| Author | Message | ||
| Bskillet Registered user Username: Bskillet Post Number: 254 Registered: 8-2008 |
I've been trying to understand the Trinity (a life-long pursuit I know). I finally grasped this little concept which, as a mathematician, really helps me understand better: In the physical realm, I am a three dimensional being. Try explaining that to a one dimensional being and he might imagine me as three separate one dimensional lines or something like that. In the spiritual realm, I am a one dimensional being. God is a spiritual being, but the difference between Him and me is that He is three-dimensional. Naturally, it is hard for me to conceive of this, but when I look at three-dimensional space, it offers a useful metaphor: A solid cube is three-dimensional. It consists of its height, width, and depth. All of these are distinct, but never separate from each other: Height is not depth or width. Width is not depth or height, etc. But they are all of the same essence: the solid cube. You cannot remove its height without it no longer being a cube. Likewise its width and depth. Further, we could even say that its three dimensions dwell within each other (perichoresis-ish) because at each point of its height, I will find a depth and a width. Similar for the other two dimensions. This has really helped me understand the Trinity better. | ||
| Agapetos Registered user Username: Agapetos Post Number: 1837 Registered: 10-2002  |
Technically, the Trinity would be a triangular pyramid, then, not a cube per say. Teeheehee.  Bless you in Jesus, going deeper into Father, Son and Spirit! | ||
| Agapetos Registered user Username: Agapetos Post Number: 1839 Registered: 10-2002 |
Hey Bskillet, Joking aside, the matter of the Trinity is something that is often difficult to understand coming from an Adventist background simply because of the spiritual strongholds in Adventism which did not want to completely abandon the Arian beliefs Adventism began with. The matter of the Trinity was then a vague one at best in Adventism. The Trinity is a mystery, but the vagueness at which it was vaguely (or not) embraced in Adventism established a sort of ...vagueness!... about the Trinity that would be passed down to subsequent generations. I wrote about this somewhat here: http://www.formeradventist.com/discus/messages/11/8577.html?1239086949 I don't know how to completely describe this, but somehow I am now able to just plain rest in the Trinity more than I was as an Adventist. It's something I can see now (this rest that I had needed) but couldn't understand that I was in need of before. On the old Living Hope Ministries website (aimed at ministering to Mormons), they had a simple statement about the Trinity that went something like this: The name "Trinity" is simply the sum of the following Biblical truths: 1) Father is God 2) Jesus is God 3) Holy Spirit is God 4) God is One Mathematically, you could say it is that 1 + 1 + 1 = 1. But as this article points out in passing, the function of mathematics is to identify un-truth. Like the Law which points out sin, mathematics is primarily a method of distinguishing the existance of something by establishing that it is not something else. For this reason, mathematics (just like the Law) can never fully "see" light, because they depend on darkness (so to speak) to define light. In a similar way, the Trinity is something that is difficult for us to understand because so much of our lives and learning are based on the mathematical method of definition by process of elimination. It is not difficult to know what God is not, but knowing all that He is not won't yield us what He is. But even better, the "what" isn't the big point, either, but rather the "who" -- the "knowing" in that old Hebrew sense of "Adam knew his wife". God is calling us to understand Him in the most intimate way possible, to know Him, to be united to Him, indwelt by Him, and us dwelling in Him. Anyway, I'm digressing. Sorry. Part of the reason that I think I'm able to have more rest about this is that I can see where the Bible says each of those four things in that short list above, and that I can simply accept what the Bible says as truth. And in turn, I can accept what the Bible says because the God of the Bible has revealed Himself to me in my life and proven that His word is true. And then in turn, my faith has become grounded in His word more than in my own life. Heh. What this adds up to is simply saying that the whole disconnect with Scriptural truth and Spiritual truth in Adventism was a sort of cloud that hung over the Trinity as well, making the "mystery" even more mysterious, so to speak. Bless you in Jesus!! In His love, Ramone | ||
| Bskillet Registered user Username: Bskillet Post Number: 256 Registered: 8-2008 |
This depends on how math is looked at. As an applied mathematician, I'd say math's purpose is to help mankind deal with basic issues of existence, like how to build a good solid bridge for instance. A theoretical mathematician thinks math exists to show us everything, and as Godel showed, that dog won't hunt. Of course, being able to prove that something isn't true is valuable nonetheless, but math can show us a lot that is true too (like the Pythagorean Theorem). The problem, as Godel essentially says, is that this is subject to initial assumptions which cannot be proven or disproven. IIRC, Hume actually pre-dated Godel on this realization, but I don't think he proved it mathematically (my understanding of philosophy is scant at best). It is true that science is based on disproving. Hypothesis testing is essentially testing to prove something false, never to prove something true. It was Popper, I believe, who demonstrated that the scientific method never proves anything, but really just shows certain explanations are highly improbable, or (if a hypothesis is tested long enough and never rejected) highly probable. Science can never be 100% certain about anything, or else it can no longer be called science. Science has never really "proven" anything, nor can it. Anyway, as to 1+1+1, a useful construction vis-a-vis the Trinity is that 1^(1^1)=1 or 1x1x1=1, but math is created and subjected to the constructs of the material world. Pushing it over onto God's nature is to put it beyond its realm of authority. Anyway, everything has to be arbitrary if you consider the First Principle as arbitrary. But if we take the ultimate First Principle, or what Barth calls the "Primal Origin," as a fact, then everything is objective relative to that. Or, in Barth's way of saying it, everything must start with our Trinitarian God's self-knowledge. We cannot prove the Trinity via logic or reasoning, because it is the thing that our logic and experience is founded on and flows from. The Trinity is the First Principle beyond all first principles. It is one that can not be proven or disproven, cannot be deduced or derived via a logical proof. It says, "I AM WHO I AM." Everything points back to Him. This "First Principle" or "Primal Origin", this I AM, can only be knowable by revealing itself, not by us discovering it. "This is eternal life: that they may know You, the only true God, and the One You have sent — Jesus Christ" (Jn. 17:3). | ||
| Agapetos Registered user Username: Agapetos Post Number: 1840 Registered: 10-2002 |
DDDeep. | ||
| River Registered user Username: River Post Number: 4505 Registered: 9-2006  |
well...I am really great at math, I kin do my numbers clear to ten. Now here is a 1, thats one 1, here is another 1, thats 2 ones, here is another one, thats three ones. That there shows that there is three ones up there don't it? If I'da had apples instead a ones I woulda had three apples, but since apples don't fit on this here computer and 1's do, we got three different 1's, they ain't the same ones, they is all different, I don't care if them ones do look alike as too peas in a pod, they ain't. Now God is all different from this, if God speaks to you and says 'howdy' its God speakin. If Jesus speaks to you and says 'Howdy', it's God speakin. If Holy Spirit speaks to you an says 'Howdy', its god speakin. Far as I know they ain't but one God, now they are some say like whut wrote the song, God in three persons, blessed trinity. Well dad burn it they ain't no three persons neither, they is only one person and that is the person of God. Now Holy Spirit, he wants to point to Jesus, he is really just pointing to himself because we have to come through his sacrifice don't ye see? Now dad blame it yall get straightened around here, yall is about to drive me buggy! I'm gonna go in there an gnaw on a possum leg till yall get to makein some cents. River | ||
| Colleentinker Registered user Username: Colleentinker Post Number: 9639 Registered: 12-2003  |
Bskillett, I actually found your length, height, depth analogy to be helpful. Another one I find helpful is Hugh Ross's metaphor of a person experiencing three separate protrusions reaching toward him from behind a malleable screen. The person perceives three separate entities interacting with him, apparently independentaly—but what he can't see is that all three are connected behind the opaque but malleable screen to a single "hand" (don't worry about the other two fingers...they don't fit the metaphor!) which means those three "protrusions" are not separate entities but are all part of One which is interacting with the person on the other side of the screen as One Being. Colleen | ||
| Spudw Registered user Username: Spudw Post Number: 101 Registered: 8-2008  |
Dear bskillet, I knew there was something about you I liked. Mathematics is the true Lingua Franca. Art Appreciation, Conversational French, and Country Living ain't going to explain the Trinity. I can barely understand a universe with just four dimensions, I get completely lost with string theory, but I understand what you are saying. Agapetos, I think that you mean a tetrahedron. Wow, I'm using words like "marmalade" when I can barely spell "jam"! |
