There is no other mystery of the Christian faith as mysterious as the Trinity. Yet it is one of the central truths that Christians hold. In fact, denying the Trinity would put you squarely in the "non-Christian" camp for most people.
Christians assert one God but they also assert that there are three persons in one God. Each person is fully God (not part of God). Each person, as a person should, has relations with the other two. They are NOT interchangeable meaning while we can safely say, "Jesus died on the cross," and "God died on the cross," we cannot say, "The Father died on the cross."
Such a mystery has been misrepresented time and time again through heresies. Even well meaning individuals who try to explain the Trinity always end up using an analogy that fails to capture the essence of the Trinity in some way, shape or form. As such, I will preface this by saying the analog I will present will in no way be perfect. I'd even dare to say I don't have a proper analog in that I'm simply affirming that I simply do not understand it fully.
I'll start with a heretical view of the Trinity called modalism. It basically says that God has three "modes", namely the Father, Son and Holy Spirit. Just as a man can be a father to his children, a husband to his wife and a boss at work, modalism says that God simply takes on different modes depending on the situation.
Where this analogy fails is that the three persons of the Trinity are not mere modes or masks that God puts on depending on the situation but that they are three distinct persons. I first came across this analogy when a religion teacher was trying to explain the Trinity to us. I can see now what's wrong with the analogy but as a Grade 2 student, you simply don't see these things.
Another heresy called partialism says that the three persons of the Trinity are three parts of the whole God. That means just as a clover leaf can have 3 distinct parts, the Trinity is simply one God with three parts.
Thinking about these two heresies got me to make my own reflection on this matter. I started thinking about a cube. To make a cube, you can start with a point. Two points make a line. Four lines of equal length make a square. Six squares consequently make a cube. With normal human thinking, we stop at the cube without thinking if a higher dimension even exists! Going with the pattern, one could say that eight cubes could very well make up something entirely different! It's impossible for us to imagine such an object as we are limited to only the three dimensions we're all used to.
That's when I realized that things can exist apart from what we as humans can imagine and restricting the Trinity to our human understanding would be doing God a disservice. If I recycle the Trinity of God being like a man who is a father, a husband and a boss, and tweak it, it might represent the Trinity better.
Just as we, people can have three modes, God can have three persons and each person can have their own modes. Just as the second person of the Trinity has titles or modes such as "Prince of Peace" and "Son of God". In this case, God would be like our 8-cubed higher dimension object and each of those cubes has 6 squares - just as each person of the Trinity has their own titles or modes.
When one sees that God is higher than human understanding and admits that, the idea of the Trinity doesn't seem so odd anymore.
I'll start with a heretical view of the Trinity called modalism. It basically says that God has three "modes", namely the Father, Son and Holy Spirit. Just as a man can be a father to his children, a husband to his wife and a boss at work, modalism says that God simply takes on different modes depending on the situation.
Where this analogy fails is that the three persons of the Trinity are not mere modes or masks that God puts on depending on the situation but that they are three distinct persons. I first came across this analogy when a religion teacher was trying to explain the Trinity to us. I can see now what's wrong with the analogy but as a Grade 2 student, you simply don't see these things.
Another heresy called partialism says that the three persons of the Trinity are three parts of the whole God. That means just as a clover leaf can have 3 distinct parts, the Trinity is simply one God with three parts.
Thinking about these two heresies got me to make my own reflection on this matter. I started thinking about a cube. To make a cube, you can start with a point. Two points make a line. Four lines of equal length make a square. Six squares consequently make a cube. With normal human thinking, we stop at the cube without thinking if a higher dimension even exists! Going with the pattern, one could say that eight cubes could very well make up something entirely different! It's impossible for us to imagine such an object as we are limited to only the three dimensions we're all used to.
That's when I realized that things can exist apart from what we as humans can imagine and restricting the Trinity to our human understanding would be doing God a disservice. If I recycle the Trinity of God being like a man who is a father, a husband and a boss, and tweak it, it might represent the Trinity better.
Just as we, people can have three modes, God can have three persons and each person can have their own modes. Just as the second person of the Trinity has titles or modes such as "Prince of Peace" and "Son of God". In this case, God would be like our 8-cubed higher dimension object and each of those cubes has 6 squares - just as each person of the Trinity has their own titles or modes.
When one sees that God is higher than human understanding and admits that, the idea of the Trinity doesn't seem so odd anymore.
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