospels relate be himself a man?… Yes, if the life and death of Socrates are those of a philosopher, the life and death of Jesus Christ are those of a God.” I will now give some analogies that may help conceptualize this concept – I will save the best (e.g., my favorite) for last. Keep in mind that these are interesting, but are not to be thought as providing a rationale of the divine being

Analogies

“Perhaps a better illustration of the Trinity is the illustration of light, heat and air. If you hold your hand out and look at it, each of these three things is present. There is light, because it is only by light that you can see your hand. In fact, even if the darkness of night should descend, there would still be light. There would be infrared light. Although you couldn’t see it, it could be picked up by special equipment. There is also heat between your head and hand. You may prove it by holding out a thermometer. It will vary as you go a cold from room to a warm room or from the outside to indoors. Finally there is air. You can blow on your hand and feel it. You can wave your hand and thus fan your face.”

“The point is that each of these three – light, heat, and air – is distinct. Each obeys its own laws and may be studied separately. And yet, at the same time it is… impossible to have one without the others. They are three and yet they are one. Together they make up the environment in which we have our being.”

Foundations of the Christian Faith: A Comprehensible & Readable Theology

“Water may serve as a ‘three-in-one’ illustration since it retains its chemical activity whether solid, gas, or liquid state. There is also a triple point for water, a condition under ice, stream, and liquid water can coexist in equilibrium. All three are water, yet distinct from each other.

The sun, its light, and its power may help illustrate the Trinity…. No one has actually seen the sun just as no one has seen the Father. Yet we learn a great deal about the sun by studying the sunlight just as we learn about the Father through Jesus Christ the Son who is the radiance of His glory (Heb. 1:3). We see the power of the sun as it is involved in the growth of seeds and trees and plants, and when asked what makes things grow, we say the sun does. The Holy Spirit is like the power of the sun and He is God.”

Basic Theology: A Popular Systematic Guide To Understanding Biblical Truth

“In thinking about the triunity of God, we need to hold together the unity of the Godhead and its three-ness. Analogies, though always imperfect, are sometimes helpful in explaining difficult concepts. The following analogies show how something or someone can be both one and three at the same time. An example from nature is that of water: if water in a test tube is frozen at one end and heated at the other, the water in the test tube has three different “forms” – it is solid ice at one end, vapor or gas at the other and liquid in the middle. Another example from nature is the sun: it comes to us each day in three different “modes” – as light, as heat, and as energy. An example from human experience is that of a married person with a child: such a person is, at one and the same time, three different “persons” – someone’s son or daughter, a spouse’s husband or wife and a child’s father or mother.”

The Compact Guide to the Christian Faith

This next example is one of my favorites. I will build off of one of its concepts immediately after it. This is one of the best grouping of examples (analogies) that is experienced daily by us. You may have to read it a few times (slowly) to get the subject/object distinctions down, but it is well worth the read:

“(1) God the Father – the unseen source and cause of all things, (2) God the Son – who tangibly reveals the Father to man and who executes the will of God, and (3) God the Holy Spirit – who is (like the Father) unseen and yet reveals the Son to men, especially through the holy Scriptures that He inspired, making real in the hearts and lives of men the experience of fellowship with the Son and Father. This order, however, is not an order of importance or length of existence. All are equally eternal and equally God – one God…. The remarkable fact is that these relationships are beautifully patterned in the physical universe. Everything in this universe can be understood as functioning as a continuum of space, matter, and time. Space is the invisible, omnipresent background of all things, manifesting itself always and everywhere in phenomena of matter and/or energy, which are then interpreted and experience through time. These are analogous to the relationships in the Godhead between Father, Son, and Spirit; the one is a perfect model of the other.

Note that the universe is a tri-universe. It is not part space, part time, and part matter (that would be a triad) but all space, all time and all matter (where matter includes energy, with matter/energy permeating all space and time). This is a true trinity.

Furthermore, each component of this tri-universe is also a trinity. Space consists of three dimensions, each of which is equally important and occupies all space. There could be no space – no reality – if there were only two dimensions. All dimensions are necessary, yet there is just one space, and each dimension comprises the whole of space. Note that to calculate the amount of a given space, one does not add its three dimensions but multiplies them. Analogously, the mathematics of the divine Trinity is not 1 + 1 + 1 = 1 but rather 1 x 1 x 1 = 1. Space is always identified in terms of one dimension but is only seen in two dimensions and experienced in three dimensions.

Similarly, time is one entity but can also be conceptualized as future, present, and past time. Each involves the whole of time; the present being the “seen,” or manifested; the past is time experienced but no longer seen. The unseen future becomes manifest in the present; the past proceeds from the future through the present into the realm of past experience. Again, the same interrelationships apply as for the Persons of the Godhead.

The central entity in the tri-universe is matter, which is essentially unseen energy manifesting itself in motion and experienced in various phenomena. These phenomena all occur in space through time. Unseen but omnipresent energy generates motion, the magnitude of which (velocity) is the ratio of the space to the time. Depending on the rates and types of motion, various phenomena (e.g., light, sound, texture, hardness) are experienced. For example, light energy generates light waves that are experienced in seeing light. It is always thus: unseen energy generating motion that is experienced in phenomena – this is matter, and each of its three components again comprises the whole [one couldn’t exist without the other].

Thus the physical universe is actually a trinity of trinities, a true tri-universe in the fullest sense. But the same remarkable phenomena can be seen in the realm of human life as well. The Bible says that men and woman were created in God’s image.

Note that each individual is a person with a body that can be physically heard, seen and touched. But inside that body is the person’s nature, which is unseen and yet is the source of all that he embodies. On the other hand, the person is known to others only through his personality, which is unseen and intangible, yet is the means by which he and his nature exert influence on others. Human life consists of three entities – nature, person, and personality – each of which pervades the whole of his life and yet is distinct from the other two. The nature is the unseen source, revealed and embodied in the person. The personality proceeds from the person, invisible yet influencing the lives of others in regard to the person. Nature, person, and personality (or, perhaps equivalently, soul, body and spirit) thus constitute a true trinity, reflecting in minute detail the Triuneness of the God who created the human trinity.”

Science and the Bible

If you are in a room right now, you are in a three dimensional box (for lack of a better word). There is height, depth, and width. These are three separate dimensions, but all three make the entirety of the room possible. If you were to take one of these dimensions away, the room would cease to exist. Alternatively, the Trinity makes up the whole of God, if one were to be taken away (which is impossible), God would cease to exist. These aren’t perfect examples, nor proofs of the Trinity, but merely examples to help the layman – like me – conceptualize a doctrine that seems beyond us.

Misinterpretations of the Trinity

1) Tri-theism: In early church history men such as John Ascungas and John Philoponus taught that there were three who were God but they were only related in a loose association as, for example, Peter, James, and John were as disciples. The error of this teaching was its proponents abandoned the unity within the Trinity with the result that they taught there were three gods rather than three Persons within one Godhead.

2) Sabellianism or Modalism: This teaching, originated by Sabellius (c. A.D. 200), erred in the opposite from that of tri-theism. Although Sabellius spoke of Father, Son, and Holy Spirit, he understood all three as simply three modes of existence or three manifestations of one God. The teaching is thus also known as modalism because it views one God who variously manifests Himself in three modes of existence: Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. Often you will hear people say, “Jesus prayed to the Father, wouldn’t He be praying to himself?” If Sabellianism were true, this would be a valid point. But there are three separate “persons” that are the one God.

3) Arianism: Arian doctrine had its roots in Tertullian, who subordinated the Son to the Father. Origen carried Tertullian’s concept further by teaching that the Son was subordinate to the Father “in respect to essence.” this ultimately led to Arianism, which denied the deity of Christ. Arius taught that only God was the uncreated One; because Christ was begotten of the Father it meant Christ was created by the Father. According to Arius there was a time when Christ did not exist. (#’s 1-3 are from: The Moody Handbook of Theology, by Paul Enns).

The Word “Person,” Straining Our Language
The word persons tend to detract from the unity of the Trinity, and it is readily recognized that persons is an inadequate term to describe the relationship within the Trinity (there is a German word that comes closest and means three-oneness). Some theologians have opted for the term subsistence, hence, “God has three subsistances.” other words used to describe the distinctiveness of the Three are: distinction, relation, and mode. The term persons is nonetheless helpful inasmuch as it emphasizes not only a manifestation but also an individual personality. In suggesting God is three with respect to His Persons it is emphasizes that (1) each has the same essence as God and (2) each possess the fullness of God. “In God there are no three individuals alongside of, and separate from, one another, but only personal self-distinctions within the Divine essence.” (Sytematic Theology, by Berkoff).

This is an important deviation from modalism, which teaches that one God merely manifests Himself in three various ways. This unity within three Persons is seen in Old Testament passages such as Isaiah 48:16 where the Father has sent the Messiah and the Spirit to speak to the restored nation. In Isaiah 61:1 the Father has anointed the Messiah with the Spirit for His mission. These references emphasize both the equality and the unity of the three Persons.

“Person”
Augustine, for example, discussing the propriety of the term “person” in the case of the Trinity, remarked: “When the question is asked: three what? Human language labours altogether under great poverty of speech. The answer however is given ‘three persons,’ not that it might be spoken but that it might not be left unspoken.” How then may we refer to the “three” in the Godhead without endangering God’s unity? The classical formula, “three persons,” has come under increasing strain, since contemporary usage rarely distinguishes “person” from “personality” with the latter’s overtones of distinctiveness and independence. Hence “three Persons” today comes close to denoting three separate gods.

To Conclude ~
As I clearly explained to Mughi3 [a Jehovah’s Witness] a few posts [a must read to understand this post fully] back about Jesus dual nature (100% man / 100% God), I will once again illustrate the verse that decimated the Jewish leaders and caused them to refrain from asking further questions….

David’s Son and David’s Lord
In Matthew 22:43, citing Psalm 110, Jesus said, “How is it then that David, speaking by the Spirit, calls him ‘Lord’ [Messiah]?” Jesus stumped his skeptical Jewish questioners by presenting then with a dilemma that blew their own neat calculations about the Messiah “Lord” (as he did in Ps. 110); when the Scriptures also say the Messiah would be the “Son of David” (which they do in 2 Samuel 7:12.)? The only answer is that the Messiah must be both a man (David’s son or offspring) and God (David’s Lord). Jesus is claiming to be both the God of the Old Testament and human, at the same time!

SeanG
Registered Member

Date Joined Dec 2002
Total Posts : 278

Posted 3/26/2003 8:24 PM (GMT -6)

Let me know if this helped

*****************

Matthew Timothy Short
Huh?

Date Joined Apr 2002
Total Posts : 635

Posted 3/27/2003 1:29 AM (GMT -6)

Easton's Bible Dictionary

Trinity: a word not found in Scripture, but used to express the doctrine of the unity of God as subsisting in three distinct Persons. This word is derived from the Gr. trias, first used by Theophilus (A.D. 168-183), or from the Lat. trinitas, first used by Tertullian (A.D. 220), to express this doctrine.

The propositions involved in the doctrine are these:

1. That God is one, and that there is but one God (Deu 6:4; 1Ki 8:60; Isa 44:6; Mar 12:29,32; Jhn 10:30).

2. That the Father is a distinct divine Person (hypostasis, subsistentia, persona, suppositum intellectuale), distinct from the Son and the Holy Spirit.

3. That Jesus Christ was truly God, and yet was a Person distinct from the Father and the Holy Spirit.

4. That the Holy Spirit is also a distinct divine Person.

I believe the following passage of Scripture dispels the above statement

Hbr 1:1-3God, who at sundry times and in divers manners spake in time past unto the fathers by the prophets, Hath in these last days spoken unto us by [his] Son, whom he hath appointed heir of all things, by whom also he made the worlds; Who being the brightness of [his] glory, and the express image of his person, and upholding all things by the word of his power, when he had by himself purged our sins, sat down on the right hand of the Majesty on high;

Other passages showing the relationship of the Father, Son, and Spirit

Mat 3:16,17…the Spirit of God…lighting upon him: And lo a voice from heaven, saying, This is my beloved Son, in whom I am well pleased

Mat 28:19…baptizing them in the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Ghost

Jhn 20:28…Thomas answered and said unto him, My Lord and my God

Rom 8:9…ye are not in the flesh, but in the Spirit, if so be that the Spirit of God dwell in you

1Cr 12:3…no man can say that Jesus is the Lord, but by the Holy Ghost

2Cr 13:14The grace of the Lord Jesus Christ, and the love of God, and the communion of the Holy Ghost, [be] with you all. Amen.

Eph 4:4-6[There is] one body, and one Spirit, even as ye are called in one hope of your calling; One Lord, one faith, one baptism, One God and Father of all, who [is] above all, and through all, and in you all.

2Th 2:13-14…because God hath from the beginning chosen you to salvation through sanctification of the Spirit and belief of the truth: Whereunto he called you by our gospel, to the obtaining of the glory of our Lord Jesus Christ.

Tts 3:4,5…God our Saviour toward man appeared…by the washing of regeneration, and renewing of the Holy Ghost; Which he shed on us abundantly through Jesus Christ our Saviour

1Pe 1:2Elect according to the foreknowledge of God the Father, through sanctification of the Spirit, unto obedience and sprinkling of the blood of Jesus Christ

Jud 1:20…praying in the Holy Ghost, Keep yourselves in the love of God, looking for the mercy of our Lord Jesus Christ unto eternal life

God is Love,

Tim

2Ti 2:19…Let every one that nameth the name of Christ depart from iniquity...

SeanG
Registered Member

Date Joined Dec 2002
Total Posts : 278

Posted 3/27/2003 3:50 AM (GMT -6)

Tim, what did you mean when you said, “I believe the following passage of Scripture dispels the above statement.”

*****************

PotOnWheel
Registered Member

Date Joined Jul 2001
Total Posts : 9890

Posted 3/27/2003 6:01 AM (GMT -6)

BEST I'VE SEEN:

www.oca.org/pages/orth_chri/Orthodox-Faith/Doctrine/Holy-Trinity.html

REALLY HELPED ME!!!

Matthew Timothy Short
Huh?

Date Joined Apr 2002
Total Posts : 635

Posted 3/28/2003 12:18 AM (GMT -6)

Hey there SeanG,

If the term ‘Trinity’ is used to express the doctrine of,

"The unity of God as subsisting in three distinct Persons".

Then,

God or the Father,
Who in these last days,
Who has spoken unto us by His Son,
The Son being the heir of ALL things (as pertaining to the Father?),
By whom (or through the Son?) the Father also made the worlds,
The Son being the brightness of the Fathers glory,
And the EXPRESS image of His or the Fathers Person…

Of which I see clearly a distinction, however, the Son is the express image of the Fathers Person…

Jhn 1:18 No man hath seen God at any time; the only begotten Son, which is in the bosom of the Father, he hath declared [him].

Jhn 14:9 Jesus saith unto him, Have I been so long time with you, and yet hast thou not known me, Philip? he that hath seen me hath seen the Father; and how sayest thou [then], Shew us the Father?

God is Love,

Tim

2Ti 2:19…Let every one that nameth the name of Christ depart from iniquity...

Matthew Timothy Short
Huh?

Date Joined Apr 2002
Total Posts : 635

Posted 3/28/2003 12:51 AM (GMT -6)

The propositions in Easton's Bible Dictionary of the ‘Trinity’ should read this way, in my mind:

1. That God is one, and that there is but one God (Deu 6:4; 1Ki 8:60; Isa 44:6; Mar 12:29,32; Jhn 10:30)

2. That the Father is distinct in hypostasis, subsistence, persona? No! and supposed intellect? (In a certain way, Yes!) from the Son and the Holy Spirit

HYPOS'TASY, n. [L. hypostasis; Gr. to stand.]

Properly, subsistence or substance.

Hence it is used to denote distinct substance, or subsistence of the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit, in the Godhead, called by the Greek Christians, three hypostases.

The Latins more generally used persona to express the sense of hypostasis, and this is the modern practice. We say, the Godhead consists of three persons. (Which causes a problem in truly understanding the Godhead for many people or persons

, I believe)

3. That Jesus Christ is truly God, and yet distinct from the Father and the Holy Spirit

4. That the Holy Spirit is also distinct

God is Love,

Tim

2Ti 2:19…Let every one that nameth the name of Christ depart from iniquity...

Matthew Timothy Short
Huh?

Date Joined Apr 2002
Total Posts : 635

Posted 3/28/2003 1:42 AM (GMT -6)

‘That God is one essence eternally revealed in three distinct persons’, is a contradictory statement to many and rather confusing, because of the true definitions of essence and person in and to the mind of all.

That which makes any thing to be what it is; or rather, the peculiar nature of a thing, the very substance of it, is called the essence.

Therefore, the natural essential parts (or substance) or that, which really is or exists in the Godhead, is the plural substance of the whole (not one essence); Demonstrated as the main active power of the mental or intellectual parts of the mind, which all people possess; Consisting of knowledge, understanding, and wisdom.

HighJumper
Registered Member

Date Joined Mar 2003
Total Posts : 7

Posted 3/29/2003 5:26 PM (GMT -6)

Thank you very much for the posts. I have to admit that I am still studying them and attempting to digest the meaning of them all.

HighJumper

"The definition of will is the constantly repeated act of choice" by David Hawkings

Iconoclast
Registered Member

Date Joined Oct 2001
Total Posts : 1227

Posted 3/31/2003 3:41 PM (GMT -6)

HighJumper, welcome to the board and great question. Here are some wild thoughts on the trinity that come from the philosophy of Charles Sanders Peirce. Peirce introduced the metaphysical concept that all being comes in three distinct categories which he calls Firstness, Secondness and Thirdness. I will attempt to explain these concepts and relate them to the trinity. Much of this post comes from an earlier post I did on this subject.

I am still struggling to really comprehend these categories but let me try to put out his thought. Although first I will suggest that my take is that Peirce’s categories show some support for Eastern Othodox thought about the trinity while at the same time suggesting distinct but in no way equivalent “centers of willing” that make up a single Will.

Peirce’s thought

There are three categories, no less and no more. Let us suppose that the world is a unique sheet of assertion. Let us call it “1.” What can we say of “1”? Nothing – and, of course, as it is “unique,” nobody is there to say anything. So to speak, “1” is not even there. It is not “something,” and it is not “nothing,” unless as non-being, in the Aristotelian sense of sheer “possibility.” To conceive of “1,” “1” has to have a limit and consequently we cannot have “1” without a “2” which delimits “1” on the sheet of assertion:

-*-*-*-*-*-
[----------]
[----1-----2
[----------]
-*-*-*-*-*-

Iconoclast: Peirce actually draws a circle labeled “2” around a “1” suggesting that we can only know “1” through “2”.

“1” can only exist in a pair. But, as Peirce points out, “it is impossible to form a genuine three by any modification of the pair without introducing something of a different nature from the unit and the pair (1,2) one needs a “3” which mediates between “1” and “2”:

-*-*-*-*-*-
[----------]
[----1-----2------3
[----------]
-*-*-*-*-*-

Iconoclast

These are some terms Peirce used in relation to these categories:

Firstness: quality, ground, pure sensation, facticity, sheer possibility, direct experience.

Secondness: existential quantifier, relation, object, singular existent.

Thirdness: universal quantifier, mediating representation, “interpretant”, rule, law.

In terms of business software we might understand these categories as:

Firstness: class.
Secondness: object (instance of a class).
Thirdness: object relations and methods (governing structures and behavior).

Or

Firstness: The concept of “Vendor”.
Secondness: A specific instance of a Vendor.
Thirdness: The governing behavior of a Vendor in relation to other objects.

Peirce’s thought

The law is a natural as well as a logical process. As a third without occurrences, the law is empty and as a second, the occurrence without law is blind. As for direct experience, a first, it is indeed “purely and simply,” but it is not a cognition, because there is nothing intrinsically substantial to know beyond the triadic process which confers generality (thirdness) on the singular object (secondness) of one’s direct experience (firstness).
…
This is the mathematical proof of the necessity of the three categories of Peirce, and of the principle of their “hierarchization”: No three without two, no two without one. Consequently, a first is monadic: it has only one element, i.e. itself; a second is dyadic: it has a dyadic relation with a first with which it forms an indecomposable dyad; a third is triadic: it has a triadic relation with a second and a first with which it forms an indecomposable triad. Thus the categories are “ordered”: they are ordinal and not cardinal.

Iconoclast

Thus:

Firstness, which is sheer possibility.

Secondness, which is a singular or unique existent.

Thirdness, which is mediation as formal relation.

Can be mapped:

Father - Firstness
Son - Secondness
HolySpirit – Thirdness

With Peirce’s categories, his principle of “hierarchization” which introduced the term “prescission” and this mapping we can now concretely understand why Jesus said that no one comes to father except through Him – Firstness can only be known through Secondness. It also explains clearly why Jesus says that when we have seen Him we have seen the Father. It also suggests a possible explanation for why God would only show his back to Moses – Moses was asking to directly experience God’s Firstness which would be a problem.

Furthermore it suggests a reason why Jesus says that unless He leaves the Holy Spirit cannot come. Sttrrettchhingg here: The Holy Spirit (God’s Thirdness) was entirely “wrapped up” in Jesus human form as some sort of necessity for His relation to this world and to the Father. Once Jesus “let go” of this limited form and “went back” to His Full Secondness relation to the Father then the Holy Spirit was free to “wrap us up” into relation with Jesus. Jesus as man AND God ON earth in full human form required Thirdness for interrelation with other people AND Thirdness for interrelation with God – thus Jesus ON earth in full human form was BOTH Secondness AND Thirdness (the Holy Spirit).

I think this conception shows that there is only one will of God that takes place through the triadic relation of Father, Son and Holy Spirit.

At the same time each of the three has a distinct (and necessary) type of “willing ability” without which there can be no concept of a Will. The Father’s will (Firstness) is a will of sheer possibility – it is the will of Love which brings possibility into being. The Son’s will (Secondness) is concrete action. The Son only does what He hears the Father say – He hears Love and takes concrete action on that will – the specific concrete action is up to the Son – whether the Son turns water into wine at this party or does something else loving and so on. An objection to this would be going to the cross but I would suggest that this concrete action was already determined by the Son (only through relation with the Father and the Holy Spirit) and was the whole purpose of the incarnation and so still fits. The Son (Secondness) also acts in accordance with the Holy Spirit – or the “law” of Life – but I have already suggested that these (Secondness and Thirdness) were bound up in Jesus here on earth. The Holy Spirit (Thirdness) wills in the sense of seeking relations amongst us – choosing to influence here and influence there – “blowing this way and then that” – always seeking to fulfill the will of the Father (creating loving relations) by bringing meaning (and therefore power) to Jesus concrete action. And all of this is indecomposable into the singular Will of God. Love, Loving action, Loving dispositions – Life.

thanks,
Iconoclast

"The benefit overran the merit the first day, and has overrun the merit ever since. The merit itself, so-called, I reckon part of the receiving." - Ralph Waldo Emerson

Edited by - Iconoclast on 03/31/2003 8:44:43 PM

PotOnWheel
Registered Member

Date Joined Jul 2001
Total Posts : 9890

Posted 4/1/2003 4:48 AM (GMT -6)

Interesting sometimes to go back and look at the wording oif threads after they have established a direction. Interesting this time too.

quote:
All Forums
Questions about Christianity
What is the Trinity?

Taken strictly--and with a sense of humor I hope--the answer to the question "What is the Trinity" is this: "The Trinity is a concept, a big word, and something theoretical. Well, that's no help -- is it?

But re-examined, it can be broken down into TWO very useful questions: "WHAT?" and "WHO?"

The answer to the first question, of "WHAT?" is God, is this: GOD IS ONE.

And the answer to the second question, of "WHO?" is God, is this: GOD IS THREE.

Explanation follows below in what I quote from Hopko.

Hopko writes:

...the Church teaches that while there is only One God, yet there are Three who are God -- the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit -- perfectly united and never divided yet not merged into one with no proper distinction.

and continues:

and:

Edited by - PotOnWheel on 04/01/2003 09:52:46 AM

PotOnWheel
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Date Joined Jul 2001
Total Posts : 9890

Posted 4/1/2003 5:29 AM (GMT -6)

The post of Pierce-via-Iconoclast is an interesting one. I think that if it is taken as "giving a clue" and not "explaining all exhaustively" that it may be quite useful. (I want to read it a third time too.) I'd want to make one point though.

Here's a point that is important for now, and has been important historically. When we look at ANYTHING (discussions in history, or Pierce's model as above) such concepts can be understood DIFFERENTLy depending on WHICH OF TWO KINDS OF FRAMEWORKS they are SET INTO. Here are the two frameworks:

Person

Substance

"Firstness, Secondness, Thirdness"

"the question of God's nature"

...or...

"God's Person"

If the Pierce-via-Iconoclast model is describing how God's will is implimented, THEN I think that I kind of like it. Understand, that intellectually I think that it is very likeable indeed!!! But I also think that I recognize, within myself, that it could just as easily become an idol. If I even begin to think that I have reduced God down to a printed circut-board, and can say that, "This is how God works, and how God has to work...", then I'm beginning to bow down to an idea and not to the living God. (Icon knows, I hope, that I'm not suggesting that Pierce or Icon are doing this.)

Met. John Zizioulas (a Greek Orthodox Bishop, and highly respected academician who teaches at universities in Greece, Germany and England) writes in Being as Communion that "For this communion () is a product of freedom as a result not of the substance of God but of a person, the Father who is Trinity not because the divine nature is ecstatic but because the Father is a person freely wills this communion." Notice that the Father, the source of the God-head, does not beget the Son and casue the Spirit to proceed because that is his "nature" (which would make is not a free act); but, rather, the Father is the source of the Son and the Spirit, freely, from Person.

The Trinity is not three Gods all made out of the same "stuff" (divinity). But be-CAUSE of the Father's "ecstatic" (outward) free will, the "Trinity (Father, Son, and Holy Spirit), One in essence and Undivided." (Divine Liturgy) is to be worshipped!!!

quote:
: It is meet and right to worship Father, Son, and Holy Spirit, the Trinity one in essence and undivided.

Edited by - PotOnWheel on 04/01/2003 10:39:37 AM

Starkman
Registered Member

Date Joined Oct 2001
Total Posts : 1747

Posted 4/1/2003 10:10 AM (GMT -6)

Hey HighJumper,

Well, if nothing else, remember this:

Scripture reveals that there is one, and only one, God; however, Scripture also reveals three different personages/persons (whatever term you want to use) who do not ever claim to be each other--the Father is not the Son, the Son is not the Holy Spirit--but are either called God or call themselves God. Since there is only one God, the Three, therefore, must somehow be the one God.

Church history has devoted much of itself to deliberating this concept and trying to bring it into our arena of understanding; how we exist as humans: one nature/essence/etc per person. Not an easy task, obviously. But that's the gist of it.

You'll spend years learning the rest, trying to understand the history, and growing in its depth as you go further in your studies than what I've just stated . . . not that that's a bad thing, but at least understand what I've just stated as the spring board for the rest of your study.

Starkman

Edited by - Starkman on 04/01/2003 3:12:14 PM

Matthew Timothy Short
Huh?

Date Joined Apr 2002
Total Posts : 635

Posted 4/1/2003 12:49 PM (GMT -6)

"WHAT?" is God: GOD IS ONE.

"WHO?" is God: GOD IS THREE.

I like this

PotOnWheel, but I would like to put together a post some other time on the verse below, to see what you think, got to fix supper for the family now though, later.

As the living Father sent Me, and I live because of the Father, so he who feeds on Me will live because of Me. (Jhn 6:57)

PotOnWheel
Registered Member

Date Joined Jul 2001
Total Posts : 9890

Posted 4/1/2003 3:10 PM (GMT -6)

That is for another thread, Tim. Part of it is Christology, and the other part is the economy of salvation.

quote:
I like this PotOnWheel, but I would like to put together a post some other time on the verse below, to see what you think, got to fix supper for the family now though, later.

As the living Father sent Me, and I live because of the Father, so he who feeds on Me will live because of Me. (Jhn 6:57)

I see five things: (1) the Son's relationship to the Father; (2) the mission of the Son in the economy; (3) the salvation that is in Christ won for us in the suffering of the Incarnation (not just on the cross, but in everything and especially by the cross); (4) and the divinity of humankind in Christ's glory accomplished..., AND, (5), the promise of our participating in God's life, by grace, in communion with the Triune God.

Bye.

Edited by - PotOnWheel on 04/01/2003 8:37:25 PM

HighJumper
Registered Member

Date Joined Mar 2003
Total Posts : 7

Posted 4/13/2003 5:07 PM (GMT -6)

Thank you everyone for your replies. I can tell that each of you have put alot of thought into them. I have to read each of them several times before I even start to understand them.

I find it very interesting that this is so hard to both comprhend and also talk about. We say "Father, Son and Holy Spirit" in Church all the time and yet it is so poorly understood.

I have a related question. Given that there are so many aspects to Christianity to study, how important do you think it is to get a good handle on the Trinity before looking into the other aspects?

HighJumper

"The definition of will is the constantly repeated act of choice" by David Hawkings

BBBCanada
Registered Member

Date Joined Jun 2001
Total Posts : 2763

Posted 4/14/2003 4:19 AM (GMT -6)

quote:
I have a related question. Given that there are so many aspects to Christianity to study, how important do you think it is to get a good handle on the Trinity before looking into the other aspects?

If my spider senses are correct...I don't think it matters much. Much that is, BEFORE HAND.

The doctrine of the Trinity is important fo sheezy, and so it should be studied. But I don't think it is necessary to "get it down pat" BEFORE looking at other aspects of Christianity. I think in your studies you will find how doctrines and teachings interrelate to each other. So for example, the study of the Trinity will have some bearing on the study of ecclessiology.

Personally, I don't think it should be left out of any discussions. It certainly is making a comeback.

Brandon
"Mommy, I know now that the terms, 'I'll knock yo' teeth down yo' throat!' meant you'd love me in the special way you do everyday of my life."--Darwin Hobbs
www.darwinhobbs.com

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