The Trinity Explained by Non-Trinitarians

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liamconnor
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The Trinity Explained by Non-Trinitarians

Post #1

Post by liamconnor »

In the Apologetics section I would expect a lot of sarcasm and snide remarks for this question. Here, I hope to find more sincere responses.

Question: What do you think the Trinity means to Trinitarians?

Please note: this is not "What do you think about the Trinity?"

Thus If your response is sarcastic or demeaning, you are essentially saying, "Trinitarians scorn the trinity" which is obviously ridiculous, as they don't.

So, if you were to explain the Trinity to someone else without overt condemnation, how might you?

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Post #2

Post by Divine Insight »

When I was a Christian we didn't focus on trying to explain things like the trinity.

If we were to ask about it I'm quite sure the response from our pastors or Sunday school teachers would have been something like "God works in mysterious ways" or something like that.

In short, in the Church I grew up in people simply didn't worry about trying to have to explain how God "works". The idea was to just have faith that "With God all things are possible".

Never mind worrying about how God does his magic. That's not for us to ask.

Our denomination simply wasn't concerned with having to try to explain the physics of God.

We also never really thought of ourselves as "Trinitarians", although we clearly embraced that concept.

For me personally the problem became insurmountable when it came to Jesus being the same as the Father God. Never mind the physics of how that might actually work. The problem for me wasn't one of explaining the physics, it was more of a problem of a God sacrificing himself to himself as a sacrificial lamb to pay for the sins of man. There was also the huge problem of Jesus saying to the Father God, "Forgive them for they know not what they do".

Why should a Trinity entity need to tell itself how to judge people? Shouldn't it already know how it wants to judge people?

I mean seriously, these were the important question for me. Never mind the physics of how a single entity could have three unique facets. That would basically be irrelevant to the more important questions of how it could disagree with itself or have to instruct itself on how to judge people.

Not to be negative, but I personally believe that the whole idea of a "Trinity" was invented to avoid becoming a Polytheistic religion. They didn't want this to become just another version of Zeus and Apollo so they came up with this "Trinity" idea. And apparently people bought into it.
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Post #3

Post by wiploc »

I watched a panel of five experts discuss this on TV. Each offered an interpretation which was rejected by the other four. Then they emphatically insisted that the trinity is "true," even though they didn't have a meaning for the concept.

My conclusion is that it's just gibberish. But what do Trinitarians think? Each one comes up with her own rationalization, so the word doesn't convey meaning from one person to another.

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Re: The Trinity Explained by Non-Trinitarians

Post #4

Post by Tcg »

liamconnor wrote: Thus If your response is sarcastic or demeaning, you are essentially saying, "Trinitarians scorn the trinity" which is obviously ridiculous, as they don't.
No, this would mean that non-Trinitarians scorn the trinity. Your assertion would be the equivalent of claiming that Ford lovers hate Fords. That would of course make no sense at all just as your assertion makes no sense at all.

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Re: The Trinity Explained by Non-Trinitarians

Post #5

Post by Divine Insight »

Tcg wrote:
liamconnor wrote: Thus If your response is sarcastic or demeaning, you are essentially saying, "Trinitarians scorn the trinity" which is obviously ridiculous, as they don't.
No, this would mean that non-Trinitarians scorn the trinity. Your assertion would be the equivalent of claiming that Ford lovers hate Fords. That would of course make no sense at all just as your assertion makes no sense at all.
Not only that, but it doesn't allow for people who were born and raised believing in this theology only to discover later that it has no real credibility.

The problem with "Theology" is that they absolutely refuse to allow anyone to comment on the subject if they are no longer a "believer". That actually makes the subject of Theology worthless.

If any subject can't deal with open-minded honest evaluation without demanding that everyone in the field be a "blind faith believer" then the subject has no credibility at all.

Theology as a "valid" academic subject absolutely NEEDS to allow for the criticism of people who are not willing to just believe on "pure faith". And if they don't allow for that, then they aren't a "valid" academic subject. All it amounts to at that point is a faith-based religion. NOT a valid academic subject.

Also, just because a reply is honest and open-minded doesn't mean that it's sarcastic or demeaning.

When I voiced my criticism that it seems extremely problematic to me that a single entity would need to sacrifice itself to itself, or tell itself how to judge humans, I wasn't being sarcastic or demeaning, I was simply being HONEST.

These are deadly serious concerns for this theology. In fact, these where such grave concerns for me that I ultimately had no choice but to end up having to reject the theology as being too self-contradictory to me rational in any sense.

And to try to explain how a single entity could be three-entities-in-one in terms of any scientific, logical, or technical way is just plain silly. Why should even a theist think that they could explain how an omnipotent God supposedly does his tricks?

The problem for me was never a question of the technical explanation for how a trinity entity could exist, but rather the problem for me is why even a trinity entity would need to tell itself how to judge humans, etc.

These problems are extreme, and any theist who thinks they aren't can't be paying much attention. To just simply say, "God works in mysterious ways" is nothing more than to shove the whole shebang under the carpet and pretend these problems simply don't exist.

To question the validity of these concepts is not the same as being sarcastic or demeaning. It only appears that way to theists who don't want to seriously address these problems.
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Post #6

Post by 2timothy316 »

wiploc wrote: I watched a panel of five experts discuss this on TV. Each offered an interpretation which was rejected by the other four. Then they emphatically insisted that the trinity is "true," even though they didn't have a meaning for the concept.

My conclusion is that it's just gibberish. But what do Trinitarians think? Each one comes up with her own rationalization, so the word doesn't convey meaning from one person to another.
This is exactly what I run into as well. As most know, being one of Jehovah's Witness, we go from door to door and speak to all sorts of people and listen to hundreds of beliefs. The trinity doctrine is the one we run into the most. We get answers of all kinds concerning the trinity. Even trinitarians accusing other trinitarians they are not true trinitarians. The standard reply I get from people is that the God is a mystery and knowledge of God is not possible. Those trinitarians that hear other trinitarians call God a mystery, they call them 'uneducated'. At any rate, if they seem kind and not wanting to argue then I point to John 17:3 which says, “This means everlasting life, their taking in knowledge of you, the only true God.� If knowledge of God is not possible or can't be accurate then we're all doomed because we were told a path to living forever that can't be followed.

All of these different trinity flavors is the reason I don't debate the trinity hardly at all. Specifically those that are so die-hard trinity tradition followers. I'm not looking for people that like that. I'm looking for those that while in listening to their preacher teaching the trinity they are scratching their head saying to themselves about the trinity, 'that can't be right'. That's the person I want to talk to about the Bible. The person that has read the Bible and takes note that something is not adding up. Two of the people I study the Bible with were trinitarians. Just needed to show them a few verses in the Bible and they were excited to reject the trinity as they had already seen it was an odd teaching before I spoke to them. Then clear verses from the Bible executes the trinity doctrine for them and that was that. Trinitarians no more.

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Re: The Trinity Explained by Non-Trinitarians

Post #7

Post by Checkpoint »

[Replying to post 1 by liamconnor]
Thus If your response is sarcastic or demeaning, you are essentially saying, "Trinitarians scorn the trinity" which is obviously ridiculous, as they don't.
Such people are?

That does not compute with me at all.

Please clarify and explain.

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Re: The Trinity Explained by Non-Trinitarians

Post #8

Post by Checkpoint »

[Replying to post 1 by liamconnor]
Question: What do you think the Trinity means to Trinitarians?
That it is a revealing of what was not spelled out in the OT.

That it confirms the greatness and uniqueness of God.

That, for many, it is a benchmark of true and mature believers, much like the resurrection is.

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Re: The Trinity Explained by Non-Trinitarians

Post #9

Post by liamconnor »

Tcg wrote:
liamconnor wrote: Thus If your response is sarcastic or demeaning, you are essentially saying, "Trinitarians scorn the trinity" which is obviously ridiculous, as they don't.
No, this would mean that non-Trinitarians scorn the trinity. Your assertion would be the equivalent of claiming that Ford lovers hate Fords. That would of course make no sense at all just as your assertion makes no sense at all.
I wrote the OP rather late and tired. I think I was merely trying to preempt sarcasm. If I was asked to give what I thought was a sincere description of Islam that was sympathetic to Muslims, and I said, "A bunch of war-mongers and misogynists ", this obviously is not what they think of themselves. But I would be presenting it as though it were (given the parameters of the OP).

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Post #10

Post by liamconnor »

It seems this OP is another flop of mine.

My agenda was to flush out some false concepts of the Trinity which are frequently set up to attack it (i.e., strawmen).

For instance, I am frequently reminded that Jesus called God the Father, and referred to himself as the Son; as if Trinitarians don't know this!

Oh well.

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