Posted on 08/11/2016 9:06:49 PM PDT by UnChained
Pretty good exegesis and I would have no problem with your conclusions. However I still like the example I give for the children because anyone can “get it”. The question on the Trinity is, “How can three persons be one?” Consider an Apple. Seed, flesh, peel. Three aspects, one thing. Seed contains the life force. Flesh is fruit of life. Peel is the protector of life. Father, Son, Holy Spirit. Three aspects of one being, and as you said, outside of time.
What I was trying to overcome is the sterility of the ultra precise verbiage found in the creeds and that I feel also communicate error.
The Chalcedon Creed asserts that Jesus had both a God nature and a human nature with Jesus switching between the two modes. That is a pointless invention and just plain wrong. Jesus didn’t have two natures, He was just Himself.
The Nicean Creed says that Jesus and the Father were different persons but were both made out of the same “stuff”
In the interest of stating my post simply:
Jesus is the I AM of God within time. The Father is the Great I AM beyond time.
Still hard to understand I suppose, but a lot shorter.
I like how the explanation I’ve offered demolishes the Islamist’s argument that Christians are polytheist pagans. Also skeptics have sport ridiculing the notion that God provided a hapless whipping boy that He could vent His anger upon because God loved us SO much. That ridicule is answered well by the explanation above.
Regards...
The best description I ever heard of the holy trinity was said this way. Take a torch. It gives light and heat. Now divide the torch up the handle longitudinally into thirds. You now have 3 separate items that each give light and heat. Put them back together again and they are one torch. Each is a third of the whole and each is the same in substance and in function with the others. Separately the three perform the same as combined. At any time they can be separate or combined. But even when separated, they are still three parts of the same original torch, not 3 individual torches. They are one but can be 3 separately.
This analogy may not work for everyone but it worked for me. I thought it was brilliant in simplicity and in meaning.
Very interesting. I appreciate your investigation of both heaven and earth.
My response is to prefer the moldy and ancient creed from 300 A.D. “God from God. Light from Light.” Thus, it is helpful to investigate the “relations” within the Trinity.
I think your investigation of the Trinity is leading to the investigation of Christology: whether Jesus is the divine Second Person? Yes. Look at His words and His miracles. They match.
Being we are created in the image of God we are also a three-part being..
P.S.: Everything in this vanity is heretical.
I’ve read something similar before, it went on to relate that the Holy Ghost is Gods essence on earth while Jesus is now in heaven both temporally locked, while the Father is as you stipulate outside of time. It does folks what Jesus said that only the father knows the time.
I’ve always wanted to ask which Jacob wrestled with to earn his new name.
A far simpler depiction of the trinity is the h2o molecule. It exists in three states. Solid, Liquid and gas. Ice, water and vapour. The Sun the solid. The Holy Spirit the liquid and the Father the vapour.. Three states of the same molecule. This is not unique to H2O but this is the h2o planet and Christ came as a solid tangible expression of the Trinity. Christ himself said that God is spirit. nebulous like a vapour. The Holy Spirit is said to be poured out like water.
The Son the solid I should say.
Simplest thing I’ve heard is in the conclusion of one of Paul’s letters, 2 Cor 14:14.
“May the love of God, the grace of our Lord Jesus Christ, and the fellowship of the Holy Spirit be with you always.”
Basically, three aspects of love.
Alternatively, if you’re into configuration management, you can think of it as three views of a system.
13:14 that is.
“My God, My God, Why hast though Forsaken Me?” .... and later “It is done, into thy hands I commit my spirit”.
Here’s a novel Idea .... maybe Constantine, Alexander, Athanasius and Hosea got it wrong back in 325 AD!
And, at the “triple point” (at a certain temperature and pressure), the water exists in all three phases at the same time. Works for any material - just different temps and pressures.
The image that comes easily to me is the now-familiar view of earth from space, the blue dot against the vast black background. But in this case, the blue dot contains the entire universe, as well as the fourth dimension of time. The creator sees the beginning, the end, and everything in between, all existing simultaneously. This is omniscience.
Now suppose the creator wished to enter into the creation. The creation cannot contain the creator, but the creator can project a mental image of himself into the creation, much as we can project ourselves into a daydream (which is often the point of daydreaming) and emotionally experience something that we have ourselves created. This projection is the second person of the Trinity, fully one with the first and present from before the beginning and at every point across the four dimensional blue dot.
And finally, suppose that the creator wishes to instruct one or more of the sentient beings in his creation. He shares some of his thought with them. This "whisper" is the Holy Spirit.
The creation, including us, is a thought experiment in the mind of God. The Trinity is an elegant model of the view of the universe, as we understand it post-Einstein, from the creator's perspective. The extraordinary thing is that the early theologians worked their way to this model 1,900 years before science stumbled onto the idea of a space-time continuum, with time as merely another dimension linked organically with the spatial (and, we are now told, other) dimensions.
God exists in three distinct persons, not states. The example you suggested is classic “modalism” or “Sabellianism.” It’s one of the unorthodox teachings of T.D. Jakes and Oneness Pentecostals.
That.
LOL...I’m glad someone said it.
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