How is it possible for the father, son, and holy ghost to be God and for the father not to be the son and so on?

I am a Christian but have my doubts like most people. How can one justify this without sounding like they have a closed mind about it? Asked by Jekyll 47 months ago Similar questions: father son holy ghost God Society > Religion & Spirituality.

Similar questions: father son holy ghost God.

Don't explain the Creator in terms of the creation; explain the creation in terms of the Creator What’s tripping you up is your starting point. If you begin with your human experience and the logic that applies to the created order, you’re going to run into trouble trying to use those tools to crack the mystery of the Trinity. But the most fundamental tenet of a Christian view of reality is the Creator-creature distinction.

There’s God, the uncreated Creator, and then there’s everything else, and although the creation may image the Creator in certain ways, the two are fundamentally unlike one another. It follows, then, that the nature of God will be unlike the creation that we experience. You may be familiar with various illustrations of the Trinity: water, the egg, that kind of thing.

If pressed to their conclusions, they all lead to some contradiction of the biblical facts: water to modalism, the egg to tritheism, and so on. Again, this is to be expected. Any being that can be entirely explained in terms of the creation is not the God of the Bible.

The standard theological answer to your question is that there are three Persons who are one in Essence. Thus, when Jesus prays to the Father (who, being a different Person, is not Jesus), He is not praying to and thus the action makes sense. On the other hand, when He says "I and my Father are one," He is speaking of unity of Essence.An astute observer will notice that the categories (Person and Essence) are simply manufactured out of the biblical data that Father, Son and Holy Spirit are distinct (in some unspecified way) and yet unified (in some other unspecified way that does not contradict their distinctness).

They’re hooks to hang the discussion on, but they don’t really explain anything. In other words, if you recognize the authority of Scripture, then careful thinking will land you at something like the standard solution. If you don’t, then you’ll see it as a contradiction.

However, that’s not quite the whole story. There are certain problems in creation which mirror our problem in understanding the Creator. Philosophers have struggled for millennia with the problem of the one and the many, and no successful resolution has yet been forthcoming.

(And if you study the problem a little, you’ll realize it impacts *everything*. ) Solutions that resolve all reality into plurality create a serious set of problems, and solutions that resolve all reality into unity create a different set of problems. Neither one particularly comports with experience.

A handful of Christian philosophers have argued, I think correctly, that the way to account for the problem of the one and the many is to be found in the Trinity. Note that this doesn’t exactly solve the problem, in the sense "by understanding how the Trinity works we can also understand how unity and plurality relate in the creation" -- obviously, we *don’t* understand how the Trinity works. I’m not talking about explaining the inner workings of the problem, but accounting for the phenomenon that created the problem to start with.

We have a created order in which unity and plurality seem to enjoy equal ultimacy, which seems utterly impossible and inexplicable. How could it be? On the Christian account of reality, it is because the ontological Trinity, the God in whose very nature plurality and unity are equally ultimate, also relates plurality and unity in the creation.

Your question was partly about how to justify the Trinity to people who ask about it. The only direct justification you could, or should, offer is God’s revelation of But you can offer indirect justification as I did above. The question is not how the creation explains the nature of God, but how God explains the creation.

It turns out, the nature of God as explained in the Bible accounts very well for the phenomena of creation -- and nothing else does, despite millennia of attempts. Sources: Bible, Cornelius Van Til, Greg Bahnsen, Ralph Smith, R.J. Rushdoony CannyYarnCap's Recommendations Trinity & Reality: An Introduction to the Christian Faith Amazon List Price: $18.00 Used from: $34.99 Average Customer Rating: 5.0 out of 5 (based on 5 reviews) Paradox and Truth: Rethinking Van Til on the Trinity Amazon List Price: $12.00 Used from: $8.64 the ONE and the MANY - Studies in Philosophy in Order and Ultimacy - Rousas J. Rushdoony Used from: $18.00 Van Til's Apologetic: Readings and Analysis Amazon List Price: $39.99 Used from: $21.23 Average Customer Rating: 4.5 out of 5 (based on 22 reviews) _Trinity and Reality_ gives a useful overview of the Trinity, and _Paradox_ specifically addresses some of the apologetic aspects.

Rushdoony's book is what its title says, and is one of the best works going on that topic -- a real gold mine. _Van Til's Apologetic_ is a monster, but the best starting point there is for understanding Van Til, whose trinitarian philosophy broke a lot of new ground..

God is above us, He is not limited to our limitations, He is not human, or a creature, He is God In the Divine Essence they are One God, but Three Persons. Our being or essence, as human beings our essence each human is one person. Yet, God being Different, even within This is not a flaw in Christianity, but rather the Excellence of Christianity.

Why should God be limited to our limitations? I mean we are created in not He in ours. If a photograph had self awareness, it being the image of a living person, might have some confusion in its mind about the three dimensional world.

Yet, just because the world of the photo is limited to two dimensions, does not mean that we are limited to those dimensions. Just as we are above or beyond the photo in our being, so God is ABOVE and Beyond us in I don't think this is close minded at all. I think it is the opposite.It is close minded to think that the God of the universe, Who made all things, including us, would be limited to our human limitations.

No, He is infinite, eternal, unchangeable, He is One God, in Three Persons. That is why we could say "God is Love" and not 'God became love' ... love implies RELATIONSHIP - God has always, for all eternity, had relationship, even perfect relationship within the Son and the Holy Spirit.No, Jesus does not pray to but He prays to God the Father. Yes, they are One God.

Yet, Three Persons. I know it is a bit mind boggling, yet why should God be less than mind boggling? .

The Council of Nice, 352 A.D., where the doctrine of the Trinity was first officially formulated. The doctrine of the Trinity is that there is one God who exists in three persons: Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. Each person is not the same as the other person; that is, the Father is not the same person as the Son who is not the same person as the Holy Spirit.

Each is fully God in nature. Each person is not a god in itself. Instead, the totality of all three persons comprises the one God.

There are not three gods, but one. Christians believe there are no partners with God because they believe there is only one God in all existence. The concept of the trinity isn't as foreign as you might think, you find it in nature and science.

When you look at matter it has three forms; gas, solid, liquid. Time has the past, present, and the future and Space has height, width, and depth. I'm not really trying to argue for the Trinity, just let you know I can understand how one could apply the same principle.

One could argue if the verses used to support the Trinity really do. It's never outright described in the Bible none the less it became official church doctrine in 352 A.D. at the council of Nice. The concept wasn't unheard of before the Bible, in fact it is a very pagan belief.In the preface to Edward Gibbon's we read: "If Paganism was conquered by Christianity, it is equally true that Christianity was corrupted by Paganism.

The pure Deism of the first Christians .. Was changed, by the Church of Rome, into the incomprehensible dogma of the trinity. Many of the pagan tenets, invented by the Egyptians and idealized by Plato, were retained as being worthy of belief. " Those who make it sound like the concept of the Trinity was widely accepted at the Council of Nice should do a little more reading.

As a matter of fact debate continued for centuries, to this day, over the validity of the Trinity doctrine. Now what does that mean for you. Is it really that important?

I don't think so. If it was I would think Christ would have made more than a few passing abstruse comments about its existence. Disbelieving the Trinity does not violate your belief in God, nor does it, by biblical teaching, mean your gonna burn in hell.

The Trinity First of all, Jesus spoke of us as Sons and Daughters of God. Also, Jesus is referred to as the Son of God. GOD IS ALL.

We emanate from this Divine Being and are not separate but are "God individualized". It is our purpose to unfold this spiritual consciousness within our own mind and heart and it is by reflection, contemplation, or meditation that we become attuned to our higher nature. You will find many interpretations of the Trinity described in different words, in various religions.

Each explanation helps us to understand, and there is neither a right way nor a wrong way, nor an only way, for all ways lead to the final unity with the Eternal Spirit, or God the Father. Below is a page of a life "reading" I had years ago and I was allowed to ask a few questions. It is similar to what Edgar Cayce did, if you know what his work was.It answers my question of the Trinity - Father, Son, and Holy Ghost, ... : ---------------------------- (cont’d)... goldie080's Recommendations Divine Healing of Mind & Body Amazon List Price: $17.95 Used from: $6.22 Average Customer Rating: 4.5 out of 5 (based on 8 reviews) Edgar Cayce on Jesus & s Church .

They are not one God the Father, Jesus and the Holy Ghost are three separate beings. On Jesus's baptism in the river Jordan, God the Father spoke from Heaven , saying "This is my Beloved Son , In whom I am well Pleased"..... It is logical that Jesus and HIs father are not one...

" "Religion is for people who fear hell; Spirituality is for people who've been to hell. What does this mean? " "What does anyone out there of the Holiness religion know about how you get the Holy Ghost?

" "What does God think of this? What do you think of this? I believe God is real and religion is not helping God.

" "Is this by Walt Whitman? Note the bearing on the current threads re 'organized religion' as contrasted w/ spirituality. " "i need to find the split track for holy ghost by brooklyn tabernacle choir?

" ""Religion is for people who are scared of hell, and spirituality is for people who have been through it." comments? " (10 answers) "Why isn't Religion & Spirituality listed under Main categories? I didn't realize the category existed." "where is God?

Not the Holy Spirit but the? " (14 answers).

Religion is for people who fear hell; Spirituality is for people who've been to hell. What does this mean?

I believe God is real and religion is not helping God.

Note the bearing on the current threads re 'organized religion' as contrasted w/ spirituality.

Religion is for people who are scared of hell, and spirituality is for people who have been through it. " comments? " (10 answers).

I cant really gove you an answer,but what I can give you is a way to a solution, that is you have to find the anglde that you relate to or peaks your interest. A good paper is one that people get drawn into because it reaches them ln some way.As for me WW11 to me, I think of the holocaust and the effect it had on the survivors, their families and those who stood by and did nothing until it was too late.