little2add Posted August 30, 2015 Posted August 30, 2015 Water can exist in a liquid form, ice form, or gas form. One substance can do three different things.
Peace Posted August 30, 2015 Posted August 30, 2015 I dunno if the liquid, ice, gas analogy is a good one - it seems a bit like modalism. I don't think we know "what God is" or the full nature of the trinity. It is still considered a mystery of the faith. I would say that it is "illogical" in the sense that it is beyond human reason or that it has not been completely revealed to us and we do not fully understand it.
little2add Posted August 30, 2015 Posted August 30, 2015 Another way to look at this is St. Patrick explanation of the Trinity According to legend, St. Patrick was traveling and happened upon a number of Irish chieftains along a meadow. The tribal leaders were curious about the Trinity and asked St. Patrick for an explanation. So he bent down, picked a shamrock, and showed it to them, and explained how the three leaves are part of the one plant, and how similarly the three Persons, Father, Son, and Spirit, are part of one Supreme Being.
Peace Posted August 30, 2015 Posted August 30, 2015 Another way to look at this is St. Patrick explanation of the Trinity According to legend, St. Patrick was traveling and happened upon a number of Irish chieftains along a meadow. The tribal leaders were curious about the Trinity and asked St. Patrick for an explanation. So he bent down, picked a shamrock, and showed it to them, and explained how the three leaves are part of the one plant, and how similarly the three Persons, Father, Son, and Spirit, are part of one Supreme Being. I am pretty sure that one is a heresy too . . . 1) God is three persons 2) Each Person is Fully God 3) There is One God I think the clovee analogy violates (2).
Peace Posted August 30, 2015 Posted August 30, 2015 It's a metaphor Sorry. I don't really want to rain on your parade or anything. I don't think the clover analogy is a correct way to think about the Trinity. But perhaps others here would agree with you.
little2add Posted August 30, 2015 Posted August 30, 2015 Don't you be dissing good St. Patrick, now Whether or not Saint Patrick actually used the above metaphor is neither here or there He will always be remembered for the Expression
Peace Posted August 30, 2015 Posted August 30, 2015 237 The Trinity is a mystery of faith in the strict sense, one of the "mysteries that are hidden in God, which can never be known unless they are revealed by God".58 To be sure, God has left traces of his Trinitarian being in his work of creation and in his Revelation throughout the Old Testament. But his inmost Being as Holy Trinity is a mystery that is inaccessible to reason alone or even to Israel's faith before the Incarnation of God's Son and the sending of the Holy Spirit.
Nihil Obstat Posted August 31, 2015 Posted August 31, 2015 I dunno if the liquid, ice, gas analogy is a good one - it seems a bit like modalism. Yes, that absolutely is modalism.
PhuturePriest Posted August 31, 2015 Posted August 31, 2015 (edited) It's not illogical -- it's beyond our ability to comprehend. There is a difference. Trying to comprehend the Trinity is like trying to bite a wall. Part of being Christian (and particularly Catholic) is humility to admit that we as humans cannot comprehend and understand everything. Edited August 31, 2015 by PhuturePriest
little2add Posted August 31, 2015 Posted August 31, 2015 The Trinity is one God in three eternal coexistent persons: The Father, the Son, and the Holy Ghost. deal with it!
KnightofChrist Posted August 31, 2015 Posted August 31, 2015 Most of the time the greatest problem people have with the Trinity is trying to understand how He can be One being but three persons. So we use analogy to attempt to explain it. The trouble with any analogy is that it will fail in the end to completely explain. As CCC 297, that Peace posted states the Trinity is a mystery so any and all ways we try to explain it will fall to completely explain it. That being said I like the analogy of Time. Time is one, but Time is also three, past, present and future. A person is one but three, soul, mind and body. The analogies fail in the end to completely explain but they do show it is not illogical for something to be one, yet three at the same time.
Luigi Posted September 1, 2015 Posted September 1, 2015 Sure, you can define the trinity as illogical if you want to. So what? It doesn't change the reality. Logic is a tool - and only one tool - for understanding the world and everything in it. Humans and their emotions aren't logical, either, but that doesn't make them less real/true/actual.
reyb Posted September 1, 2015 Posted September 1, 2015 Your discussion ends here.... Trinity is a mystery. Do not touch it otherwise, it will become illogical. Same thing in Eucharist. Do not bother to test it because, it cannot be detected by sense and understanding. Believe.
StMichael Posted September 1, 2015 Posted September 1, 2015 When I did RCIA, this question would always come up. The analogy I would use was fire, it purifies, it lights the way, it provides warmth.
Nihil Obstat Posted September 1, 2015 Posted September 1, 2015 When I did RCIA, this question would always come up. The analogy I would use was fire, it purifies, it lights the way, it provides warmth. Three uses. Three functions. Getting really dangerously close to modalism, IMO. Any time we simplify too much as regards the Trinity, we tend to fall into heresy.
Laudate_Dominum Posted September 1, 2015 Posted September 1, 2015 There are many logics; existing, and to be invented (uncovered, if you prefer). As a paraconsistent alogician I find the doctrine of the Trinity to be too logical. Formal systems are idols; reality is paradox and contradiction is unreality. Amen. Wait, is this one of the serious boards? My bad. I'm out of practice. Apologies for the rubbish post.
Didacus Posted September 2, 2015 Posted September 2, 2015 Consider this: All things are possible to God and He looks upon creation from a stand-point outside of time, beyond creation which He made. Now - He sees YOU: as you are born, as you are a child, a man-woman, and elderly person all co-jointly. Say God was to pick you out of creation: three times. Once as a child, once as an adult and once as an elder. Now we have YOU, present at the same existence as a child, an adult and an elder one beside each other. Now if I asked you three times: are yu entirely yourself? What would the child reply? The adult? The elder? Obviously they would reply that they are entirely themselves, fully themselves, yet each is distinct and different. A weak analogy of the Trinity - but let's apply this to God. Now God is beyond time and creation. The Father sits in eternity outside of time and creation itslef - forever there and unchanging. Since all is possible to God, He CAN enter His cretion I but would not leave eternity to do so. Enter God the son, subject (by choice) to the rules and laws of creation, fully God, inside of creation but yet remaining outside. Different than God the Father but of the same nature, essence and divinity. Where is the Holy Ghost? Since God the Father is outside of time and creation, a third precense is needed to actually carry out and push creation to its fullness and into reality. Thus it MUST be so that there are three persons in God, each fully God, each distinct and separate but each entire God as a single person and three precense outside and within creation. God the Father is the artist who commands the drawing, the Son is Himself entering the drawing, the Spirit is the pen by which the drawing is made.
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