Why do so many people misunderstand what the term HOLY TRINITY means? Do you think it means 3 gods?

Question

A term used since A.D. 200 to denote the central doctrine of the Christian religion. God, who is one and unique in his infinite substance or nature, is three really distinct persons, the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. The one and only God is the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit. Yet God the Father is not God the Son, but generates the Son eternally, as the Son is eternally begotten. The Holy Spirit is neither the Father nor the Son, but a distinct person having his divine nature from the Father and Son by eternal procession. The three divine persons are co-equal, co-eternal, and consubstantial and deserve co-equal glory and adoration.

We need to know how we are created in God's image to grasp the concept of the Holy Trinity

God is spirit. He cannot be seen. If you were to examine all the creatures, the CREATOR has made a pattern emerges: angels and demons are intellectual creatures without a body; plants and animals do not have an intellect but a body and mortal soul.

IT IS ONLY LIVING, HUMAN, BEINGS, that have a MIND, BODY, and SOUL. Only human beings have all three. Now, living, human, being is the existence of man. Those words describe the essence of man's mind, body, and soul. The Body is living, the Mind makes us human and distinguishing us from animals, and our Soul makes us the being that we become (good or evil).

Now, even Muslims will agree Allah is omnipotent (all powerful), omniscient (all knowing), and omnipresent (ever present). These words describe the existence of God. So, what is the essence of God? I will hold off answering this question till the end.

Now, if you think about the existence of a person they have a triple existence: physical (body), mental (mind), and spiritual (eternal soul). In fact, whenever we create something it has all three of these parts. When we cook we have a recipe (in our mind), we gather all the raw ingredients, and we cook (don't burn it, ha ha) what it is we are making.

Cooking has the physical, mental, and spiritual parts. Same with engineering or technology it has three parts: the blueprints (to convey an idea), the raw materials (physical), and the workmanship (spiritual). If something goes wrong investigators will look for a design flaw, material flaw, or faulty workmanship. THIS DEMONSTRATES CREATION HAS THREE PARTS LIKE THE CREATOR.

Now, in the Bible it says Jesus is the visible likeness of the invisible God. (Colossians 1:15) The ESSENCE OF GOD IS: Father (mental), Son (physical), Holy Ghost (spiritual). ONE TRUE GOD IN THREE JUST LIKE A PERSON. THREE PARTS ONE PERSON. When you are sick you send for a doctor; when you are mentally troubled, a psychiatrist; when spiritually seeking you seek out a holy person.

Answer 1

This is the Christian faith.


Many Christians begin to learn about the Trinity through knowledge of Baptism. This is also a starting point for others in comprehending why the doctrine matters to so many Christians, even though the doctrine itself teaches that the being of God is beyond complete comprehension. The Apostles' Creed and the Nicene Creed are structured around profession of the Trinity, and are solemnly professed by converts to Christianity when they receive baptism, and in the Church's liturgy, particularly when celebrating the Eucharist. One or both of these creeds are often used as brief summations of Christian faith by mainstream denominations.

One God
God is one, and the Godhead a single being: The Hebrew Scriptures lift this one article of faith above others, and surround it with stern warnings against departure from this central issue of faith, and of faithfulness to the covenant God had made with them. "Hear, O Israel: The LORD our God is one LORD" (Deuteronomy 6:4) (the Shema), "Thou shalt have no other gods before me" (Deuteronomy 5:7) and, "Thus saith the LORD the King of Israel and his redeemer the LORD of hosts: I am the first and I am the last; and beside me there is no God." (Isaiah 44:6). Any formulation of an article of faith which does not insist that God is solitary, that divides worship between God and any other, or that imagines God coming into existence rather than being God eternally, is not capable of directing people toward the knowledge of God, according to the trinitarian understanding of the Old Testament. The same insistence is found in the New Testament: "...there is none other God but one" (1 Corinthians 8:4). The "other gods" warned against are therefore not gods at all, but substitutes for God, and so are, according to St. Paul, simply mythological or are demons.

So, in the trinitarian view, the common conception which thinks of the Father and Christ as two separate beings, is incorrect. The central, and crucial affirmation of Christian faith is that there is one savior, God, and one salvation, manifest in Jesus Christ, to which there is access only because of the Holy Spirit. The God of the Old is still the same as the God of the New. In Christianity, it is understood that statements about a solitary god are intended to distinguish the Hebraic understanding from the polytheistic view, which see divine power as shared by several separate beings, beings which can, and do, disagree and have conflicts with each other. The concept of Many comprising One is quite visible in the Gospel of John, chapter 17, verses 20 through 23.

God exists in three persons

The "Shield of the Trinity" or "Scutum Fidei" diagram of traditional Western Christian symbolism.This one God however exists in three persons, or in the Greek hypostases. God has but a single divine nature. Chalcedonians — Catholics, Orthodox, and Protestants — hold that, in addition, the Second Person of the Trinity — God the Son, Jesus — assumed human nature, so that he has two natures (and hence two wills), and is really and fully both true God and true human. In the Oriental Orthodox theology, the Chalcedonian formulation is rejected in favor of the position that the union of the two natures, though unconfused, births a third nature: redeemed humanity, the new creation.

In the Trinity, the Three are said to be co-equal and co-eternal, one in essence, nature, power, action, and will. However, as laid out in the Athanasian Creed, only the Father is unbegotten and non-proceeding. The Son is begotten from (or "generated by") the Father. The Spirit proceeds from the Father (or from the Father and through the Son — see filioque clause for the distinction).

It has been stated that because God exists in three persons, God has always loved, and there has always existed perfectly harmonious communion between the three persons of the Trinity. One consequence of this teaching is that God could not have created Man in order to have someone to talk to or to love: God "already" enjoyed personal communion; being perfect, He did not create Man because of any lack or inadequacy He had. Another consequence, according to Rev. Thomas Hopko, is that if God were not a trinity, He could not have loved prior to creating other beings on whom to bestow his love. Thus we find God saying in Genesis 1:26, "Let us make man in our image." For trinitarians, emphasis in Genesis 1:26 is on the plurality in the Deity, and in 1:27 on the unity of the divine Essence. A possible interpretation of Genesis 1:26 is that God's relationships in the Trinity is mirrored in man by the ideal relationship between husband and wife, two persons becoming one flesh, as described in Eve's creation later in the chapter.

The singleness of God's being and the multiplicity of the Divine Persons together account for the nature of Christian salvation, and disclose the gift of eternal life. "Through the Son we have access to the Father in one Spirit" (Ephesians 2:18). Communion with the Father is the goal of the Christian faith and is eternal life. It is given to humans through the Divine union with humanity in Jesus Christ who, although fully God, died for sinners "in the flesh" to accomplish their redemption, and this forgiveness, restoration, and friendship with God is made accessible through the gift to the Church of the Holy Spirit, who, being God, knows the Divine Essence intimately and leads and empowers the Christian to fulfill the will of God. Thus, this doctrine touches on every aspect of the trinitarian Christian's faith and life; and this explains why it has been so earnestly contended for, throughout Christian history.

Answer 2

I know the trinity doesn't mean 3 Gods, it means: God The Father (mind): The part of the trinity that made everything and understands everything. God The Son (body): Represented by Jesus who was supposedly God turn Flesh. and God the Holy Spirit (soul): the vital essence which dwells in all of us. I think it was a metaphor to help people understand the 3 vital parts of us. Our mind capable of creating anything if we set our minds to it, our body the temple in which he house our what makes us special, our mind, soul, feelings, sense etc., and Our soul which is the spirit that makes us different from the other creatures on this world, that houses both the good and bad quality of human nature.

Answer 3

The basic tenets of the faith should be logical and straightforward. This just isn't logical or straightforward to me. God generates the Son but the Son is begotten of the Father. The Holy Spirit is a he? I thought it was like a Spirit of God. According to the Nicene creed the trinity is the 3 in 1. "We believe in the Holy Spirit, the Lord, the giver of life,
who proceeds from the Father and the Son.
With the Father and the Son he is worshiped and glorified. "

Answer 4

Some here have described God as "3 parts of one person". This is not an accurate reflection of classic Christian doctrine. Traditional Christianity teaches that there are three distinct "persons" that share a single divinity or divine essence. Not 3 parts in one person, but 3 persons in one God.

Anyway, this sort of talk often seems pointless to me - mere speculation, at best. The traditional definitions of Jesus' person and how it relates to his divinity were settled upon hundreds of years after he actually lived, and have been the greatest cause of division amongst Jesus' followers. Jesus was (or is) who he is, and what we believe about him won't change that fact.

Peace and blessings

Answer 5

The roots of the Trinity come from Judism. Moses was NOT monothesic. He outfitted the Temple with a pedestal pillar for the Host on High to reign over the proceedings and the Brass Snake. We're not sure what the snake did for the ceremony.

In any event, the Godhead, or Trinity as you put it, is not mainstream Christian until after 600 AD. Many people had to die to establish the concept we accept today.

Answer 6

no trinity means the father the son and the holy ghost. I know they are the same person. The father is GOd the son i jesus who god sent to earht and the holy ghost is the spirit that helps you fight the devil and gives prayers to the lord. which all three are the same. It is hard for people to understand such a concept.

Answer 7

"Three divine persons", as you express it, seems like three gods to me. Just because one of them "generates" the other two does not make them a unity. If a mother gives birth to child, there are two persons, not one.

The subtleties of the argument of mainstream Christians that the holy trinity is consistent with monotheism are difficult for outsiders to grasp. Why not ditch the concept of the trinity? It has an extremely weak biblical basis.

And once Christians start talking about Mary the Mother of God (also called the Queen of Heaven), archangels, angels, saints, the devil, and demons, in addition to Christ and the Holy Spirit, it starts to look like they have a whole pantheon of gods and demi-gods.

Answer 8

The word Trinity is not in the Bible.
Scholars made it up.
There is only ONE GOD.
The Holy Spirit is the Spirit of God.
Never say anything against the Holy Spirit,
that is the one thing God won't forgive.
Jesus Christ is the Son of God,
who now sits at His Right Hand.
On Earth Jesus did Gods work here, that's why
He said, when you see the Son you see the Father.
God created Angels, they were not born of woman.
When Satan was kicked out of Heaven he had a
chance to be born of woman and he said no. The
Angels he took with him also said no. They are called
the fallen Angels.

Answer 9

I think it is misunderstood because it is such a pointless concept in the first place.

The god of the old testament clearly calls himself jealous of the other gods, and the 2nd commandment is not to worship other gods. Most other religions were polytheistic, and the Israelites certainly came from a tradition of polytheism.

When christianity was being refined and developed in the 1st couple centuries, the trinity was invented to make it more palatable to those who liked a lot of gods, while the 3-in-1 concept was good for marketing to monotheistic Jews.

But it really is a pointless concept in the first place, and xians bend themselves into logical knots trying to explain these different gods that aren't different gods but just different aspects, except that they all act like individual gods. Who cares? What possible difference does it make how many imaginary gods you delude yourself with?

It really doesn't matter as all gods are imaginary..I don't care if you worship one, 3-in-1, or a thousand.

Answer 10

I was not aware that this was a problem. I've never heard anyone say that they actually believed it meant 3 gods. Sometimes non-Christians just say it that way as an example of why they feel the Christian faith is ridiculous. You are pretty clear in your explanation but any true Christian would already understand.