Is the Doctrine of Trinity a Logical Contradiction?

[McCulloch]

He [God] is not capable of instantiating logical contradictions. Why did you think He could? What did you take omnipotence to mean?

And yet Trinitarian Christians insist that God is a logical contradiction. There is one God. The Son of God is God. God the Father is God. But the Son is not the Father.

For one, Christians do not insist God is a logical contradiction. You might believe that the Trinity is a logical contradiction, but that is apart from it being the Christian's stated belief that God is a logical contradiction. Your objection here is completely irrelevant.

The Christian doctrine of the Trinity defines God as three divine persons (Greek: ): the Father, the Son (Jesus Christ), and the Holy Spirit. The three persons are distinct yet coexist in unity, and are co-equal, co-eternal and consubstantial (Greek: ). Put another way, the three persons of the Trinity are of one being (Greek: ). The Trinity is considered to be a mystery of Christian faith.

According to this doctrine, there is only one God in three persons. Each person is God, whole and entire. They are distinct from one another in their relations of origin: as the Fourth Lateran Council declared, "it is the Father who generates, the Son who is begotten, and the Holy Spirit who proceeds". While distinct in their relations with one another, they are one in all else. The whole work of creation and grace is a single operation common to all three divine persons, who at the same time operate according to their unique properties, so that all things are from the Father, through the Son and in the Holy Spirit. The Nicene Creed describes Christ as "God of God, Light of Light, very God of very God, begotten, not made, being of one substance (homoousios) with the Father".

Question for debate: Is the Doctrine of Trinity a Logical Contradiction?

[Bust Nak]

I'm not Anglican, I'm Roman Catholic.

Are you under the impression that the Anglican Church isn't Trinitian? Otherwise why would it matter here whether you are Anglican or Catholic if both are Trinitian?

I do not believe they are interchangeable, I believe they are the same essence. As in, three beings perpetuating a single will.

Two sides of the same coin is not 'interchangeable', it's simply 'two sides of the same coin'.

That's what I said, Trinitians don't believe the Father, Son and Holy Spirit are interchangeable. Where as energy and matter not just two sides of the same coin, they are interchangable. Hence not analogious to Trinity.

This is a non-issue. The trinity is sensible. Argue until your face is blue, you all are just running in circles.

Father=God & Son=God & Spirit=God & Father!=Son!=Spirit is not a non-issue. You haven't even acknowledged that's what the doctrine says. Go on, tell me that's not part the doctrine.

God's will is manifested into three different beings.

What makes this different to tritheism? Hint, tritheism says Father+Son+Spirit=God.

[McCulloch]

This is the best way to explain it. It all rests in one small sentence:

God's will is manifested into three different beings.

God is the Logos, or, the logic of the universe.

You may as well just concede that the Trinity is sensible.

If it were just that simple, I would concede the point. The problem is that Trinity is not merely the belief that God's will is manifested into three different beings. Trinity is supposed to be the reconciliation of the paradox that God is one and yet there are three separate and distinct persons who are said to be God. It denies that this one God has three different faces. It also denies that there are three gods, united in will and purpose.

However, what it does not do is to actually resolve the paradox. It puts some parameters around what it is not and applies a formula, devoid of meaning that alleges to solve the mystery. One essence but three persons.

[meshak]

John 1:1 in it's original Greek pretense:

In the beginning was the Logos, and the Logos was with the Mighty One, and the Mighty One was the Logos.

John literally explained that God is 'the Logic'.

You know very well that verse is out of context with many of Jesus' word and The Father's word. The Father says God is only one. Jesus says His Father is greater than He. If Jesus is God, that makes plural.

Something is very wrong with that verse. Something went wrong in translation.

Jesus did not say "I am God", not even once. Jesus said over and over that He is Son of God.

[otseng]

You have been either poorly misguided by anti-trinitarian extremism or your own militant atheist stubbornness. However you put it, I can simply tell the truth of the matter and you will deny it, just like anti-trins.
I thought the Church were the bad guys, no? Notice intellectual dishonesty and extremism galore everywhere else though. Lol.
Every single so-called rebuttal of the trinity has and is going to amount to a denial complex.

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[SilenceInMotion]

This is the best way to explain it. It all rests in one small sentence:

God's will is manifested into three different beings.

God is the Logos, or, the logic of the universe.

You may as well just concede that the Trinity is sensible.

If it were just that simple, I would concede the point. The problem is that Trinity is not merely the belief that God's will is manifested into three different beings. Trinity is supposed to be the reconciliation of the paradox that God is one and yet there are three separate and distinct persons who are said to be God. It denies that this one God has three different faces. It also denies that there are three gods, united in will and purpose.

However, what it does not do is to actually resolve the paradox. It puts some parameters around what it is not and applies a formula, devoid of meaning that alleges to solve the mystery. One essence but three persons.

The Logos, which spawned reality, has complete preeminence over it. But it does not have an image, because that is a prospect of reality. In which case, for God to reveal Himself, He must do so in a fashion which is compliant to the given physicality.
When you enter the dimensions of the physical universe, you by extension enter a finite, limited realm. When the Son of God approached, it was the Mighty One in flesh. This, by extension, creates two different, distinct beings- the Logos, and the Logos in flesh. They are of the same essence, but are two different beings. This is because in metaphysics, if two beings differ in any respect, they must be different. By the same hand, if they are exactly the same, they are the same exact being.
It will be hard to wrap your head around that if you do not *think critically*. There is nothing I can really do if one chooses not to expand their mind.

*modalism*

[DiscipleOfTruth]

TugBoat

Finding a comparison to the trinity itself is probably impossible. But in simplest form we have simultaneously been debating if something can be one and more than one at the same time. Unless I'm mistakened it sounds as though you are in agreement with me on open compound words?

My point in searching for a comparison of what can be one and more than one simultaneously is no longer to use it as a comparison to the trinity. Rather I'm looking for anything that can be of such nature as a reflection to the capability of a trinity to exist. If something that is supposed to be of less value than a god can be of such nature it leaves to wonder why a god can't while taking it a step further in a way that we can't explain.

Let's look at a hypothetical situation for the sake of argument. What if there was one god, then he makes two clones of himself, giving them different personalities if you will. Seeing as these clones and their personalities came from the original it would make sense that they are 3 and yet 1, no?

[Filthy Tugboat]

TugBoat

Finding a comparison to the trinity itself is probably impossible. But in simplest form we have simultaneously been debating if something can be one and more than one at the same time. Unless I'm mistakened it sounds as though you are in agreement with me on open compound words?

No, as I tried to make clear earlier, a group of words that make a compound are not simultaneously one word and multiple words, it is one compound and multiple words. A compound is a description of words, some words are described as compounds, others are not. Some forms of compounds consist of multiple words, others, only one. Open compounds consist of multiple words.

My point in searching for a comparison of what can be one and more than one simultaneously is no longer to use it as a comparison to the trinity. Rather I'm looking for anything that can be of such nature as a reflection to the capability of a trinity to exist. If something that is supposed to be of less value than a god can be of such nature it leaves to wonder why a god can't while taking it a step further in a way that we can't explain.

The nature you are trying to locate simply cannot exist, it is not logical. The closest thing you could come up with is something perceived by humans as being one and more than 1 simultaneously rather than something that truly exists in that form. Descriptive terminology may fit that bracket but that is not even close to suggesting that such a thing could truly exist in and of itself(I'm not even sure that descriptive terminology could fit the bracket, I'm just guessing that if anything could it would be descriptive terminology rather than an actual thing). In the same way one planet is one planet and three planets are three planets, It could never be true to suggest that one planet is three planets, it defies the laws of logic and ignores the definitions of the words used.

Let's look at a hypothetical situation for the sake of argument. What if there was one god, then he makes two clones of himself, giving them different personalities if you will. Seeing as these clones and their personalities came from the original it would make sense that they are 3 and yet 1, no?

No, the act of creating two clones makes 3 God's. They would not simultaneously be one as they are three separate individuals with different personalities. Even if they had the same personalities and existed as 3 separate individuals they would still be 3 God's.