A quick Trinity question

[Arkitech]

Yeh I know YART. Before I start let me just say that I'm not a christian or an atheist, so I don't have any hidden agendas in this thread. With that being said I've always been a little confused in trying to understand the Trinity. During the time that I was reading and studying the bible it always appeared to me that God and Jesus were seperate entities, so what I'm curious about is where does the trinity concept come from? Are there any scriptures that lay the foundation for the trinity belief?

 

[agnitrate]

Was I the only one that came into this thread hoping to find pictures or a discussion about Trinity from The Matrix?

That being said, I'm Catholic and don't really know the 'purpose' of it. It's just how it is represented, I guess. God and Jesus are different but basically the same person. Bump so somebody that knows better can help you.

p.s. Some pics of Trinity COULD help this thread

mmmm carrie ann moss..

-silver

 

[Arkitech]

Originally posted by: agnitrate
Was I the only one that came into this thread hoping to find pictures or a discussion about Trinity from The Matrix?

That being said, I'm Catholic and don't really know the 'purpose' of it. It's just how it is represented, I guess. God and Jesus are different but basically the same person. Bump so somebody that knows better can help you.

p.s. Some pics of Trinity COULD help this thread

mmmm carrie ann moss..

-silver

LMAO

is she going to be in the next Matrix

 

[agnitrate]

Originally posted by: Arkitech

Originally posted by: agnitrate
Was I the only one that came into this thread hoping to find pictures or a discussion about Trinity from The Matrix?

That being said, I'm Catholic and don't really know the 'purpose' of it. It's just how it is represented, I guess. God and Jesus are different but basically the same person. Bump so somebody that knows better can help you.

p.s. Some pics of Trinity COULD help this thread

mmmm carrie ann moss..

-silver

LMAO

is he going to be in the next Matrix

Who, Jesus? I dunno man I'm sure he would watch it though if it came out in Heaven. Who wouldn't love a great action flick?

-silver

 

[Arkitech]

 

[DougyDanger]

Originally posted by: Arkitech
Yeh I know YART. Before I start let me just say that I'm not a christian or an atheist, so I don't have any hidden agendas in this thread. With that being said I've always been a little confused in trying to understand the Trinity. During the time that I was reading and studying the bible it always appeared to me that God and Jesus were seperate entities, so what I'm curious about is where does the trinity concept come from? Are there any scriptures that lay the foundation for the trinity belief?

God the Father
Jesus his son
The Holy Spirit

Those are the 3 persons of the Trinity. Now what is the Trinity. In a nutshell it is a concept of these three persons being one. Think of it as an egg. Shell, yolk and white...but all an egg. Its a very simplistic way to put it, but more or less accurate.

Now where in the Bible do we find this concept? No where is the term Trinity (is Hebrew or Greek counterpart of course) found. Rather it is a word we give to a concept that is expressed and found in scripture. The most striking example of the Trinigy is at Jesus' baptism. We read that Jesus was baptised. After a voice from heaven says, "This is my Son, with whom I am well pleased." So we have the father commenting on the son. We then read that "the Spirit decended as a dove". Basically a dove hovered over his head as a physical representation of the Holy Spirit. So at that moment you had the Trinity revealed. Son in human form, HS in some kind of physical manifestation, and the Father speaking from heaven. There are other references as well. When asked who Jesus is, Jesus answered, "Before Abraham was born, I AM." *(John 8:58) If you remember from the OT when Moses asked God what name he should give Pharoe, God said, "Tell him I AM sends me". So here we have Jesus saying to the Jews, (paraphrase) "Before your patriach Abraham was born, I was (or was with) God in heaven". If you read on you'll find that they then proceded to try and stone him. Why? He just called himself God and the punishment was death. Only catch is that he really WAS God. We also read in John 1:1 that, "In the begining was the word, and the word was with God and the word WAS God. The word became flesh and made his dwelling among us." "The Word" is another name given to pre-man Jesus. Here in John we are told that Jesus was with God and was God for all eternity. He did not come into being with his birth. And later in John we read that Jesus responds to critics with, "I and the Father are one." I think they tried again to stone him.

So basically the concept of the Trinity is gathered from all of scripture. There is no one passage that clearly lays out the relationship. Its things as sublte as God speaking in the plural during creation, "Let us make man in our image, after out likeness" to the Baptism of Jesus where all three are present.

Thats a very basic explanation off the top of my head. Entire volumes of material are dedicated to this concept. Got more questions? Feel free to ask and I'll do a little more legwork.

 

[Arkitech]

I guess the whole concept is kinda confusing to me. I was always under the impression that the God, Jesus and the holy spirit were 3 seperate things. I don't understand how they are considered one when through out the scriptures it paints a father and son relationship between God and Jesus. In fact in some accounts Jesus actually prays to God which would appear to be a example of seperate people.

On the other side of the coin I can understand how God and Jesus can be the same in terms of purpose, because Jesus often said that he had to do the will of his father so in that sense they are united in goals and purpose. Then there's the issue of the ransom sacrifice, how could God send a ransom if he was sending a part of himself? How could he die and resurrect himself?

I don't know what the deal is really, I was just curious in hearing someone explain the belief

 

[Analog]

The Trinity is not totally revealed to us. We get glimpses of it.

 

[Greyd]

Originally posted by: agnitrate
Was I the only one that came into this thread hoping to find pictures or a discussion about Trinity from The Matrix?

That being said, I'm Catholic and don't really know the 'purpose' of it. It's just how it is represented, I guess. God and Jesus are different but basically the same person. Bump so somebody that knows better can help you.

p.s. Some pics of Trinity COULD help this thread

mmmm carrie ann moss..

-silver

hahahhaha

 

[Greyd]

Originally posted by: DougyDanger

Originally posted by: Arkitech
Yeh I know YART. Before I start let me just say that I'm not a christian or an atheist, so I don't have any hidden agendas in this thread. With that being said I've always been a little confused in trying to understand the Trinity. During the time that I was reading and studying the bible it always appeared to me that God and Jesus were seperate entities, so what I'm curious about is where does the trinity concept come from? Are there any scriptures that lay the foundation for the trinity belief?

God the Father
Jesus his son
The Holy Spirit

Those are the 3 persons of the Trinity. Now what is the Trinity. In a nutshell it is a concept of these three persons being one. Think of it as an egg. Shell, yolk and white...but all an egg. Its a very simplistic way to put it, but more or less accurate.

Now where in the Bible do we find this concept? No where is the term Trinity (is Hebrew or Greek counterpart of course) found. Rather it is a word we give to a concept that is expressed and found in scripture. The most striking example of the Trinigy is at Jesus' baptism. We read that Jesus was baptised. After a voice from heaven says, "This is my Son, with whom I am well pleased." So we have the father commenting on the son. We then read that "the Spirit decended as a dove". Basically a dove hovered over his head as a physical representation of the Holy Spirit. So at that moment you had the Trinity revealed. Son in human form, HS in some kind of physical manifestation, and the Father speaking from heaven. There are other references as well. When asked who Jesus is, Jesus answered, "Before Abraham was born, I AM." *(John 8:58) If you remember from the OT when Moses asked God what name he should give Pharoe, God said, "Tell him I AM sends me". So here we have Jesus saying to the Jews, (paraphrase) "Before your patriach Abraham was born, I was (or was with) God in heaven". If you read on you'll find that they then proceded to try and stone him. Why? He just called himself God and the punishment was death. Only catch is that he really WAS God. We also read in John 1:1 that, "In the begining was the word, and the word was with God and the word WAS God. The word became flesh and made his dwelling among us." "The Word" is another name given to pre-man Jesus. Here in John we are told that Jesus was with God and was God for all eternity. He did not come into being with his birth. And later in John we read that Jesus responds to critics with, "I and the Father are one." I think they tried again to stone him.

So basically the concept of the Trinity is gathered from all of scripture. There is no one passage that clearly lays out the relationship. Its things as sublte as God speaking in the plural during creation, "Let us make man in our image, after out likeness" to the Baptism of Jesus where all three are present.

Thats a very basic explanation off the top of my head. Entire volumes of material are dedicated to this concept. Got more questions? Feel free to ask and I'll do a little more legwork.

Nice explanation.

 

[DougyDanger]

You hit the nail on the head...two sides of the same coin. But its actually 3 sides. It does often look like God and Jesus were two different entities. But its clear that both regarded the other as equal and the same. Yes, not exactly something easy to wrap your brain around.

We can barely understand God's creation, much less His nature.

 

[Moonbeam]

Well in my opinion the Trinity thingi is a distraction. It leads to the notion that God came and went, that Jesus was somebody other than a Man god or enlighten being or Avitar as some call it, the revelation of man fully realized, at 100% of what he really is. It leads, therefore to a notion of exclucivity, that just one dude was fully there instead of the many who have come and are always here. Islam straightens this matter out a bit by pointing out that Jesus was a legitimate profit of God but that God is one, there is no God but God and that no man can be God. The problem is that while no man can be God, a God man is God because there is no man, as commonly understood, in his essential manifestation. He's as much God as you will ever see in that God's will and his will are interchangable. So the problem I have with religion is that they tend wo worship the externals, Christ, Mohamed, God in Heaven, when the real purpose, I think, is to become conscious. In that way one becomes conscious of God, or God conscious, however you wish to view it. It means that one has to overcome the illusion of evil, the feeling that one is worthless as one was told. In order to do that you have not only to overcome your own self hate, but the hate of everybody else who feels envious if you try to free yourself from the sh!t they are in. That is why, in mythology, the journey to consciousness or heaven always takes you through hell, past snarling vicious dogs and savage taunting entities that threaten and tell you you are worthless. We are tied up by the Debble and he is our illusions as to the nature of reality.

 

[fonzinator]

Here is a very educated, Biblically supported explination of the Trinity. Give it a read...it explains it much better than any of us on here ever could. Let me know what you think if you read it.

 

[ryzmah]

There are ideas throughout, but the main argument for a trinitarian view of distinct persons but one being instead of the arian view (named for Arius) of separate beings comes from the first chapter of John's gospel. His description of christ as "the Word" makes a point to show that he wasn't a created being but is a part of God "In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God ....." The view argued by athanasius of distinct persons but one being was confirmed to be the orthodox view in the 4th century or so (before the separation of the eastern orthodox church and the roman catholic church) and the arian view was declared heretical.

 

[Greyd]

Originally posted by: fonzinator
Here is a very educated, Biblically supported explination of the Trinity. Give it a read...it explains it much better than any of us on here ever could. Let me know what you think if you read it.

Piper. Nice

 

[fonzinator]

Originally posted by: Greyd

Originally posted by: fonzinator
Here is a very educated, Biblically supported explination of the Trinity. Give it a read...it explains it much better than any of us on here ever could. Let me know what you think if you read it.

Piper. Nice

I have the immense privilege of learning from him every Sunday

 

[Greyd]

WOW very nice

 

[Raiden256]

Anyone else think that the Holy Spirit needs a better agent?

God and Jesus get all the airtime...

 

[everman]

Here's an explanation I found by Frank E. Pastore: (excuse any typographical erros for I just had to type it out from a paper.) I can't say it is easy to understand either, but interesting.

The three non-identical persons of the Trinity share equally in the same one set of divine attributes we call the Divine Nature. The father, Son, and Holy Spirit stand in an internal relation to one another. Each member is not a part of God, each member is fully God. There are three persons, three centers of consciousness, or three "I's", sharing the same set of divine attributes. There are three "who's" and one "what." for example, frank, gina, and christina all share human nature, but humans stand in an external relation to one another. human nature is multiply exemplifiable, but the Trinity is necessarily tri-exemplifiable. The incarnation of God involved the second Person of the Trinity taking a human nature to Himself, such that Jesus Christ is both fully God and fully man, tow "whats" and one "who". Literally God is not a person, God is tri-personal. Saying "Jesus is God" does not mean He is identical to God, nor is He "one-third God," what we mean is that Jesus shares fully in the divine nature and is fully God the Son. Jesus is not identical to Godhood, Jesus has Godhood. The "is" in "Jesus is God" is an "is" of essential predication, meaning Jesus has the essence of Deity. Just as I am not identical to human nature, I am identical to an individual human nature, that is, I have human nature, humans do not have me.
Thus what we mean by the word "God" is an inseparable tri-personal being that shares the same one Divine essence: three different Persons of the same Divine Nature. It would be a contradiction if we were saying "three persons are one person, or three natures are one nature." Rather we are affirming that there are three persons and one nature.

 

[BMdoobieW]

mmmm carrie ann moss..

-silver