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My brief (and polemical) thought about Christianity...

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  • Cow Poke
    replied
    Originally posted by Littlejoe View Post
    That was me.
    I called it!!!!

    Originally posted by Sparko View Post
    Who was it that had that "treaty" analogy for the trinity? I thought that was a very good one.
    That would be ME!

    Originally posted by Littlejoe View Post
    Let's suppose that there is a treaty drawn up between the US and Germany. How many treaties are executed? The answer is three: A treaty executed in English, a treaty executed in German, and a treaty executed in French (which of course is the language of the UN). Every one of the these three treaties is fully the treaty, they are not just copies of the treaty. The English Treaty is fully and actually the treaty apart from and separate from the other two. The French version is fully and actually the treaty...again apart from and separate from the others. At the same time, the German Treaty is also fully and separately the actual treaty. Yet, there is no question that the treaties are different as one is in English, one in French and one in German. So, you have one "Thing", the treaty between the US and Germany can be made up of three "Things" (the English, German and French treaty) where each of them is fully the "Thing" (the treaty) but each of the 3 things are distinct from each other.

    There you have it, three things that are one thing.

    Leave a comment:


  • Littlejoe
    replied
    Originally posted by Sparko View Post
    Who was it that had that "treaty" analogy for the trinity? I thought that was a very good one.
    That was me.

    Leave a comment:


  • Adrift
    replied
    You know what might be really helpful to you (and was helpful for me having come out of a cult that was anti-Trinity), you might want to check out William Lane Craig's Defender's class on the Trinity.

    https://www.reasonablefaith.org/podc...f-god-trinity/

    He goes into quite a bit of depth about the topic, and makes it easy to follow and understand.

    Leave a comment:


  • Christianbookworm
    replied
    One God, three persons not three gods or one person and three persons
    So, one What and three whos. No reason a being outside of our space time continuum should have the same psychology as a human. There's a buch of terrible analogies though.

    Leave a comment:


  • Seeker
    replied
    Originally posted by Chrawnus View Post
    I agree that the Trinity is something beyond human understanding. I very much disagree that it is "like the concept of a square circle" however, i.e that it is logically contradictory. I have yet to see one single argument that has been able to demonstrate a logical contradiction in the orthodox conception of the Trinity.
    It is logically contradictory because it is has, as we would say, mutually excluding attributes. That prevents us from having a clear idea of what it is.

    Leave a comment:


  • Cerebrum123
    replied
    Originally posted by Adrift View Post
    I'm not certain. I never watched Ben 10. The Living Tribunal is an extremely powerful cosmic being in the Marvel universe (likely the most powerful outside of The One Above All) whose duty it is to safe guard the universe and keep things in order. I think. He doesn't really show up very often in the comics (at least, not when I was reading them). He has three faces representing different aspects of judgement: equity, just vengeance, and necessity, and they all must agree before the Tribunal passes judgement on someone or something. Again, analogies to the Trinity always break down, but yeah.
    Kind of similar, the Alien X has three internal faces that represent various aspects(reason, aggression, compassion IIRC), and they have to agree to do anything. There are however more than one Alien X. It was one of the more interesting parallels I have seen, even though it does break down pretty quick as an analogy. I think it was either inspired by Living Tribunal, or very loosely by the Trinity.

    Leave a comment:


  • Adrift
    replied
    Originally posted by Cerebrum123 View Post
    Is the Living Tribunal kind of like Alien X in the Ben 10 Alien Force series? I remember the Living Tribunal being mentioned in the Secret Wars comics, but they didn't explain much about it.

    I'm not certain. I never watched Ben 10. The Living Tribunal is an extremely powerful cosmic being in the Marvel universe (likely the most powerful outside of The One Above All) whose duty it is to safe guard the universe and keep things in order. I think. He doesn't really show up very often in the comics (at least, not when I was reading them). He has three faces representing different aspects of judgement: equity, just vengeance, and necessity, and they all must agree before the Tribunal passes judgement on someone or something. Again, analogies to the Trinity always break down, but yeah.

    Leave a comment:


  • Cerebrum123
    replied
    Originally posted by Adrift View Post
    William Lane Craig used to use the analogy of Cerberus, the three-headed hellhound of Greek mythology to help get the idea across of 3 persons in one being which I found helpful, but has since put it to the side,

    Source: https://www.reasonablefaith.org/media/reasonable-faith-podcast/is-there-a-good-analogy-for-the-trinity/

    I don't like to use analogies like the triple point of water, or water being steam and ice and liquid, these sorts of things. I just see no reason to think that there should be anything truly analogous to the Trinity. Rather in Philosophical Foundations for a Christian Worldview what I am doing is trying to make sense out of the doctrine of the Trinity that the notion that there are three persons who are not three beings, but are one being. And what I look at is this illustration of Cerberus, which was this three-headed dog guarding the gates of Hades in Greek mythology, and I press this and adapt it and adjust it in certain ways to try to see if we can make sense of the idea of three persons which are nevertheless one being rather than three beings. And in the end I reject the analogy of Cerberus. I say it doesn't go far enough because even if we adjust the Cerberus story so that we now have not three canine minds, which are one dog, but we invest them with self-consciousness so that we actually have three persons which are one dog, which seems now getting very much closer to the idea of the Trinity, still, the difficulty is when Cerberus dies, when his body dies, it would seem that you have three separate persons – three souls or whatever, three minds – that wouldn't be one being. So ultimately Cerberus, though it gets you some direction toward the Trinity, it ultimately falls short. And so what I finally propose is that we need to think of God as a soul, an unembodied mind, endowed with three sets of rational faculties each of which is sufficient for personhood. And that will get you a doctrine of three persons in one being.

    Now in the Florida Veritas Forum I think I spoke too quickly in saying this is an analogy of the Trinity. Certainly there are analogous elements in the Cerberus story, but it's not a complete and finally satisfactory analogy for the Trinity, as I explain in Philosophical Foundations. The good thing about the illustration, though, is it does help to get us thinking about how can you have a tri-personal being? That's the question that unitarians and other skeptics of the Trinity would pose for us trinitarians. What sense can you make of a tri-personal being? And I think the Cerberus story can help us to make some advance in understanding that if we invest these three canine minds with self-consciousness and hence personhood. And then we do see here we seem to have a tri-personal dog, a tri-personal entity.

    The reason I feel uncomfortable with the Cerberus story is not because it isn't helpful in understanding the question of how you can have a tri-personal entity.[2] But rather because people who are unsympathetic to the doctrine of the Trinity, who are just looking for something to criticize or to mock, will find it disrespectful and unhelpful to compare God to a dog. And that is obviously something that makes one very uncomfortable.

    © Copyright Original Source



    I personally like the analogy of Marvel's The Living Tribunal (being a Norrin Radd fan, you obviously know something about that), but ultimately all analogies fail for one reason or another.

    Is the Living Tribunal kind of like Alien X in the Ben 10 Alien Force series? I remember the Living Tribunal being mentioned in the Secret Wars comics, but they didn't explain much about it.

    Leave a comment:


  • Adrift
    replied
    Originally posted by NorrinRadd View Post
    I'm sympathetic to the objection.

    I believe in the Trinity. I understand and accept the standard explanation that it is, in simplistic terms, one "what" and three "whos." It is not a logical contradiction, because the categories are different.

    But it is still outside and apart from anything in normal experience. The only time we experience multiple "persons" in a single "being" is in certain psychotic individuals.
    William Lane Craig used to use the analogy of Cerberus, the three-headed hellhound of Greek mythology to help get the idea across of 3 persons in one being which I found helpful, but has since put it to the side,

    Source: https://www.reasonablefaith.org/media/reasonable-faith-podcast/is-there-a-good-analogy-for-the-trinity/

    I don't like to use analogies like the triple point of water, or water being steam and ice and liquid, these sorts of things. I just see no reason to think that there should be anything truly analogous to the Trinity. Rather in Philosophical Foundations for a Christian Worldview what I am doing is trying to make sense out of the doctrine of the Trinity that the notion that there are three persons who are not three beings, but are one being. And what I look at is this illustration of Cerberus, which was this three-headed dog guarding the gates of Hades in Greek mythology, and I press this and adapt it and adjust it in certain ways to try to see if we can make sense of the idea of three persons which are nevertheless one being rather than three beings. And in the end I reject the analogy of Cerberus. I say it doesn't go far enough because even if we adjust the Cerberus story so that we now have not three canine minds, which are one dog, but we invest them with self-consciousness so that we actually have three persons which are one dog, which seems now getting very much closer to the idea of the Trinity, still, the difficulty is when Cerberus dies, when his body dies, it would seem that you have three separate persons – three souls or whatever, three minds – that wouldn't be one being. So ultimately Cerberus, though it gets you some direction toward the Trinity, it ultimately falls short. And so what I finally propose is that we need to think of God as a soul, an unembodied mind, endowed with three sets of rational faculties each of which is sufficient for personhood. And that will get you a doctrine of three persons in one being.

    Now in the Florida Veritas Forum I think I spoke too quickly in saying this is an analogy of the Trinity. Certainly there are analogous elements in the Cerberus story, but it's not a complete and finally satisfactory analogy for the Trinity, as I explain in Philosophical Foundations. The good thing about the illustration, though, is it does help to get us thinking about how can you have a tri-personal being? That's the question that unitarians and other skeptics of the Trinity would pose for us trinitarians. What sense can you make of a tri-personal being? And I think the Cerberus story can help us to make some advance in understanding that if we invest these three canine minds with self-consciousness and hence personhood. And then we do see here we seem to have a tri-personal dog, a tri-personal entity.

    The reason I feel uncomfortable with the Cerberus story is not because it isn't helpful in understanding the question of how you can have a tri-personal entity.[2] But rather because people who are unsympathetic to the doctrine of the Trinity, who are just looking for something to criticize or to mock, will find it disrespectful and unhelpful to compare God to a dog. And that is obviously something that makes one very uncomfortable.

    © Copyright Original Source



    I personally like the analogy of Marvel's The Living Tribunal (being a Norrin Radd fan, you obviously know something about that), but ultimately all analogies fail for one reason or another.

    Leave a comment:


  • NorrinRadd
    replied
    Originally posted by Chrawnus View Post
    I agree that the Trinity is something beyond human understanding. I very much disagree that it is "like the concept of a square circle" however, i.e that it is logically contradictory. I have yet to see one single argument that has been able to demonstrate a logical contradiction in the orthodox conception of the Trinity.
    I'm sympathetic to the objection.

    I believe in the Trinity. I understand and accept the standard explanation that it is, in simplistic terms, one "what" and three "whos." It is not a logical contradiction, because the categories are different.

    But it is still outside and apart from anything in normal experience. The only time we experience multiple "persons" in a single "being" is in certain psychotic individuals.

    Leave a comment:


  • NorrinRadd
    replied
    Originally posted by Seeker View Post
    As for the concept of the Trinity, I cannot say I have a clear idea of it, because it is like the concept of a square circle. I cannot have an idea of what a square circle is the same way I cannot have an ideia of what are three persons in only one substance.
    How about a circle as a superposition of an infinite number of squares each rotated relative to the next by an infinitesimally small amount about a common center?

    Not that that has anything at all to do with the Trinity part of the analogy.

    Leave a comment:


  • JonathanL
    replied
    Originally posted by Seeker View Post
    As for the concept of the Trinity, I cannot say I have a clear idea of it, because it is like the concept of a square circle. I cannot have an idea of what a square circle is the same way I cannot have an ideia of what are three persons in only one substance.
    I agree that the Trinity is something beyond human understanding. I very much disagree that it is "like the concept of a square circle" however, i.e that it is logically contradictory. I have yet to see one single argument that has been able to demonstrate a logical contradiction in the orthodox conception of the Trinity.

    Leave a comment:


  • Seeker
    replied
    Originally posted by Christian3 View Post
    I don't like using analogies for the Trinity because they all seem to eventually fall apart. Some are horrible like water, steam and ice.

    I thought Morris's explanation was a place to start.

    Seeker said: "Or it is 1, or it is 3. 1 and 3 at the same time cannot be true."

    We don't know what seeker really means by his statement. Some people think the Trinity is three Gods; it doesn't. Some think "three persons" means three people; it doesn't.

    Seeker needs to clarity what he thinks the concept of the Trinity is.
    As for the concept of the Trinity, I cannot say I have a clear idea of it, because it is like the concept of a square circle. I cannot have an idea of what a square circle is the same way I cannot have an ideia of what are three persons in only one substance.
    Last edited by Seeker; 09-03-2019, 11:21 PM.

    Leave a comment:


  • Christianbookworm
    replied
    Originally posted by Seeker View Post
    We love you anyways. And by that, we will pray for your eyes to be opened! Or at least make an informed decision regarding the Gospel.

    Leave a comment:


  • Seeker
    replied
    Originally posted by One Bad Pig View Post
    Yes, it's a Christian-run website. No, it's not rude to post atheist thoughts and claims. Yes, it's an open debate forum.

    Leave a comment:

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