Christians call Hindu Trinity gods as Polytheistic but believe their Trinity is Monotheistic ?

Question

CHRISTIAN TRINITY as the foundation of their Polytheistic Theology

God the Father = Judge/Punisher (in OT)
Jesus the Son = Creator/Saviour/Love
Holy Spirit = Preserver/Source of Miracles

HINDU TRINITY as the foundation of their Polytheistic Theology

Shiva = Punisher/destroyer
Brhama = Creator/Love
Vishnu = Preserver/Source of Miracles


Except Hindus believe God can come in millions of forms but even then he is One God…..

This is much like the Christian trinity of God as the Father, Son and Holy Ghost. The trinity represents the Divine in its threefold nature and function. Each aspect of the trinity contains and includes the others.

God is multi-part but always considered as “one”.

http://www.hindunet.org/god/trinity/index.htm


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Answer 1

Yes they are very similar, but the fact is that as you said 'god is multi-part'. According to Christian belief, He is one entity, not three separate ones, as according to Hindu belief. I'm not too hot on Hindu belief, but I do know that Christians think that God the father, Jesus the son, and the Holy Spirit are all the same entity. While each has manifested itself at a different point, they return to the same entity. The reason that Christians distinguish between them is because they appear in our religions at different points, and fulfill different roles. Therefore, it is easier to refer to them by different names. However, as I keep saying, they are all from the same God.

Answer 2

Hindus worship idols/many gods. Christians worship the one true God who created all things and sustains all things and who took on Himself the form of human flesh-Jesus Christ-so that we might be saved through His death. If you read the entire Bible closely it is obvious that Jesus Christ was/is God, the Holy Spirit is God and the Father is God. All are called God and all have divine attributes and all share the same titles. One God expressed in 3 Persons. Humans are a trinity -body, soul and spirit- yet one human being. Time is a trinity -past, present and future- but all 3 make up time. The universe is a trinity -space, time and matter- yet there is only one universe. We can therefore observe the trinity of the Godhead by His creation as well as in the Bible.

Answer 3

I totally agree. The only difference is that in Hinduism, they have temples to different aspects of their gods.

I don't have a problem with anybody's beliefs but how can a Christian (particularly Baptists who had a pamphlet out targeting Hindu "pagans" along with other religions) say hindus are polytheistic when Christians have an almost identical view of God. If Christians are monotheists, Hindus are too; if Hindus are polytheists, Christians are too.

Answer 4

Hindus believe in one Supreme Being. In the Hindu pantheon there are said to be three hundred and thirty-three million Lords(divine beings). The plurality of Lords are perceived as divine creations of that one Being. So, Hinduism has one supreme God, but it has an extensive hierarchy of Lords.
Hinduism views existence as composed of three worlds. The First World is the physical universe; the Second World is the subtle astral or mental plane of existence in which the devas, angels and spirits live; and the Third World is the spiritual universe of the Mahadevas, "great shining beings," our Hindu Lords. Hinduism is the harmonious working together of these three worlds.

Hinduism is a family of four main denominations - Saivism, Shaktism, Vaishnavism, Smartism - under a divine hierarchy of Mahadevas. These intelligent beings have evolved through eons of time and are able to help mankind without themselves having to live in a physical body. These great Mahadevas, with their multitudes of angelic devas, live and work constantly and tirelessly for the people of our religion, protecting and guiding them, opening new doors and closing unused ones.
It is in the Hindu temple that the three worlds meet and devotees invoke the Lords of our religion. The temple is built as a palace in which these Lords live. It is the home of the God and Lords, a sacred place unlike every other place on the earth. The Hindu must associate himself with these divine beings in a very sensitive way when he approaches the temple. Though the devotee rarely has the psychic vision of the Deity, he is aware of the God's divine presence. As he approaches the sanctum sanctorum, the Hindu is fully aware that an intelligent being, greater and more evolved than himself, is there. This Lord is intently aware of him, safeguarding him, fully knowing his inmost thought, fully capable of coping with any situation the devotee may mentally lay at his Holy Feet. It is important that we approach the Deity in this way - conscious and confident that our needs are known in the inner spiritual worlds.
The physical representation of the God, be it a stone or metal image other sacred form, simply marks the place that the Lord will manifest in or hover over in his etheric body. It can be conceived as an antenna to receive the divine rays of the Lord or as the material body in or through which the Lord manifests in this First World. When we perform puja, a religious ritual, we are attracting the attention of the devas and Mahadevas in the inner worlds. That is the purpose of a puja; it is a form of communication. To enhance this communication we establish an altar in the temple or in the home. This becomes charged or magnetized through our devotional thoughts and feelings which radiate out and affect the surrounding environment. You can feel the presence of these divine beings, and this radiation from them is known as shakti. It is a communication more real than the communication of language that you experience each day.
Finally, it must be clearly understood that God and the Lords are not a psychological product of the Hindu religious mind. They are far older than the universe and are the fountainheads of its galactic energies, shining stars and sunlit planets. They are loving overseers and custodians of the cosmos, earth and mankind. The Hindu cosmological terrain envelopes all of humanity.

Answer 5

Seeing that we will see in scripture that there is just one God, and that every character of the Trinity - Father, Son, and Holy Spirit - is recognized because the genuine God, it follows that the doctrine of the Trinity (i.E. Three individuals in 1 God) can be discernible in Scripture. The word “Trinity” shouldn't be discovered in Scripture, but the outlines of the doctrine will also be obvious not directly by way of passages that educate absolutely the unity of God and the divine sonship of Christ. We see the Trinity revealed regularly, not directly, and in quite a lot of approaches (cf Hebrews 10:1) by means of the various references to God’s harmony and transcendence as well because the episodes that the Fathers of the Church have considered as “theophanies” (i.E. Mysterious appearances of one or more humans of the Trinity) in the historic testomony in passages such as Genesis 1:26 (God here speaks of himself within the plural type), Genesis three:22, eleven:27; Genesis sixteen:7-thirteen; Exodus three:2-14 (the place we realize God using two names or titles for himself: Elohim and Yahweh; these names look to suggest one who sends and one who is shipped, akin to the Trinitarian relationship between the father and the Son and the Holy Spirit), Psalm 2:7; Psalm 109:1-3; Isaiah 7:14 (Emmanuel is the title prophesied for the miraculously conceived child of a virgin; it method “God is with us.”), 9:6; Isaiah 11:2; 35:four; Proverbs eight:22-31; wisdom 7:22-28; wisdom eight:3-8; Ezekiel eleven:5; 36:27, Joel 2:26 and Malachi three:1. Might be the most hanging of the Bible’s explicitly Trinitarian passages is Matthew 28:18-19, quoted below. Become aware of that the Lord uses th singular form “identify,” not the plural “names,” when he offers this directive. This utilization implies the harmony of the Three Divine individuals in the Trinity. Mt 28:18-19 “All authority in heaven and on earth has been given to me. Go therefore and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them within the 'title' of the daddy and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit." We additionally see clear glimpses of the Trinity in the following passages: Matthew three:sixteen Mark 12:29 Luke 1:30-35 John 10:38, 14:9ff, 17:10 2 Corinthians thirteen:thirteen Ephesians 2:18, four:6 1 Timothy 2:5 1 Peter 1:12 1 John 5:7-eight additionally: Trinity: Did Jesus have a spirit/soul? Yes. Was Jesus human? Sure. Did Jesus have a body? Yes. Did Jesus have a human nature? Sure Did Jesus have a human soul? Yes. Used to be Jesus a human be-ing? No Jesus was once a DIVINE PER-SON with the equal Divine nature as the daddy and the Holy Spirit. None is older, nor larger than the other. All have the identical Divine nature however are distinct from every different. The Blessed Trinity, all are one within the same God, all have the equal Divine nature. Father - First individual of the Blessed Trinity. Son - 2d person of the Blessed Trinity. Holy Spirit - 1/3 character of the Blessed Trinity. Trinity = Tri-harmony = 1 Almighty God. BEGOTTEN: BE = manifest, obtained = gather. Hinduism: Has 330 million gods, a couple of dozen sects, a lot of rituals and ceremonies, and spiritual disciplines. Hinduism is tolerant, inclusive, straight forward....Paths to Brahaman, the endless Being (and best reality): In Hinduism, you've plenty of time (actually, as many lifetimes as you want) to determine the discharge of your soul from the arena and the superb rendezvous with Brahman, however, along the best way, be prepared to take care of essentially the most prominent of the gods, each of whom is a manifestation of Brahman, and plenty of of whom have subsidiary manifestations of their own: Shiva the Destroyer aka the cosmic dancer, Vishnu the Preserver, aka Krishna, aka Buddah; and Shakti the Divine mother...And be form to animals, peculiarly cows, bulls, monkeys, and snakes (on account that, like you, are as a rule on their manner up or down depending on their reality).

Answer 6

the sole actual distinction is that, exterior of Catholicism, the trinity is the top of the line. In Hinduism, there's a pantheon of different deities, no rely if or no longer interior the top they are all factors of Brahman. Catholicism is, in my opinion, a polytheistic faith besides, because of the fact they pray to God, Jesus, Mary, and countless different saints and that they think approximately the Pope infallible. yet mainstream Christianity in basic terms follows God, Jesus the Son, and the Holy Spirit as factors of one being. i think the declare to monotheism is tenuous, at superb, yet because of the fact they do no longer branch out any extra they have a nearer declare to monotheism than Hinduism, of their eyes.

Answer 7

You can't equivocate the definitions. The word Trinity isn't found in Scripture, but the concept is there. God has no "parts" as we would think of them. Many theologians think that the Trinity is a mystery, and that any attempt to express or define it demeans God's character.

Answer 8

That presentation of the doctrine of the Trinity is wrong. The Christian formulation is that there are three PERSONS in the Godhead and not three separate GODS.

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Answer 9

The Holy Trinity is just 3 parts of the same entity. So yes, it is monotheism. Rather a complicated concept, I know. I don't know much about hinduism, so I can't really say whether they are monotheistic or polytheisitic.

Answer 10

Because God is one, but we have come to know Him through Father, Son and Holy Spirit. Reality trumps theory, in fact theory that doesn't match reality is not right, even if it looks logical to the natural mind of finite man.