How can God be simultaneously a Trinity of Persons, and yet one?

[LoveofTruth]

Isaiah 48: 15. I, even I, have spoken; yea, I have called him: I have brought him, and he shall make his way prosperous. 16. Come ye near unto me, hear ye this; I have not spoken in secret from the beginning; from the time that it was, there am I: and now the Lord GOD, and his Spirit, hath sent me. 17. Thus saith the LORD, thy Redeemer, the Holy One of Israel; I am the LORD thy God which teacheth thee to profit, which leadeth thee by the way that thou shouldest go.”

Notice the three “I’s” in the text and the three yet one all over these verses.

The Lord God is speaking of the Lord God and His Spirit sending him. Then it says who is speaking and mentions three and said for all three “I am the Lord thy God”.

Notice the commas and then the punctuation.

This section is a very strong Trinity section in the Bible. And there are many more.

 

[Dan Perez]

This is something that's bugged me for quite a while and I can't seem to get my head around it.
I constantly see things which, to my mind, seem to contradict, sometimes God is referred to as part or the whole of the Holy Trinity, but then in the Creeds, we profess that we believe in one God.
In short, I struggle with the idea of 3-in-1 and 1-in-3 aspect of God

Read 1 Thess 5:23 reads , and may your ENTIRE , SPIRIT , and SOUL and BODY , be kept blamelessly at the coming of our Lord Jesus Christ ..

#1 And here is another three , #1 in ECCL 12:7 the SPIRIT goes back to God that gave it .

#2 When you die your BODY goes into a GRAVE >

#3 Your SOUL at death goes to PARADISE 2 Cor 12:1-4 which I call the intermediate state .

dan p

 

[truefiction1]

What do you think of “Christian Beliefs” that the Bible Doesn’t Teach An article specifically about the Trinity is found at What is the Biblical basis for disbelief in the doctrine of the Trinity?, also see Is the Doctrine of the Trinity Polytheistic?. Proceed to that site with great caution, because Lee Woofenden is a fringe teacher of a Swedenborgian cult.
The following are erroneous illustrations of the Trinity:
Western Church: https://leewoof.files.wordpress.com/2016/07/holy_trinity-fresco-by_luca_rossetti_da_orta-1738-9.jpg
Eastern Orthodoxy: https://leewoof.files.wordpress.com/2016/07/trinity-by-andrei_rublev-1411_or_1425-27.jpg
I almost feel like laughing at them.

The Orthodox icon is called "The hospitality of Abraham". It's the three angels who came to Abraham who are depicted, and considered a type.

 

[The Liturgist]

Kind of how I picture things...

View attachment 222926

The only slight problem with this model is thar it could be seen as promoting adoptionism, which you obviously reject, but my point is that it fails to show how the Only Begotten Son and Word (as described in the troparion Ho Monogenes) condescended to put on our humanity, before his passion, resurrection and ascension, and it fails to show his involvement in creation.

Also as a more minor nitpick, our friend @prodromos and I find the Flat Earth and Space as a Conspiracy / Faked Lunar landing theories to be greatly annoying, and I would fear people interpreting the flat depiction of the world as literal, and also some people who see that diagram might falsely allege that you are suggesting that our Lord was crucified in Northern Colombia near the swampy and impassable border with Panama.

 

[The Liturgist]

The Orthodox icon is called "The hospitality of Abraham". It's the three angels who came to Abraham who are depicted, and considered a type.

Indeed so, and for many months I used it as my profile pic.

 

[The Liturgist]

What do you think of “Christian Beliefs” that the Bible Doesn’t Teach An article specifically about the Trinity is found at What is the Biblical basis for disbelief in the doctrine of the Trinity?, also see Is the Doctrine of the Trinity Polytheistic?. Proceed to that site with great caution, because Lee Woofenden is a fringe teacher of a Swedenborgian cult.
The following are erroneous illustrations of the Trinity:
Western Church: https://leewoof.files.wordpress.com/2016/07/holy_trinity-fresco-by_luca_rossetti_da_orta-1738-9.jpg
Eastern Orthodoxy: https://leewoof.files.wordpress.com/2016/07/trinity-by-andrei_rublev-1411_or_1425-27.jpg
I almost feel like laughing at them.

Belief in the Trinity is part of the Christian Forums Statement of Faith, along with the Nicene Creed.

 

[Petros2015]

The only slight problem with this model is thar it could be seen as promoting adoptionism, which you obviously reject

Huh. I had to look that up; yes you are right I would reject that and Adoptionists would probably love it.

my point is that it fails to show how the Only Begotten Son and Word (as described in the troparion Ho Monogenes) condescended to put on our humanity, before his passion, resurrection and ascension, and it fails to show his involvement in creation.

I'm afraid I lack a cathedral dome, time and talent to paint that Best I could do with 15 minutes and powerpoint.

Also as a more minor nitpick, our friend @prodromos and I find the Flat Earth and Space as a Conspiracy / Faked Lunar landing theories to be greatly annoying, and I would fear people interpreting the flat depiction of the world as literal, and also some people who see that diagram might falsely allege that you are suggesting that our Lord was crucified in Northern Colombia near the swampy and impassable border with Panama.

We definitely share that annoyance lol. The only sense in which I find the earth to be Flat is in comparison to Heavenly reality. This was a pretty old post I am guessing. But, in retrospect, it looks to me like somewhere near the swampy and impassable border with Panama, a sinner was adopted as a son of God through the action of the Trinity and Christ's sacrifice on the cross.

Thanks for revisiting and commenting on my post (I think this was the first comment in 5 years, but enjoyable for me to revisit it)

 

[RileyG]

The Trinity is a mystery, a communion of persons, yet there is one God.

 

[Fervent]

Trinity is, in a way, an analogy. Our concept of personhood does not translate neatly to a being that is immanent and omnipresent, near and far. He is simply unlike anything in creation, so all we are affirming when we affirm the Trinity is that the Holy Spirit, the Father, and the Son are all fully God yet each is distinct from the others. Pressed to hard, and the analogy becomes heterodox in some fashion. Be that modalism, partialism, or some other -ism. We can only affirm, but not understand, that God is in Trinity.

 

[RDKirk]

Trinity is, in a way, an analogy. Our concept of personhood does not translate neatly to a being that is immanent and omnipresent, near and far. He is simply unlike anything in creation, so all we are affirming when we affirm the Trinity is that the Holy Spirit, the Father, and the Son are all fully God yet each is distinct from the others. Pressed to hard, and the analogy becomes heterodox in some fashion. Be that modalism, partialism, or some other -ism. We can only affirm, but not understand, that God is in Trinity.

Athenagoras delved slightly into that in 140AD. All he could affirm is that by calling one Person "Father" and one person "Son" was absolutely not to infer an physical filial relationship between them, such as the pagans of the time imagined for, as an example, Jupiter and Hercules. But even one generation removed from the Apostles, to say what it was not was as good as he could do.

 

[Divide]

#3 Your SOUL at death goes to PARADISE 2 Cor 12:1-4 which I call the intermediate state .

Perhaps that incident took place before Jesus died on the cross and went and freed the captives from paradise. Now it is new covenant and, absent from the body, present with the Lord. So Paradis (Abrahams Bosom) is not used anymore.

Hell needed the room anyway because it was expanding.