Guest Hannibal Posted September 19, 2001 Share Posted September 19, 2001 Oh, and in Christianity, exactly what or who is the "Holy Trinity"(I think that's what it(or who) is called) Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Keyan Farlander Posted September 19, 2001 Share Posted September 19, 2001 The Holy Trinity refers to the three persons of the one God. There is God the Father, God the Son (Jesus Christ) and God the Holy Spirit. These three are distinct (i.e. the Father is not the Son and the Son is not the Father, and neither of them is the Holy Spirit), but also one in that they share the one divine nature. So, to be clear, there is one God, not three, but three persons in that one God. Christianity maintains that these three persons have existed since the beginning of time (meaning God the Son existed before Jesus Christ the man was born on earth). Christianity also maintains that true understanding of the Trinity is a mystery and that it cannot be fully understood in this earthy existence. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
JR2000Z Posted September 19, 2001 Share Posted September 19, 2001 Originally posted by Admiral: The pope, or bishops, or priest can be wrong. The Pope cant be wrong. He has infallibility. We got the Holy Spirit to ensure that. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Keyan Farlander Posted September 19, 2001 Share Posted September 19, 2001 Originally posted by JR2000Z: The Pope cant be wrong. He has infallibility. We got the Holy Spirit to ensure that. Yes, but to clarify, that is only in regards to times when the pope speaks "from the chair" on issues of faith or morals, which is something most people don't understand. The point of all that is that we can be certain that, as Catholics, we will never have false teachings about faith or morals in our religion, as per the promise of Christ that the powers of hell would never overcome the Church that he established. This extends to interpretation of the sacred scriptures. In other words, the Holy Spirit is the one who interprets the scriptures and makes these interpretations known through the pope and the bishops. Non-Catholic Christians, however, believe that this power of interpretation is accomplished by the Spirit through each individual person. But in either case, it is always the Holy Spirit who is the the interpreter of scripture. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Taarkin Posted September 19, 2001 Share Posted September 19, 2001 Didn't the pope just declare himself infalliable in like the 1830s or something? Dammit how come I can't do that? ------------------ You're supposed to be dumpster-diving for ham scraps, you six-piece chicken McNobody! Official forum Psychic Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Keyan Farlander Posted September 19, 2001 Share Posted September 19, 2001 No, papal infallibility was only given a dogmatic definition in 1870. The idea of the pope being free from error in matters of faith and morals has existed since the time of the aposltes. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest Redwing Posted September 19, 2001 Share Posted September 19, 2001 I will not get involved in this argument. I will not get involved in this argument. I will not get involved in this argument. I will not get involved in this argument. I will not get involved in this argument. I will not..*choke* ------------------ At last we will reveal ourselves to the Jedi. At last we will have revenge. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Gold leader Posted September 19, 2001 Share Posted September 19, 2001 Originally posted by garyah99: Actually, it was Abraham that tried to save Sodom and Gomorrah from destruction. oops. Thanks for the reply, Gary. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest garyah99 Posted September 19, 2001 Share Posted September 19, 2001 Glad to be of assistance. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest Hannibal Posted September 19, 2001 Share Posted September 19, 2001 "it cannot be fully understood in this earthy existence." I hear that. I leave even more confused than I arrived, but still I thank you simply for answering, Keyan. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Keyan Farlander Posted September 19, 2001 Share Posted September 19, 2001 I try Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest Conor Posted September 21, 2001 Share Posted September 21, 2001 Actually, I believe it is an article of the Catholic faith that we can't understand the Trinity. It simply can't be done by the human mind. However I have heard certain people describe the Trinity in interesting ways. Scott Hahn describes it something like this: God the Father loves the Son with every fibre of His divine being, and the Son, being a perfect image of the Father, reflects that love back with all of His being. The love that is eternally reflected in everlasting resonance is the Holy Spirit. That is as close as I can remember it. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Keyan Farlander Posted September 21, 2001 Share Posted September 21, 2001 Yes, I remember that as well. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Admiral Odin Posted September 21, 2001 Share Posted September 21, 2001 I'm to lazy to read this now. Just assume I said something intelligent. ------------------ "Dulce bellum inexpertis." (Sweet is war to those who have never experinced it.) Roman Proverb God Bless America Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest Hannibal Posted September 21, 2001 Share Posted September 21, 2001 Which of the three powers is the God that effects wordly events(assuming there IS someone with power in this life)? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Darth Sceltor Posted September 21, 2001 Share Posted September 21, 2001 I think that all 3 (1) do, as they are all they same, in one. Ya see, that's why it's called a mystery. You have to have something called faith when it comes to things like that. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest Zoom Rabbit Posted September 21, 2001 Share Posted September 21, 2001 Faith is great...but there are some who insist on answers. Even Jesus proved himself to Thomas, the doubting disciple, and did not seem to think it unreasonable for Thomas to expect this. Being a new age christian, I'm free to try to put trinity into words. I did my best job of it in a post on 'Religion' we did over at RS.Net, so I'm just gonna regurgitate it here: Trinity can be explained, and I will do so in this post. It's going to require some tricky conceptualization, so I suggest putting out the crack pipes before we start. Thanks. This deals with what happened when the universe began, at the very instant God said 'let there be light.' You see, before then, there was just God. Period. Nothing else...absolutamente zippo, just Him. Now, this existance was an undifferentiated sameness--there was neither light nor dark. From His point of view (and this is the tough part to conceptualize) there was nothingness. But of course, nothingness is something. It has existance (as nothing) and thus...we have a one. This one is God in the absolute, pure being. There is no self, or thought of self...just endless eternity. So now that we've conceived of the nothingness as something, where are we in the picture? In order to make this observation, there has to be an 'us' to make it. The notion of 'self' has just been born. This is where God Himself conceives of His own existance--from nothingness comes being. There are now two (nothingness and being.) The book of Genesis describes this as 'let there be light,' but it's still the same idea. (more) Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest Zoom Rabbit Posted September 21, 2001 Share Posted September 21, 2001 Let's review a moment; we have a universe where the concept of two can exist. There is light and dark, being and nothingness, self and perceiver...each resolves the other, provides the framework in which the other can exist. But we aren't finished yet. Now that we have two aspects of God working together to provide existance, there is an implied relationship. With an object/perceiver relationship, there must be a differentiation between the two. This is tricky to get, but one cannot be the other simultaneously--there is a division of some kind between them, and distance, no matter how small, must cross something. There is our three. This third aspect is, of course, God's original act of creating 'others,' or investing His own consciousness in the Holy Spirit. Still within the original 'being' we started with (one, remember?) the third becomes the 'body' of God in a way...it is Him in extension, knowing Himself. Which brings us to why we're here. We are God's way of knowing the universe. Anyway, now that we have created a stable framework on which to build our universe (one cannot exist without two, which cannot exist without a third,) we do so with the Big Bang. The universe comes into being, eventually people form, who invent Star Wars, play videogames and find themselves writing about it here, and wondering how it all started. ...I think. After all, I'm probably full of crap. (More) Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest Zoom Rabbit Posted September 21, 2001 Share Posted September 21, 2001 If there are any other cross-religious mystics in the house, they might appreciate my sense of humor in using the three liberations of the Buddha (reversed, of course) to explain trinity. Or, it might just go over everyone's heads. Redwing: Imladil, trying to explain the Trinity isn't going to get anybody anywhere. God is not limited by our concepts like separation or time. He created those for our universe. Who said anything about time? As for the concept of separation (and self) being created for our benefit...OF COURSE! I'm saying that this is how he did that. Those first three extensions of His reality into triune form are the three we're all talking about, though I realize that understanding the connection is tenuous. Remember, we are talking about ordinal concepts at our universe's creation, and details simply didn't exist yet... And no, no one can really understand God from God's point of view. Trinty is just our best understanding from our point of view. I realize that my explanation is totally not standard; non-standard explanations are my favorite tool for debate, which confounds those who aren't used to 'thinking outside the box.' Hee-hee-hee... (More) Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest Zoom Rabbit Posted September 21, 2001 Share Posted September 21, 2001 Onward and upward. So God essentially 'became' three in the act of creation. Once the stage was set for our universe to unfold, the first Three were firmly embedded in the fabric of it all like a fractal code, buried deep in our reality's programming. Time and time again, whenever we approach the concept of God...we run into those same three in one form or another (although still playing the same roles.) In Christianity, we have the Father, Son and Holy Spirit as names by which we call these aspects. There is God the infinite, which I will be keeping track of with the number 1), God as a person (the son, or 2) and God as the body of the universe itself (which includes consciousness) as 3. But they can be found elsewhere, by different names, and by different descriptions. There is a Buddhist parable which describes this by saying God is like an elephant, being described by blind men...none of whom can see the animal, but who have ahold of different body parts. One blind man has the trunk, and describes a snake-like creature. Another has an ear, and visualizes an animal with broad, leathery leaves. Still a third would have the tail, and describe something completely bizarre. See? (more) Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest Zoom Rabbit Posted September 21, 2001 Share Posted September 21, 2001 Sort of like when there are several witnesses to a robbery...but each of them give different decriptions of the robber. They didn't each see a different robber--the nature of human perception is at work. And when it comes to God, we're talking about countless witnesses trying to describe a robber no living being can fully perceive. Here are the witness reports: In India, there is a hodge-podge of generally related religions called Hinduism. Although the details of their worship and teachings vary, they do describe their ultimate vision of God in triune form. God in the absolute is known as Brahman (1), and when He comes to earth in human form, he is known as Vishnu, the sustainer (2) who comes to sustain the learning of mankind on Earth. When God comes down to the individual, it is in the aspect of Shiva, who is called the destroyer (3)--although that isn't meant to generate fear, but to gently remind that it is our ending which defines our existance. On the physical level, sacred Hindu vedas describe the universe as consisting of three gunas, or forces interacting to create the spatial framework for everything. The guna Sattva represents 'bliss,' or the physical trancendent quality of eternity. The guna Rajas is the force of activity, while the third guna, Tamas is that of solidity. It has been suggested that if you tug on one of the gunas...you'll find Brahman, Vishnu or Shiva on the other end. In Buddhism...God as a concept is deconstructed entirely, as is their approach to the truth. They neither deny nor acknowledge the existance of God, as any preconception will mislead a student on that particular path. When Buddha himself was posed the question, he said literally 'no comment.' He knew that any answer he gave would form preconceptions in the student's mind. So we won't find a description of trinty expressed in words there! (more) Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest Zoom Rabbit Posted September 21, 2001 Share Posted September 21, 2001 However, there are the three liberations of the Buddha--which are concepts the student must meditate upon and gain understanding thereof in order to become enlightened. By no coincidence at all, they are emptiness (1), formlessness (2) and desirelessness (3). I realize the connection is tenuous, but let's look at those more closely, bearing in mind that the student is trying to deconstruct his understanding in order to return to God (as we describe it, anyway.) In order to understand God as 1, we must encounter the emptiness of undifferentiated existance. To understand God in personal form (2), we must understand the formlessness that preceded this act. And to understand God as living existance (3), we must overcome the desire for existance itself...which is their version of original sin, by the way. Whether or not Buddha himself came to such a complete understanding of God is a matter of much debate, and I know I'm not qualified to answer it, so it should be ruled as a question mark. Also by no coincidence, in ancient Greek mystical practice there are the three guardians of the mysteries--concepts much like the Buddhist ones in application, but describing the elephant differently. They are fear (1), pride (2) and lust (3)...again, things to be mastered by the student. (more) Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest Zoom Rabbit Posted September 21, 2001 Share Posted September 21, 2001 In Taoism, God isn't thought of as a person at all, but a vast, omnipotent force (much like the Star Wars 'Force.') Apparently, ancient China didn't encounter any messiahs. Anyway, the Tao is 1, and the other two are the yin and yang that make up the Tao. 2 is the yin, or 'masculine' aspect, which works with and resolves the 'feminine' yang (3) half. This idea of two interacting forces seems bizarre to us, but it is one that the Chinese have been happy with for ages. Right here in the US, before the white man came, the native Algonquin religion had its own triune concept of God. As the 'Great Spirit' (1) He was known in the absolute...but they called 2 the Thunderer, who ruled the sky , and 3 the Goddess, whose domain was the Earth. Their own allegory for the masculine/femine type interaction the Taoists were picking up on. Finally, for my last example... *(The forum cheers drowsily.)* My favorite meditational system is Kabbalah. An ancient Jewish tradition which was meant to be passed down orally as an adjunct to the Torah, it wasn't put into print until the middle ages. Nevertheless, it rings so true for those who have studied it in-depth that it should be taken seriously in any comparative religious discussion. The basis for Kabbalah is the Tree of life, a chart of ten interconnected spheres which represents both human consciousness and the act of creation, thus becoming a bridge to unite the two. It is said to have been given to man by angels as the way 'back to God.' Curiously, the whole thing is composed of three triangles, with a lone sphere at the bottom to represent the physical plane. The top three spheres represent God in our map of consciousness. The very top sphere (1) is called the Keter, and represents God the unknowable, the infinite. The second (2--duh) is Hokhma, among whose many attributes are wisdom and divine knowledge. The last (3) is Binah, which is said the represent the 'womb' of creation. Hmmm... Okay. There we have it: trinity absolutely everywhere--just like they've been saying all along. I will shut up...now! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Taarkin Posted September 21, 2001 Share Posted September 21, 2001 I was just gonna say that. ------------------ You're supposed to be dumpster-diving for ham scraps, you six-piece chicken McNobody! Official forum Psychic Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest Zoom Rabbit Posted September 21, 2001 Share Posted September 21, 2001 Hee-hee... You know, that's the first time anyone's posted seven times in a row, and it wasn't mindless spam! *(Crushes Taarkin's retort in his windpipe with a Darth Vader Force trick.)* Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Recommended Posts
Archived
This topic is now archived and is closed to further replies.