Questions for Christians and other theists, part 8: the Trinity

One of the strangest doctrines in all of Christianity is the doctrine of the Trinity. This doctrine holds that there are three divine persons — the Father, the Son, and the Holy Ghost — yet only one deity. Each of the three persons is fully God, and not just a part of God. A famous diagram known as the “Shield of the Trinity” compactly summarizes the idea:


The Trinity doesn’t make much sense, and many Christians recognize this. What most of us would call absurd they call a mystery, meaning something that is known to be true through revelation but cannot be demonstrated by mere human reason.

Some questions for the Christians out there:

1. Do you accept the doctrine of the Trinity?
2. Do you recognize the absurdity of it?
3. Do you deal with the absurdity by declaring it a “mystery”?

309 thoughts on “Questions for Christians and other theists, part 8: the Trinity

  1. OMagain: J-Mac: What Christianity is that? I’ve been looking all over for it…

    This is partially a quote from my favorite Columbo episode…😉
    Is anybody here a fan? Lol

  2. keiths,

    “Yes, I think J-Mac is a Christian. You obviously don’t, but why?”

    Well, I’m not going to look in the archives, but afair he’s outright denied being a Muslim, Christian or Jew here multiple times. It’s attention-seeking slippery generic theism, usually couched in incoherent defenses of IDism. I have no interest in his games.

    Thanks to Entropy for verification. I am interested in seeking truth(s), not in lies & deceit.

  3. keiths,

    I think Gregory is at least a christian… with low case “c”.
    But I’m pretty sure he has more than one definition what it means to be both a capital letter “C” and lower case “c”… Christian and even in between…😅

  4. faded_Glory: The Trinity is a self-inflicted problem by the Church. The real mystery is why so many people buy into this nonsense.

    You make it sound like there really is support in the Bible for the doctrine of the Trinity, but that different New Testament authors present conflicting views about it.

  5. keiths: The trinitarian solution won the debate despite its absurdities and weakness.

    Do you think that the belief that Jesus is God preceded the belief in the Trinity? Or perhaps that the two ideas grew alongside each other?

    You don’t think that Trinitarian thinking (“the trinitarian solution”) led to the belief in the divinity of Jesus do you?

    Have you done a thread on why the early Christians came to the conclusion that Jesus was God?

  6. keiths,

    A few sources:
    https://tftorrance.org/rg6
    http://www.newadvent.org/cathen/15047a.htm
    https://trinityinyou.com/gregory-nazianzen-introduction-to-the-theological-orations/

    Seek first more from the above Gregory instead of me. I doubt that I’ll return to this thread. Basically, you’re asking for a “thinking” Introduction to the Christian faith. It’s up to you to (learn to) ask the right questions & purge yourself of any prejudices, like the anti-spirituality you stated above. Nobody can force you to do this; faith & belief are voluntary activities that one has to work at/with their entire life.

  7. keiths: It makes so little sense that the Catholic church declares it a “mystery”, where “it’s a mystery” is equivalent to “we can’t make sense of this, but we want it to be true, so let’s just assume that it is”.

    I’d be interested to know which Catholic author or authors you read which gave you this idea. I know you didn’t get it from the nuns. 🙂

  8. Entropy,

    When I was little, I was told about this, and found it weird. The “explanation” came back as a metaphor (or is it analogy?), where god was a piece of rope. The three persons each a knot in the rope. Each knot being a different knot, yet part of the same piece of rope.

    They were teaching you a heresy. In that analogy, each knot is merely part of the rope. To match trinitarian doctrine, each knot would need to be the entire rope.

  9. Gregory,

    Basically, you’re asking for a “thinking” Introduction to the Christian faith.

    No, I’m simply asking Christians how they make sense of the Trinity.

    How do you make sense of it?

  10. Gregory:
    keiths,

    Well, I’m not going to look in the archives, but afair he’s outright denied being a Muslim, Christian or Jew here multiple times. It’s attention-seeking slippery generic theism, usually couched in incoherent defenses of IDism. I have no interest in his games.

    As predicted, Gregory the lair has not disappointed…
    When there’s no way out, you find a deeper way in…
    All chronic liars practice this, more so, the delusional ones…
    We didn’t have to look far. Here it is:

    Gregory: I am interested in seeking truth(s), not in lies & deceit.

    Congratulations! Your delusion has become real! 🤣

  11. Mung,

    Do you think that the belief that Jesus is God preceded the belief in the Trinity?

    Yes.

    You don’t think that Trinitarian thinking (“the trinitarian solution”) led to the belief in the divinity of Jesus do you?

    No.

  12. keiths:

    It makes so little sense that the Catholic church declares it a “mystery”, where “it’s a mystery” is equivalent to “we can’t make sense of this, but we want it to be true, so let’s just assume that it is”.

    Mung:

    I’d be interested to know which Catholic author or authors you read which gave you this idea.

    Of course no Catholic author would put it that way, but that’s what this “it’s a mystery” business boils down to.

  13. keiths:
    They were teaching you a heresy.In that analogy, each knot is merely part of the rope. To match trinitarian doctrine, each knot would need to be the entire rope.

    Thanks! Now I can go to Heaven!

  14. J-Mac,

    Why can’t you just tell Gregory what you believe and be done instead of behaving like an insufferable ass-hole? If you’re a Christian, you’ve missed the meaning of that, supposedly important, love-thy-neighbour-as-yourself. Oh. Sorry. I see. You despise yourself, and you show the same “love” you have for yourself to everybody else. That explains a lot.

  15. Mung: You make it sound like there really is support in the Bible for the doctrine of the Trinity, but that different New Testament authors present conflicting views about it.

    No, I don’t make it sound like that at all. How did you reach that conclusion?

    The Trinity concept is a ‘solution’ (as if!!) to the inconvenient fact that the Bible contans clear contradictions about the nature of God and the nature of Jesus. There can be only one God, but then Jesus appears to be God as well. On top of all that there is the Holy Spirit that has to fit in somehow too.

    To reconcile all of this one either has to sacrifice infallibility of the Bible, or rationality itself. Take your pick.

  16. Here is a Steiner rant:

    Only all that leads to the comprehension of this idea of Father, Son and Spirit has been gradually eliminated; it has been thrown out of the intelligible and become empty words; empty husks of words have alone been retained. For centuries man has had these empty word-husks. This has gone so far that, after having first dogmatically rejected them, people have begun to ridicule them. The best of men have ridiculed these empty husks. Ridicule has been poured upon them. ‘Dogmatic Theology’, it is said, ‘claims that One is Three and Three One!’ it is indeed a terrible delusion, it is sheer deception to believe that the Christian movement has ever demanded less understanding, less self-sacrificing knowledge, than that demanded by modern Spiritual Science — and demanded by it in order to regain Christianity. The most important and basic facts have been cast out of Christianity, and if we leave out of account that these live on in the different confessions as words, we can ask: What really remains to man of the fundamental ideas of Christ Himself? How does modern man discriminate between Christ and the Universal Cosmic God who can be met with in the ideas of Jahveh or Jehovah? I have drawn attention to the fact that even theologians such as Harnack do not discriminate. How many people today are clear as to what is to be understood by the Spirit? People have become such ‘abstractlings’, satisfied with the mere empty husks of words; either they remain in the churches and are satisfied; or if they are — as they call it — ‘enlightened’, they turn all to ridicule. What is given in empty husks of words can never have the power to bring light to the individual activities of human knowledge.

    I’m not sure of the original word in German that he would have used but I like that word ‘abstractlings’ 🙂
    He goes on to say that human history is more a case of degeneration than it is a case of progress. Regarding the modern view he continues:

    But now draw the social-ethical conclusion of such a conception, and recognise that if of all that takes place in the transmutation of force the purposes and aims of Man are only a secondary effect, then we are confronted with the possibility of believing that the world could get on without these secondary effects. As a matter of fact that is really the secret belief of modern man, that the real consists only of the physical, and everything else is a side-stream, a secondary effect.
    In face of such a view it would be only consistent to reject Christianity, as the materialists of the middle of the nineteenth century did. They actually carried out to its logical conclusion the materialistic cosmic conception, by saying: If naturalism is correct, then there is nothing for it but to ridicule the idea of any difference between a transgressor and a good man — for of course, just the same amount of force is transmuted into heat in the one as in the other! The questions that flash through the world at the present time are really often questions of honesty, courage and consistency. At a time when man certainly does not possess this honesty in respect of the outer things of life, it is indeed not surprising to find that it is not there in respect of these cardinal questions.

    He makes the heretical argument that we must distinguish Christ from the ‘Universal God underlying all nature’.

    He uses the same hierarchy of celestial beings ascending to the Godhead as Dionysius the Areopagite generally called Pseudo-Dionysius

    First – Seraphim, Cherubim and Thrones
    Second – Dominions, Virtues and Powers
    Third – Principalities, Archangels and Angels

    Humanity he considers to be the tenth hierarchy. The pivotal point of human history is the appearance of Christ on the earth. Prior to that time Christ is descending through the hierarchies and this is recorded in the Old Testament. His appearance enables humanity to halt its descent into degeneracy and to begin its ascent back to the Spirit. Of course this is dependent on humans being up to the task.

    So what does he have to say about the Holy Spirit?

    Steiner

    Through the Christ Impulse, however, a new conception had come — a conception which said that this Spirit of which men had previously spoken, this Spirit of the folk, was to be replaced by one which, though certainly related to it, worked at a far higher level, a Spirit which is related to the whole of mankind, as the earlier Spirit had been related to a particular people. This Spirit was to be given to man and to fill him with the power to say: “I feel I belong no longer only to a part of humanity, but to the whole of it; I am a member of the whole of mankind, and will become a member of it ever more and more!” This force, which poured a universal human quality over the whole of mankind, was attributed to “the Holy Spirit.” Thus the Spirit which was expressed in the force which flowed from the folk into the mother was raised from ‘Spirit’ to ‘Holy Spirit.’

    We are born into a particular family and people, but through the power of the Holy Spirit we can rise above this to the feeling that more than this we are united in our humanity. And we should not only have this feeling of being at one with all of humanity but also with nature as a whole.

  17. keiths:
    You’re welcome!I’m here to save as many souls as I can.

    Stop! You’re not saving anybody from anything…especially souls, which are a separate subject…😊

  18. Is it supposed to be an objection to the doctrine of the Trinity that it is a mystery or that it exceeds human comprehension? If so, I don’t understand why.

  19. CharlieM: We are born into a particular family and people, but through the power of the Holy Spirit we can rise above this to the feeling that more than this we are united in our humanity. And we should not only have this feeling of being at one with all of humanity but also with nature as a whole.

    That would make sense if “the power of the Holy Spirit” were a colorful metaphor for empathy and understanding.

  20. Kantian Naturalist:

    CharlieM: We are born into a particular family and people, but through the power of the Holy Spirit we can rise above this to the feeling that more than this we are united in our humanity. And we should not only have this feeling of being at one with all of humanity but also with nature as a whole.

    That would make sense if “the power of the Holy Spirit” were a colorful metaphor for empathy and understanding.

    Yes it would. And it also makes sense if Christ and the spiritual realm are a reality.

  21. CharlieM,

    It is beyond me how full grown men and women need explained to them why the above deserves all the ridicule it gets and much more.

  22. CharlieM re Steiner:

    He makes the heretical argument that we must distinguish Christ from the ‘Universal God underlying all nature’.

    That alone is an indication that Steiner doesn’t accept the Trinity.

  23. KN,

    Is it supposed to be an objection to the doctrine of the Trinity that it is a mystery or that it exceeds human comprehension? If so, I don’t understand why.

    No, the objection is that the doctrine is irrational and incoherent, and that the use of the term “mystery” is just a way of prettying it up and making it appear to be profound — in other words, putting lipstick on a pig.

  24. Entropy: Thanks! Now I can go to Heaven!

    Are you sure that you want to? Do you think that “going to heaven” should be voluntary?

  25. faded_Glory: No, I don’t make it sound like that at all. How did you reach that conclusion?

    I read your first post. Then I read your second post, which reinforced my conclusion.

    So, according to you, nothing at all in the New Testament would lend itself to a Trinitarian doctrine of God. Do I have that right?

  26. Some questions for the Christians out there:

    1. Do you accept the doctrine of the Trinity?
    2. The doctrine is absurd and you’re a fool if you can’t see it.
    3. You’re a moron for for dealing with the absurdity of the docrine by declaring it a “mystery.”

    Well, really, that’s only one question. But you’re a fool and a moron if you answered yes to the first question.

    You need to do better keiths, if you really want discussion. As it is I see no reason to engage you on this topic. You’re not even a Jehovah’s Witness!

  27. Mung,

    As it is I see no reason to engage you on this topic.

    How convenient. Better than trying to defend the doctrine of the Trinity, I guess.

  28. keiths: How convenient. Better than trying to defend the doctrine of the Trinity, I guess.

    You’ve given no reason that I should need to defend it other than your scorn. Do you think that reason can overcome scorn? And I did suggest to you a way forward, one to which you have not yet responded. Don’t blame me for your failure.

  29. Mung,

    Don’t sweat it. You’re not the only Christian who can’t defend trinitarian doctrine.

    Best to bail rather than trying and failing.

  30. keiths: You linked to two comments in the thread. And your point is…what?

    My point is that you have not responded, in spite of my attempts to engage your concerns. Your lack of engagement calls into question your sincerity.

    keiths: You’re not the only Christian who can’t defend trinitarian doctrine.

    You refuse to engage. Why don’t you just post a response to each of those posts? Do you need me to summarise?

  31. Christians have defended the doctrine of the Trinity for ages. In recent times, the doctnne has come under attack from cults such as the Jehovah’s Witnesses. The alliance between keiths and the JW’s is perhaps worthy of exploration.

    The Lutheran response? Will keiths explore that?

  32. Mung,

    My point is that you have not responded…

    I have responded to both of those comments. Read the thread.

  33. Mung,

    Christians have defended the doctrine of the Trinity for ages.

    Why can’t you?

  34. Not sure if there are any other theists who adhere to the Christian-specific doctrine of the Trinity. More likely, other theists are other theists in part because they want to avoid the doctrine of the Trinity.

    However, Trinity has some abstract appeal like mathematics in general. For example, take a blank paper. What is on the paper? Since it is blank, is there “nothing” on it or is there one thing, namely blankness?

    When you draw a line, how many things are there now? Is there

    – one thing (the line)
    – two things (two empty sides divided by the line)
    – three things (the line and two empty sides)
    ?

    The Trinity is a mystery like that.

  35. J-Mac:

    OMagain: J-Mac: What Christianity is that? I’ve been looking all over for it…

    This is partially a quote from my favorite Columbo episode…😉
    Is anybody here a fan? Lol

    The inevitability of good triumphing over evil. We know how it will end but we still love it. Who doesn’t love Columbo? 🙂

  36. dazz:
    CharlieM,

    It is beyond me…

    Don’t worry, “There are more things in heaven and earth…” 🙂

  37. keiths:

    CharlieM re Steiner:

    He makes the heretical argument that we must distinguish Christ from the ‘Universal God underlying all nature’.

    That alone is an indication that Steiner doesn’t accept the Trinity

    He doesn’t accept anything that would attempt to define the Godhead. Definitions are for dead matter. We can describe attributes of entities that are living or are conscious, but when we define them we are treating them as mathematical objects to be measured and numbered. In so doing their essential nature is lost.

    It is easy to say that in the Trinity, Father, Son and Holy Spirit are the One God, but these are just empty words. Likewise to say that the concept of the Trinity is an absurdity are also just empty words. We can all give our opinions but it won’t change reality.

    How can I contemplate understanding the Trinity if even my wife is a mystery to me 🙂

    Anyway, for what it’s worth I have given my opinion below.

    To get a pictoral image of the Trinity we can do no better than to look at The Disputa by the great Raphael

    If we want to begin to understand what the phrase, ‘Father, Son, and Holy Spirit,’ signifies we can look at what is said about them in the Bible.

    The Lord’s Prayer gives us some information on the Father.

    It begins by placing him in Heaven. And here we can see why the masculine term is used. The part we males play in procreation is to fertilise the egg and then let the new life develop in the body of the mother. The Father remains in Heaven while Mother Nature nurtures earthly life.

    Next He is described in three ways, reflecting the Trinity, His name, His kingdom and His will. There is no death in this kingdom.

    And out of the kingdom of the Father we are born.

    The Son issues from the Father and descends to earth, incarnating in a human body. Through the Son the Divine is able to experience human suffering and death. Only through this act of uniting the Son with the earth can humankind be lead back to heaven, to the kingdom of the Father.

    In Christ we die.

    The Holy Spirit is the cosmic love which is issues from the Son. And everyone can experience this love to varying degrees, not just those who call themselves Christian. Many people have told of receiving this cosmic love but its force is not in the telling it is in the personal experience.

    The Holy Spirit revitilises us.

    Here is Rapael’s, The Disputa from Wikipedia

  38. CharlieM: This is partially a quote from my favorite Columbo episode…
    Is anybody here a fan? Lol

    The inevitability of good triumphing over evil. We know how it will end but we still love it. Who doesn’t love Columbo?

    Columbo is amazing! It’s a family affair for us…😊
    My friend, world’s renowned child psychiatrist, uses one Columbo’s approaches with his patients and their family members…
    It works! It should be taught at medical schools…😁

  39. CharlieM:

    It is easy to say that in the Trinity, Father, Son and Holy Spirit are the One God, but these are just empty words.

    Like I said, it’s clear that Steiner doesn’t accept the Trinity.

  40. Erik,

    Not sure if there are any other theists who adhere to the Christian-specific doctrine of the Trinity.

    None that I know of.

    More likely, other theists are other theists in part because they want to avoid the doctrine of the Trinity.

    That’s certainly true of the Jehovah’s Witnesses, who see no scriptural support for the Trinity.

    However, Trinity has some abstract appeal like mathematics in general. For example, take a blank paper. What is on the paper? Since it is blank, is there “nothing” on it or is there one thing, namely blankness?

    When you draw a line, how many things are there now? Is there

    – one thing (the line)
    – two things (two empty sides divided by the line)
    – three things (the line and two empty sides)
    ?

    The Trinity is a mystery like that.

    That doesn’t seem like much of a mystery to me. It can be summarized as “the number of things we see depends on what counts as a thing.”

  41. keiths:

    It is easy to say that in the Trinity, Father, Son and Holy Spirit are the One God, but these are just empty words.

    Like I said, it’s clear that Steiner doesn’t accept the Trinity.

    What is clear is that Steiner rejects the way those who lay down Church dogmas have proclaimed we must their version of the Trinity as depicted in the image you provided.

    He said

    Hence for spiritual science there are no such things as closed dogmas, only unrestricted research which does not draw back in fear at the frontiers either of the spiritual world or of the world of nature, but which makes use of those human powers of cognition which have first to be drawn from the depths of human feeling, just as it also uses those powers which come to us through ordinary heredity and ordinary education.

    We can share what we believe about the “Father” and the “Son” and the “Holy Spirit”, but to make declarations that God is this or God is that and then to demand that others must adhere to this belief is to sin against the very being they are supposed to be following, Christ.

    Many voices from within the Roman Catholic church have declared Steiner a heretic. But to be a heretical of the teaching of the Church and to be heretical of the teachings of Christ are two different things.

    Steiner on Catholicism

    One need not be blind to the greatness of the Catholic doctrine of Belief; but it is just when one is not blind, but realises it fully, that one also realises its connection with what man has already passed through and realises also the necessity that something new should come in.

    and:

    Such things must be kept clearly in mind to-day, because they reveal to us how the deep foundations of modern civilisation have developed; and then with the right preparation we can approach such a pronouncement as that which I quoted yesterday at the conclusion of the lecture, which shows how an Oriental recognises in Roman Catholicism the one power within the decadent modern Western civilisation which still really has something of the Spirit in it. We must understand such a thing on the one hand, my dear friends, and on the other we must also see clearly that dangers that lie in the efforts that are being made by those who hold such views. We must be quite clear, for instance, as to the following. If Roman Catholicism is considered to-day in its totality — not as the various individual priests take it, for they as a rule are very poorly educated, but if it is taken in its totality, as it can be advocated, Catholicism is a world-conception which is all-embracing and full of content. That is just the grand thing about the Catholic teaching as it meets us in the Middle Ages in Scholasticism. There it is a world-conception that is enclosed on all sides, but developed in detail logically as well as ontologically and worked out in a wonderful way. The world-conception which meets us there has been preserved from olden times, and still holds within it the concept of the Father and of the Son and of the Spirit; a world-conception which was a world-embracing dogmatic teaching about the Trinity, a world-conception which, in the philosophy of St. Augustine and Thomas Aquinas, can of itself bring forth ideas for that social ordering of mankind. It is a thought structure that is all-inclusive, and above all it is a structure which requires careful study in order to penetrate it. In reality, in order to understand the Catholic system, the Catholic theory — the Catholic dogma, if one wishes to call it so, one must be able to work in the most accurate way with concepts. One must have clear and distinct ideas, and be able to work with these ideas in a way that modern philosophy would find extremely uncomfortable — and more especially our modern Protestant Theologians. That is something which really should be known, because Catholicism contains connected teachings about all that man longs for in his knowledge, even if for the higher spheres they are revelations and matters of belief. Catholicism will never fall into that mistake which I characterised yesterday as the rickety conception of the world, because Catholicism has within it that firmly incorporated, strong skeleton-structure of belief, which starts from the principles of nature and works up to that stage where even the higher spheres can be recognised through its truths of revelation. Nevertheless it works up from below to this all-embracing world-conception, and it is one that a man can unite with his soul. But what Catholicism bears within it is fundamentally nothing but the last relics of those old world views which were founded on the idea that humanity must not cross the Threshold of the sphere in which modern mankind is actually now standing! That is the great opposition between Roman Catholicism and modern civilisation. Roman Catholic has, in course of time, worked in the most manifold ways. It has of course undergone development by means of its Councils and in other ways, through dogmatic assertions and so on. All the same, it is still only an echo of those ancient doctrines inasmuch as it brings together what those man of old had grasped without being prepared to cross the Threshold. And so Roman Catholicism stands there as a magnificent architectural structure, which however comes from olden times when men did not yet reckon with what had to come into evolution of man with modern Natural Science, with the modern world of concepts and with what has still to come through Natural Science in our modern social concepts.

    You see, my dear friends, if Catholicism were to be the only teaching to spread over humanity to-day, the Earth could stop “right now” in its development.

    Steiner recognised the connections between Christian teachings and other religions and belief systems. And he discussed this in detail in his various books and lectures

    I also showed in the course of my lecture yesterday that the rites and rituals of the Roman Church owed much to the Eleusinian Mysteries which had been interrupted in their development because Julian had been unable to carry out his intentions; his plan had failed to materialize. But the rites and sacraments of later years owed still more to the Mithras Mysteries. But the spirit of the Mithras Mysteries, that which justified their existence, the source from which they derived their spiritual content, can no longer be investigated. The Church has been careful to remove all traces of it and to close the door to enquiry. Knowledge of this can only be recovered if we strive to come to an understanding of these things through Spiritual Science. Today I propose to touch upon only one aspect of the Mithras Mysteries (note 3). I could of course speak at greater length about the Mithras Mysteries if I had more time at my disposal, but in order to understand them we must first gradually become conversant with their details.

    Mithraic initiation involved seven stages culminating in the designation “Father”.

    The standard view is that there was a lot of copying of ideas between the various belief systems. Another explanation could be that they were all tapping the same source and discovering the same truths which they interpreted in their own individual ways. I believe the latter explanation to be more accurate.

    Here Steiner quotes Nietzsche and then gives his own comment.

    “Christianity as a historical reality must not be confused with that one root which its name recalls: the other roots from which it has sprung are by far the more important. It is an unprecedented abuse of language to associate such manifestations of decay and such monstrosities as the ‘Christian Church’, ‘Christian belief’ and ‘Christian life’ with that Holy Name. What did Christ deny? — Everything which today is called Christian!”

    Although this is perhaps an extreme view, Nietzsche nevertheless touched upon something which has a certain truth; but he expressed it somewhat radically. It is true to the extent that one could say: What would Christ most vigorously condemn if He were to appear in our midst today? Most probably what the majority of people call “Christian” today, and much else besides, which I will discuss in our lecture on Tuesday next.

    In my opinion any aspiring Christian should pay more attention to the teachings and example of Christ than to the teachings of any church or denomination. There are many passages in the Bible worth meditating on concerning the concepts, Father, Son and Holy Spirit.

    I know that I have a lot more to learn about what these concepts mean and signify.

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