If the Trinity is your faith?

Question

then doesnt that mean that the most basic tennet of your religion is very hard to understand and perhaps incomprehensible by the majority of mankind who are neither geniuses or theologians or priests?

Why would God make the most basic tennet of your religion so hard to comprehend for the masses?

As long as Christians themselves say the Trinity is a mystery and it cannot be explained nor understood fully, then how can you say its easy to understand?

The trinity as I understand it, is an integral part of being a christian, then its not simply one of 'gods ways' it is the MAIN way. Is this the reason most Christians are told not to use their brains when it comes to religion? because they are to stop thinking from the start?

Answer 1

Christ is my faith....

The trinity is a doctrine that is a part of what we believe. Just because we cannot comprehend the truth of it fully doesn't make it any less true.

We are not obligated to understand all of God's ways....and He is not obligated to reveal all of it to us.

Answer 2

Talk about loading the question.

Christian's faith is not in a trinity; it is in Christ.

It is not a "basic tenet". It is technically not an article of faith or even a doctrine.

It is an attempt to understand the nature of God and the relationship between the three; how they are alike and how they differ.

The biggest controversy is whether the Holy Spirit is a "person" or a "force" of God.

Those groups that opt for the latter do not realize they are rejecting the Holy Spirit as a witness.

The Holy Spirit is seen as speaking and conveying instructions to those in the New Testament. A force cannot speak; a "person" can.

Why then is it hard for the "masses" to comprehend? Perhaps because they choose to remain ignorant on the subject.

Answer 3

I like the way you've worded this question. It actually makes it easier for me to answer.

God didn't make the Trinity; the Trinity just is. Humans have tried to explain, define, describe, etc. it because for many of us, it rings true somehow. But the HOW part is tricky. Given the postmodern ways of thinking about things (describing, proving, deliminating, etc), it takes a very open mind and a lot of faith to "get" the Trinity.

Another way to look at it: can you describe color to a blind person or sound to a deaf person? The reason you can't is that they don't have the sensory perception to even begin to comprehend what we are talking about. So for all people, we are confined by three dimension space and time, limited by our senses and logic. Yes, philosophers and theologians can sometimes get a little further but we're all pretty much blind and/or deaf.

When I work with teens and this topic comes up, I ask them how much they really bother to think about it. Usually the answer is not much and that's okay. It's okay to just let it go and believe and it's okay to struggle with it and try to wrap your mind around it. At the end of the day, everyone's understanding of Trinity might be very different, and I personally think that God won't be upset by that.

Answer 4

"then doesnt that mean that the most basic tennet of your religion is very hard to understand and perhaps incomprehensible by the majority of mankind who are neither geniuses or theologians or priests?"

Yes.

"Why would God make the most basic tennet of your religion so hard to comprehend for the masses?"

That is just his Existence, his Nature, I doubt he "decided" to "make" it so hard for us to "comprehend."

Biochemistry is hard to understand too, what does that say about God?

Answer 5

I'm a Christian & the Trinity isn't part of my faith at all. It is a mystery & I agree with you that God wouldn't allow us not to comprehend the most basic thing about him. That's one reason why I don't believe in the Trinity.
Another reason is the origins of the Trinity which are pagan.

Answer 6

Well we can get a basic understanding of the trinity but we cannot fully understand it because it is a mystery, and there is nothing wrong with that - that is the way God made it. It would be impossible to know all the ways of God.

Here is what the catechism says -

234 The mystery of the Most Holy Trinity is the central mystery of Christian faith and life. It is the mystery of God in himself. It is therefore the source of all the other mysteries of faith, the light that enlightens them. It is the most fundamental and essential teaching in the "hierarchy of the truths of faith". The whole history of salvation is identical with the history of the way and the means by which the one true God, Father, Son and Holy Spirit, reveals himself to men "and reconciles and unites with himself those who turn away from sin".

257 "O blessed light, O Trinity and first Unity!" God is eternal blessedness, undying life, unfading light. God is love: Father, Son and Holy Spirit. God freely wills to communicate the glory of his blessed life. Such is the "plan of his loving kindness", conceived by the Father before the foundation of the world, in his beloved Son: "He destined us in love to be his sons" and "to be conformed to the image of his Son", through "the spirit of sonship". This plan is a "grace [which] was given to us in Christ Jesus before the ages began", stemming immediately from Trinitarian love. It unfolds in the work of creation, the whole history of salvation after the fall, and the missions of the Son and the Spirit, which are continued in the mission of the Church.

Answer 7

Maybe God describes himself in a complex way simply because that is the way God is; he is only telling us the truth. It is folly to assume that an infinite God is ever going to be completely understandable by a finite human mind like ours. If God is real, then he is obviously something beyond human experience; if he were too easy to understand, then I would begin to expect that he was made up.

It seems that what you are saying is that you are not going to believe in a religion unless everything in it is easy to understand, and/or is scientifically explainable.

Quantum mechanics is full of hard to understand and seemingly contradictory concepts, but I don't hear anyone complaining that physics must be false because it is confusing and difficult to grasp. I never heard anyone complain that Zeno's paradoxes somehow disprove Newtonian laws of motion, or that Schrödinger's cat proves that Albert Einstein must not exist. Quite contraire, part of the appeal of physics to some is its very complexity, and apparent paradoxes. The complexity and apparent contradictions gives people a mental puzzle to ponder over, muse over, philosophize over, and to perhaps to solve.

Did it ever occur to you that part of the appeal of a religion is the fact that it is NOT easy to understand? Part of the appeal of God to some is the complexity, the miraculous and the unexplainable. If God was completely understandable, and explainable, then I think that most religious folk would suddenly find religion to be boring -- even if it were proven beyond a shadow of a doubt to be true.

It appears that no religion is ever going to satisfy you, I'm afraid, since almost all of them believe in the supernatural and the mystical; they will all seem to be equally weird and irrational to you.

Answer 8

Why does everyone think it is so hard to undersand?

according to the doctrine of the orthodox Christians, by the Father, understanding God's creation; by the Son, his knowledge; and by the Holy Ghost, his essence.

it is too easy.

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Here wold be a mulsim version (creating a Trinity representation using names of Allah. Like the Christians, who believe that the Trinity is not 3 entities, but 3 parts of the whole god):

The Father: Al-Khaliq, The Creator ; Al-Bari' , The Maker of Order
The Sun: Al-Quran, his word made tangible on earth or al-Aleem, possessor of complete knowledge
Holy Spirit : As-Salam, The Source of Peace ; An-nur, The Light

Answer 9

It is not hard to understand at all.
It is just impossible for someone who does not believe.
This is written in the Bible.

1Cr 2:14 But people who aren't Christians can't understand these truths from God's Spirit. It all sounds foolish to them because only those who have the Spirit can understand what the Spirit means.
1Cr 2:15 We who have the Spirit understand these things, but others can't understand us at all.

Answer 10

Do you believe that God is our Creator?

Can you explain even a little HOW He created us, all the animals, the specific details of the earth? all the plants, trees, rocks, sand and ocean? How did He make gravity hold it all together? How does the earth know how to rotate around the sun? How does the moon know to rotate around the earth? How do the tides know to move?

You believe those without explanation, don't you?