Trinity in its basics
Perhaps, you already know these!
1. God is one
2. Father is God
3. Son is God
4. Holy spirit is God
5. Father is not Son, Son isn’t Holy Spirit & Holy Spirit isn’t Father
6. Yet no three Gods!
False views of the trinity
1. Father, Son and Holy Spirit are three forms of God/ Jesus is the Father, the Son & the Spirit: Modalism
2. They are just three parts of God: Partialism
3. They are three different beings working together: Tritheism
4. Son submits to Father eternally in while speaking of nature and essence: Subordinationism
Why peoples end up with heresy?
As Gordon D. Fee notes, most people prefer to reduce God to a size their own mind can grasp and thus control!
Second, the church has been treating the spirit as mere doctrinal matter instead a real and genuine experience in day-to-day life!
Page no. 37
Ontological & economic trinity
Ontological/ Immanent Trinity
When we say they are equal in nature and attributes, we are speaking of what is Trinity called the Ontological Trinity
(ontology – the study of being and essence).
Economic Trinity
When we speak of how they relate to each other and the world, we are speaking of the Economic Trinity
(economic – from the Greek oikonomikos which means relating to the arrangement of activities).
For simplified concept
Ontological Trinity = what God is
Economic Trinity = what God does.
For a single verse that shows differences in roles, see 1 Pet. 1:2, “According to the foreknowledge of God the Father, by the sanctifying work of the Spirit, that you may obey Jesus Christ and be sprinkled with His blood,” You can see that the Father foreknows. The Son became man and sacrificed himself. The Holy Spirit sanctifies the church.
The difference is in roles
1. It is the father who sent the son! (John 6:44; 8:18; 10:36; 1 John 4:14)
2. Jesus came on earth to fulfil will of the father (John 6:38)
3. Jesus performed the redemptive work, Father did not (2 Cor. 5:21, 1 Pet. 2:24)
4. Jesus is the only begotten, not the Father (John 3:16)
5. Father gave the Son (John 3:16)
6. Father and Son send the Holy Spirit (John 14:26, John 15:26)
7. The Father gave elect to the son not to Holy Spirit (John 6:39)
8. The Father appointed the Son as the heir of all things (Heb. 1:1)
9. The Holy Spirit gives gifts to the Church (1 Cor. 12:8-11) and produces fruit (Gal. 5:22-23).
Then, we shall arrive in these conclusions:
1. Modalism is a false view of the Trinity which teaches Father, Son and Holy Spirit are merely three distinct Modes of working of the same God
2. Subordinationism is a false view because it teaches the Son is subjected to the Father in virtue of nature and attributes
3. Partialism is a slippery view if we assume the three persons as merely the parts that add up to form God while Father, Son and Holy Spirit understood as ‘parts’ in sense of unity of One Godhead in light of existence of the other two persons might be a considerable position! (WLC)
4. Jesus as Triune God is a blunder view as the scripture clearly shows the three persons co-working as One God! This idea is mistakenly expressed in one of the books of Thomas Hwang translated in Nepali
5. Yahweh is God the Father is a misconception since it is the proper name of God and Jesus claimed to be the ‘I AM’!
6. Three Titles of One God view fails to understand that the scripture clearly shows literally three divine persons involving …
God the Father greater?
Is the Trinity a holy hierarchy, a triarchy, with God the Father as the boss, Jesus as his deputy, and the Holy Spirit as the Son’s assistant or delegate? The short answer is no.
Historical Christianity—whether Catholic, Orthodox, or Protestant—has affirmed that the Trinity is a Tri-unity of divine persons, not a tripartite hierarchy of heavenly beings.
What differentiates the persons of the Godhead is not authority or rank, but relations of origin, i.e., how the divine persons relate to each other. God the Father is unbegotten, the Son is eternally generated rather than made or created, while the Holy Spirit proceeds from the Father (and maybe from the Son too).
Are three persons competitive?
There is no competition among them because they have different roles. Since they have different roles, then the way they relate to each other is also eternal and unchangeable.
Models of trinity [a limited information]
Social Trinity: that focuses on diversity of persons, can threaten to potentiality of falling into Tritheism
Anti-social Trinity: that focuses on God’s unity, Can pitfall into Unitarianism/ oneness
Analogies of trinity [a limited information]
Misleading? But why?
1. God cannot be compared with anything else [Isa. 40:25]
2. It can lead to Heretic (false) ideas
3. People can rely on it to understand the wholesome picture of Trinity
4. Works only for a specific premise
5. Immaterial Entity like God cannot be compared with Materialistic entities (Source: Inspiring Philosophy)
Egg: It leads to Partialism
Sun, its light and heat: Son & Spirit are creation of God?
Water: It leads to Modalism
3-Parallel circuit: It leads to Partialism [One I made]
Phoneme/ sound: It leads to Modalism [One I made]
Synoptic Gospel: It leads to Partialism [One I made]
Better Analogies of trinity [a limited information]
Moon knight by Michael Jones from Inspiring Philosophy channel
-He is 3 persons
-They co-exist, talk to each other and share the essence of Moon Knight
-Each person is fully Moon Knight
Greek Mythological guard dog of hades
By William Lane Craig
-3 headed dog
-3 minds
-3 self-consciousness
-Only one dog
-3 minds have to work co-operatively
How come analogies?
1. God’s general revelation [Acts 14:17, Rom.1:20 and Ps. 19:1]
2. Unity in diversity in nature
3. Manifests certain glimpse of God’s nature
4. To help understand how one can be three and three can be one
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