Trinity Sunday

[Annie]

I liked it:

http://article.nationalreview.com/?q=NWRiZWRmNzNkNTRhYTQ3NDQwNDY5M2I5OTU3NGJjNjY=

June 16, 2006, 1:34 p.m.

Trinity Sunday
The Catholic as dinner guest.

By Michael Novak

It happens rather often. I am enjoying a comfortable dinner or lunch, or maybe even a happy party, when someone turns to me and asks, “I hope you don’t mind my asking. What do Catholics mean when they say ‘the Trinity.’ What do you picture? What goes through your head? I just don’t get it.”

Dinesh D’Souza first pointed out this phenomenon to me. At a Washington dinner party, he was once asked, during the dessert, when Catholics are going to get over their medieval prohibitions on fornication, gay sex, and the rest. Dinesh is a very clever and quick-witted man, so he answered with a straight face. “I’m with you. I think the Catholic church should give up its whole sexual code, permit bestiality, pornography, auto-stimulation, the whole bit.”

At this point in the conversation, several dinner guests winced, he tells me, and one woman said, “Well, I’m not a Catholic at all, but I certainly hope they don’t cave on everything. They’re the only ones in the world not afraid to stand for something, even if it’s unpopular.”

“Yes,” a gentleman down the table nodded. “They may be medieval, but they play a good social role. I don’t agree with them but, well—” here he sought words, “somebody has to play the bad cop.”

Dinesh concluded that many sophisticated people don’t want to be in the Church, and don’t mind at all bashing the Church now and then, and derisively disagreeing with her. But they really didn’t want the argument to disappear. They liked having something firm to dislike and disagree with. Were it to vanish, they would miss it.

In my case, I was at lunch on the shore when the question about the Trinity came up. I had known the lady who asked the question for a great many years, and had full confidence in her good will and genuine interest. She was not a Christian, nor even a religious person, but curious and open. It was a very fine and crisp June day, so bright one had to shield one’s eyes.

I nodded toward her long-term inamorato across the table (I think that is the proper word for a beloved companion of many years, with whom one lacks only a wedding certificate). Then I said, “I would think that the relation between you and Fred must be one of the better things in your whole life. If I think about it, I think I might say that the best—most divine—things in my life are a set of close friendships. The kind of love that friendship makes. Is there anything better than that?”

Her eyes told me that while she couldn’t see how my response was germane, she tentatively agreed with me. (Arguing with Catholics, I note, people tend to be a little afraid to grant a premise, fearing that awful swift logic that Catholics sometimes bring down like a guillotine.)

“Well,” I began to form another premise, “the Greeks thought of God as a solitary, cold Nous, an infinite Understanding of everything, remote, inconceivable, beyond all sense knowledge, recognizable only by mind. A solitary Understanding, like a great light suffusing all the universe, and radiating into it his own intelligence, making all things lawlike or at least intelligible. The point is, the solitude in which they imagined the Divine Nous dwelling.”

She wasn’t following me yet. I added, “I’m not sure about this, but I think Jews have something like the same approach to the unknowability and inconceivability of God. By monotheism, they too seem to be imagining some sort of awesome solitude. For Jews, God is not sexual, as most of the gods of their neighboring peoples were sexual. For the Hebrews, God is Spirit and Truth. Desexualized—Dennis Prager writes about this very brilliantly.”

I immediately saw that she recognized my reference to the Jewish lay theologian in California, who writes some of the best-formed pithy arguments in all journalism today in his weekly column, and is one of the more cerebral talk-show hosts on radio. “Among the Hebrews, God is not even given a name, in order to suggest how great is the distance between YAHWEH—the four Hebrew letters that stand in place of the divine name—and anything else that can be named. Including ourselves. The point is, God is imagined (so to speak, because imagination is not really in operation here)—God is thought of as dwelling in solitude. A kind of inaccessible solitude, invoking on our part awe and silence. Mysterium tremendum.”

The Latin got to her, as I knew it would. It made the whole thing sound profound, and mysterious.

Then I came to my final point. “Well, Christians hold that the most divine aspect of human life—the best thing—is the love of friendship. And we think of God accordingly. Although we cannot imagine how this can be—our imaginations fail here—we think of God as more like a Community of Friends than as a Solitary Being.” Very high above us the fantail of a tiny silver jet left a high chalk line across the cobalt sky.

“The only reason we dare to think this way, really, is because that is how Jesus talked of His Father, and of the Spirit whom the Father would send, after the death of Jesus. Jesus spoke of all Three as One. ‘I am in the Father, and the Father in me.’ In other places Jesus spoke of all three as one divinity. He said that Christians should be baptized ‘in the Name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit.’ Three in one.”

Honestly, I said to my inquiring friend: “I don’t pretend to understand this. But when I say ‘Trinity,’ I remind myself to think of God as a Communion of Three Friends. Although that is not quite strong enough, for one must somehow hold that this Communion of Persons constitutes only One God. But this God is more like communion than solitude.”

My friends seemed to comprehend this no better than I, but they did seem reflective. At least to me.

I hesitated about offering St. Augustine’s metaphor from human psychology for understanding—well, for approaching—the Trinity: the human mind, illumined by insight, and then both the mind and the insight issuing in love. It was, however, too delicately beautiful a day, under that sky, overlooking the sea, for any further tedious metaphysical reflections. Of the sort that once gave Catholicism a bad name, at least among the Reformers and the Enlightened.

“Sorry,” I said. “Best I can do.”

“I want to think about it some more,” my friend said, with her characteristic kindness. “Thank you.”

We all pushed back our chairs. Time to go to the next event on our schedule.

 

[Abbey Normal]

I think it is very interesting that people would denigrate the Catholic Church so much, and even perhaps be atheist, and at the same time hope that the Church continues to thrive. IMO, it adds support to the theory that man is built with an inner need to worship something higher than himself.

As for St. Augustine, everytime I read about him, I am in awe.

 

[5stringJeff]

Let all things their Creator bless,
And worship Him in humbleness,
O praise Him! Alleluia!
Praise, praise the Father, praise the Son,
And praise the Spirit, Three in One!
O praise Him! O praise Him!
Alleluia! Alleluia! Alleluia!
--Francis of Assisi, "All Creatures of Our God and King," c. 1225

 

[rtwngAvngr]

God as community. Hello socialism. total b.s.

 

[5stringJeff]

God as community. Hello socialism. total b.s.

It's a method for explaining the Trinity, which is one of the most difficult Christian doctrines to explain. While it's not how I would have explained, it seemed to work. Did you see anything doctrinally wrong with his explanation?

 

[rtwngAvngr]

It's a method for explaining the Trinity, which is one of the most difficult Christian doctrines to explain. While it's not how I would have explained, it seemed to work. Did you see anything doctrinally wrong with his explanation?

God as community is a bullshit commie notion. That's what I'm saying. I'm really talking about that one assertion only.

 

[rtwngAvngr]

I like the old explanation. Father, son, holy spirit. Subtituting the collective for this concept is the very definition of becoming a commie. What's wrong with you people?

 

[rtwngAvngr]

I really could care less about the worldly popularity and power of the church. We're fighting for our souls, not "the church".

 

[5stringJeff]

I like the old explanation. Father, son, holy spirit. Subtituting the collective for this concept is the very definition of becoming a commie. What's wrong with you people?

What Mr. Novak did was use an analogy to explain the Father/Son/Spirit relationship. There are more than one Persons in the Trinity; therefore, there is an element of community of the Persons.

Let's look at the quote again:
“I don’t pretend to understand this. But when I say ‘Trinity,’ I remind myself to think of God as a Communion of Three Friends. Although that is not quite strong enough, for one must somehow hold that this Communion of Persons constitutes only One God. But this God is more like communion than solitude.”

Michael Novak is contrasting the three Persons opf the Trinity against the Greek/Jewish notion of only one Person. Again, it's not the analogy I would have used, but it's not doctrinally incorrect.

 

[rtwngAvngr]

What Mr. Novak did was use an analogy to explain the Father/Son/Spirit relationship. There are more than one Persons in the Trinity; therefore, there is an element of community of the Persons.

Let's look at the quote again:
“I don’t pretend to understand this. But when I say ‘Trinity,’ I remind myself to think of God as a Communion of Three Friends. Although that is not quite strong enough, for one must somehow hold that this Communion of Persons constitutes only One God. But this God is more like communion than solitude.”

Michael Novak is contrasting the three Persons opf the Trinity against the Greek/Jewish notion of only one Person. Again, it's not the analogy I would have used, but it's not doctrinally incorrect.

It's not three people though. It's the lord himself, his demigod son, and a spirit, which is no way a person.

 

[5stringJeff]

It's not three people though. It's the lord himself, his demigod son, and a spirit, which is no way a person.

No. It's three Persons - God the Father, God the Son (Jesus Christ), and God the Holy Spirit, within one Essence (the Godhead). To define either Christ or the Holy Spirit as less than God is unbiblical.

 

[rtwngAvngr]

No. It's three Persons - God the Father, God the Son (Jesus Christ), and God the Holy Spirit, within one Essence (the Godhead). To define either Christ or the Holy Spirit as less than God is unbiblical.

The godhead? You can't get more new age than that. It's not three people. God is not a person. Jesus is not a regular person. The holy spirit is not a person. I understand you Noahide bootlicks need this logical fallacy to hasten your apostasy, but I reject it fully as unbiblical. Sorry jeff, you're wrong again.

 

[Abbey Normal]

No. It's three Persons - God the Father, God the Son (Jesus Christ), and God the Holy Spirit, within one Essence (the Godhead). To define either Christ or the Holy Spirit as less than God is unbiblical.

Strong evidence that they are separate entities:

Matthew 12:31-32

31 Therefore I tell you, every sin and blasphemy will be forgiven men, but the blasphemy against the Spirit will not be forgiven men.

32 Whoever speaks a word against the Son of Man, it will be forgiven him; but whoever speaks against the Holy Spirit, it will not be forgiven him, neither in this age, nor in that which is to come.

 

[5stringJeff]

The godhead? You can't get more new age than that. It's not three people. God is not a person. Jesus is not a regular person. The holy spirit is not a person. I understand you Noahide bootlicks need this logical fallacy to hasten your apostasy, but I reject it fully as unbiblical. Sorry jeff, you're wrong again.

I don't have the time right now to unabashedly pwn you on this issue, so you'll have to wait. For now, though, just know that your statement contradicts the Bible and 2000 years of orthodox Christian teaching.

 

[rtwngAvngr]

I don't have the time right now to unabashedly pwn you on this issue, so you'll have to wait. For now, though, just know that your statement contradicts the Bible and 2000 years of orthodox Christian teaching.

Whatever jeff. I just don't think describing the trinity as "three dudes" is a particularly honest, apt, or helpful metaphor in any way. Although it works ok in a "Bill and Ted's excellent adventure" sort of way, it denigrates christ.

 

[Joz]

The godhead? You can't get more new age than that. It's not three people. God is not a person. Jesus is not a regular person. The holy spirit is not a person. I understand you Noahide bootlicks need this logical fallacy to hasten your apostasy, but I reject it fully as unbiblical. Sorry jeff, you're wrong again.

Whatever jeff. I just don't think describing the trinity as "three dudes" is a particularly honest, apt, or helpful metaphor in any way. Although it works ok in a "Bill and Ted's excellent adventure" sort of way, it denigrates christ.

I wouldn't actually call them "three dudes", but Jeff is right on this one RW.
Colossions 2:9, For in him dwelleth the fulness of the Godhead bodily.
Matthew 28:19, Go ye therefore and teach all nations, baptising them in the name of the Father, and of the Son and of the Holy Ghost.
John 14:28, I go unto the Father......
John 3:16 , the only begotten Son
Genesis 1:2, And the Spirit of God........
John 1:14, And the Word was made flesh.......

The work of the Father.....
Mcah 7:18, He pardons iniquity
The Son......
Matthew 1:21, Christ saves us from sin
1John 2:1,2, He intercedes for us
The Holy Spirit....
2Peter 1:21, He inspires the prophets
John 16:8, He reproves the world of sin
John 16:13, He guides into truth
John3:3-8, He brings about new birth

John 14:16,17, He is "another comforter"
Ephesians 4:30, He can be grieved
Acts 5:3,4, He can be lied to

 

[Bonnie]

A piece of fruit such as the peach has three components. A peach has the outer layer (the skin), the inner layer (the juicy stuff known as the meat), and the core. All three components composite the one peach.

Even though the peach is a whole it would be incomplete without each three seperate but important parts.

God is one entity made up of three very important and distinctive parts, his spirit (his essence), his son (in human form), and himself who always was, and will always be.

 

[Annie]

A piece of fruit such as the peach has three components. A peach has the outer layer (the skin), the inner layer (the juicy stuff known as the meat), and the core. All three components composite the one peach.

Even though the peach is a whole it would be incomplete without each three seperate but important parts.

God is one entity made up of three very important and distinctive parts, his spirit (his essence), his son (in human form), and himself who always was, and will always be.

Good analogy. I think there was an Irish priest that used the shamrock to make the point way back when.

 

[rtwngAvngr]

But father, son, are just metaphors. They are not regular people (though I know jesus is fully mortal and fully divine, that's still not "regular"); when talking amongst christians this is understood. Explaining the trinity to non christians is not the place to use this metaphor, therefore, I still fully disagree with this usage. When non christians ask about the trinity they should explain that it's god, jesus and the holy spirit. Thinking of it as three regular friends, and to conceptualize god as community is antichristian and borderline atheist. Sorry, joz. I fully disagree.

 

[Bonnie]

Good analogy. I think there was an Irish priest that used the shamrock to make the point way back when.

It's really such a simple yet hard concept to understand so for me the peach analogy works. Just as the concept of always was is staggering as well.