| We hope you enjoy your visit! You're currently viewing Catholic CyberForum as a guest. This means you are limited to certain areas of the board and there are some features you can't use. If you join our online cyberparish, you'll be able to access member-only sections, and use many member-only features such as customizing your profile, sending personal messages, and voting in polls. Registration is simple, fast, and completely free. Join our community! Messages posted to this board must be polite and free of abuse, personal attacks, blasphemy, racism, threats, harasment, and crude or sexually-explicit language. If you're already a member please log in to your account to access all of our features: |
| The Trinity; Why is it essential | |
|---|---|
| Topic Started: Wednesday, 26. August 2009, 08:04 (1,634 Views) | |
| John Sweeney | Wednesday, 26. August 2009, 08:04 Post #1 |
|
Here is a basic question which I should know the answer to but which has been niggling away at me since it was alluded to in other threads ( mainly by me I have to say so I suppose the niggle might have been there for some time!). Why is belief in the Trinity such an essential part of Catholic belief? How was such a fiendishly complicated, not to say impossible, mystery placed at the heart of the Faith? I can quite see that the belief that God sent his only Son is crucial but why make them one and the same and why chuck in the Holy Spirit for good measure? I could have expressed myself more eoquently but I hope you get the gist. John |
 |
 
|
| Bob Crowley | Wednesday, 26. August 2009, 10:31 Post #2 |
|
It's necessary because it's the Truth and it's a fact. It was Christ who referred to the Holy Spirit, and it was the Holy Spirit who empowered the budding church at Pentecost, and indwells the church today. Thus He is a fundamental part of the Church's history and formation and being. That we don't understand it doesn't mean much. We still don't know completely how our own minds work, or how body, mind and spirit work together in our own limited trinitarian nature, so if we can't understand the merely human image of God, why should we be surprised we don't understand the divine Trinity? One God, Three Persons. |
|
|
|
| Anne-Marie | Wednesday, 26. August 2009, 14:41 Post #3 |
|
Ever known for chucking a spanner in the works... It occurs to me that for God to work (or, at any rate, the way we are told He does work), the human bit, Jesus, is a separate Person to the bit that comes to us as the Holy Spirit/Ghost. Yet (sorry, but I do tend to think these things and they fascinate me) Our Lady is the same person who lived with Jesus AND as appears to people like Bernadette Soubirous. Does Our Lady as one person achieving both these things and God needing two Persons to achieve same, not suggest to a non-Catholic that Our Lady performs better than her Son??? Multy-tasking they usually call it when women can handle more than the one task simultaneously  Like many, I don't understand the Trinity. I accept that it is so, even though I honestly don't comprehend what I'm believing! I have heard many people, including theologians (Lord, preserve us from that lot!) just not making sense when they try to explain how three Persons can be the one God - except in the sense that two persons can become one in marriage - nice theory but we all know the one couple is still quite capable of operating separately as two individuals. IS THERE a simple way to explain the Trinity coherently - because if there is, I'd love to hear it.... Edited by Anne-Marie, Wednesday, 26. August 2009, 14:53.
|
|
Anne-Marie FIAT VOLUNTAS DEI | |
|
|
|
| PJD | Wednesday, 26. August 2009, 14:49 Post #4 |
|
"IS THERE as imple way to explain the trinity coherently - because if there is, I'd love to hear it...." Yes Anne-Marie; the answer is that it is a mystery. But I am not being sarcastic in any way here, for if you wish you can still meditate on a mystery (which many of the Saints have done and produced essays on it) - a form of reasoning that is generally labelled as metaphysics - and complicated. PJD PJD |
|
|
|
| John Sweeney | Wednesday, 26. August 2009, 14:57 Post #5 |
|
I realise that it is a mystery PJD and I don't expect anyone to come up with an explanation of it. But why is it essential to our Faith? John |
|
|
|
| Rose of York | Wednesday, 26. August 2009, 15:08 Post #6 |
Administrator
|
Saying the rosary the other day, I let my mind ramble (that's how I pray the rosary). Whilst praying the Second Glorious Mystery, the Ascension I found myself wondering what Jesus aaid to his father when he got up there. Jesus was a young man, did he say "Hi Dad" then say something else to the Holy Spirit? The three had never been apart anyway. Ah, but we are told he ascended to his father. What about the Spirit? Did Jesus ascend to one person or to two? During the Agony in the Garden Jesus addressed his Father, not the Spirit. I was taught the Spirit fortifies us/ Confusing, but we do know there are three persons in one God. Jesus said he and the Father are One. He said he would send HIS spirit, not THE spirit. Why did the Spirit need to be SENT? Did he await instructions? He knows what he must do, he knows everything, he is God. |
  Catholic and proud of it! Talk to God before Mass. Talk to each other afterwards | |
|
|
|
| Patrick | Wednesday, 26. August 2009, 15:11 Post #7 |
Administrator
|
It forms the three articles of the Credo, a Catholic's profession of Faith. |
  
| |
|
|
| John Sweeney | Wednesday, 26. August 2009, 15:15 Post #8 |
|
I know , Patrick, but why does it? John |
|
|
|
| OsullivanB | Wednesday, 26. August 2009, 15:16 Post #9 |
|
The Trinity is essential to our faith as a reconciliation of the following fundamental beliefs: 1. The Father is God. He is not the Son or the oly . 2. Jesus is God, but is neither the Father nor the Holy Spirit. 3. The Holy Spirit is God. He is not the Father or the Son. 4. There is but one God. |
|
|
|
| Patrick | Wednesday, 26. August 2009, 15:17 Post #10 |
|
Administrator
|
Because it is a divinely revealed Truth. |
|
| |
|
|
|
| James | Wednesday, 26. August 2009, 16:13 Post #11 |
|
James
|
I suppose you could say John that people around Christ began to realise that there was an "extension " to him that did not happen with other people around. As I understand it , The "trinity" is central to christian teaching but not in old testament Juadism so it was revealed in those few years that Christ was on earth. We are made aware of three persons in the writings of the gospels. "The Word" in and through Christ himself and his actions as a human being of flesh and blood . He never said he was God but told Peter he was blessed indeed when he(Peter) concluded ,or it was revealed inwardly, that he was "the son of the most high"or as John so eloquently puts it "the word made flesh" That , to me anyway, is the starting point and from there Christ has only referred to two other persons of divinity. The father or Godhead of whom he alwys spoke about or to. And ,at the end, the paraclete (Holy Spirit) who would be with us after he departed and which so very dramatically came true forty days later, at Pentecost, changing people frightened for their lives into the nucleus of the church on earth. And so, it came to be understood as such from those years .within our very limited awareness of the nature of God. I do like St Patrick's idea with the shamrock. All three leaves together with the stem make the shamrock. Pick off a leaf and hold it up and say is this the shamrock. ? No, that is a leaf of the shamrock. Then pick the other two and hold them up with the first and say are these three leaves the shamrock ? Again no. although you have three leaves they are three separate leaves of the shamrock. Then the shamrock is the three separate attached together to the life giving stem and all together is the shamrock Yes! And that is about as good as it can be explained from what we believe emanated from Christ on the matter of the nature of God. Why has the shamrock got three leaves ?- well a botanist may answer that one but as far as we are aware a shamrock has three leaves and we recognise it as such !! Best I can do on the question raised !! Edited by James, Wednesday, 26. August 2009, 20:27.
|
|
|
|
| O'Ratty | Wednesday, 26. August 2009, 18:12 Post #12 |
|
Ιτ's a great question John. "We cannot know God - but we need to know Him to know that" I believe this mystery of the "inner life" of God was revealed to us (and it's necessary to remind ourselves that it was "revealed" - it's NOT as people tend to think nowadays, the result of "speculative" theology) because it has something very profound and necessary to tell us about where we're going, and why and how we're to get there. It occurs to me that this dovetails with the thread I've just noticed on "salvation". Perhaps I'll expand upon it there. Knowing that God always acts "through" His Word (D'var Yahweh) and "in" His life-giving Breath (Ruach Yahweh) profoundly changes the way we approach him - knowing also that everything we offer back to Him is through the Son, in the Spirit. Knowing also that Word and Breath are also fully persons brings us close to the heart of the mystery of communion in love, which is the purpose of our existence. We are to "become by grace what God is by nature" - to participate in the divinity of the Father while remaining uniquely ourselves. A young seminarian once mentioned to his professor that he couldn't find the Trinity in the pages of the Bible. The professor advised him to get a thick notebook and draw three columns in each page - one for Father, one for Son, and one for Holy Spirit; then, starting with the NT, to indicate in the appropriate column, every reference he found to Father, Son, Spirit, Word, Breath, etc, etc; and when he'd done the NT, to continue with the OT. After a few hours of faithfully pursuing this exercise, the seminarian realised it was redundant to continue - the Trinity is everywhere in Scripture, Old and New Testament. Edited by O'Ratty, Wednesday, 26. August 2009, 18:17.
|
|
Concepts create idols; only wonder grasps anything. - St. Gregory of Nyssa | |
|
|
|
| O'Ratty | Wednesday, 26. August 2009, 18:31 Post #13 |
|
Another point: the mystery of the Most Holy Trinity (along with everything to do with the Blessed Virgin, the Saints and Angels, and the sacraments) does NOT belong to the "public" proclamation of the Gospel. We should not really talk about these things to those outside the family of the faith - not simply because it profanes them, but because unless and until one is "purified" by the keeping of the commandments, and subsequently "illumined" by baptism, one is simply incapable of "seeing" them at all. They belong to the "inner life" of the Church, and it was never permitted in the early centuries to speak of them at all to the unbaptised. That's why in the Orthodox Church the Gospel of St John (which is not a "Gospel" in the same sense as the synoptics, but rather a theological meditation on the Gospel) is only read liturgically after Holy Pascha, when all the catechuments have been newly baptised. It has, I think, done a great deal of harm to our own sense of the sacredness and intimate necessity of these "inner mysteries" that we consent to talk about them in a habitually detatched and almost casual way. Edited by O'Ratty, Wednesday, 26. August 2009, 18:50.
|
|
Concepts create idols; only wonder grasps anything. - St. Gregory of Nyssa | |
|
|
|
| Richard Hannay. | Wednesday, 26. August 2009, 18:55 Post #14 |
|
An amusing observation Anne-Marie but what if, and I merely follow your example of tossing in spanners, we were to look at it this way; We believe Jesus was a man and that Mary was a woman but the Holy Spirit is considered by some to be feminine. The Trinity is perhaps best viewed from a gender free zone. We do not know as a fact that any member of the trinity exists we accept it as an article of faith. We believe and the Trinity is our concept of explaining an even greater Mystery, the true nature and identity of the creator. Perhaps Anne-Marie is on to something. If the early theologians had been women, they may not have had a problem with a multi tasking Deity. They may have avoided the doctrine of the trinity and come up with, ‘The doctrine of Colour Co-ordination.’ Why are the colours of the rainbow not more… or the grass a different shade of green because it really clashes with the hedgerow? In any event we mere men would still be in trouble because any answer we suggest is bound to be incomplete, or as women the world over will tell us, wrong. |
|
|
|
| James | Wednesday, 26. August 2009, 20:24 Post #15 |
|
James
|
Thank you O'Ratty. We can be inclined to analyse GOD and the things REVEALED and get them inside the framework of our own heads. Label them and store them away with data storage to pull out in some argument. I like the way you to point out and remind that these matters are sacred revelations and not a projection of the human mind. They "ARE" in spite of and beyond our understandings or misunderstandings or, indeed, ignorance or conclusions . James Edited by James, Wednesday, 26. August 2009, 20:43.
|
|
|
|
| 1 user reading this topic (1 Guest and 0 Anonymous) | |
| Go to Next Page | |
| « Previous Topic · General Catholic Discussion · Next Topic » | |
12:31 PM Nov 25