Jesus is God but The Father is not Jesus. So God's got split personalities or something? Also never got what exactly the Holy Spirit is, i guess it's supposed to be like the force in Star Wars or something? Idk how the heck they let me get confirmed as a child even though I can't explain it even after doing more readings of theology than was deemed necessary.
We explicitly don't have multiple gods like pagans, even though the whole praying to saints thing was a reason for Eastern Orthodox splitting off since they made a decent argument that it's idolatry/soft-paganism.
Almost no one can explain it in their own words. I guarantee if you went to a church and asked them to, 99% would be confessing a heresy. You're supposed to repeat the words they give you without understanding it as a form of establishing authority. They don't actually care what any of the congregation believes about the trinity, because it doesn't matter beyond a tool to browbeat you into parroting whatever they tell you without question /neckbeard
Yeah, this. Catholic Theologians have been arguing about it for like 1800 years without coming up with an even remotely satisfying conclusion that any real human can understand.
Are you Catholic? I'm wondering because I think the person who replied an explaination gave me what seems to be the more Pentecostal version.
Every explaination I've seen where I went "yeah that sounds like it makes sense" is considered heresy by someone else.
I think when I asked a priest once as a kid, he gave me an answer about the mystery of the Holy Spirit which I wasn't really satisfied by, but maybe he thought I was too young for a better answer?
I'm sure there's many competing explanations of the Trinity, as there are of God generally.
I wouldn't contend that all explanations are the same, or that one version is correct, or anything about, like, the ontology of God, but I think people can have deeply held beliefs, and can articulate them even if they can't give the most, best coherent description of them, and that these articulations aren't just attempts to brainwash or whatever.
Mostly I think Catholic kids could give an explanation of Trinity, and certainly it wouldn't be like you were talking to Aquinas, it would be as good an explanation as a kid could give for anything else
I guess that's the issue for me, because that lay-explaination of the Trinity isn't really satisfying to me because I could probably give one too,
but I'm also aware that there's competing explainations, and I don't know the exact one whose team I'm 'supposed' to be on as a Catholic.
This is probably all moot because I don't think anyone converts from one Christianity to another based on their Holy Trinity explaination, but it is part of the many things that made me agnostic after going to state-funded Catholic school.
Was raised Catholic. Yes, Im not sure I could give a very nourishing description of the Trinity, other than God having three constitutive aspects, none being more essential than another.
And i'm not well versed enough theologically to explain why that is seen as a more powerful explanation than alternatives, but generally my feeling is that any of these are attempts to speak upon what seemingly definitionally can't be spoken upon, so it's hard to read the statements themselves or the speakers as wedded to ontological commitments, but rather at gestures at something broadly valuable or true.
But the particular idiom or specific language that attempts to describe that truth seems valuable to me (here the Catholic language of the Trinity). Fwiw, I find the redemption aspect of Christianity very attractive; Catholicism perhaps too, but maybe only because of cultural/traditional reasons.
Jesus is more like if God had uploaded himself into the game, but had also uploaded himself into a Populus-Style game layer as the Holy Spirit, while playing a Sim Earth aspect all at once while also having realtime awareness of all three aspects.
This is also a heresy, probably because it splits the persons too much and doesn't make them co-eternal.
No, Patripassianism would only hold if dying in the game means you die in real life.
As a simulated Avatar of God, Jesus was one with God in the spiritual sense but wholly separated in the physical sense.
Jesus pleading to God at the Mount of Olives was canonically a cut scene that broke the fourth wall. This was even more ironic, because God was also the Lead Dev on the game, meaning that Jesus was both literally and figuratively talking to himself despite being a distinct entity from his audience.
Thus it is that only a True Gamer can comprehend the most sacred mystery of faith.
Christ has died. Christ is risen. Christ will come again.
There is only one God but he plays three different roles, like having one actor do three different parts in a play. The three roles are distinct and independent from each other but is also fundamentally the same entity. This is why Jesus speak to the Father on the cross like they are two different people or how the Holy Spirit can touch people on Earth even though the Father and Son are wholly in Heaven, like they might appear seperate but it's all the same guy. How this is possible is one of the great mysteries of the faith.
Which is to say, this is all convoluted bullshit to keep Christianity monotheistic like Judaism even though they worship a real guy that lived and died and the early apostles kept talking about being touched by God.
Oops, forgot 'roles' was not the preferred terminology, it should be 'persons' which indicates a higher degree of indiviualness. Although the word 'person' originally comes from the Greek 'persona' which is a mask or character in a play.
In any case, it's just a much easier explanation of the Trinity than the 10 page non-explanation in the Catechism, and functionally there is no difference.
Personally I would have wanted the early church to adopt docetism, which is obviously the correct doctrine since that is the one used in Islam (aka upgraded Christianity).
I think the official explanation is that Jesus was quoting one of the Psalms and he was fulfilling the prophecy, the Psalm was about the enemies of God mocking the faithful. And, becuase he was taking on all of humanity's sins at that moment, so he was giving a lament as a genuine sign that he was a fully corporeal human undergoing this trial. Also, saying that God had forsaken him isn't a loss of faith, just like the Psalm isn't losing faith in God, it's more like being a weepy baby and being overly dramatic whenever something goes wrong in your life.
The real explanation is that Jesus was a crazy white boy who talked mad shit and got executed by the Romans while all his bros stood by and watched. He thought he was the reincarnation of King David and he would kick all the Romans out of Jerusalem but ended but on a cross, so he probably did curse God as he was dying for all the bullshit that happened to him. Whoever wrote the Book of Mark then substituted in a quote from the Pslams because he didn't want Jesus' last words to be "Fuck you God". As a result the early church had to justify why Jesus would be talking to God when he was also God and ended up going with the Trinity.
Just because I can, let me put on my Catholic hat and give my best stab at explaining it, without Googling, from that perspective. See my other comment for the actual answer.
First off, don't try to understand the Trinity though analogies, period. The Trinity is conceptually unlike anything else that you can encounter, and trying to conceptualize it that way is likely to wind up being more like a heresy.
The Son, the Father, and the Holy Spirit, are three distinct persons, but they are all one God. Note that I did not say that they are parts of God. Each of them possesses the full essence of "Godness," but there is only one God. They don't break apart and form up again like Voltron, nor are they different aspects of God, nor are they different roles that God performs, each is a distinct person, while still possessing the full quality of Godness. They are not split personalities, just as you and I are not split personalities, but distinct people. What is it like? Again, it is like nothing, there is no comparison to it on Earth.
Each of these persons has existed since the beginning of time, none of them predate each other, none of them created - or perhaps I'd better stick with "made" - each other, and yet, the terms "Father" and "Son" are not merely symbolic or metaphorical, but literal. The Father "begat" the Son ("Begotten, not made, one in being with the Father"), while both of them have always existed. It's worth noting that God exists outside of time, so everything checks out. The Holy Spirit was there too.
They are all composed of the same substance, by the way - what that substance is, I have no idea - but in any case, they are consubstantial.
If you're lost at this point, it's worth looking at how this understanding was originally developed: Rome created the Church to co-opt Christianity and establish uniform beliefs supportive of the Emperor Rigorous debates between the smartest, most enlightened, and totally politically independent scholars that the fourth century had to offer, presided over by the Roman emperor Constantine, who had sincerely converted and was appointed by God to rule over an imperialist slave state.
Ahem. What I mean to say is, each of the seemingly arbitrary stipulations has a logical reason behind it. For example, if the Son were created by the Father, that would imply that the Son is lesser than the Father. If the Son was not literally begotten by the Father, that would imply that the Father only "symbolically" sent and sacrificed His only Son to save us, which would lessen the significance of it. If there was a time before the Son existed, that would imply that the Son is not eternal, that there could be a time when the Son will no longer exist, which is no good.
Likewise, with the various stipulations around the "Three Persons, One God" bit. To say that they are each fully divine, and distinct, so therefore there are three Gods, would contradict fundamental teachings from the Old Testament. To say that they are each parts that make up God would imply that Jesus was not fully divine, and that whenever He (or the Holy Spirit) split off to do something, the Father isn't wholly divine either. To say that they are merely aspects, personas, or split personalities, would imply that only that aspect was sent to suffer and die on the cross. If they were only distinct "roles" that God takes on, then when Jesus died, what, God just stopped playing that part? Or did the Father die at the same time?
The seemingly convoluted and contradictory teachings came about in a large part to establish and maintain the significance of Jesus's death. The implications of deviating from these teachings are not really apparent to lay people, but the Church scholars considered the implications of each word very carefully.
They definitely weren't using the same kind of reasoning behind "You can't end a sentence with a preposition because it'd be improper in Latin," only with hangups based around Greek philosophers like Plato. And they fought tooth and nail over this and burned everyone who disagreed, not because of any materialist or political reason, like, say, Rome only being willing to tolerate a single version of Christianity, which recognized the Emperor as being appointed by God. They were just, you know, really passionate, and anyway we all went a little crazy after 311, or something like that.
Anyway, it's not designed to make sense, or to be intuitive, and the reason people have trouble understanding it aside from it being full of contradictions isn't because "The Lord works in mysterious ways," but because the teachings were developed based around considerations of what scholars 1600 years ago thought that the Greek words implied. If you really want to understand the Catholic teachings on the Trinity, don't just rely on faith, or read the catechism, or even ask a priest - that's the route you should go if you don't actually care that much and just want some platitudes. Research the various heresies of the time, look up what positions and arguments were put forth by the Church scholars, study Plato too, and hell, maybe learn Greek while you're at it.
Better yet, spend your time doing, like, anything else.
The Son, the Father, and the Holy Spirit, are three distinct persons, but they are all one God. Note that I did not say that they are parts of God. Each of them possesses the full essence of “Godness,” but there is only one God. They don’t break apart and form up again like Voltron, nor are they different aspects of God, nor are they different roles that God performs, each is a distinct person, while still possessing the full quality of Godness. They are not split personalities, just as you and I are not split personalities, but distinct people. What is it like? Again, it is like nothing, there is no comparison to it on Earth.
"It doesn't make any sense because it's a unique concept unlike anything else in the universe" is a copout. It doesn't make sense because it's bullshit that doesn't logically follow. If each of the three parts are fully realized faces of God then they're all God and if there's only one God then they're all the same entity. If they are fully separate then there must be something which makes them different which means they can't all be fully God. You're allowed to just say "yeah this is bullshit that doesn't make any sense"
Oh, absolutely it's weak af. I mentioned at the start that my other comment is my actual answer, that it's all BS. This answer is a "steelman," for if you want a better understanding of the Catholic perspective.
...and also to show that I know wtf I'm talking about, since I had someone tell me that "Any kid in CCD could explain the Trinity" and referring to my experience learning about it as "remedial education." Since they then refused to explain it, I thought I'd do it for them.
Yes, but also, is a photon a wave or a particle? describing it as either doesn't fully describe a photon, nor does describing it as a "wave packet" or "wave-particle duality". It's a photon, the type of thing a photon is is a photon. There's no macro-scale equivalent, try not to think about it too hard if you're not doing physics at something.
and here I was thinking it was a way of getting around the 'omnipotent, omnicognizant, and all-loving' paradox. Mormonism really did itself a favor by breaking from this tradition.
I think the official doctrine is that they are "of the same essence" - metaphysically one and the same, but distinct as individuals. Or that's just another heresy and I'm going to hell - it's been a while since my church days.
"Therefore in God there is only a Trinity, not a quaternity, since each of the three persons is that reality — that is to say substance, essence or divine nature-which alone is the principle of all things, besides which no other principle can be found. This reality neither begets nor is begotten nor proceeds; the Father begets, the Son is begotten and the holy Spirit proceeds. Thus there is a distinction of persons but a unity of nature. Although therefore the Father is one person, the Son another person and the holy Spirit another person, they are not different realities, but rather that which is the Father is the Son and the holy Spirit, altogether the same; thus according to the orthodox and catholic faith they are believed to be consubstantial."
Which makes about as much sense to most people as quoting a random Derrida paragraph.
As someone who has read Derrida and listened to his (much more lucid) lectures, the answer is "Yes". He's mostly full of shit, and he's trolling in a deliberate attempt to obfuscate his ideas and prevent them from being co-opted by capitalist hegemony.
I may be spouuting a heresy so please correct me if i am wrong. I aint no christian anyway.
It is my understanding that we all have escence and form. My ecence is matter aranged in atoms molecules cells organs and then a person.
God is not made of matter it is made of divine substance wich in order to work has to have certain properties. Because of this when you make a person of it you can use the same substance to make another one. So they are consubstantial.
Close. The issue here is that Jesus is fully Human and Fully divine, in a hypostatic union (or a union of the two into one nature in practice, if you're Miaphysite which IIRC isn't considered heretical anymore)
So something being outwardly "matter" or not has no impact on its divine nature. See also Communion in Catholic/Orthodox (and some interpretations of Anglican doctrine) where the host is fully transformed into the divine but maintains its outward character.
Sorry for the late repply. Bussy holiday season. But dosent comunion involve transubstantiation. Wich esentialy changes the substance from regular mater to god stuff? The same can be saud for christ havig a human form and be substantially god.
But now that i think about it this would mean a shape is being predicated on god. Wich shouldnt be posible.
It does, but in order to dodge the "but it look like a biscuit, checkmate papists!" Argument there was some clarification on how that happens exactly.
Or to use the catechism
What is the meaning of transubstantiation? Transubstantiation means the change of the whole substance of bread into the substance of the Body of Christ and of the whole substance of wine into the substance of his Blood. This change is brought about in the eucharistic prayer through the efficacy of the word of Christ and by the action of the Holy Spirit. However, the outward characteristics of bread and wine, that is the “eucharistic species”, remain unaltered.
Is this copium? A bit, but there's also a few different schools of thought on this even within doctrine so they keep the mechanism a bit vague.
When I was in grad school, I had a seminar in the metaphysics of part/whole relationships. There was a girl in the class who worked on the metaphysics of the trinity as a meteorological relationship, and boy that shit was weird.
There's nothing to get. It's bullshit. Catholics have been arguing about it for well over a thousand years and have never been able to explain it to anyone. They regard it as a "mystery".
There are religions that think Catholics are polytheists because of the Trinity.
As a former(? - Still go to church with family sometimes) Catholic, I never got that shit.
This is the diagram I never got
Jesus is God but The Father is not Jesus. So God's got split personalities or something? Also never got what exactly the Holy Spirit is, i guess it's supposed to be like the force in Star Wars or something? Idk how the heck they let me get confirmed as a child even though I can't explain it even after doing more readings of theology than was deemed necessary.
We explicitly don't have multiple gods like pagans, even though the whole praying to saints thing was a reason for Eastern Orthodox splitting off since they made a decent argument that it's idolatry/soft-paganism.
Almost no one can explain it in their own words. I guarantee if you went to a church and asked them to, 99% would be confessing a heresy. You're supposed to repeat the words they give you without understanding it as a form of establishing authority. They don't actually care what any of the congregation believes about the trinity, because it doesn't matter beyond a tool to browbeat you into parroting whatever they tell you without question /neckbeard
Any kid at CCD or in parochial school could explain it to you lol
I was raised Catholic and went to Catholic high school; no they absolutely can't.
Yeah, this. Catholic Theologians have been arguing about it for like 1800 years without coming up with an even remotely satisfying conclusion that any real human can understand.
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Lmao. Put it in your own words then, so I can tell you which heresy you're confessing.
Love to have a good faith argument, but I think you're more at home whining on r atheism
Are you Catholic? I'm wondering because I think the person who replied an explaination gave me what seems to be the more Pentecostal version.
Every explaination I've seen where I went "yeah that sounds like it makes sense" is considered heresy by someone else.
I think when I asked a priest once as a kid, he gave me an answer about the mystery of the Holy Spirit which I wasn't really satisfied by, but maybe he thought I was too young for a better answer?
I'm sure there's many competing explanations of the Trinity, as there are of God generally. I wouldn't contend that all explanations are the same, or that one version is correct, or anything about, like, the ontology of God, but I think people can have deeply held beliefs, and can articulate them even if they can't give the most, best coherent description of them, and that these articulations aren't just attempts to brainwash or whatever.
Mostly I think Catholic kids could give an explanation of Trinity, and certainly it wouldn't be like you were talking to Aquinas, it would be as good an explanation as a kid could give for anything else
I guess that's the issue for me, because that lay-explaination of the Trinity isn't really satisfying to me because I could probably give one too,
but I'm also aware that there's competing explainations, and I don't know the exact one whose team I'm 'supposed' to be on as a Catholic.
This is probably all moot because I don't think anyone converts from one Christianity to another based on their Holy Trinity explaination, but it is part of the many things that made me agnostic after going to state-funded Catholic school.
Was raised Catholic. Yes, Im not sure I could give a very nourishing description of the Trinity, other than God having three constitutive aspects, none being more essential than another.
And i'm not well versed enough theologically to explain why that is seen as a more powerful explanation than alternatives, but generally my feeling is that any of these are attempts to speak upon what seemingly definitionally can't be spoken upon, so it's hard to read the statements themselves or the speakers as wedded to ontological commitments, but rather at gestures at something broadly valuable or true.
But the particular idiom or specific language that attempts to describe that truth seems valuable to me (here the Catholic language of the Trinity). Fwiw, I find the redemption aspect of Christianity very attractive; Catholicism perhaps too, but maybe only because of cultural/traditional reasons.
lol, vibes-based redemption
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Lol. Lmao, even.
Im glad I got to be here in time to :PIGPOOPBALLS: a troll
sick ableism brah
all explanations are some form of heresy
It's literally a mystery and you're not supposed to understand it.
wack
In naturalist terms, they are like the leaves of a clover. Separated, but as part of the same plant.
In gamer terms, Jesus is God's player character while on Earth.
Am gamer, can confirm that the trinity is easy to understand in this framing
That's a heresy, Patripassianism possibly.
Jesus is more like if God had uploaded himself into the game, but had also uploaded himself into a Populus-Style game layer as the Holy Spirit, while playing a Sim Earth aspect all at once while also having realtime awareness of all three aspects.
This is also a heresy, probably because it splits the persons too much and doesn't make them co-eternal.
No, Patripassianism would only hold if dying in the game means you die in real life.
As a simulated Avatar of God, Jesus was one with God in the spiritual sense but wholly separated in the physical sense.
Jesus pleading to God at the Mount of Olives was canonically a cut scene that broke the fourth wall. This was even more ironic, because God was also the Lead Dev on the game, meaning that Jesus was both literally and figuratively talking to himself despite being a distinct entity from his audience.
Thus it is that only a True Gamer can comprehend the most sacred mystery of faith.
Christ has died. Christ is risen. Christ will come again.
It was right there!
I'm so sorry. :gamer-gulag:
There is only one God but he plays three different roles, like having one actor do three different parts in a play. The three roles are distinct and independent from each other but is also fundamentally the same entity. This is why Jesus speak to the Father on the cross like they are two different people or how the Holy Spirit can touch people on Earth even though the Father and Son are wholly in Heaven, like they might appear seperate but it's all the same guy. How this is possible is one of the great mysteries of the faith.
Which is to say, this is all convoluted bullshit to keep Christianity monotheistic like Judaism even though they worship a real guy that lived and died and the early apostles kept talking about being touched by God.
Modalist heresy.
Oops, forgot 'roles' was not the preferred terminology, it should be 'persons' which indicates a higher degree of indiviualness. Although the word 'person' originally comes from the Greek 'persona' which is a mask or character in a play.
In any case, it's just a much easier explanation of the Trinity than the 10 page non-explanation in the Catechism, and functionally there is no difference.
Personally I would have wanted the early church to adopt docetism, which is obviously the correct doctrine since that is the one used in Islam (aka upgraded Christianity).
Yeah if you don't say 'persons' at some point you're fucked. Might get away with "people," but then you're on thin ice.
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I think the official explanation is that Jesus was quoting one of the Psalms and he was fulfilling the prophecy, the Psalm was about the enemies of God mocking the faithful. And, becuase he was taking on all of humanity's sins at that moment, so he was giving a lament as a genuine sign that he was a fully corporeal human undergoing this trial. Also, saying that God had forsaken him isn't a loss of faith, just like the Psalm isn't losing faith in God, it's more like being a weepy baby and being overly dramatic whenever something goes wrong in your life.
The real explanation is that Jesus was a crazy white boy who talked mad shit and got executed by the Romans while all his bros stood by and watched. He thought he was the reincarnation of King David and he would kick all the Romans out of Jerusalem but ended but on a cross, so he probably did curse God as he was dying for all the bullshit that happened to him. Whoever wrote the Book of Mark then substituted in a quote from the Pslams because he didn't want Jesus' last words to be "Fuck you God". As a result the early church had to justify why Jesus would be talking to God when he was also God and ended up going with the Trinity.
Just because I can, let me put on my Catholic hat and give my best stab at explaining it, without Googling, from that perspective. See my other comment for the actual answer.
First off, don't try to understand the Trinity though analogies, period. The Trinity is conceptually unlike anything else that you can encounter, and trying to conceptualize it that way is likely to wind up being more like a heresy.
The Son, the Father, and the Holy Spirit, are three distinct persons, but they are all one God. Note that I did not say that they are parts of God. Each of them possesses the full essence of "Godness," but there is only one God. They don't break apart and form up again like Voltron, nor are they different aspects of God, nor are they different roles that God performs, each is a distinct person, while still possessing the full quality of Godness. They are not split personalities, just as you and I are not split personalities, but distinct people. What is it like? Again, it is like nothing, there is no comparison to it on Earth.
Each of these persons has existed since the beginning of time, none of them predate each other, none of them created - or perhaps I'd better stick with "made" - each other, and yet, the terms "Father" and "Son" are not merely symbolic or metaphorical, but literal. The Father "begat" the Son ("Begotten, not made, one in being with the Father"), while both of them have always existed. It's worth noting that God exists outside of time, so everything checks out. The Holy Spirit was there too.
They are all composed of the same substance, by the way - what that substance is, I have no idea - but in any case, they are consubstantial.
If you're lost at this point, it's worth looking at how this understanding was originally developed:
Rome created the Church to co-opt Christianity and establish uniform beliefs supportive of the EmperorRigorous debates between the smartest, most enlightened, and totally politically independent scholars that the fourth century had to offer, presided over by the Roman emperor Constantine, who had sincerely converted and was appointed by God to ruleover an imperialist slave state.Ahem. What I mean to say is, each of the seemingly arbitrary stipulations has a logical reason behind it. For example, if the Son were created by the Father, that would imply that the Son is lesser than the Father. If the Son was not literally begotten by the Father, that would imply that the Father only "symbolically" sent and sacrificed His only Son to save us, which would lessen the significance of it. If there was a time before the Son existed, that would imply that the Son is not eternal, that there could be a time when the Son will no longer exist, which is no good.
Likewise, with the various stipulations around the "Three Persons, One God" bit. To say that they are each fully divine, and distinct, so therefore there are three Gods, would contradict fundamental teachings from the Old Testament. To say that they are each parts that make up God would imply that Jesus was not fully divine, and that whenever He (or the Holy Spirit) split off to do something, the Father isn't wholly divine either. To say that they are merely aspects, personas, or split personalities, would imply that only that aspect was sent to suffer and die on the cross. If they were only distinct "roles" that God takes on, then when Jesus died, what, God just stopped playing that part? Or did the Father die at the same time?
The seemingly convoluted and contradictory teachings came about in a large part to establish and maintain the significance of Jesus's death. The implications of deviating from these teachings are not really apparent to lay people, but the Church scholars considered the implications of each word very carefully.
They definitely weren't using the same kind of reasoning behind "You can't end a sentence with a preposition because it'd be improper in Latin," only with hangups based around Greek philosophers like Plato. And they fought tooth and nail over this and burned everyone who disagreed, not because of any materialist or political reason, like, say, Rome only being willing to tolerate a single version of Christianity, which recognized the Emperor as being appointed by God. They were just, you know, really passionate, and anyway we all went a little crazy after 311, or something like that.
Anyway, it's not designed to make sense, or to be intuitive, and the reason people have trouble understanding it
aside from it being full of contradictionsisn't because "The Lord works in mysterious ways," but because the teachings were developed based around considerations of what scholars 1600 years ago thought that the Greek words implied. If you really want to understand the Catholic teachings on the Trinity, don't just rely on faith, or read the catechism, or even ask a priest - that's the route you should go if you don't actually care that much and just want some platitudes. Research the various heresies of the time, look up what positions and arguments were put forth by the Church scholars, study Plato too, and hell, maybe learn Greek while you're at it.Better yet, spend your time doing, like, anything else.
"Quantum mechanics is hard to understand and difficult to explain because it doesn't relate to anything in the observable scale of the world"
Catholics: Hold my communion wine.
Hold my literal not metaphorical or symbolic chalice of christs blood
Cannibal Cult except but the concerts are boring.
...
Oh wait shit I think I was thinking of Cannibal Corpse and then the joke doesn't work.
Pretty sure that's where their name comes from
"It doesn't make any sense because it's a unique concept unlike anything else in the universe" is a copout. It doesn't make sense because it's bullshit that doesn't logically follow. If each of the three parts are fully realized faces of God then they're all God and if there's only one God then they're all the same entity. If they are fully separate then there must be something which makes them different which means they can't all be fully God. You're allowed to just say "yeah this is bullshit that doesn't make any sense"
Oh, absolutely it's weak af. I mentioned at the start that my other comment is my actual answer, that it's all BS. This answer is a "steelman," for if you want a better understanding of the Catholic perspective.
...and also to show that I know wtf I'm talking about, since I had someone tell me that "Any kid in CCD could explain the Trinity" and referring to my experience learning about it as "remedial education." Since they then refused to explain it, I thought I'd do it for them.
Yes, but also, is a photon a wave or a particle? describing it as either doesn't fully describe a photon, nor does describing it as a "wave packet" or "wave-particle duality". It's a photon, the type of thing a photon is is a photon. There's no macro-scale equivalent, try not to think about it too hard if you're not doing physics at something.
and here I was thinking it was a way of getting around the 'omnipotent, omnicognizant, and all-loving' paradox. Mormonism really did itself a favor by breaking from this tradition.
I think the official doctrine is that they are "of the same essence" - metaphysically one and the same, but distinct as individuals. Or that's just another heresy and I'm going to hell - it's been a while since my church days.
No, that's correct. Or more formally
"Therefore in God there is only a Trinity, not a quaternity, since each of the three persons is that reality — that is to say substance, essence or divine nature-which alone is the principle of all things, besides which no other principle can be found. This reality neither begets nor is begotten nor proceeds; the Father begets, the Son is begotten and the holy Spirit proceeds. Thus there is a distinction of persons but a unity of nature. Although therefore the Father is one person, the Son another person and the holy Spirit another person, they are not different realities, but rather that which is the Father is the Son and the holy Spirit, altogether the same; thus according to the orthodox and catholic faith they are believed to be consubstantial."
Which makes about as much sense to most people as quoting a random Derrida paragraph.
I still haven't met anyone who can convince me one way or the other if Derrida was full of shit, trolling, or actually had something to say.
As someone who has read Derrida and listened to his (much more lucid) lectures, the answer is "Yes". He's mostly full of shit, and he's trolling in a deliberate attempt to obfuscate his ideas and prevent them from being co-opted by capitalist hegemony.
I may be spouuting a heresy so please correct me if i am wrong. I aint no christian anyway.
It is my understanding that we all have escence and form. My ecence is matter aranged in atoms molecules cells organs and then a person.
God is not made of matter it is made of divine substance wich in order to work has to have certain properties. Because of this when you make a person of it you can use the same substance to make another one. So they are consubstantial.
Close. The issue here is that Jesus is fully Human and Fully divine, in a hypostatic union (or a union of the two into one nature in practice, if you're Miaphysite which IIRC isn't considered heretical anymore)
So something being outwardly "matter" or not has no impact on its divine nature. See also Communion in Catholic/Orthodox (and some interpretations of Anglican doctrine) where the host is fully transformed into the divine but maintains its outward character.
Sorry for the late repply. Bussy holiday season. But dosent comunion involve transubstantiation. Wich esentialy changes the substance from regular mater to god stuff? The same can be saud for christ havig a human form and be substantially god.
But now that i think about it this would mean a shape is being predicated on god. Wich shouldnt be posible.
It does, but in order to dodge the "but it look like a biscuit, checkmate papists!" Argument there was some clarification on how that happens exactly.
Or to use the catechism
Is this copium? A bit, but there's also a few different schools of thought on this even within doctrine so they keep the mechanism a bit vague.
When I was in grad school, I had a seminar in the metaphysics of part/whole relationships. There was a girl in the class who worked on the metaphysics of the trinity as a meteorological relationship, and boy that shit was weird.
There's nothing to get. It's bullshit. Catholics have been arguing about it for well over a thousand years and have never been able to explain it to anyone. They regard it as a "mystery".
There are religions that think Catholics are polytheists because of the Trinity.
Average trinitarian fan vs average shahada enjoyer
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