But alone, aren't they still the Smith family? Yes, they are.

No, actually they aren't. Individually they are individuals. They aren't individually their family. Hannah Smith is not the Smith family. She is Hannah Smith. Hannah, John and Katie are the Smith family. Individually they are only themselves.

It is equal, Nathan. We are not disscussing numbers here, are we? No, because if we were I would leave this group. If I wanted to talk about numbers, I would go to school on weekends.

We are disscussing Jesus. God. He is a spirit. It's more like this.

Let's say you have three people in a family: Hannah Smith. John Smith. Katie Smith.

Together, they make up what? The Smith family!

But alone, aren't they still the Smith family? Yes, they are.

No it isn't like the trinity at all. The trinity claims to be three parts equal to 1 whole while also claiming each of the three parts is individually completely equal to the one whole at the same time. This is an impossibility.

1+1+1 does not equal 1

Nathan wrote: "It always cracks me up when a Christian says, "Well, of course the Trinity is hard and nearly impossible to understand. God is complex and difficult to understand."

Nope. The Trinity is hard to ..."

let's say u hav 1/3 of like, um pizza. With 2 other 1/3 slices...u get 1!! Yay! u understand fractions.

Now, moving on to how this realtes:
the Trinity is 3 parts. Each part is 1/3. So you c, Nathan, 1/3 times 3 is 1 whole. That is like the Trinity.

its weird, but we will never understand it.

Perhaps we will never understand it because it simply doesn't make any sense and is completely illogical.

H2O can be ice, steam and water, but it can't be those things all at the same time (and be individually ice, steam and water all at the same time too).

my dad told me think of water. water can be ice, seam, and a liquid. all water. thats how i think of the trinity. its weird, but we will never understand it.

You mean like how the world is ever changing and impersonal but how god is permanent and cares about me?

Well, no, actually I was thinking of something like the following:

The definition of Universe is "everything that exists".

As apparently self-aware entities with a sensory interface to an apparent external reality, our degree of knowledge of that external reality is necessarily filtered, incomplete, of finite range, and is dependent on our possible false memories of our own personal experience and a process of evidence-based inference and deduction that we call "reason". Reason has an axiomatic deductive basis (discovered by physicist Richard Cox and amplified tremendously by physicist E. T. Jaynes, references on request) but of course it cannot be formally proven as it is based on unprovable axioms. Those axioms are, however, not only reasonable they are the basis of being reasonable, so let's for the moment accept them. If you disagree, of course, I'd be happy to debate that separately.

Since the Universe (which may be much larger than the visible part of the one space-time continuum in which we appear to live) is everything that exists, God must be a subset of the Universe. It could be the whole set (a set is a subset of itself) or a strict subset (in which case the Universe can be partitioned into two sets -- the Universal set and the set formed from the disjunction of that set and the set that is God. It could be the empty set -- no God.

Note well that using nothing but reason, set theory, and sensible definitions of words, it is apparent that God cannot have created the Universe, since It is a part, possibly all of the Universe. Furthermore, God could not have created that part, because the Universe is all that exists at all times, places, geometries and so forth. "Creation" is a dynamic process, and the Universe is manifestly a time-independent static set by definition. In fact, in set theory there is no contingency or ordinality (certainly not without additional axioms) so one cannot even apply terms like "logically necessary" to the Universal set. It is "existentially necessary" simply because it is the set of everything that exists including all possible contingent relations that might be posited or observed among its components. (As an aside, we can also ignore all the objections of mathematicians or logicians to Universal sets because it is an existential set. This is the difference between physics and mathematics. You cannot argue that a Universal set does not exist on mathematical grounds when you are empirically grounded in one; you can only seek mathematics that permits you to describe it, as a fait accompli as it were.)

Now, back to God.

Let us perform a contingent analysis. Suppose God exists. Is there a model of God that is not contradictory, that is, a set of "God properties" we can ascribe to some possible subset of the Universe (whether or not we can observe it -- note well that the Universal set might contain entire disjoint space-time continua that we cannot in principle observe because they are simply completely decoupled so that no information or energy transfer occurs between them)?

It is quite specifically this question that I hold is amenable to reason, allowing one to derive certain conditional conclusions, most of them (interestingly enough) associated with information theory and the hypothesized "God properties" of omniscience and omnipresence.

As a single example, an omniscient God must, as a subset of the Universe, contain a complete representation of the information content of the entire Universe. That's what "omniscient" means. If we hypothesize God that is both omniscient and a strict subset of the Universe, then the information content of the non-God subset must be perfectly duplicated in the God subset. In addition to a perfect and complete representation of state, the God subset has to be able to perfectly model any or all of the time evolution of the non-God subset or equivalently store its state at all times without modelling. In addition, God must possess a perfect awareness of Its own state. That awareness cannot be the information itself, it must be an encoded awareness of the state of the parts of God upon which the higher level awareness of all of this is encoded.

This forces us to make a choice -- God can self encode the information of God state, in which case God can be no more "aware" of this self-encoded microstate of God itself than you or I are aware of the microstate of the neurons in our brain we are using to think of the microstate of the neurons in our brain as I type and you read this, or God can encode the information in something else, the way we might use many neurons to think about and remember the state of each neuron, one at a time. This latter process requires a geometric explosion in the number of neurons needed to record and be "aware" of the neurons being used to be aware of neurons being aware of neurons... being aware of the detailed state of the non-God part of the Universe, with each encoding possessing entropy that can only be resolved with still greater "self-awareness" and processing capability. If the Universe is open dimensionally, one can at least imagine an infinite cascade of entropy and complexity and encoding. Alternatively God could be omniscient about the non-God part of the Universe but could never know Itself (and hence not be omniscient at all), contradicting the idea of God and leaving God with the same basic problems we face, tremendously amplified. God can never know why God does or thinks or wants things, for example, God can only do or think or want them because of imperfect knowledge of the inner state that gives rise to these desires or actions.

The other alternative is that God self encodes all information about Itself and does not encode that information at any collectivized level, or at least not at a collectivized Universal level. In that case, knowledge of not-God requires a perfect duplication of the non-God state in the God subset. This is perfectly degenerate, and we can information-theoretically (in all cases) collapse the non-God part into the God part and say that as far as information is concerned:

Theorem: God is the Universe

To summarize, we can use "pure" reason -- mathematical reason -- plus a bit of information theory from computer science or physics and conclude the contingent truth that if God exists, then God is the Universe within a trivial information theoretic degeneracy. Further, if the Universe is closed, God is "static" and does not "think" or "do", God simply "is" -- in a perfect identity with the Universe in a zero entropy state. If the Universe is dimensionally open, it is at least possible that God as the Universe possesses enough complexity to become a Universal Turing engine that is self-representing and yet has infinite "pseudoentropy" to use for a kind of awareness or free will. The math for the last bit is a kind of hairy, though, so I'll leave that as a conjecture.

Conclusion -- pandeism is a consistent religious belief that in no way contradicts science. The Universe equals God which is what it is, not what we want it to be or imagine that it is. There are further contingent truths one can work down to. Panendeism (open pandeism) is a consistent religious belief that in no way contradicts science that permits the Universe to be, after a fashion, infinitely self-aware.

Theistic religious beliefs obviously contradict these basic theorems of the God axiom and are thereby a priori false quite independent of evidence.

rgb

rgb wrote: "As I have argued elsewhere, God itself is not a automatically contradictory concept. If God is hypothesized to exist and to have "sane" or "standard model of God" properties, one can reason a bit about God, and make certain empirical conclusions about God from studying the world."

You mean like how the world is ever changing and impersonal, but how god is permanent and cares about me?

Wait...if the world is constantly changing, and impersonal...shouldn't god be the same way?

No no...that scares me! I don't want the world to be ever changing. Change is scary. And I want the world to care about me! In fact, I want to be the most important person to someone powerful!

So I reject reality, and I pull on the big comfy warm pajamas of God. No longer need I fear change, for my god is eternal. No longer need I fear being irrelevant, my god has made the world for me!

Everything is WONDERFUL!!!

Really, what's to debate about the trinity? It's akin to debating how Santa can fit all of those presents on his sleigh. Frankly, I wonder what the elves are doing making wooden toys for children...this is part of the myth that doesn't really work in the modern age; everyone knows that toys come from China.

If it were Christianity we'd just update the myth to say that elves only made the toys "in the olden days" and now science shows us that god allows the Chinese to make toys for him, since he's so busy.

But I'm sorry, I've digressed. You wanted to talk about how to explain the trinity to someone new in Christ. Here's my opinion on that: Hit him over the head, tell him about it, and if he doesn't believe you then just keep hitting him on the head.

Lightly, of course.

To add to Nathan's comment, I should point out that the early Christian church was not in agreement on this issue. In fact, there was an entire variant (Arianism):

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Arianism

that proposed pretty much the opposite of trinitarianism.

One can find plenty of evidence in the gospels against trinitarianism, by the way. One has to cherry pick favorable verses to support it; I can just as easily cherry pick favorable verses to deny it. My favorite such verse is:


Matthew 12:31-32
Wherefore I say unto you, All manner of sin and blasphemy shall be forgiven unto men: but the blasphemy against the Holy Ghost shall not be forgiven unto men. And whosoever speaketh a word against the Son of man, it shall be forgiven him: but whosoever speaketh against the Holy Ghost, it shall not be forgiven him, neither in this world, neither in the world to come.

Mark 3:29
But he that shall blaspheme against the Holy Ghost hath never forgiveness, but is in danger of eternal damnation.

Luke 12:10
But unto him that blasphemeth against the Holy Ghost it shall not be forgiven.

In all three cases (but especially Mark, whom of course the other two are quoting) Jesus seems to be saying that in fact blaspheming against e.g. the father or the son is not actual blasphemy -- perhaps because they aren't really God. God is only the holy spirit, and it is only blaspheming against it that matters.

Of course that is contradicted lots of other places, but I am fond of this for a very special reason.

It is one of the lines in the Gospel of Thomas, found in the Nag Hammadi codices in a jar in the Egyptian desert after being preserved for 1600 years. TGOT, for those coming in late, is a collection only of the verbatim sayings of Jesus. Thomas, for those that have come in very late, was also known as Didymus Judas, and both Thomas and Didymus mean twin. There are reasons to believe that if Jesus is in any sense an actual historical person, Thomas (Judas) is his twin brother. In any event, Thomas was definitely an Apostle ("doubting Thomas", who obviously missed getting the word that Jesus predicted his own resurrection and was chided by John for doubting it) and wrote extensively. The same people that embraced the trinitarian view, however, rejected Thomas's books and they were systematically suppressed and destroyed to the point where the discovery of a complete copy at Nag Hammadi is more or less a "miracle".

There is no real reason even today to doubt that TGOT is any less "authentic" than the other Gospels. Indeed, since we have a very, very early manuscript, it is very likely less corrupted than the regular Gospels, of which only copies of copies of copies of copies... have survived. Was it written by Thomas, who walked with Jesus? Who knows. All one can say is that there is a substantial correlation between Thomas and Mark, one that is not explicable by the Markan hypothesis, more than enough to validate it as being what it says it is, in some ways more believable than the obviously mythicized "stories" of the regular gospels.

In TGOT, we find the following direct quote of Jesus:

44 Jesus said, "Whoever blasphemes against the Father will be forgiven, and whoever blasphemes against the son will be forgiven, but whoever blasphemes against the holy spirit will not be forgiven, either on earth or in heaven."

Whoa! Jesus said, in a book only of Jesus's sayings. And it makes it rather explicit -- the "father" is not God, as God is not a creator or father of all things. The "son" is not God -- Jesus is pretty much the same as anybody else (a thing he says repeatedly in both the regular gospels and elsewhere, only nobody listens). Only the holy spirit is God -- a pervasive and ubiquitous spirit that is in all things, perhaps that is all things. No wonder Nicaea rejected it

This isn't to endorse it, only to point out that there is no "evidence" for trinitarianism; only dogma. There is plenty of evidence against trinitarianism (like the entire Old Testament, for example). From the point of view of Judaism, Chrisianity is just a complex heresy that blasphemes the one God and elevates a two-bit huckster messiah wannabe that failed utterly to rescue Israel from Rome or prevent the destruction of the Temple. It's all a matter of just which divinely inspired lines you want to quote. With such an abundance of lines that say the opposite things, you can justify anything you want, and given the purging of all of the Gnostic gospels, Arianism, the work of Thomas, and the demotion of the Apocrypha to not quite officially sanctioned status that occurred when Constantine told the church to decide what they believed (a mere 300 years after there was any hope of getting an authoritative answer, sound evidence that the early church was little more than an explosion of myth making and rewriting and sect invention) it seems likely that there was probably a lot more said against the Trinity in early church documents that were not as fortunate as the NH codices and did not survive.

The winners, as it turns out, get to write the history books. Consequently the losers always turn out to be the bad guys, the blasphemers, the condemned, the ones God doesn't love. The Bible is full of that -- when Israel wins, it is because God is on its side. When it loses, it is because God is punishing them for burning the wrong incense or failing to do enough wave sacrifices of the right animals. One wonders just what motivated the winners and losers of all of those other tribes that fought interminable battles and won or lost never having heard of Jehovah -- was it also victories because their Gods were on their side, losses when those Gods turned against them? It was.

So the winners at Nicaea got to write the Bible that became the Bible, the one that Constantine actually professionally (for the day) published, with real live professional scribes and in large numbers. The manuscripts of the losers were hunted down and burned; the "heretics" who dared to disagree were beaten, imprisoned, and sometimes burned along with their heretical books.

The upshot of which is that the foundation of trinitarianism is suspect even within the Church. Pick one set of verses and its just peachy. Pick another and it isn't. Allow for the winner effect and insertions and redacting of the documents used to justify it (or not) it becomes less certain (either way) still. Go back to the OT and it becomes REALLY unlikely.

Personally, I'm with Nathan on this one. It makes absolutely no sense, with or without its questionable scriptural support. It just makes the whole thing all incomprehensible and inscrutable like a divine mystery variation of Christianity, which of course is what it is -- the particular one that "won" the superorganismal competition and eliminated its competitors by force majeur.

As I have argued elsewhere, God itself is not a automatically contradictory concept. If God is hypothesized to exist and to have "sane" or "standard model of God" properties, one can reason a bit about God, and make certain empirical conclusions about God from studying the world. The trinitarian notion directly contradicts many of those properties, which is why Arius opposed it. Well, one reason that he opposed it. The other reasons were pretty silly too.

rgb

It always cracks me up when a Christian says, "Well, of course the Trinity is hard and nearly impossible to understand. God is complex and difficult to understand."

Nope. The Trinity is hard to understand because it doesn't make any sense. It is an impossibility.

A quote from Jamie Whyte:

"It takes only the most basic arithmetic to see that three things cannot be one thing. The doctrine of the Unity of the Trinity is inconsistent with the fact that three does not equal one.

It is also inconsistent with the fact that identity is a transitive relation: that if A is identical with B, and B is identical with C, then A is identical with C. If the Son is identical with God, and God is identical with the Holy Ghost, then the Son must be identical with the Holy Ghost. They are one and the same thing. But those who assert the Unity of the trinity deny this last implication; they deny that Jesus is the Holy ghost."

This also implies something else. If A = B = C, then A, B, and C can only be identical. They cannot have differences. That means the Holy Ghost is exactly the same as God which is exactly the same as Jesus. Either they are exactly the same, or they are different. However, they cannot be exactly the same and have different qualities at the same time.

Some of the above is a bit technical in some places but I think describing God the Trinity as a family and as love reveals alot.

Trinity and love.

'The reason God is a Trinity is becasue God is love. Love requires twoness, in fact threeness: the lover, the beloved, and the act, or relationship, of love between them. God is Trinity because God is love itself in its completeness.
The doctrine of the Trinity makes the most concrete and practical difference to our lives that can possibly be imagined. Because God is Trinity, God is love. Because God is love, love is the supreme value. Becasue love is the supreme value, it is the meaning of our lives, for we are created in Gods image. The fact that God is a Trinity is the reason why love is the meaning of our life and the reason why nothing makes us as happy as love: because that is inscribed in our design. We are happy only when we stop trying to be what we are not designed to be. Cats are not happy living like dogs and saints are not happy living like sinners.

The doctrine of the Trinity also tells us the nature of love. Love is altruistic, not egotistic. God is other-love because he has otherness within himself; he is more than one person.

Pope John Paul II says: "God in his deepest mystery is not a solitude but a family, since he has in himself fatherhood, sonship, and the essence of the family, which is love." The doctrine of the Trinity means that the family is not a mere sociological or biological human fact but "goes all the way up" into the nature of God.

The conventional division between the "liberal" emphasis on love and the "conservative" emphasis on dogma completely breaks down in the Trinity. For here it is the ultimate dogma that is the real foundation for love as the ultimate value.
One might say that God himself is both a "stick in the mud conservative" (the Trinity is his unchangeable nature) and a "bleeding heart liberal" (the crucifixion revealed the deepest secret of his heart).'
'Catholic Christianity.'

Hi Vanessa thats a good question that I myself would like to know.

I had a look at my trusty book 'Catholic Christianity' and found a couple of good quotes that explain it quite well. I think this can be used by other Christian denominations. In fact a brother from the Church of Christ introduced the book to me.

'The doctrine sounds strange, even shocking, even after it is explained that this does not mean three Gods or three parts to God.
We should not be suprised that the real God suprises us. Even created reality shocks our expectations- for instance Einsteins theory of relativity. In fact the reason for the doctrine of the trinity is similiar to the reason Einstiens theory of relativity or any other good scientific theory; it alone explains all the data...
The data controls the theory.

The datum for Christian theology is first of all Christ himself. On the one hand he called God his father, prayed to him, loved him, taught his teaching, and obeyed his will. On the other hand, he claimed to be one with and equal to the father. And also he promised to send the Spirit. The scripture data from which the Church derives the doctrine of the trinity are essentially
a. that there is only one God(Deut6:4)
b. that the Father is God (Jn 5:18)
c. that the son is God (Jn 8:58); and
d. that the Holy spirit is God (Mt 28:19)

The data are historical: Gods progressive revelation of himself, first as the transcendent Creator "outside" us; then as the incarnate Saviour "beside" us; then as the indwelling spirit "inside" us.
The reason for this progression, first Father (Old Testament), then Son (Gospels), then Spirit (Acts of the Apostles and the Church), is found in Gods very being, which is love and in the purpose and motive for Gods self-revelation to man, which is love. For love's aim is always greater intimacy, deeper union with the beloved; so the stages of Gods self-revelation are stages of increasing intimacy with man(from "outside" to "beside" to "inside").

As the Catechism explains it, "Gods very being is love. By sending his only Son and the Spirit of Love in the fullness of time, God has revealed his innermost secret: God himself is an eternal exchange of Love, Father, Son, and Holy Spirit, and he has destined us to share in that exchange." '

Well, I just have never seen a debate team for adults in my area. Not sure they make them.

Sorry, I don't know why I keep sending multiple posts.

Really, you seem like you'd would have excel at it.

I love debating religion, but I also enjoy debating other topics. I'm not a part of a debate team or anything like that.

Nathan, really, thanks for expressing your opinion, I know where you stand on the question.

Funny thing is Nathan; I've always wanted to be apart of the debate team at my school, but never joined them. I guess, I am a nondebatable type of gal. :)

Not to sound like a jerkette. :) Where/are you apart of a debate team? Or is just debating religion, your passion?

Regards,
Vanessa

Not to sound like a jerk, but try to describe it to me. That will be good practice for you, and at least you know I will be critical of it and show you where your explanation is lacking.

Thanks for expressing your opinion, Nathan.

Next....

The Trinity is a bit of an oxymoron. Jesus can't be completely God and one part of God at the same time. There can't be three separate elements of God which are also individually 100% God at the same time. So I don't think you will have much luck explaining it.

What do you know about the trinity? What would be a good scenario or example, to describe the trinity to someone who is new in Christ?