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.

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.

__________________
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.

__________________
"Sometimes I have to remember that things are brought to me for a reason, either for my own lessons or for the benefit of others." Cynthetiq

"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).

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.

__________________
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.

roachboy

heretic.

__________________
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?

snowy

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.

__________________
If I am not better, at least I am different. --Jean-Jacques Rousseau

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?

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....

__________________
Dull sublunary lovers love,
Whose soul is sense, cannot admit
Absence, because it doth remove
That thing which elemented it.

(From "A Valediction: Forbidding Mourning" by John Donne)

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).

genuinegirly

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

__________________
"Sometimes I have to remember that things are brought to me for a reason, either for my own lessons or for the benefit of others." Cynthetiq

"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.

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....

__________________
Dull sublunary lovers love,
Whose soul is sense, cannot admit
Absence, because it doth remove
That thing which elemented it.

(From "A Valediction: Forbidding Mourning" by John Donne)

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

__________________
"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.

__________________
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.

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

Can god be a comma?
And now we've found our way back to creepy.

God is reason? I can't remember reading that in the Bible. Was it in Duetro... Dutur... Leviticus?

Ustwo

God is the the alpha and the omega, omnipotent, omnipresent, omniscient, and you are looking for where it was written? God nature isn't something you dissect on the operating table, to be cross referenced with charts, graphs and tables, and compared to that which you know and understand. God is all things, and your reason is but a gift to you. You can use it as you see fit, and it can carry you into gods heavenly light or the darkness where those who reject gods light can only go.

__________________
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.

ratbastid

Methodists have a different bible??

sapiens

Among other possible places, it's in the beginning of the Book of John:
"Word" is translated from Logos which is often also translated as reason.

Ustwo

All I know is I was in a Methodist church for a wedding, and being bored I read the bible they had in the pew and it was like reading something from my AD&D deities and demigods manual.

Crystal thrones and animal heads on angels. Something they didn't seem to mention in my Catholic upbringing.

__________________
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.

ratbastid

Yikes.

sprocket

The saints are one of those hold overs from Roman/Greek polytheism. When monotheism took hold in Rome, they simply turned their many gods into saints, under monotheism. Its as simple as that. Most of the saints arent actually people, they are Roman Gods, who were Greek Gods before that. Most Catholics I dont think realize they pray to a Roman god when they pray to a saint. I wonder if it would make them feel dirty if most knew?

One of the more puzzling aspects of Christianity. We know the whole saint hierarchy is actually Roman polytheism and nothing more, yet they keep it? Very strange.


Also, LDS gets a lot weirder... Each male gets a planet after they die, and essentially becomes God of that planet. The God of earth supposedly came about this way, so in a sense they are polytheistic but AFIAK only pay tribute to the earth god. They believe one day they will be a god. Well... females are out of luck, but the men become gods.

__________________
Remember, wherever you go... there you are.

asaris

That's really close to being completely false. Some Catholic saints are likely to be revised deities, though most of the cases I'm aware of were local quasi-deities, not Mars or anything like that. But most saints, including most of the saints people pray to, were real people who lived in the Common Era. And the Catholic Church has been making an effort to de-canonize some of the more mythical seeming saints.

On a side note, according to official Catholic teaching, they aren't really praying to the saints the same way you would pray to God. They're asking the saints to intercede for them, the same way you might ask a friend to pray for you. I don't know how often this is the understanding of the average believer, though.

__________________
"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

roachboy

saints are kinda interesting.
a few years ago, i remember walking across the pont d'alma in paris, which extends over the underpass in which diana spenser was spattered in a car. there was a big shrine at the bridge's midpoint to her, and it was covered in notes asking diana to intercede for them with god. obviously the church is never going to recognize her as a saint, but fact is that i think this kind of magical thinking (in the sense joan didion references in her book of the same title) and popular investment in it explains saints far better than does the catholic church's positions on which saints it chooses to recognize as part of the official catholic spiritual jiffy-lube team.

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

it make you sick.

-kamau brathwaite

genuinegirly

Not quite.
A primer on some obscure aspects of LDS theology:

Jesus is the ONE savior of ALL of God the Father's worlds. Not just Earth. Everything in our known universe was created by God the Father. There are multiple universes, and there is a seperate God over each.

Earth is the most imperfect of all God the Father's planets. It is the one with the greatest amount of sin, tyrany, and Satan has the most power here. That's why Jesus had to come to Earth. Since He acted for all of God's children, everywhere, there is no need for any other savior on any other planet.

Women's role: Man is nothing without a woman, and since men are Gods in the embryo, and must have a womanly counterpart to become exalted, so God the Father has a wife, God the Mother. (Mary was an insignificant handmaiden, any woman could have fulfilled that role.) God works alongside his wife to create each unique planet. There is some speculation over the thought that Jesus turned water into wine at his own wedding.

Jesus is viewed as our older spiritual brother, nothing more exciting than that. He stood up and took on the role of savior, scapegoat for our sins. Any man could have chosen that role in the pre-existance, but Jesus chose it, so they thank him for it. LDS do not worship Christ with the same intensity as they do the Father, but they still look to him with great respect in his special role. He is considered the direct son of God, but his role as demi-god was simply out of necessity, in order to endure the extreme pain and anguish that he was to endure as savior. Due to his direct genetic link to God, he was better able to communicate with God the Father, and his demi-god status gave him an extra spiritual boost.

By LDS theology, all (worthy, priesthood-ordained) men are capable of the same healing powers of Jesus, including raising from the dead, healings, etc. They cannot forgive sins, but they can bless a person, and in that blessing communicate with God who can tell them that person's sins are forgiven.

Since I'm no longer LDS, I obviously took issue with a lot of these things, and others, which I learned in the course of some extensive LDS religious education.

I'd consider it too much of a threadjack to get further into any of this here.

Hehe, I like that "team" concept.

She might be cannonized as a Saint. One need not be Catholic. She just needs to live a good life, and prove that she can speak with God after death, and convince Him to perform 3 miracles.

A brief description of the process:

__________________
"Sometimes I have to remember that things are brought to me for a reason, either for my own lessons or for the benefit of others." Cynthetiq

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

allaboutmusic

How about we make things more complicated?

John 1:1
"In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God."

Can the Word be God and be with God at the same time?

genuinegirly

Oooo- good question. I have no idea.

__________________
"Sometimes I have to remember that things are brought to me for a reason, either for my own lessons or for the benefit of others." Cynthetiq

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

Ustwo

Easy.

Yes.

__________________
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.

allaboutmusic

How?

sapiens

God is omnipotent, omnipresent, (and omniscient).