Willravel

Generally there are considered to be 3 major monotheistic religions, and they all happen to have the same Abrahamic roots: Judaism, Christianity, and Islam. While each of them is different, one common string is that they are monotheistic; they only believe in one god or deity. That one single deity for Christians? The father, the son, and the holy spirit.

Over the years I've discussed this using terms like "duplicate", "separate", and "definition" but I always seem to get the same answer at the end: we're not supposed to understand. Boy is that ever a cop-out!

I've read that while god is one entity, it is a mutual dwelling of three persons or entities, but all that tells me is that god is either like the Borg of Star Trek—one mind in separate bodies—, or that god is capable of separating himself and then bring himself back together. With each of those, however, one still must admit that while Jesus was on Earth in the bible, god was at least 2 separate beings, which would mean that for thirty some-odd years Christianity was polytheistic.

This is something unique to Christianity in the Judaism and Islam do not have demigods or separate incarnations of god. Judaism has Moses, but he was a prophet, not god. Likewise Islam had Muhammed but he also was a prophet, not god.

Is there a rationalization in this that I'm missing? I'd love to hear different perspectives on this.

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ratbastid

One god. Three persons. It's not polytheism. See?

I know. It's one of the tetchiest bits of Christian theology, and it requires some hand-waving.

You want to get REAL suspicious about the Christian claim of monotheism, look at the Catholic practice of venerating the saints! You can pray to them... But they're not gods. But they're there listening to and answering prayers... And they're in charge of different things... But they're not gods....

It just so happens I have a medallion of St. Isidore on my keychain. He's the patron saint of computers, computer nerds, and the Internet. I attribute my entire web consulting business to my veneration of him. But he's not a god. No, no. Hell, I'm not even Catholic.

If you want to really talk about the closest Jews have to a saint or "sub-god", by the way, it's not Moses. You gotta go Elijah.

Ustwo

The holy trinity is almost as easy to explain as free will in heaven.

The Trinity of which you speak is the three divine persons who are the one nature of G_D. G_D is love and it is the manifestation of G_D's love which contains the three parts needed for love, the lover, the beloved, and the love itself. In so dividing, G_D sent his son to let us join in his love which is the HOLY SPIRIT. He separated his person but not his nature so that we may join him, in his love. By the son becoming human he gave us a share of his divine nature, allowing us to become one with G_D and his eternal love.

Q.E.D.

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Agents of the enemies who hold office in our own government, who attempt to eliminate our "freedoms" and our "right to know" are posting among us, I fear.....on this very forum. - host

Obama - Know a Man by the friends he keeps.

genuinegirly

Perhaps it's a bit easier to understand if you look at the view in comparison with others...

For instance, Catholics view LDS (Mormons) as polythiestic. While it appears on the surface that they're about the same, since both use the phrase father, son, and holy spirit (ghost).

But here we see a difference...
Catholics believe they're the same being, 3 different essential roles. Some all-mighty One.

Whereas LDS you see 3 separate beings, 3 separate roles. A Father (an implied Mother), Demi-god Christ, and spiritual being Holy Ghost. 3 distinct individuals, therefore polytheistic. There's also some stuff about men/women being capable of rising to the level of godhood, which is seen by many Christian groups as blasphemous.

An aside, because of this polytheistic stance, my Mormon baptism was not valid in the eyes of the Roman Catholic leaders, which is why I had to be baptized Catholic this past Easter.

Dunno if this really helps with the debate, but it sure clarified the godhead in my mind.


Oh- about that saints thing...

You don't pray to them. You pray with them. Since they're closer to God, passed on from this world, perfect, and in heaven, they have a bit more pull with God than us sinners. So you ask them to pray with you, they make things happen. It's kind of like asking a buddy in congress to help pass the bill you wrote.

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"violence is no more or less real than non-violence. " roachboy

Willravel

But even Catholics recognize the separation between the Father and Son when Jesus was born and walked the Earth. God the father is 100% god 0% man. Jesus was 100% god and 100% man (because maths and religion don't mix). Jesus spoke to god through prayer. Jesus even got mad at God the Father (not that I blame him).

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roachboy

these problems were at the center of the fractures inside of xtianity before constantine converted in 323 and started integrating it into the official state bureaucracy of rome. some groups--the pelagians (i think--it's been a while) rejected the trinity outright for much the same reasons will outlines--other "gnostic" groups rejected the divinity of jesus on similar grounds...lots of trouble, lots and lots of trouble.

from what i remember of this nonsense, the trinity involves 3 hypostases or states of a single being.
if the god character is infinite, none of these would be problematic--the trouble would come with thinking about their implications from a finite viewpoint--like whether god was dead between good friday and easter morning. i prefer to think she was.

spinoza's all over these problems too, at the start of the ethics.

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a gramophone its corrugated trumpet silver handle
spinning dog. such faithfulness it hear

it make you sick.

-kamau brathwaite

Willravel

Heh. She?

Even looking at god as being out of time overall, Jesus was in our normal rate of time according to the bible. It's that which I use as evidence that Jesus and the god entity, be it triune or not, were separate.

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roachboy

heretic.

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a gramophone its corrugated trumpet silver handle
spinning dog. such faithfulness it hear

it make you sick.

-kamau brathwaite

Willravel

It's more like happy heretic. Or divine unbeliever?

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onesnowyowl

Similarly, many mainline Protestants (self included) do not believe Jesus was a divine being while he was on Earth--he was just a man, divinely inspired to be certain, but just a man. The leading scholar on the historical Jesus happens to be a professor emeritus at my university (he retired fairly recently), so this is something that gets a lot of discussion in and around our faith community here.

Oh, and there are a variety of Christians who like to make it even more complicated and add a goddess aspect to the idea of the Trinity. For me, it's Mother/Father, Son (historical Jesus), Holy Ghost.

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Willravel

What about the holy spirit to said mainline Christians who don't believe in the divinity of Jeuss? Is that a function of god or a persona?

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levite

Well, I don't know that I would actually call Christians polytheists, but I confess I have read all of the New Testament, a number of the Church Fathers, accounts of the early councils at Nicaea and elsewhere, and some of the medieval theologians (Aquinas, Abelard, John of Salisbury, etc.) and I still don't understand how the trinity can really work. My issue is not with the Father or the Holy Spirit, or with the notion of God having different aspects-- after all, Kabbalah talks about the Ten Sefirot representing a number of different aspects or emanations of the One God, I get that. My issue is with Jesus Christ. First and foremost there is the mathematical problem that will pointed out-- how can he be 100% God and 100% human at once? Moreover, how is he fully human if he is incapable of sin? What kind of human is incapable of sin? But regardless, how can the Infinite compact itself into the most finite form of a human being?

I just can't understand how the Omnipresent could consolidate himself into one place completely (Jesus was 100% God), and yet remain in separate existence outside that one place (Jesus prayed to the Father), and to whom he, Jesus, appears to be subservient ("Father, let this cup pass from me."), even though being 100% God, he should be equal to the Father, who is also himself.....

I have other issues with a theology that has God condemning all human beings forever because of two people's sin-- if sin it was-- in such a way that no one could ever redeem themselves, but God would demand a human sacrifice that only he himself could be.... But this probably isn't the time or place to get into them....

I am also, of course, aware that my incomprehension and theological problems with Christianity might simply stem from the fact that I am not a Christian-- which I freely admit leaves me with little if any right to critique their beliefs.

Elijah's not anything like a "sub-god," dude. I admit, he's a little troubling, being a uniquely liminal figure. But he's more like an angel, if anything. Do I find the idea of a human being getting transfigured into an angel theologically problematic? Yeah, actually, I do-- I have the same problem with the Metatron, to be honest. But Elijah's transfiguration to an angel is not a universal dogma of Judaism. Most Jews believe to one degree or another that Elijah's a liminal figure who has a special nature not like other people's, but not all, and the notion of Elijah becoming Sandalfon is really limited to certain schools of Kabbalistic thought....

In any case, Elijah is very popular these days, but other figures have gone through their vogues: Abraham and the other Patriarchs, David, Samuel, Rabbi Shimon ben Yochai, Rabbi Akiva.... They're all probably closer to Christian saints than anything else, although Judaism has never really had any notion of "intercession" per se. But nothing like "sub-gods," any of them....

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Woody Allen

Willravel

Quite frankly, I blame South Park for the whole reemergence of Elijah in popular circles. And the reemergence of Tron after portraying Moses as Master Computer.

Maybe original sin is hereditary and is carried on the y chromosome or along males, thus Jesus didn't have the trait (seriously).

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genuinegirly

Then why would Mary, too, be free from original sin?

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"violence is no more or less real than non-violence. " roachboy

roachboy

well, that's easy.
it's the same reason that there had to be a harrowing of hell while jesus was dead--you know, that road trip to hell in order to at least get plato and especially aristotle out of the cauldrons so that christian theology could make sense---it's logically required.
ok well it's not.
actually, i don't really understand the catholic cult of mary, where it came from or how it's justified.
it's one of the many things that in catechism was answered with "shut up."

__________________
a gramophone its corrugated trumpet silver handle
spinning dog. such faithfulness it hear

it make you sick.

-kamau brathwaite

robot_parade

Reminds me of a bad old biology joke: What does the "H" in Jesus H. Christ stand for?

"Haploid" (def: Having only one set of each chromosome pair)

As to the original question, the explanation that makes the most sense to me is:

A) The Trinity is a Divine Mystery, and isn't something that the human mind can understand. There are things that we simply can't conceptualize properly, like 12-dimensional space, or a singularity (though we can describe these things mathematically).

B) One way to describe the concept by way of analogy is the story of the elephant and the blind men - basically that 5 blind men walk up to an elephant, and describe it as 5 different ways - a snake for the trunk, like a tree for the legs, etc, etc.

Willravel

Yes, but I'm a combination of massively stubborn and curious, so I'm likely not going to buy "god doesn't want us to know" type of responses.

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ratbastid

Yeah, no, that's why I said "closest".

Obviously not a saint or minor deity. But you set a place for him all the same!

levite

Yeah, fair enough. I do. I guess we can own that....

__________________
"How wrong Emily Dickinson was! Hope is not the thing with feathers. The thing with feathers has turned out to be my nephew. I must take him to a specialist in Zurich."

Woody Allen

asaris

I figure how the trinity works while Jesus is on earth is where the hand-waving comes in. But I can at least explain the maths (I think). The problem is that you're thinking of it mathematically. The point isn't that Jesus was 100% man and 100% God, the point is that he was really a man, in the full sense of that term, and really God, in the full sense of that term. Of course, I tend heavily towards the Monophysite heresy, so I might be the wrong person to ask

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"Die Deutschen meinen, daß die Kraft sich in Härte und Grausamkeit offenbaren müsse, sie unterwerfen sich dann gerne und mit Bewunderung:[...]. Daß es Kraft giebt in der Milde und Stille, das glauben sie nicht leicht."

"The Germans believe that power must reveal itself in hardness and cruelty and then submit themselves gladly and with admiration[...]. They do not believe readily that there is power in meekness and calm."

-- Friedrich Nietzsche

robot_parade

Well, I can certainly understand that, but there are clearly some things in this universe that we can't fully comprehend. Things that are too big for us to conceptualize fully. Positing the existence of God, it seems likely that He would fall into that category by His very nature.

Ustwo

For the record my explanation is based on one of the Christian/Catholic explanations.

While I see Christianity as polytheistic more due to saints, angels etc, (and I once read a methodist bible and it was, quite frankly insane) I don't think of it as so due to the trinity.

If god can be everything, he can be three, and the three can be separate but united. He could even argue with himself as god the son and god the father. You could easily say that the argument in human terms of allegorical and was really god as flesh 'transmitting' to god as spirit that which it was to be flesh. Of course that in itself would go counter to omniscient, but thats not the first time.

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Agents of the enemies who hold office in our own government, who attempt to eliminate our "freedoms" and our "right to know" are posting among us, I fear.....on this very forum. - host

Obama - Know a Man by the friends he keeps.

Willravel

For the record it creeped me out.
So it's "god is above reason". Bah.

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Ustwo

You need to understand fundamentalism before you can fight it.

God wouldn't be above reason god would BE reason. It is your inability to understand the nature of god which has you frustrated. God the father God the son and God the spirit are perfectly reasonable in that they all share the same nature of God. God the man you ask for mercy and salvation as one who understands the pain of mortality, God the father you ask for wisdom and gives you love, God the spirit is what you experience in Gods love. Only your fixation on your own singular nature makes you unable to understand how one could be both many and one. Its ok, a mortal man still tied to the flesh can't be expected to understand how God can be everywhere at all times, you just need to have faith.

__________________
Agents of the enemies who hold office in our own government, who attempt to eliminate our "freedoms" and our "right to know" are posting among us, I fear.....on this very forum. - host

Obama - Know a Man by the friends he keeps.

Willravel