About the Trinity (the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit): one individual, or three...?

Question

Note that I didn't ask how many "persons" are in the Trinity, because "persons" has a special meaning there... is God one individual, or three individuals? If He's three, then how is that different from three Gods? (In the Bible, Jesus said that the Father was "greater" than him and that the time of his return was known not by the angels "nor the Son, but the Father only"... Does Jesus have a separate mind from the Father? How else could he not know something that is known to the Father?!?) Also, if Jesus was an infant during the Nativity, who was running the universe while he had the mind of a child? The Father? Then the Father and the Son are two separate individuals, and therefore two Gods...

Answer 1

It's three in one.

Answer 2

Hello. This is a problem for many people. The problem comes mainly from the fact that we are bound greatly by our own human language when discussing spiritual things. Long dissertations have been written on this subject by smarter people than me, but I will be brief. Both Judaic and Christian theology affirm that God is One. "I and the Father are one", "he who has seen Me has seen the Father." The gospel of John approaches the question in a more "intellectual" way than the others. He is speaking primarily to gentiles to whom "Messiah" would have little meaning. He uses a term well-known in Greek philosophy: "Logos". This refers to the Divine Purpose, the meaning and plan of the whole creation, the universe itself. "In the beginning was the Word (Logos), and the Word was 'with" God, and the Word 'was' God. He also states that the creation was both by and through the 'Word'.. Now, the capper, ..."and the Word became flesh...and dwelt among us". Very heavy stuff. What a tremendous statement! But it is the basis of all Christian theology and faith. We have all heard and used the phrase, God is Love. Well, Love requires and object. What the scriptures say is that the "Logos" is God's Beloved One, "from the foundation of the world", "the only begotten of the Father", begotten in a spiritual way we cannot fully comprehend, rather than "created" as we are. I am not as learned as many, but to me, Jesus limited Himself as we are limited when He took our life and flesh upon Himself. He was not "omniscient" as God is when He was a man. He indicated so several times. No human brain could contain infinite knowlege as the Divine can. But He was certainly able to "call upon" and was given knowlege unavailable to us when He needed it. While I believe emphatically that He was indeed the Logos, the Christ, the "Son of God", he was also wholly man. In fact, the term He used for Himself was "son of man". So, who was "being God" during this time? God, of course! Remember God is infinite, timeless. We use these words without often giving them much thought. Think of an author who has written a great novel. Say this novel, or screen play is made into a movie. The actors are acting this movie out before an audience who can only see the play unfold scene by scene, but the author knows and knew beforehand, every action that takes place. This is very weak, I know, but bear with me,...I am doing the best I can....Now, as to the Holy Spirit. This is difficult, but, again, bear with me.....We all know of a wonderful marriage, or family relationship, in whch the two persons are long known by friends and other family members. It is almost impossible to think of one of the persons without thinking of the other. It is as if a "third" person were present in our very thought of these two together. Is this not true? This is sort of the way I perceive the Holy Spirit, though on a much higher plane. I am sorry If I haven't helped or made sense. Sometimes I don't. Like I said, human language is often inadequate. It is more a perception of the spirit. Best wishes and God bless. Tom

Answer 3

I have a couple of other questions to add to your list. If Jesus is God

a) He died. Who resurrected him if he was dead?
b) Why did he always pray to someone else before or after performing miracles and the night before his death
c) Why did he always refer to the Father or MY Father separately? Did he have multiple personality disorder?
d) Moses wrote that "no man can see God and live" Ooops?

There's also the problem of Isaiah 42:8 ... I am Jehovah (or I am the lord), that is my name, and to NO ONE ELSE SHALL I GIVE MY OWN GLORY." How could he be happy to find his son and his active force are being given equal glory. And if they are co-equal, doesn't that negate his being called the Almighty.

and finally if the Holy Spirit is a separate being or individual, was an individual poured out on the heads of the small group of disciples gathered in Jerusalem after Jesus' death?

The New Catholic Encyclopedia itself says that this was not a doctrine taught by Jesus' early followers. Wouldn't they have known the facts, having been taught by Jesus directly?

Answer 4

First of all, the Trinity is a divine mystery. We aren't able to fully and completely comprehend it- trying to do so will only make our heads hurt- but we can know the basics. God is one God, one individual, in three Persons.

Think of God like a triangle. A triangle is a triangle, and you wouldn't refer to it as "three adjoined line segments." When you look at a triangle, the first thing you see is the shape itself, and not its components. But composing a triangle are three line segments. The Persons of God are like those line segments.

Or- better- imagine God as a prism. A prism's facets are all part of the same thing, but at the same time they aren't really parts because they are inseparable from the prism itself. Similarly, the three Persons are facets of God- they show different aspects of him without being separate from him.

Jesus has two natures- divine and human. Their coexistence in his body allowed him to be God and man at once. As a man, he was within time. He was born, lived and died in a human span of years. But as God, he was outside time. Therefore no one had to run the universe while he was a child; God was the same throughout. I do realize that the whole outside-time thing sounds like complete nonsense if you don't believe in it already, but just bear with me.

Basically, God the Father is the Creator; God the Son is the Redeemer, and God the Holy Spirit has stayed with us since the Son's work was done. But at the same time they're all the same God, so it's not like one of them abandons us once he's wrapped up what he wanted to do. They aren't a team of different individuals working together; the Triune God is one.

Now, is this fully within the scope of human comprehension? No. Just like the fact that the universe has no end is slightly beyond our grasp. But that's the general idea.

Answer 5

The Trinity’s Early Origins

The Bible tells of many gods and goddesses that people worshiped, including Ashtoreth, Milcom, Chemosh, and Molech. (1 Kings 11:1, 2, 5, 7) Even many people in the ancient nation of Israel once believed that Baal was the true God. So Jehovah’s prophet Elijah presented the challenge: “If Jehovah is the true God, go following him; but if Baal is, go following him.”—1 Kings 18:21.

The worship of pagan gods grouped in threes, or triads, was also common before Jesus was born. “From Egypt came the ideas of a divine trinity,” observed historian Will Durant. In the Encyclopædia of Religion and Ethics, James Hastings wrote: “In Indian religion, e.g., we meet with the trinitarian group of Brahmā, Siva, and Viṣṇu; and in Egyptian religion with the trinitarian group of Osiris, Isis, and Horus.”

Answer 6

Biblical truth of the divine nature of Jesus is very often distorted or confused with ancient heresies on both sides of the truth.

Some, like the so-called “Jehovah’s Witnesses” confuse it with Arianism. That is, as their translation renders John 1:1c, “… the word was a god.” The polytheism should be obvious.

Others confuse it with Sabellianism, or assert that the scriptural point of view claims Jesus and the Father are exactly the same “person.” This leaves us with a crazy guy running around talking to himself.

Neither of these views represents true Biblical teaching. The passage I cited above holds the key to understanding these three opposing points of view, though many English translations render it rather poorly. It is necessary to understand a minor point of Greek (the language John was written in) grammar to have a thorough grasp on the scripture’s teaching. To that end, here is an "Exegetical Insight" from a Biblical Greek textbook. The author examines John 1:1 and explains the differences between Arianism, Sabellianism, and BIBLICAL TRUTH very well:

The nominative case is the case that the subject is in. When the subject takes an equative verb like “is” (i.e., a verb that equates the subject with something else), then another noun also appears in the nominative case–the predicate nominative. In the sentence, “John is a man,” “John” is the subject and “man” is the predicate nominative. In English the subject and predicate nominative are distinguished by word order (the subject comes first). Not so in Greek. Since word order in Greek is quite flexible and is used for emphasis rather than for strict grammatical function, other means are used to determine subject from predicate nominative. For example, if one of the two nouns has the definite article, it is the subject.

As we have said, word order is employed especially for the sake of emphasis. Generally speaking, when a word is thrown to the front of the clause it is done so for emphasis. When a predicate nominative is thrown in front of the verb, by virtue of word order it takes on emphasis. A good illustration of this is John 1:1c. The English versions typically have, “and the Word was God.” But in Greek, the word order has been reversed. It reads,

και θεος ην ο λογος
‘kai theos en ho logos’ = “and God was the Word.”

"We know that “the Word” is the subject because it has the definite article, and we translate it accordingly: “and the Word was God.” Two questions, both of theological import, should come to mind:

(1) Why was θεος ‘theos’ (God) thrown forward?
and
(2) Why does it lack the article?

In brief, its emphatic position stresses its essence or quality: “What God was, the Word was” is how one translation brings out this force. Its lack of a definite article keeps us from identifying the person of the Word (Jesus Christ) with the person of “God” (the Father). That is to say, the word order tells us that Jesus Christ has all the divine attributes that the Father has; lack of the article tells us that Jesus Christ is not the Father. John’s wording here is beautifully compact! It is, in fact, one of the most elegantly terse theological statements one could ever find. As Martin Luther said, the lack of an article is against Sabellianism; the word order is against Arianism.

To state this another way, look at how the different Greek constructions would be rendered:

και ο λογος ην ο θεος
‘kai ho logos en ho theos’ =“and the Word was the God” (i.e., the Father; Sabellianism)

και ο λογος ην θεος
'kai ho logos en theos' =“and the Word was a god” (Arianism)

και θεος ην ο λογος
'kai theos en ho logos' =“and the Word was God” (Orthodoxy).

Jesus Christ is God and has all the attributes that the Father has. But he is not the first person of the Trinity. All this is concisely affirmed in και θεος ην ο λογος 'kai theos en ho logos'." (Literally, "and God was the Word.")

-Daniel B. Wallace, Dallas Theological Seminary.

Wallace is quoted in "Basics of Biblical Greek Grammar,"
William D. Mounce, Copyright © 1993 by William D. Mounce.

I transliterated (spelled with English letters) the Greek in the original and supplied a literal translation of Greek where necessary. -- συνεσταυρωμαι

Answer 7

From all eternity there is one infinite, omnipotent Being who has chosen to reveal Himself in 3 personalities, God the Father, God the Son and God the Holy Spirit. These distinct and seperate personages are coequally and coeternally the one and only God.

Ath

Answer 8

My skin does not have a brain, but that does not make me two separate people. My foot is distinct from my hand, but still I am not two separate people. Every one thing has many parts. I have a bird cage, but it also has birds, perches, food and water canisters, a paper towel at the bottom, etc. All these parts go into making it one cage. Sure you can break down and examine each part, but they all come together to form one thing and one purpose. The paper towel at the bottom and the water dish have completely different uses, but the same purpose.

Answer 9

imagine 3 "objects"

one is 3 trees in a group, separate trees, but close together. might be different sizes might not.

one is a very large tree, like one of those trees thats made up of several trees that mushed together into one unit. this single tree has one base and one root system, but halfway up it splits into 3 trees coming out of the one base.

one is a massive, flawless, polished and faceted stone obelisk.

if you stand next to the obelisk, both the other two look like it has 3 trees involved, enough that its not just simply "one".

if you stand next to the split-tree and say that it is "one" then it looks, more or less, to be "as one" as the obelisk is. and the 3 separate ones look signifigantly different.

if you stand by the 3 trees and say that they are one because their roots all intermingle and they are the same kind of tree, then you might say that all 3 "options" of focus are equally one.

there are sections of christianity that follow each of these 3 "options" in this analogy.
Judaism only accepts "the obelisk" option.
Islam, from my understanding, also only accepts the obelisk. though perhaps a different variety of stone for its construction in some ways.

Answer 10

Personally i don't understand the trinity, just because of questions like that, and many more, however the Bible clearly teaches a trinity and therefore I accept it. According to the Bible humans don't have the intellectual capacity to understand God so we are told to just believe it by faith until we meet God and then we will understand more.

Answer 11

I have found it much easier to explain by using the pantheistic method. (VERY un-Christian but it makes explanation a whole lot easier.)

"God" is one.
The Father, Son and Holy Spirit are personifications of different ATTRIBUTES of God.

God the Creator,
God the Redeemer,
God the Comforter/Reveal-er.
.