The Trinity

Up until now I've always had a problem with the concept of the trinity. I am still not sure that I fully comprehend it.My personal perspective on the trinity is that there are three persons equal in authority and power made of the same substance and forming one God head: The Father, The Son, The Holy Spirit.My questions are this:1) Does each of these three persons have a seperate free will and consciousness? Do they each have a seperate soul?2) If the three each have a seperate consciosness, then is there a fourth wich is the collective consciosuness of the three? Is there a collective person that is the three persons combined?3) Does God exist in the trinity simply because that is the way it is or did God chose to be a trinity?4) Was God always a trinity or did God become a Trinity at one point?I assume that if 3 is choice and 4 is became that means God could make decisions across time.5) Does each member of the trinity have a specific purpose that was there since eternity past?
Such as
1. The Father creates.
2. The Son redeems.
3. The holy spirit sanctifies.I would really like an answer to my questions, ones that are based on scripture.This should probably go in Bible Study.

Thread moved here from the Proposed New Topics forum.

Some time ago I suggested that you sit down and spend some time with the BCP (Book of Common Prayer). Lots of good material there.A couple other things to investigate are the Apostles and Nicene Creeds. Look into the findings of the Council of Nicea. But the idea of a Trinity as one person, the Great Three in One is a slippery subject, hard to support.

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Aslan is not a Tame Lion

So do they have seperate free wills and consciousnesses or not?

I think you are responding to someone else.

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Aslan is not a Tame Lion

Jesus had the ability to disobey the Father, but not the inclination. (Being human fully, yet also being God incarnate) As for the Holy Spirit, I would assume that the Spirit has no free will.(Apart from God)Just because God knows what one of us will decide does not mean that WE do not have free will, however.Let me give you an example. I have a five year old son. If I were to leave a chocolate chip cookie on the table about a hour before dinner time and my son was to walk by and see it, I know that he would pick up the cookie and eat it. I did not force him to make that decision.In fact, I don't even have to be in the room at all. I think I know my son well enough, though, to tell you that if I come back into the kitchen the cookie will be gone. His act was made completely free of my influence, but I knew what his actions would be.

You've read the Chronicles of Narnia?

Because the concept of the Three-One God is so beyond what our limited minds can conceive many of the words we use we should considered as borrowed and imperfect expressions to then undiscribe God. For example "persons" as in "three persons" we should consider just our limited human language trying to explain something exceedingly mysterious. The word "persons" has its limitations and if pressed too far will lead to ideas which may not represent all that the Bible reveals about God.In similar manner "seperate" as in "seperate soul" also has its limitations as an expression to discribe the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. I would prefer to say that the Three are distinct but never seperated and never seperate. One lives within the Other. Where One lives the other is expressed.Though our language has its problems to discribe God's Being, we can enjoy and experience God. Our experience of the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit as God is not dependent on our ability to explain the Trinity or comprehend fully the Trinity. When asked too tough questions about the Trinity we have to learn to just say "We don't know." Though we don't know HOW something could we can still richly enjoy God and live in His presence. I don't know. I know sometimes the Bible says "Let Us" in relation to God speaking. And in John we see Jesus saying "And We will come and make an abode with him".So we see "Us" and "We" in relation to God. Yet there are many "I[s]" in relation to God. I find that the greatest peace and blessing comes from just receiving these utterances of the Bible and saying "Amen" with praise and faith in all that God has spoken. What God is always connected to what God does. We read that the Father is eternal, the Son is eternal, and the Spirit is eternal. So God is triune from eternity. Yet the unfolding of His operation shows that the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit are each related to an important step or stage of His work within and upon man.So I would say that the answer to your question is both. He IS simply that way. And He must choose to be that way in order to carry out His eternal purpose with man. My answer to you is Yes and Yes. I said above that there are passages which indicate that Each of the Triune God is eternal - always was and always will be.Yes we also have passages which show that the Word became flesh. And we see that the last Adam became a life giving Spirit. This is God in a process of becomming. The incarnation of Christ as a man is revealed as God becoming a man. And Christ becoming a life giving Spirit is a process of One of the Triune God becoming Another. There is no denying it.This should make sense because God was not a man and became a man. And then the man that He became became in a form in which He could enter into us to be our spiritual life - "the last Adam became a life giving Spirit" (1 Cor. 15:45)All the expressions about Christ being in the believers, living in the Christians, or being with or inside the disciples is based upon the fact that in resurrection the man Jesus became a life giving Spirit. He brought what He incarnated into into the eternal Spirit.In some circles of Christian theology we refer to this as the essential Trinity and the economical Trinity. One simple place in the New Testament which conveys this is John 16:15. In speaking of the coming of the Holy Spirit Jesus says:"All that the Father has is Mine; for this reason I have said that He receives of Mine and will declare it to you."All that the Father has is embodied in the Son. What is the Father's is the Son's. And the Holy Spirit will then take what is of the Father which is the Son's and declare it to the disciples. The Father is the source. The Son is the course. And the Holy Spirit is the flow and the transmission.The Father is the source of the divine and eternal life. The Son is the embodiment and expressed manifestation of the eternal and divine life. And the Holy Spirit is the flow and the impartation of the divine and eternal life to man that man.The Trinity is for the impartation of God's being into man that God and man might be united together - He as the unique Godhead and man as the corporate container and expression of this one entity - the New Jerusalem. This is the Trinity for God's dominion and expression and man's enjoyment and salvation.Edited by jaywill, : No reason given.

I left the concept trinity years ago, and found it much easier to believe in One Person that manifests Himself in different ways.The error many Christians make is they don't realize that God is omnipresent. So He could be in Jesus the Son here on earth while also be as the Father in heaven.
In Jesus Christ He is the Saviour. It's that simple.Immanuel, God with us.
The name Jesus means Anoited Saviour.And that's what the Father is , He is the Saviour. There can only be One Saviour.Quite simple.The same you have with the Spirit.
In 1Cor.12:11 and Eph.4 we see it's only One Spirit that works. And still people make it three .
God's Spirit , the Holy Spirit or Holy Ghost ,the Spirit, Christ's Spirit like in Petr.1:11, it 's all One and the same Spirit.
The fact is nowhere it's written explicit that there are three .
But on the contrary it's ecplicit written it's One Lord.
1Cor.8:6-Matth.23:9-Jes.9:5-6-Proverbs 30:4- Deut.6:4 etc.And 1 John5:7 reads uncorrupted:" For there are three that testify: the Spirit, the Water and the Blood; and the thre are in agreement". See also Acts 2:38Peter

The Biblical Hebrew word for ”one’ is ”Echad,’ which speaks of a corporate oneness, not merely a numeric count. God, then, is a plural personage, and yet, is still ”one.’ The first evidence of such can be found in the very first book of the Pentateuch, Genesis.“And God said, let US make man in Our own image, after Our likeness.” -Genesis 1:26Who is the ”Us’ in this piece of Scripture? We know that angels do not have the power to create, so we can rule them out. We know that man has not the power either, nor was he alive on earth to create himself; so, they too, are ruled out. The ”Us’ and ”Our’, is connoting the Godhead; the Holy Trinity. Belief in the Trinity is one of many aversions that Judaism has with Christianity. They view this as idolatry, seemingly incapable of distinguishing the characteristics of God, and thus, equating them to polytheism, as you've mentioned. Interestingly enough, the psuedo-spiritual belief, ”Kaballah,’ which is widely venerated by many Jews, describes God as having 12 characteristics composing one God. Many Christian scholars have attempted to point this out, as well as using the Old Testament and New Testament as a reference, but to no avail. The majority of Jews to this day reject Jesus as the Messiah and are still waiting the One who would place Yisrael above all nations. When Jesus stated that He and God are one, He was not merely stating that He was in the perfect will of God. Jesus is actually saying that He is God, and God is, Him. Jesus is God incarnate; something that is considered a heresy to all of the Abrahamic faiths, except Christianity.“In the beginning was the Word. And the Word was with God and the Word was God. He was with God in the beginning. Through Him all things were made; without Him nothing was made that has been made. In Him was life, and the life was the light of men. And the light shines in the darkness, and the darkness did not comprehend it” -John 1:1-5“Have this attitude in yourselves which was also in Christ Jesus, who, although He existed in the form of God, did not regard equality with God a thing to be grasped, but emptied Himself, taking the form of a bondservant, and being made in the likeness of men. Being found in appearance as a man, He humbled Himself by becoming obedient to the point of death, even death on the cross. For this reason also, God highly exalted Him, and bestowed on Him the Name which is above every name, so that at the name of Jesus every knee will bow, of those who are in heaven and on earth and under the earth, and that every tongue will confess that Jesus Christ is Lord, to the glory of God the Father.” -Philippians 2:5-11The Apostle Paul explains in this verse that understanding the Trinity is not something that can be fully grasped, humanly speaking. So, don't worry if it is a bit bothersome to your logic. Human logic simply does not suffice in this arena, only because His ways are higher than our ways and His understanding His higher than ours. Even so, I give you an illustration in nature to help us understand what God means, by God the Father, God the Son, and God the Holy Spirit. What is water? What is ice? What is vapor? They are forms of liquid, solid, and gas. What is their chemical compound? Do they biochemically differ from each? No. They are all forms of H2O. While its true that they each have separate characteristics, they are still the exact same thing. So truly, though they are separate, they are still, but one. Likewise, when the prophet Yeshayahu (Isaiah) declared, “Holy, Holy, Holy, is the Name of the Lord,” he was not being redundant for effect. He was conveying the principle of the Trinity. The intimation given by Isaiah is explicit.

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Who is the ”Us’ in this piece of Scripture? We know that angels do not have the power to create, so we can rule them out. We know that man has not the power either, nor was he alive on earth to create himself; so, they too, are ruled out. The ”Us’ and ”Our’, is connoting the Godhead; the Holy Trinity.

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I know this passage can be interpreted in many ways,...what i believe is that he was speaking like cook does on tv ....let us put the eggs in here and mix this and that.... <---- opinion

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When Jesus stated that He and God are one, He was not merely stating that He was in the perfect will of God. Jesus is actually saying that He is God, and God is, Him. Jesus is God incarnate; something that is considered a heresy to all of the Abrahamic faiths, except Christianity.

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but if he died on the "cross" ...death meaning non-existant how did he come back? ..how do you explain that? I know its prophezised but ...there has to be SOME reasoning as to HOW he came back..he died thats clear.“Have this attitude in yourselves which was also in Christ Jesus, who, although He existed in the form of God, did not regard equality with God a thing to be grasped, but emptied Himself, taking the form of a bondservant, and being made in the likeness of men. Being found in appearance as a man, He humbled Himself by becoming obedient to the point of death, even death on the cross. For this reason also, God highly exalted Him, and bestowed on Him the Name which is above every name, so that at the name of Jesus every knee will bow, of those who are in heaven and on earth and under the earth, and that every tongue will confess that Jesus Christ is Lord, to the glory of God the Father.” -Philippians 2:5-11this scripture basically refutes your idea that jesus is God incarnated. but instead that Jesus is the LORD to the glory of GOD the Fatherspeaking IMO, like saying your the glory of your dad because you are HIS SON, and if you look like him, You represent HIM

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Human logic simply does not suffice in this arena, only because His ways are higher than our ways and His understanding His higher than ours.

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It wouldnt make sense for God to inspire the bible and make it so big just then to go back and say its ok not to understand it. A simple mention of the word trinity in the bible would simply help us understand this whole idea. Anothing thing, Jesus was a very well spoken teacher, that made a lot of ppl understand a lot of things about the bible, so if trinity is teaching of the bible or very important, how come he didnt make it clear? clear like talking about fornication or adultery?Goes back to the question, would God inspire hundreds of pages of Scripture and yet not use any of this instruction to teach trinity if its a big deal?Edited by SK, : No reason given.Edited by SK, : No reason given.Edited by SK, : No reason given.

SK,Your first three posts have been general replies, which means readers don't know who you are replying to or quoting unless they search backwards through the thread. Also the poster you are replying to will not know that he/she has a reply.Please use the little green reply button at the bottom right of the post you are replying to. It also helps visitors to follow the discussion.Thanks
AdminPD

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Usually, in a well-conducted debate, speakers are either emotionally uncommitted or can preserve sufficient detachment to maintain a coolly academic approach.-- Encylopedia Brittanica, on debate

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Do we "know" that for sure?God created the heavens as well as the earth in Genesis 1, but there is no mention of when the angels were created. We can't just assume that they were created before man.Do you have another reference for when they were created?

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thats more logical than having 2 other beings there .... plus the creation of man came AFTER "God created the heavens and the earth"if not explain the serpent being there(satan) and another thing are you stating that God created man BEFORE the angels?Edited by SK, : No reason given.Edited by SK, : No reason given.