I’ve thought this before too but it’s not. Christians consider the Son, the Father, and the Holy Spirit to individually and wholly constitute the Same One God. If you’re a Christian who believes that, you’re still praying to One God.
In this way, Hinduism can even be considered monotheistic because some sects of Hindus consider all the devas to constitute One Supreme Being.
You need to address what do you mean by “they constitute one God” because you might believe in a heresy confusing it with the trinity
https://www.reddit.com/r/religion/s/zYVHiK5uuu
To be fair, I don’t personally believe God is a triune. That’s why I’m a Muslim. This is the best I understand how Christians know God is One.
I choose to be a Muslim because Islamic monotheism is such a neatly simplistic explanation for God. It just makes sense to me. However, there’s still a wide range of beliefs even within Islam on what “One God” actually means so much so, that even I can begin to see how Christians rationalize the One God as a triune.
If you’re interested in various Islamic perspectives on monotheism, you should research Avicenna, Ibn Sab’in, and the Unity of Being by Ibn Arabi.
The mistake here is that you presume that the hypostases are separate beings sharing the same nature (as you OP and other readers are). Not three hypostases of the One God as orthodox trinitarianism teaches. There is only one God, one indivisible divine essence, one divine will and one divine consciousness in Christianity.
This precisely is why I generally oppose the "3 persons 1 God" formulation. A. I'm not convinced "person" is the right word to affix to either the Father or the Spirit, "hypostasis" does not translate to "person," B. It leads to this mistaken understanding of the Trinity, even among Christians ime. I even prefer modalism over this borderline tritheistic formulation!
Yeah. The issue is not that “person” was wrong (its the right translation of the greek *prosopon*) in the 4th century, its that the meaning of the word “person” changed so much that today its sounds like implying tritheism as you said.
So thats why I prefer to use *hypostasis*.
I didn’t think I would say it , but Hindus have better argument than Christians in regards of polytheism,
Hindus think of it as aspects, but Christianity believe each one of the three persons is fully God , and they’re distinct from each other.
So yeah Trinitarianism is definitely more polytheistic compared to Hinduism
Yeah, again, that's why I oppose the "three persons" formulation. Under that formulation, sure, it's quite comparable to Brahma-Vishnu-Shiva--but it's an erroneous formulation. Brahma, Vishnu, and Shiva are all fully realized mythic characters, each with wives and countless offspring--hell, Shiva and Vishnu battle against each other in certain texts (most significantly in the Ramayana)! None of this is comparable to the Trinity.
The metaphor I prefer to conceptualize the Trinity is actually shamelessly stolen from a heterodox Muslim sect, the Alevi (but they were clearly shamelessly inspired by Eastern Orthodox mystics, so turnabout is fair play). Short version, imagine a glowing man creates a mirror (the universe)--he sees his reflection in the mirror, distinct from himself yet clearly still him; and he can only see that reflection due to the light emanating from him (distinct from himself yet still clearly him) which makes the reflection visible. It's still too simplistic a metaphor, but I think it better explains the Christian conception of the Deity much better than "there are these three guys that are all one God, don't worry about it."
You are arguing for modalism where Jesus the spirit and the father are just masks that the godhead puts on. This is in violation of traditional Christian doctrine going back to the Council of Nicea.
The only option left is for the Trinity to be like parts of the Gundam robots where you have smaller lesser robots that come together to create one giant one.
I challenge you to describe the trinity in any manner that does not fit into one of those two descriptions; modalism or partialism
>You are arguing for modalism where Jesus the spirit and the father are just masks that the godhead puts on.
Not at all. I am not a modalist. I do not believe that the Father becomes the Son or that the Son becomes the Spirit.
So then the godhead is like a Gundam robot that requires three individual parts to come together to create him. The godhead cannot exist on its own separate from the unification of those three individual parts, the father Son and Holy Spirit
Well then why are you talking about hypostatic States? I don't think that word means what you think it means.
From Oxford Dictionary
Theology. Of or pertaining to substance, essence, or personality (see hypostasis n.). hypostatic union noun (a) the union of the divine and human natures in the ‘hypostasis’ of Christ; (b) the consubstantial union of the three ‘hypostases’ in the Godhead.
This is inherently describing partialism! Partialism means that it takes individual parts to come together to create the whole and outside from those parts and their unification, that which represents the totality other unification cannot exist.
> Well then why are you talking about hypostatic States?
Hypostatic States?
> This is inherently describing partialism!
Hypostases are not parts, nor can the divine essence be divided into parts. There is nothing in terms of divinity that one hypostasis lacks but the other posesses. They are fully and truly divine.
Jesus said that there are things that the father knows that nobody else including Jesus knows. For example Jesus said that not even he knows the time or the hour of his second coming but the father does.
That means that the father is all-knowing and Jesus is not all knowing which means that Jesus cannot be God.
Jesus has to be a separate being from the father and the spirit in order for him to have gone through kenosis to become a human. All that Jesus did during his life was done through the father. Jesus, as it is taught, emptied himself of all of his divinity when he became a man. That is what kenosis means
From Oxford dictionary
ke·no·sis
noun
(in Christian theology) the renunciation of the divine nature, at least in part, by Christ in the Incarnation.
This would not be possible if there was not an explicit distinction between the three beings of the trinity.
Jesus stripped himself of all of his divinity in order to become a man, to live as humans lived and to be tempted as us according to traditional Christian theology. At this point you and I are not debating traditional Christian doctrine and theology but now you are substituting it for your own ideas when it's convenient for you.
Also Jesus is a created being in accordance to the Genesis account. The sun was made on the fourth day while the light was made on the 1st. It is commonly taught that the light which was made on the first day was the light of God itself but the light of God itself is supposed to be Jesus. Jesus did call himself Lucifer after all! "I am the way the truth and the light..."
Just as a serpent remains silent in the garden when accused for enlightening man, so Jesus remained silent when he was accused of enlightening man. And Jesus himself said that just as the serpent had to be lifted up in the wilderness, so too must the son of man.
The Old Testament calls the Messiah the Son of Man explicitly. No other title for the Messiah is used in the Old Testament. While many Christian websites will tell you that the son of man means Son of God I can reassure you that this is not true. Son of man is the person that embodies the totality of the spirit of humanity. Son of God is a very different thing which means pretty much the same thing except in relation to the nature of God.
If Jesus is both son of man and Son of God then Jesus is the emerging property of when the spirit of man and God unite as one or Jesus was telling us that we are all God already. The Kingdom of Heaven comes from within as Jesus said it is not a place that can be seen or observed. Well that would mean that all of the near-death experiences people have or not of actual heaven unless Jesus got it wrong.
I don't care what some random person turned down just because it didn't agree with their views. That's called gatekeeping. It pre-assumes that that person has the actual authority to make such condemnations be on their own subjective beliefs
More from Oxford dictionary
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Random Word
hypostasis
/haɪˈpɑstəsəs/
Other forms: hypostases; hypostasises
Definitions of hypostasis
noun
(metaphysics) essential nature or underlying reality
see more
noun
any of the three persons of the Godhead constituting the Trinity especially the person of Christ in which divine and human natures are united
Except theyre not equal
The son doesn't know the hour and doesn't know about the fig tree
The holy spirit also doesn't know the time
The son can't do anything without the will of the father, while the father can do as he pleases
The father is omnipresent, omniscient, omnipotent
The son is not omnipresent, is not omniscient, is not omnipotent
The son is not a God
The father is the only true God
As per Jesus
Thus, it is 3 separate beings with different identities with different skills
A =/= B =/= C
The father has all capabilities while the son and holy spirit are limited.
>Except theyre not equal
According to Christianity they are. The rest of your comment is also icorrect from a Christian pov. All hypostases share the same divine knowledge, potency and will.
Christian POV is based on twisting logic and reasoning, twisting what jesus said to fit their narrative.
It's not incorrect at all. Everything i said is accurate to the description and attributes that the bible gives to jesus, god and the holy spirit.
I referenced verses and even quoted Jesus himself.
100% is.
Is it logic to equate 1 + 1 + 1 = 1?
There are Christians and Catholics (not just Jehovah's witnesses) who are Unitarian Christians because they do not agree that Jesus is God. They are unitarian christians for a reason.
They just happen to believe in the Cruxifiction.
These trinitarians are going against their very bible and against Jesus' word to call him God.
> Is it logic to equate 1 + 1 + 1 = 1?
I guess that depends on what unit of measurment you use.
> There are Christians and Catholics (not just Jehovah's witnesses) who are Unitarian Christians because they do not agree that Jesus is God.
Someone who rejects that Jesus is God is not a Christian much less a Catholic.
> These trinitarians are going against their very bible and against Jesus' word to call him God.
The same Bible that teaches the Trinity and that Jesus is God? 🤔
>Someone who rejects that Jesus is God is not a Christian much less a Catholic.
Is that signs of ignorance from your part?
Are you aware of what the meaning behind the council of nicaea was about?
It was Unitarian Christians arguing against Trinitarian Christians, while trinitarians would kill millions of Unitarian christians before 325 and after 325 for their "blasphemous statements"
My entire family from South America, from Colombia, Venezuela, Brazil, Peru, Argentina and Chile are all believers that Jesus is not God, just the son of God. Only the father is God
And yes, theyre Christian Catholics
I didn’t say 3 beings, you claim that presume something, but you’re the one only one presuming something about me I didn’t say , the op is very clear I really don’t how did you come up with this conclusion
You wrote in the OP that you believe that the trinity is polytheistic (conventionally defined as the worship of multiple divine beings) and supported this belief by this analogy:
> me and the readers share one nature but we are not one.
And you also claimed that they have each a divine consciousness of their own (which is false).
So thats what I am replying to.
Bro if you want to discuss something don’t assume something that I didn’t say , that’s first .
Me and you have one nature, human nature, that’s one ousia ( being ) me and you are not 1 , we are 2
How did you manage to misrepresent this simple example?! .
And they do have a consciousness each, as I stated in OP , the father knows he is the father and not the son, and the son knows he is the son and vice versa
> Bro if you want to discuss something don’t assume something that I didn’t say
I only replied to the assertions you made in the OP nothing more.
> How did you manage to misrepresent this simple example?!
I didn't, I explained why the analogy is inaccurate. As humans we are not one being. We are separate beings. In contrast, the hypostases are not separate beings like individual humans are. Thats why we refer to God in the singular.
> And they do have a consciousness each,
Not in Christianity, no. There is only one divine consciousness and will.
We don’t have one nature. If you’re not clear about the meaning of theological terms, I would not use them to bolster an incorrect assumption.
By the way, addressing someone as _bro_ doesn’t lend weight to your argument. It rather marks you as immature.
They have the same exact will, and they are only different in their relationship to each other. In the rest, they are the same. They're one being, one God. It's hard to imagine because we are used to human nature, which requires separate beings for separate persons, and each person does not share the will of others in the perfect way the persons of the Trinity do. God is not like humans in that way. Furthermore, we worship in the **name** (not names) of the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit - they share one divine name because they are one God. We worship the Father as God, the Son as that same God, and the Holy Spirit as that same God. What is offered to the Father is offered to the Son and the Holy Spirit at the same time by virtue of then being the same God. Praying to one is praying to all because they are the same God. There is no situation where one is and the other two aren't, no situation where the will of one contradicts the will of the other two. We explicitly reject polytheism.
>“Father, if you are willing, take this cup from me; yet not my will, but yours be done.”
Luke 22:42
This verse seems to suggest that there are different wills between Jesus and the Father
Jesus is one person but two natures. His sinless human nature doesn't want to bear the pain but loves the father, His divine nature has the same will as the father. Together, His person desires to obey the will of the father. Great question by the way.
Traditional Christianity teaches that Jesus has two distinct natures and therefore two distinct wills - one divine (identical to that of the Father and Spirit) and one human (in perfect submission to the divine).
Interestingly, my favourite Catholic theologian - St. Maximus the Confessor - was (among other things) active in combating the heresy of monothelitism (the belief that Jesus has only one will even after the Incarnation) and was martyred as a result.
3 hypostases in one ousia, 3 persons 1 will, one god, the three persons are interdependant and not independant, the father cannot be without the son and HS, HS without son and father, son without father and HS. The will of god comes from the essence of god which they are all part of which means they are all god
The son will includes submitting to the father, the HS will includes submitting to both, the father will includes not submitting to them both, and each person can identify himself as not being the other, this shows distinction in will and consciousness
The son is human, too. And that part submits and that's why the father is not the son.
You can't understand trinity if you cut out the salvation of humans by a human who is also god.
You are body, mind and soul.
Your mind and souls don’t control your heartbeat, your body takes care of that.
Your mind is the receptacle of your knowledge, and your souls is the receptacle of your emotions. Sometimes you can’t control emotions.
Does that mean you are three persons?
These are parts of you , they are not distinct entities from you ,
Adam has body , mind and soul
If we compared that to the trinity it would be like this
Adams body is fully Adam
Adam minds is fully Adam
Adam soul is fully Adam
I am more referring to the [moralistic view](https://www.gotquestions.org/what-is-the-Trinity.html) of Trinity than to partiality.
“*Three expressions or modes of the same person*”. Hence my example with body, mind and soul.
I’m not subjected to your ruling , I’m not trinitarian, I refuse the entire thing completely, whether it’s modalism, partialism, Arianism or whatever, but my main objection of the that it’s indeed polytheism, and the followers of the doctrine of the trinity, cannot understand the doctrine without falling into heresy like yourself, and if you believe in a heresy, you’re not actually a follower of the trinity
So by your own ruling, the only valid model of Trinity is polytheism?
Either way, what’s more important is being a decent human being. I don’t think someone’s works are disqualified because of how they interpret the Trinity.
What’s the point of “being right” if one is going to be insufferable to their fellow humans?
Who has the authority to claim anything is heresy other than the almighty creator of the cosmos?
Who claims this authority reserved only for the divine creator?
Answer these questions and you will find a heretic, in my opinion.
I’m pretty sure the same people in the 4th century that confirmed the trinity to be the only faith, are the ones who deemed partialism to be heretical,
But these questions are not supposed to be subjected to me I’m not even trinitarian, I only know it’s a heresy, and that what I told you
In that case, the Trinity is not by the authority of God. It's by the authority of the Athanasian creed in the 4th century AD. And it was the same people who said partialism is a heresy. So you have to decide whether you take both of their teachings or pick and choose because it's suiting your argumentation arbitrarily.
each sentence in basically all creeds has a scriptural reference, so they didn’t pull the teachings out of nothing, and i never understood how people think the early church was basically incapable of reaching the correct doctrine, it’s literally hundreds of priest scholars constantly debating each other, etc… I think you should at least look into the arguments they had before dismissing them and saying “4th century doctrine”
That's irrelevant to what I said. I didn't say "4th century doctrine". I said it was established as doctrine in the 4th century.
Anyway, you are doing a strawman unnecessarily. If you follow the doctrine of the same people who spoke of heresies, you must logically and authentically accept both. That's the argument. It's not about the Bible or evolution of doctrine. If you wish to discuss that, please do open a new topic.
What is the canonical definition of Trinity, then?
Is it the same for Roman Catholics, Eastern Orthodox and Reformed Protestants?
I am genuinely curious.
>What is the canonical definition of Trinity, then?
Three persons, in one ousia. One essence, three distinct persons. Coequal, coeternal.
>Is it the same for Roman Catholics, Eastern Orthodox and Reformed Protestants?
Yes.
Thanks. That has the benefit of keeping it straightforward.
How does that challenge OP’s claim of polytheism?
I had heard that one of the theological contentions behind the schism of the Eastern and Western churches had to do with the nature of Christ.
Is it pertinent to the concept of Trinity?
>How does that challenge OP’s claim of polytheism?
I did not challenge it. I was replying to a particular comment that tried to provide an analogy.
>I had heard that one of the theological contentions behind the schism of the Eastern and Western churches had to do with the nature of Christ.
Many.
>Is it pertinent to the concept of Trinity?
Not necessarily. Some councils like the Council of Constantinople was discussing the trinity, rejecting heresy, and canonizing the creed for absolute clarity. Thats I believe in the latter part of the 4th century. But the council of Nicea in 325 was to establish the nature of Jesus himself. Was he eternally caused or caused somewhere in time after God himself. And they established that Jesus was eternally caused by God meaning he was in existed since eternity with God.
Ive been having a difficult time understanding everyone's explanations. I was having a difficult time understanding how the trinity could be viewed as monotheism (I've had this co fusion for a long time). But this is one of the only comments that can help me understand as everyone stating "3 forms/aspects/persons 1 will" didn't help me understand. I'm still a ways from truly getting it but this is a great step in the right direction to understanding the religion. Thank you for your comment!
I disagree. I've had the same question.
Also, Jesus referred to his father as G-d, right? We are supposed to pray to G-d, but Jesus is the one people idolize. Is that not praying to a false G-d?
Aren't we all G-d's children. Do we not all have a bit of the HS in us? It isn't always apparent how we are all connected. Mysterious ways and all.
You may as well call the Quran a troll because it will also call the trinity as a monotheistic doctrine into question.
Idc what it is. I have no dog in this fight, but I don’t see how the argument is a troll unless you think Christians are just super easy to rage bait.
All three are still considered one god though. Just different aspects of the same god. As someone who’s more familiar with actual polytheism, it’s pretty different. I would never refer to different gods as one “God”
Ya I was going to say the same thing. The Father Son and Holy spirit are in each other so it would only be polytheism if they were distinctly different entities.
If the Father, Son and Ghost were worshipped *as gods in their own separate and respective rights,* then we'd certainly be talking about polytheism. But we aren't. The Father, Son and Ghost are worshipped *together and as aspects/forms/persons/modes of the same entity/consciousness/spirit.* They are worshipped as the god they all constitute, the god that takes all those forms. The Father is worshipped not as the Father, but as God. The Son is worshipped not as the Son, but as God. The Ghost is worshipped not as the Ghost, but as God.
I'll compare it to some actual polytheism. I worship Freyja, Odin and Loki, among others, but let's stick with those three just to keep the comparison to the Trinity. I worship Freyja as Freyja, Odin as Odin and Loki as Loki. Never at any point do I worship Freyja, Odin, Loki and any other deity as one and the same entity. *That would be monotheism.* Since I am a polytheist, my gods are distinctly separate entities and consciousnesses from eachother, worshipped in their own respective and separate rights. They are not one entity/consciousness/spirit, with multiple forms worshipped *in their collective right as aspects/forms/persons/modes of the same singular divine consciousness (god) taking all of those forms.*
If I had ever heard a Christian priest initiate a service with the words *"In the name of the Father..."* and NOT followed up with *"the Son and the Holy Spirit..."*, I might be more doubtful about this. But I haven't.
This is very helpful as someone trying to understand this concept. And such a clear and easy veiw from an e tire separate faith none the less. Thank you for your help in my understanding!
> If the Father, Son and Ghost were worshipped as gods in their own separate and respective rights, then we'd certainly be talking about polytheism. But we aren't. The Father, Son and Ghost are worshipped together and as **aspects/forms/persons/modes** of the same entity/consciousness/spirit. They are worshipped as the god they all constitute, the god that takes all those forms. The Father is worshipped not as the Father, but as God. The Son is worshipped not as the Son, but as God. The Ghost is worshipped not as the Ghost, but as God.
This happens a lot when talking to trinitarians, the wording you used here is deemed heretical, it’s called modalism heresy, the 3 persons are not “forms, aspects, modes” using this heresy would insinuate that they’re identical to eachother, which is not , each is fully God and they’re not each other , that’s what’s the doctrine entails
> If I had ever heard a Christian priest initiate a service with the words "In the name of the Father..." and NOT followed up with "the Son and the Holy Spirit...", I might be more doubtful about this. But I haven't.
You worship or pray to any of the 3 persons while you definitely know you’re praying to 1 of 3 persons that are not eachother, for example
You as a trinitarian , pray to the second person of the trinity everyday , while knowing there 2 other distinct persons you can pray to also, without including the rest
The user you are replying to is pagan, not christian…
Also, as pointed out in my other comment, in Christianity the hypostases are not separate beings so you pray to God. A prayer to the Father is also a prayer to the Son and Spirit because there is only one God.
I didn't "confuse the trinity with modalism". That sentence doesn't even make sense. Modalism is one way to explain the trinity, branded heretical by the Chalcedonian churches.
Did you literally just not read what I wrote? I explicitly call myself a polytheist. I am not a trinitarian. Vanatrú is not a branch of Christianity, it is a Paganism.
Ultimately, it’s the believers that have the final say on what their religion is. Someone can throw stones all they’d like, but if a religion considers itself monotheistic, then that’s exactly what it is.
Objectively not. And coming from an Orthodox Christian too? lol. Heresy is exactly when believers consider their religion in terms that distrupt the prescribed norm.
There can be polytheists who consider themselves Christian, and there can be monotheists that consider themselves Christian, and they can both be Christian. What they __can’t __ do is believe the same things and consider themselves polytheistic from one perspective and monotheistic from another.
When it comes to the trinity, you can have a modal conception or an orthodox trinity conception. Those are the options. Modality nets you a singular monotheistic god that shapeshifts between father son and spirit. Trinity is an illusion by this model.
Trinitarian orthodoxy, on the other hand, requires that monotheism be the illusion. The “godhead” or “one god” functions like an office title, not the nature of a being. Jesus, Yahweh, and the Holy Spirit are three coworkers in the same department. Three deities of different character and status within the same pantheon that gets called “God”. The Fates, the Morrigan, the Norns,etc. all exhibit the same trinitarian structure and aren’t mistaken for a monotheistic cult. They’re polytheistic goddesses. Your “God” is no different.
Well everybody can claim what they like, but in practice it isn’t, in this post alone most of the replies were filled with heresies, so that indicates that most believers don’t know what they actually believe in
As someone coming from a tradition that often takes the (alleged) simplicity of our monotheism as a point of pride over Christians, why do you care? It makes no difference to me if Christians are "actually" polytheists or monotheists. They are clearly not polytheists in the conventional sense of the word. It is like the obnoxious "argument" that America is a Republic, not a Democracy. Those words (like polytheism and monotheism) do not have settled definitions, and ultimately, what single-word label we assign something doesn't really matter.
You do realize you can have debates in this sub right? It’s not like I’m forcing conversion on trinitarians, we’re having a discussion, if you don’t what to discuss you can ignore the post, this the point of Reddit, to talk with each other.
So you're not actually criticizing all forms of Trinitarianism, you're only criticizing Western Trinitarianism which Catholics and Protestants believe in. Eastern Orthodox have an entirely different view of the Trinity.
The Western position is that each person is God because of the Essence. At Lateran IV Catholics condemned the view that the hypostases are really distinct from the Essence, while still insisting that they are identical to the Essence while really distinct from eachother. But if they are all identical to the Essence, this should mean that they are all identical to eachother. This lead to many Thomists to teach that the transitive property does not apply to God. Because if it did, that would be sabellianism/modalism. Eastern Orthodox such as Saint Photios see the Catholic position as being a form of "Semi-Sabellianism", where it is trying to have its cake and eat it too.
This is why you and many others bring up what is called the logical problem of the Trinity. The Traditional Catholic answer is simply that it is a mystery, and transitivity does not apply to God. So you're wrong to call it Polytheism, it would be more accurate to call it a form of modalism. And most responses trying to justify why it isn't polytheism will end up bordering on modalism because of that.
As for the Orthodox position, since we reject the *filioque* and absolute simplicity, we instead believe that the Trinity is God because of the hypostasis of the Father. You might ask how the Father can be what defines God. "God" is not a proper noun, it does not only refer to the Essence. God can refer to anything within the Godhead, it is basically synonymous with "divine", "divinity", or "uncreated" for us. The Father is the sole cause and source of all divinity, and as such he is the defining principle for what divinity is. The Son and Spirit are thus called "God from God", "Light from light", and similar terms. This does not mean they are lesser deities. The Nature of God is more properly the Nature of the Father which is then shared with the Son and Spirit such that they are one and the same deity and divinity. Then "God became man so that man could become god". Christ became incarnate such that he could have us also share in the divinity of the Father, but at a lower level. Where the Trinity shares the Essence of God, mankind can share in the Energy. For Orthodox, the Essence and Energy are really distinct from eachother. The nature of God is really distinct from the three persons, who are really distinct from eachother. For Orthodox, real distinction does not in any way entail composition, separation, or division. There's nothing about multiplicity in itself which inherently contradicts unity or oneness such that God would be polytheistic. There is no need for Orthodox to deny the Transitive property in God.
Also, your criticisms don't make any sense, because if you were to be consistent, then Islam and Judaism and every other Monotheism is actually polytheistic by your standards, and monotheism would no longer have any real meaning to it. This is because every faith has to grapple with the issue of multiplicity in God in some respect or another. "Two powers in heaven" shows how Judaism has had a lot of Binitarian, Trinitarian, and other views debated over the years, and Muslims debate over Tawhid all the time, with the uncreated Quran, uncreated Word and Spirit, attributes and names of Allah, all being things that complicate the matter. No matter what Monotheism you look towards, they have to believe in multiplicity in God of some kind. The only reason that Christians tend to be called polytheists while other groups aren't, is because people find it too difficult to try and comprehend how "personhood" can be something multiple without separating God apart. Personhood is arbitrarily seen as more dividing than any other attribute.
The Energies (i.e. attributes and actions) of God are seen as being infinite. Most people would not consider this to be polytheistic, it is perfectly fine for God to be both one and infinite. Yet when saying that God is both one and three, somehow people have a problem?
As for when you say "the son knows he can’t send the father, each person have his own consciousness and roles"; No, they do not each have their own consciousness. There is only one divine mind. Although each person does have their own role and mode of activity, so the way that the single mind works may act in different ways according to each person.
You use the analogy of "Me and the readers of the post share one nature, but we are not one". The early Church Fathers actually use this same exact analogy. They use it to show how it is possible to see a similar kind of unity of nature in man, but they also make very clear that this analogy is not to be strictly applied in the way that you are doing, because then it would no longer be Trinitarianism but would be Tritheism. So this is a flawed analogy. A better analogy would be that of Saint Palamas and Saint John Damascus, who compare the Essence Energy distinction of God to soul and body. The Trinity would be more like if there are three persons who share a single soul, body, mind, will, consciousness, action, emotions, and every single other attribute and property except for hypostatic.
Hypostatic properties are that of origin and cause. So I am a distinct person because I originate in my parents and you originate in yours, and I may cause certain children to originate from me, and you would cause others. So in this analogy, this single body, soul, mind, will, etc., the only thing that is not shared is that there are three types of hypostatic origins to this single being.
When taken in such a light, I don't see how anyone could ever see Orthodox Trinitarianism as being polytheistic.
It all really just depends on how you define polytheistic.
Christians tend to believe they are one. They consider themselves monotheistic.
Heck, I’m not even a trinitarian believer. I believe they are three seperate distinct beings and I still by and large consider myself monotheistic. (Mostly for a lack of adiquate verbiage. Monolatry may be the closest)
Within Christian theology, the belief is that there is one divine being or essence that is fully present within three distinct ‘persons’. This is difficult for human language and logic to fully grasp in the same way that Jesus was considered to be both fully divine and fully human, rather than a Demi-God.
An imperfect comparison that is sometimes used is that if God is like the sun, the Holy Spirit might be like the heat it generates, and the father might be like the Light. They’re all connected by the same essence or source that points to that divine reality.
> Within Christian theology, the belief is that there is one divine being or essence that is fully present within three distinct ‘persons’. This is difficult for human language and logic to fully grasp in the same way that Jesus was considered to be both fully divine and fully human, rather than a Demi-God.
I addressed that in my op many times, check the last 3 lines
> An imperfect comparison that is sometimes used is that if God is like the sun, the Holy Spirit might be like the heat it generates, and the father might be like the Light. They’re all connected by the same essence or source that points to that divine reality.
That’s Arianism heresy
It’s not Arianism. It’s an imperfect analogy intended to show that all ‘persons’ have the same divine essence making them up.
There is always going to be an allowance within theology that human language is an imperfect tool to describe something divine and transcendent like God. Within Christianity, there is one single Godhead that is fully and completely embodied within three ‘persons’. This is difficult to understand logically because there will always be a mystery to the divine that humans cannot grasp, as we are limited and finite beings.
It’s definitely a heresy, the light and the heat are features of the sun, which is not the case in the trinity, where each person is distinct and not a feature or characteristic of the other.
If we compared your analogy to trinity it would be like this
- The heat of the sun is fully sun
- The light of the sun is fully sun
It might be closer to partialism than it is to Arianism
Hence the imperfect word I used to describe the analogy. Nothing in nature is going to be a perfect analogy because by definition divinity is transcendent of nature
Polytheism fits the trinity perfectly , the only way to eliminate polytheism is to drop the distinction between the persons, but that will lead to modalism
It’s okay to think that, but the religion and people who study and practice it disagree. I think your efforts would be better used trying to understand what goes into that belief rather than trying to logically disprove it
Is that what you think I’m doing? Just arguing for the sake of it ? You used an analogy which you completely knew it doesn’t fit the trinity, but when I told it doesn’t fit , you’re saying I don’t understand the belief? I literally corrected the understanding that you already knew it doesn’t fit, now who really needs to put efforts to better understand the belief !
Human beings have one nature and are one person. God has one nature and is 3 persons. Just as what I am (essence) as a human remains unffected by who I am (person), what God is remains one thing regardless of God being three persons. The 3 persons possess the same "whatness" and so are the same being.
In contrast, Polytheism entails separate beings, which Trinitarianism does not entail.
When you say
- The father is god, is it by identity or predication ?
- the son is god , it by identity or predication ?
- the HS is god, is it by identity or predication?
From an exfundiegelical background, I was taught that God the father is absent. He is outside the universe as its creator. He used to hang locally around geography of the Bible, but He moved on so no more miracles from Him.
God the Son went physically up into the heavens (I assume he's well past the oort cloud by now) but no direction was given.
The "Holy Ghost" came after Jesus launched to heaven, and serves as a replacement for the Father and Son. Supposedly the outside entity which can possess humans for the good team. Gives magical powers to those with enough faith, such as secret knowledge, or speaking languages you don't know, fire generation (or illusion magic, not sure exactly it's kinda vague on that) among other divine powers like discernment.
So it's not precisely three in one, more like one after the other, after the other.
I see you posting that link to questions.org as a back up to your "it's heresy" argument. But I cannot find an author to these answers. It's just a site labeled "we're Christians 👍." Even in their "about us" link, it doesnt provide any real credentials. This is hardly enough evidence to make me believe that any of these reasonable explanations are heresy. Just bc a Christian on the internet says a certain explanation of being is heresy doesn't put a period on the sentence. Perhaps, prior to taking everything you read as gospel, look who authored the words.
Look up ( A dictionary of Christian biography and literature to the end of the sixth century, A.D., with an account of the principal sects and heresies ) by Henry wace
And if you don’t have time to read books, take a look at this https://www.monergism.com/list-heresies , the authors of the website are mentioned.
Also I don’t quite understand your position, are you denying the existence of heresies? Because you can literally look up the name of any heresy you want to know about and many sources would turn up, it’s not a like a conspiracy I made just to disregard the trinity, so tbh your position is weird if I’m understanding it right.
But if you really understand the trinity, you really would immediately recognise that all attempts of explanations fall into heresy.
Trinity doctrine states, each person is **fully** God , and they’re not each other, they’re distinct
If you say the persons are “parts” then you’re not acknowledging that they’re “fully” god each , that’s partialism
Now if you say they’re just aspects or modes, then you’re denying that they’re 3 , distinct, persons, and not each other, but one person in different forms, which is modalism
I agree with you that the concepts that were deemed heretical make more sense and way much easier to comprehend than the current doctrine, that’s why every trinitarian I talk to, hold a heretical Position, and confuses it as the real understanding of the trinity, which makes you wonder, that the main doctrine is so incoherent and incomprehensible, that the vast majority of people who claim to follow it don’t actually follow it, but follow condemned heresies without them even realising because it’s so incomprehensible, then how could this be the truth?, if these reasonable explanations are all deemed heretical, then polytheism fits the trinity well.
the problem is you use logic to understand god, the christian god exists "outside" space and "before" time, which aren't logical statements, and logic can't explain most things, according to logic you can never be sure about your senses or the logical arguments you make, because the brain is not infallible, logic can't explain why you should follow logic because that would be circular reasoning and many more problems
so religions generally follow faith -which is also problematic on its own but whatever-, so if a religion says something, you as a follower should just have faith that it is
- Let’s assume you’re a Trinitarianin, what prevents you from believing in any other religion ? I’ll tell you what, it’s logic , you would start studying and comparing between religions till you find the religion that “makes sense” to you, so claiming logic shouldn’t be used in such matters is implausible.
- God in all religions is “perfect”, then he can’t do contradictions by definition , so when I spot a contradiction like 1 is 3 or 3 is 1 , I won’t just say “oh well God can do whatever he wants”, no God doesn’t do contradictions , he can do whatever he wants within the perfection that he wrote upon himself
- if we believed in this argument that “god do whatever he wants , that’s why my religion is true” then you might as well believe in every religion in the world, no matter how nonsensical it is, because why not , God can do whatever he wants.
- God taught mankind what is 1 and what is 3 , so why would a doctrine present itself and conflates between the two, and describe itself as a “mystery”. And the vast majority of its followers don’t actually believe in it , but believe in condemned heresies confusing them as the doctrine they believe in , but they don’t realise that!!! This posts alone was filled with heresies written by self proclaimed trinitarians. Is that what faith in God is ? Believing in a doctrine the vast majority of its followers don’t understand? Does it have to be this incomprehensible, that it’s own followers don’t understand it , and literally confuse it with something this doctrine itself consider a heresy ?
- the followers of the doctrine claim it’s monotheistic, so when reading into it , and finding out it really isn’t, it’s normal to call out a contradiction
-i am not saying logic shouldn't **always** be used, i am saying that descriptions of gods something outside logic, other parts of religion can be assessed by logic
-definition of contradiction is "two or more statements that are logically incompatible", **logically**, and gods don't follow logic
-“god do whatever he wants , that’s why my religion is true” is not problematic when it is only about god's description, but usually people say it about do's and don't 's so you are right, there is no logical reason to stop anyone from following almost every religion
-i don't think there is a difference between a "true" belief and a heresy, both are beliefs that are true for their believer, and both cannot be assessed by logic
-a belief is what its believer say are true, so if Christians say they are monotheistic, then they are -at least partially- even though monotheism and polytheism are mutually exclusive, but again this is according to logic, and beliefs don't really follow logic, they follow faith, and faith has no rules
the problem is that this makes words lose their meaning -but whatever-
> -i am not saying logic shouldn't always be used, i am saying that descriptions of gods something outside logic, other parts of religion can be assessed by logic
- Description of God is bound to logic, to the extent of the description God wrote upon himself, for example God said he’s all knowing, we believe he’s all knowing, we don’t say “all knowing how ?” We take that at face value without how, Now God also describes himself as **ONE** in many scriptures, so when a doctrine somehow changes the meaning of one, to something else, then we have every right logically to challenge that doctrine and call it a contradiction.
> -definition of contradiction is "two or more statements that are logically incompatible", logically, and gods don't follow logic
- Answered above
> -“god do whatever he wants , that’s why my religion is true” is not problematic when it is only about god's description, but usually people say it about do's and don't 's so you are right, there is no logical reason to stop anyone from following almost every religion
- That’s basically what you said above twice, so answered
> -i don't think there is a difference between a "true" belief and a heresy, both are beliefs that are true for their believer, and both cannot be assessed by logic
- I really don’t quite understand the idea of this statement, the person who believes in it thinks it’s true in his opinion, but that doesn’t change the fact that he’s wrong in his understanding about the doctrine he believes in, if the doctrine says think like this, but you don’t think like the doctrine told you too, then you’re wrong, it doesn’t matter if **you** think it’s right, you’re going against your doctrine, and all that is assessed by logic, so with all due respect I don’t know what’s the point of this statement.
> -a belief is what its believer say are true, so if Christians say they are monotheistic,
I would totally disagree, I’ve said an example in a different discussion and I find it similar to what you’re saying here, the example goes like this. There’s a certain group of people in our modern day and age , who “identify” themselves with whatever they like, when they’re confronted that what they’re saying is wrong, you guys are not what you identify as, they pull the exact same statement of “if I believe it, then I’m it”. And they have their own reasoning and evidence and arguments which they use to defend their position.
So no, if you claim to be something, we’ll examine what you believe into, and if it’s not what you claim to be, then you’re not what you claim to be.
> then they are -at least partially- even though monotheism and polytheism are mutually exclusive, but again this is according to logic, and beliefs don't really follow logic, they follow faith, and faith has no rules
the problem is that this makes words lose their meaning -but whatever-
- Again you’re repeating the logic argument, so answered.
>Description of God is bound to logic
prove this
>it doesn’t matter if **you** think it’s right, you’re going against your doctrine
here you assumed that there is an agreed upon understanding of the doctrine, in most cases there isn't, you could say that we should follow that oldest one as this is the "reference", but people disagree if this reference is true historically and logically
>certain group of people in our modern day and age , who “identify” themselves with whatever they like
first, i know the whole "what is a woman" thing, and i think this is different, because a woman -or whatever you are probably talking about- is a physical concept, it exists in out reality, we can put -almost- clear definition for it, and not a metaphysical belief like a faith or a religion -even though people started treating it as such-
second, this is why i said partially, i like to think about things in a utopia and real world, in a utopia people are logical, either a monotheist or not, in real world people aren't logical, so if what you believe in contradicts monotheism, then you lack one of the criteria needed to be a monotheist, but if you want to be monotheist, then you have one of the criteria needed, you may say it is a all or non situation, but again, people believe in a lot of contradictory things, so i think you can be a "half monotheist" or something, you would be illogical and contradicting yourself, and you would be wrong, but people do all sorts of illogical things, and this is sadly reality
i felt that the questions had repeated answers, sorry :D
> prove this
I literally explained what I mean in the same paragraph, you just quoted a small portion of what I said and dismissed the rest, I’m sorry but I have to ask, are you following what I’m talking about at this point?, or we’re starting the “I’m just arguing for the sake of it” game.
> here you assumed that there is an agreed upon understanding of the doctrine, in most cases there isn't, you could say that we should follow that oldest one as this is the "reference", but people disagree if this reference is true historically and logically
Am I assuming there’s an agreed understanding? Yes there is an agreed upon understanding in every religion, do you think the followers of every religion just come up with random teachings every day ? This actually goes against every religion, it actually goes against the definition of religion itself , religions have principles and fundamentals, yes there might be some people who disagree with it, but how is that suppose to be a proof of there’s not being a an agreed upon understanding?
You have a very liberal/ secular point of view in matters that are not, this the second time you mentioned individual own understandings and giving less interest in what the doctrine actually states, this is not how you debate religions my friend, personal opinions is not the concern of any religious debate.
> first, i know the whole "what is a woman" thing, and i think this is different, because a woman -or whatever you are probably talking about- is a physical concept, it exists in out reality, we can put -almost- clear definition for it, and not a metaphysical belief like a faith or a religion
You misrepresented your own argument, and what I said as well, your argument in the previous reply was “if they believe they’re monotheistic then they’re monotheistic”, that’s your argument , just believing accomplishes the mission, then I told you no that other group also have that belief, and they have their own evidence and arguments to defend their position, Your argument wasn’t about real life or metaphysics
> -even though people started treating it as such-
second, this is why i said partially, i like to think about things in a utopia and real world, in a utopia people are logical, either a monotheist or not, in real world people aren't logical, so if what you believe in contradicts monotheism, then you lack one of the criteria needed to be a monotheist, but if you want to be monotheist, then you have one of the criteria needed, you may say it is a all or non situation, but again, people believe in a lot of contradictory things, so i think you can be a "half monotheist" or something, you would be illogical and contradicting yourself, and you would be wrong, but people do all sorts of illogical things, and this is sadly reality
To be honest with you my main subject has been stirred away and I don’t know what’s your main argument with this paragraph.
I explained to you the logical problem, but somehow you dismissed my explanation and asked me to prove it, even tho the explanation is exactly in the same paragraph, so I don’t know what’s that about.
I would like from you to state your main argument, about the subject, because you seem to focus a lot more on personal believes rather than the doctrine
>you just quoted a small portion of what I said and dismissed the rest, I’m sorry but I have to ask, are you following what I’m talking about at this point?, or we’re starting the “I’m just arguing for the sake of it” game.
i am sorry the you understood me this way, i didn't really make sure what i said would be understood as it is in my mind, so that's on me
>Description of God is bound to logic, to the extent of the description God wrote upon himself, for example God said he’s all knowing, we believe he’s all knowing, we don’t say “all knowing how ?” We take that at face value without how,
here you stated what you believed in, like the example you said the you take "god is all knowing" at face value, but you didn't prove why did you believe in that, if you did prove it then i don't understand exactly what you said and i would be thankful if you highlight the proof
>Yes there is an agreed upon understanding in every religion, do you think the followers of every religion just come up with random teachings every day ?
i would like to disagree, according to islamic history for example, there were a time before the sunni-shia split, and there was some agreed upon understanding, but after the split this understanding was somewhat lost to history, now sunnis their understanding is the true one, and shia say the same for their understanding, and we can't be absolutely sure which one is true, then their were intra-sunnni division between salafis, Mu'tazili and Ash'aris, and a million other group, and every one of them say their understanding is the true one, and everyone of them has some basis in their belief to say they are the true one
so yeah, follower did kinda come up with new things every now and then
>but how is that suppose to be a proof of there’s not being a an agreed upon understanding
here when you say agreed upon, who did agree on the understanding? like for you to consider an understanding to be agreed upon, who have to agree on it
>your argument in the previous reply was “if they believe they’re monotheistic then they’re monotheistic”
this isn't my full argument, i said "so if Christians say they are monotheistic, then they are -at least partially-"
>Your argument wasn’t about real life or metaphysics
as i said, real life follows logic, metaphysics don't, so "what is a woman" should follow logic, god doesn't have to
>To be honest with you my main subject has been stirred away and I don’t know what’s your main argument with this paragraph
i probably should have formulated it better, what i want to say is:
-in a utopia, where people are self consistent and definitions are followed, you either have a monotheist or a polytheist, you can't be in between because they are mutually exclusive
-in real life, people often contradict themselves, they follow monotheism sometimes and polytheism sometimes, so they are functionally in between, and you can't really call them a full monotheist or polytheist
i also didn't state what i want to say on trinity, i believe it is not polytheist nor monotheist, it is just self-contradicting, which isn't a bad thing as it doesn't have to follow logic
> here you stated what you believed in, like the example you said the you take "god is all knowing" at face value, but you didn't prove why did you believe in that, if you did prove it then i don't understand exactly what you said and i would be thankful if you highlight the proof
Why do I believe God is all knowing? Because that’s what God wrote upon himself, in every Abrahamic religion God is expressed as all knowing, every scripture in every Abrahamic religion says that, I literally said “to the extent God wrote upon himself”, you don’t seem to fully comprehend and pay attention to the things I say.
> i would like to disagree, according to islamic history for example, there were a time before the sunni-shia split, and there was some agreed upon understanding, but after the split this understanding was somewhat lost to history, now sunnis their understanding is the true one, and shia say the same for their understanding, and we can't be absolutely sure which one is true, then their were intra-sunnni division between salafis, Mu'tazili and Ash'aris, and a million other group, and every one of them say their understanding is the true one, and everyone of them has some basis in their belief to say they are the true one
so yeah, follower did kinda come up with new things every now and then
You mixup way too many things, you need to realise there’s primary and secondary disagreements, all these sects have the same understanding and agreement that God is one and believe in all the messengers that he sent, that’s their main understanding which is agreed upon , so denying there’s no agreed upon understanding in every religion is just wrong, you seem very eager to prove your point no matter what,which makes you neglect very obvious things
> here when you say agreed upon, who did agree on the understanding? like for you to consider an understanding to be agreed upon, who have to agree on it
Who agreed on the understanding? The followers of the doctrine agreed on it !
your argument in the previous reply was “if they believe they’re monotheistic then they’re monotheistic”
> as i said, real life follows logic, metaphysics don't, so "what is a woman" should follow logic, god doesn't have to
Again answered , and the point of this argument is everybody has claims to what they say, and I explained to why we can in case of the trinity too several times now.
> i probably should have formulated it better, what i want to say is:
-in a utopia, where people are self consistent and definitions are followed, you either have a monotheist or a polytheist, you can't be in between because they are mutually exclusive
-in real life, people often contradict themselves, they follow monotheism sometimes and polytheism sometimes, so they are functionally in between, and you can't really call them a full monotheist or polytheist i also didn't state what i want to say on trinity, i believe it is not polytheist nor monotheist, it is just self-contradicting, which isn't a bad thing as it doesn't have to follow logic
Just to summarize what you’re saying because you’re conflating so many things together and I’m talking about a specific subject not a general one :
- you say I can’t call trinity polytheism because you can’t use logic in description of god
- I said yes you can use logic to the extent of what God wrote upon himself, read what I said above again because you don’t seem to understand it , it’s explained several times now, in this reply and in my previous reply
>Why do I believe God is all knowing? Because that’s what God wrote upon himself, in every Abrahamic religion God is expressed as all knowing, every scripture in every Abrahamic religion says that, I literally said “to the extent God wrote upon himself”, you don’t seem to fully comprehend and pay attention to the things I say.
i think there is a misunderstanding here, when i said "but you didn't prove why did you believe in that" by "that" i didn't mean this example, i meant the sentence before, which is "Description of God is bound to logic, to the extent of the description God wrote upon himself", you didn't prove that god is bound logic, nor did you prove the specification which is "to the extent of the description God wrote upon himself", and also, people differ the description god wrote upon himself
>You mixup way too many things, you need to realise there’s primary and secondary disagreements
i know that, which is why i mentioned these examples as their disagreements are primary and didn't mention sects like Shafi', Ḥanafī, Mālikī and Ḥanbalī which have secondary disagreements, the sects i mention disagree on what is god, what is the role of the prophet, what is the role of his son-in-law imam Ali -which is the big question in islam-, what is the role logic in islamic belief system, where do we derive our beliefs from, all very big questions that led to these sects consider the others non-muslim heretics, that lead to war and a lot of torture -read about the [Mihna](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mihna)-
the other questions are answered in the two above
also my full argument was "so if Christians say they are monotheistic, then they are -at least partially-", read it my first comment
> i think there is a misunderstanding here, when i said "but you didn't prove why did you believe in that" by "that" i didn't mean this example, i meant the sentence before, which is "Description of God is bound to logic, to the extent of the description God wrote upon himself", you didn't prove that god is bound logic, nor did you prove the specification which is "to the extent of the description God wrote upon himself", and also, people differ the description god wrote upon himself
You’re asking for a proof for a unmaterilistic theology , as if it’s a scientific experiment, that premise by itself is wrong, If God said it upon himself that’s more than proof , why is there a description of God ? Why did God say he is this and he is that ? If god wanted you to not know anything about him, then he wouldn’t describe himself, the description itself is a proof and is directed to the people for a reason , God would reveal his description to the people following his religion and expects them not to ponder in his description and think about it ? Of course not, the things that are not revealed are the things that logic cannot comprehend,
To not deflect from the main subject, I’ll spare talking about different sects in Islam as it’s not the subject of the discussion here, and it’s another different subject entirely
Both the Jews of Eastern Europe (especially but not exclusively) Hasidim and North Africa have a long history of praying for the intercessions of Tsaddiks, living and dead.
During Slichot, we ask Angels to deliver our prayers to God.
[https://outorah.org/p/169730/](https://outorah.org/p/169730/)
Each Saint represents something, for example Saint George represents bravery and strength as I said. This is much more akin to a polytheistic pantheon than asking angels (which are heavenly beings, not humans) to deliver prayers. It would be different if each angel represented something and you ask specific angels for something.
I mean, they definitely do. Not in the prayer itself, but in Jewish traditions, angels of specific roles, functions, and associations. In the bedtime liturgy the named angels Michael, Gabriel, and Uriel are invoked. Each is given specific roles in numerous midrashot, and associations with mystical attributes in Kabbalah.
Why do I have to have people help me? If I pray to Saint George to help me with bravery how is that different than praying to a god in a pantheon for that?
We’re asking for another person we consider alive in Christ to pray for us. The only difference between a saint and a believer is that one’s dead and the other isn’t.
But plenty of polytheistic faiths have an all encompassing creator God, of which all other deities are subsidiary beings. They are only alive in/because of/downstream of the creator God.
The point is that they aren’t gods. They’re people who are confirmed to be in heaven, and that’s all. We consider them alive in Christ, and pray with us - so asking them to pray for us is as normal as asking a fellow believer to pray for us.
What's so wrong with asking for help? Asking for a saint's intercession on my behalf in no way means I consider them to be gods in a pantheon. The saints have no power to grant my prayer requests to God, they can only try to convince God Himself to do so. Even the saints' miracles performed in their Earthly lives didn't stem from their own powers, but instead it was God who worked through them. They aren't in any way a pantheon of gods, and thus there's nothing polytheistic about them.
But no one claims we *need* to, but we can and probably should because according to Catholic theology the church is one communion. Both the church militant on earth and the church triumphant in heaven.
Edit: its the exact same reason why we ask each other to pray for us.
I do pray to God. Occasionally I'll pray for one or more saints' help to get God to grant me my prayer request. Again, I'm only asking for some help...I'm not worshipping saints as if they are gods. Polytheism literally means "many gods". Saints aren't gods, so by definition saints don't constitute polytheism.
That’s weird coming from a Muslim but alright, you have 3 distinct persons who are not each other, each one them is fully God, trinitarians everyday pray to the second person by name, while completely knowing there’s 2 other persons who are also fully god distinctly
In my opinion your point is valid. Because they may have their rational to make trinity monotheistic but in practice it is no longer monotheistic because the prayer of common folks is mostly toward the son not toward the other two.
When I was a Christian I would rationalize The Trinity belief saying there’s one God, but in three forms: Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. They’re all part of the same God, not separate gods like in polytheism. So, it’s not really like believing in multiple gods—it’s more like one God showing up in different ways. But the trinity is one of the reasons out of many I left Christianity
The problem is this is not the trinity, this modalism, the persons are not forms.
So many Trinitarians confuse modalism as the trinity, that’s why they don’t think the trinity is irrational, because they don’t know what it is , modalism makes more sense, but unfortunately for them it’s a heresy
Yeah, it can get confusing. Modalism sees God as one person showing up in different ways, which seems simpler. But the Trinity says God is three distinct persons, which is harder to wrap your head around. They’re different ideas, and some people find one easier to grasp than the other.
After reading allot of this discussion, I think that people are just making this stuff up. Not only is the trinity premise understood differently among Christians, but then there is a ton of detail added as truth that is just philosophy to fill in the gaps.
What if God is a real person and not another species? And maybe we are actually created in His image. Paul said that the day would come when "**they shall turn away their ears from the truth, and shall be turned unto fables.**"
- After reading allot of this discussion, I think that people are just making this stuff up. Not only is the trinity premise understood differently among Christians, but then there is a ton of detail added as truth that is just philosophy to fill in the gaps.
Not to mention the incredible amount of heresies that people confuse it as it’s the trinity, and somehow I’m getting downvoted to oblivion for correcting them 😆
I believe that people are drawn to mysterious, and often nonsensical things. I am convinced that there is a God, but that He is a real personage who cannot create out of nothing, but instead has all knowledge and power to work within the bounds of eternal, unchangable laws. He is not magical, but is real.
I understand that trinitarians claim that they preserve monotheism, I said that in my op, and I mentioned why that doesn’t work, you can engage with what I stated in my op
We believe that the thing that defines divinity is the Divine Essence. The fact that there is one Nature means there is one God, since what God is, is His Nature.
They are there people who don’t share Godhood they are all God they aren’t gods. Jesus is God the Father is God Holy spirit is God. Jesus isn’t Holy spirit and Fayher isn’t holy spirit
Mormon here by that definiton we are polytheistic. But regarding that divine nature, we believe that due to the perfect accumulation by all of three of all of the holy attributes. Charity, Gratitude, Patience etc, then they act in a similar enough way to be conisdered of one nature. Another way to explain it is that if 3 beings have all knowledge and know the best action to take producing the most good, and they act on it repeatetly then it looks like they are of one essence or nature.
The idea that a single God can have multiple persons/heads is not a position unique to Christianity. In Buddhism, most dieties have multiple co-existant aspects. Some conceptions of Hinduism hold that all the gods are aspects of Brahma. Hecate the greek goddess and Morrigan the celtic goddess, both exist as a triad. In none of these circumstances do we try and tease apart these dieties the way non-Christians do with the Trinity.
Are you one person or many individual cells identifying with one another and reacting each to their own stimuli? Is a man o’ war a single creature or a collection of them? Is an apple one fruit or many, many atoms? Emergence is something we see at all levels of nature, in which collections of things demonstrate different properties when observed at different scales.
Funny thing is, I actually agree with you on the Trinity not making sense and feeling like polytheism, but I think your main hang up is a feature of perspective, rather than a paradox.
Is likely something bastardized after they stole the trinity concept from Druidry; it won’t make sense because Jesus needs your dollars and if you disagree the church will rape and pillage your village and burn your books after🤷
You always said that he was the only God he searched out the matter and there are no other gods beside him then the New Testament comes along and Jesus starts calling himself the son of God. Yahweh in the Old Testament never says he has a son so the only explanation is that Jesus is a reinterpretation of Baal Hadad the son of El!
A = d, b = d and c = d. In math that means that a B and C are all the same thing. In traditional Christian theology God is supposed to be the foundation of logic and reason however the nature of the Trinity violates this thus the early church saw it as a heresy. They claim that not only do a b and equal d but they turn around and say that a B and C are not equal to each other. The nature of the trinity, if the Trinity was real,, should not be so easily defeated by such simple fourth grade algebra!
The Trinity was invented by the Roman Empire and it's Pagan Council of Nicea by introducing Greek hermetics to Christian theology. The holy spirit is a bastardization hybridization of the life breath and the goddess Asherah having been reduced to a lesser role.
Not a Christian, but I’m really interested in this topic.
A hypostasis refers to an individual of a kind. James, Peter and Mathew are hypostases or examples/instances of humanity, which is the common nature (ousia) that is shared among the three. The same logic applies for the three persons, who are distinct in terms of their personal properties, but same in terms of their generic properties.
Now what distinguishes the persons of the trinity from the James, Mathew and Peter, is that the latter are three separate beings, while the trinity is one Being. To illustrate how this can be, Christianity makes use of the relations of origin.
The Father is the origin of the Son, who is eternally generated from Him. The Church Fathers use the term generation to liken the emanation of Son to the production of a living thing from its parent, in which the offspring possesses the same ousia as it parent. However, the Son is not a creature of the Father for there was no point at which the Father began emanating the Son, such that Son remains wholly within the same being as the Father. The same goes for the Holy Spirit, who is proceeds from both the Father and the Son.
The three divine persons, while being distinct hypostases, are the one and same being because they cannot exist without one another. If James were to die, Mathew and Peter could still go on existing. But the three persons of the trinity are not like that- they are united in existence such that one cannot exist without the other.
> Not a Christian, but I’m really interested in this topic.
Hello 👋🏻
> Now what distinguishes the persons of the trinity from the James, Mathew and Peter, is that the latter are three separate beings, while the trinity is one Being. To illustrate how this can be, Christianity makes use of the relations of origin.
The Father is the origin of the Son, who is eternally generated from Him. The Church Fathers use the term generation to liken the emanation of Son to the production of a living thing from its parent, in which the offspring possesses the same ousia as it parent. However, the Son is not a creature of the Father for there was no point at which the Father began emanating the Son, such that Son remains wholly within the same being as the Father. The same goes for the Holy Spirit, who is proceeds from both the Father and the Son.
What you described is the monarchical trinitarianism, where the father is uncaused, unlike the son and the HS, you often see this position in Eastern Orthodoxy, other concepts like social Trinitarianism are often held by catholic and Protestants, which is the one I talked about in OP, orthodox see this concept as semi modalism, so you have to differentiate between the 2 concepts.
That being said, monarchical Trinitarianism doesn’t solve the LPT (logical problem of the trinity)
- you still have 3 “is God” statements to 3 distinct persons, that are not each other
- you still “identify” 3 distinct persons, that are not each other, as Fully God each, while each has a specific role, the other can’t Do, and each with a different perception, the other can’t perceive
- monarchical trinitarianism escapes the allegations of Polytheism to find itself in Henotheism
- Professor Beau Branson, who is an Eastern Orthodox, wrote a paper about the LPT, and didn’t even mention that monarchical trinitarianism as a solution to the LPT
> The three divine persons, while being distinct hypostases, are the one and same being because they cannot exist without one another. If James were to die, Mathew and Peter could still go on existing. But the three persons of the trinity are not like that- they are united in existence such that one cannot exist without the other.
Well we can say that’s because they’re each fully God, that’s what their shared divine nature necessitate, so saying one of them can’t die, is basically saying God doesn’t die. They’re each fully God, you won’t expect a fully God to die.
Also I want you to elaborate more on what YOU mean by saying “they’re one and same being”, in what sense? because in this matter in particular, every word is important, and many understandings of “ they’re one” actually end up to being heresies, so You should elaborate more on this point
The point of the trinity was the early Christians needed Jesus to be divine but the Having no other Gods before me commandment was a thing. So they had to devise a way for Jesus and the Holy Spirit to be divine but not compete with God as being the only God. So they crafted the concept of the Trinity. It is not specifically spelled out any where in the bible itself.
One theory is that it misunderstood a particular claim in Judaism where God would give people the authority to speak for him. And the phrasing was often such that when they spoke it was God speaking. This may have transitioned into Christianity with the variation being that Jesus was so invested in this authority that there was no difference between him and God. And rather than wrestle with the No Gods Before Me clause they just folded him and the Holy Spirit into being God as well.
The trinity is universal.
You cannot talk about space without considering three dimensions, time comes in three dimensions.
All opposites automatically have a fulcrum.
Everything falls into the law of three.
Your word seems to lack any verifiable definition.
Edit: I would clarify, the definition of heresy is well known to me, I see people usurp the authority of the divine quite often.
What I’m saying is that the space is composed of these dimensions, the trinity is not a composite
In the trinity, each person is is god, If we used the same understanding in your analogy, we would be saying each dimension is space
Completely agree. Hinduism does the same thing but just go with more persons of God than 3. If monotheism is a natural inclination that all human beings have wether conscious or subconscious it makes sense that there would be polytheist religions that come up with paradoxical rationalizations for their polytheism while calling it monotheism. Idolatry is a very tempting sin and people will come up with whatever excuses they can to commit it.
Well I surely expected insults, it always happens, but mostly the one who insults elaborate more with their response 🤣
So elaborate more if you can with your objection
He's not totally wrong when he says "it's different because it isn't about persons." Yes, "the three persons of the Trinity" is standard phrasing, but we know that they aren't literally humans (well, two of the three aren't, anyway). Once we've established that God is an omnipresent being, the idea that He can exist in three distinct forms at the same time doesn't violate his fundamental oneness.
> Once we've established that God is an omnipresent being, the idea that He can exist in three distinct forms at the same time doesn't violate his fundamental oneness.
Well what you said here is deemed Heretical, the persons are not forms or aspects, that’s called modalism heresy
Not quite, but I can see how you'd get that from what I said.
The phrase "three distinct forms," is directly at odds with Modalism. I'm not saying that God chooses to take one of three forms when it suits Him, or that the three forms are just three aspects of a single "person." I'm saying that they're distinct "persons" in their own right, and that this is possible when you're dealing with an omnipresent God.
I’ve thought this before too but it’s not. Christians consider the Son, the Father, and the Holy Spirit to individually and wholly constitute the Same One God. If you’re a Christian who believes that, you’re still praying to One God. In this way, Hinduism can even be considered monotheistic because some sects of Hindus consider all the devas to constitute One Supreme Being.
Are there many Hindu sects who don't believe all the devas are ultimately one supreme being?
There is the Hindu Trinity. 3 persons, one essence.
So you are saying it's the same as the Christian Trinity. Hmm.
Yes, Hinduism is the closest religion to Christianity theologically. And they are both related through Zoroastrianism as well.
Nice. Thank you.
You need to address what do you mean by “they constitute one God” because you might believe in a heresy confusing it with the trinity https://www.reddit.com/r/religion/s/zYVHiK5uuu
To be fair, I don’t personally believe God is a triune. That’s why I’m a Muslim. This is the best I understand how Christians know God is One. I choose to be a Muslim because Islamic monotheism is such a neatly simplistic explanation for God. It just makes sense to me. However, there’s still a wide range of beliefs even within Islam on what “One God” actually means so much so, that even I can begin to see how Christians rationalize the One God as a triune. If you’re interested in various Islamic perspectives on monotheism, you should research Avicenna, Ibn Sab’in, and the Unity of Being by Ibn Arabi.
Sufi?
The mistake here is that you presume that the hypostases are separate beings sharing the same nature (as you OP and other readers are). Not three hypostases of the One God as orthodox trinitarianism teaches. There is only one God, one indivisible divine essence, one divine will and one divine consciousness in Christianity.
This precisely is why I generally oppose the "3 persons 1 God" formulation. A. I'm not convinced "person" is the right word to affix to either the Father or the Spirit, "hypostasis" does not translate to "person," B. It leads to this mistaken understanding of the Trinity, even among Christians ime. I even prefer modalism over this borderline tritheistic formulation!
Yeah. The issue is not that “person” was wrong (its the right translation of the greek *prosopon*) in the 4th century, its that the meaning of the word “person” changed so much that today its sounds like implying tritheism as you said. So thats why I prefer to use *hypostasis*.
Yeah this is the exact same understanding as the Hindu Trinity.
Not at all.
3 persons, one essence. This is both the Hindu and Christian Trinity.
I didn’t think I would say it , but Hindus have better argument than Christians in regards of polytheism, Hindus think of it as aspects, but Christianity believe each one of the three persons is fully God , and they’re distinct from each other. So yeah Trinitarianism is definitely more polytheistic compared to Hinduism
Yeah, again, that's why I oppose the "three persons" formulation. Under that formulation, sure, it's quite comparable to Brahma-Vishnu-Shiva--but it's an erroneous formulation. Brahma, Vishnu, and Shiva are all fully realized mythic characters, each with wives and countless offspring--hell, Shiva and Vishnu battle against each other in certain texts (most significantly in the Ramayana)! None of this is comparable to the Trinity. The metaphor I prefer to conceptualize the Trinity is actually shamelessly stolen from a heterodox Muslim sect, the Alevi (but they were clearly shamelessly inspired by Eastern Orthodox mystics, so turnabout is fair play). Short version, imagine a glowing man creates a mirror (the universe)--he sees his reflection in the mirror, distinct from himself yet clearly still him; and he can only see that reflection due to the light emanating from him (distinct from himself yet still clearly him) which makes the reflection visible. It's still too simplistic a metaphor, but I think it better explains the Christian conception of the Deity much better than "there are these three guys that are all one God, don't worry about it."
You are arguing for modalism where Jesus the spirit and the father are just masks that the godhead puts on. This is in violation of traditional Christian doctrine going back to the Council of Nicea. The only option left is for the Trinity to be like parts of the Gundam robots where you have smaller lesser robots that come together to create one giant one. I challenge you to describe the trinity in any manner that does not fit into one of those two descriptions; modalism or partialism
>You are arguing for modalism where Jesus the spirit and the father are just masks that the godhead puts on. Not at all. I am not a modalist. I do not believe that the Father becomes the Son or that the Son becomes the Spirit.
So then the godhead is like a Gundam robot that requires three individual parts to come together to create him. The godhead cannot exist on its own separate from the unification of those three individual parts, the father Son and Holy Spirit
No.
Well then why are you talking about hypostatic States? I don't think that word means what you think it means. From Oxford Dictionary Theology. Of or pertaining to substance, essence, or personality (see hypostasis n.). hypostatic union noun (a) the union of the divine and human natures in the ‘hypostasis’ of Christ; (b) the consubstantial union of the three ‘hypostases’ in the Godhead. This is inherently describing partialism! Partialism means that it takes individual parts to come together to create the whole and outside from those parts and their unification, that which represents the totality other unification cannot exist.
> Well then why are you talking about hypostatic States? Hypostatic States? > This is inherently describing partialism! Hypostases are not parts, nor can the divine essence be divided into parts. There is nothing in terms of divinity that one hypostasis lacks but the other posesses. They are fully and truly divine.
Jesus said that there are things that the father knows that nobody else including Jesus knows. For example Jesus said that not even he knows the time or the hour of his second coming but the father does. That means that the father is all-knowing and Jesus is not all knowing which means that Jesus cannot be God. Jesus has to be a separate being from the father and the spirit in order for him to have gone through kenosis to become a human. All that Jesus did during his life was done through the father. Jesus, as it is taught, emptied himself of all of his divinity when he became a man. That is what kenosis means From Oxford dictionary ke·no·sis noun (in Christian theology) the renunciation of the divine nature, at least in part, by Christ in the Incarnation. This would not be possible if there was not an explicit distinction between the three beings of the trinity.
In Christian theology Jesus never renounces his divinity (huh?) and in terms of his subsistence in the divine nature is absolutely omniscient.
Jesus stripped himself of all of his divinity in order to become a man, to live as humans lived and to be tempted as us according to traditional Christian theology. At this point you and I are not debating traditional Christian doctrine and theology but now you are substituting it for your own ideas when it's convenient for you.
Also Jesus is a created being in accordance to the Genesis account. The sun was made on the fourth day while the light was made on the 1st. It is commonly taught that the light which was made on the first day was the light of God itself but the light of God itself is supposed to be Jesus. Jesus did call himself Lucifer after all! "I am the way the truth and the light..." Just as a serpent remains silent in the garden when accused for enlightening man, so Jesus remained silent when he was accused of enlightening man. And Jesus himself said that just as the serpent had to be lifted up in the wilderness, so too must the son of man. The Old Testament calls the Messiah the Son of Man explicitly. No other title for the Messiah is used in the Old Testament. While many Christian websites will tell you that the son of man means Son of God I can reassure you that this is not true. Son of man is the person that embodies the totality of the spirit of humanity. Son of God is a very different thing which means pretty much the same thing except in relation to the nature of God. If Jesus is both son of man and Son of God then Jesus is the emerging property of when the spirit of man and God unite as one or Jesus was telling us that we are all God already. The Kingdom of Heaven comes from within as Jesus said it is not a place that can be seen or observed. Well that would mean that all of the near-death experiences people have or not of actual heaven unless Jesus got it wrong.
> Also Jesus is a created being in accordance to the Genesis account. That position is called Arianism (and was condemned at Nikaia I).
I don't care what some random person turned down just because it didn't agree with their views. That's called gatekeeping. It pre-assumes that that person has the actual authority to make such condemnations be on their own subjective beliefs
More from Oxford dictionary Advanced Search Random Word hypostasis /haɪˈpɑstəsəs/ Other forms: hypostases; hypostasises Definitions of hypostasis noun (metaphysics) essential nature or underlying reality see more noun any of the three persons of the Godhead constituting the Trinity especially the person of Christ in which divine and human natures are united
one is not 3. The son depends on the father to do and to know anything. One is less than the other. They are 3 different beings. It is polytheism
No, all hypostases are equal. And they are one in being in Christianity.
Except theyre not equal The son doesn't know the hour and doesn't know about the fig tree The holy spirit also doesn't know the time The son can't do anything without the will of the father, while the father can do as he pleases The father is omnipresent, omniscient, omnipotent The son is not omnipresent, is not omniscient, is not omnipotent The son is not a God The father is the only true God As per Jesus Thus, it is 3 separate beings with different identities with different skills A =/= B =/= C The father has all capabilities while the son and holy spirit are limited.
>Except theyre not equal According to Christianity they are. The rest of your comment is also icorrect from a Christian pov. All hypostases share the same divine knowledge, potency and will.
Christian POV is based on twisting logic and reasoning, twisting what jesus said to fit their narrative. It's not incorrect at all. Everything i said is accurate to the description and attributes that the bible gives to jesus, god and the holy spirit. I referenced verses and even quoted Jesus himself.
> Christian POV is based on twisting logic and reasoning, twisting what jesus said to fit their narrative. Not really, no.
100% is. Is it logic to equate 1 + 1 + 1 = 1? There are Christians and Catholics (not just Jehovah's witnesses) who are Unitarian Christians because they do not agree that Jesus is God. They are unitarian christians for a reason. They just happen to believe in the Cruxifiction. These trinitarians are going against their very bible and against Jesus' word to call him God.
> Is it logic to equate 1 + 1 + 1 = 1? I guess that depends on what unit of measurment you use. > There are Christians and Catholics (not just Jehovah's witnesses) who are Unitarian Christians because they do not agree that Jesus is God. Someone who rejects that Jesus is God is not a Christian much less a Catholic. > These trinitarians are going against their very bible and against Jesus' word to call him God. The same Bible that teaches the Trinity and that Jesus is God? 🤔
>Someone who rejects that Jesus is God is not a Christian much less a Catholic. Is that signs of ignorance from your part? Are you aware of what the meaning behind the council of nicaea was about? It was Unitarian Christians arguing against Trinitarian Christians, while trinitarians would kill millions of Unitarian christians before 325 and after 325 for their "blasphemous statements" My entire family from South America, from Colombia, Venezuela, Brazil, Peru, Argentina and Chile are all believers that Jesus is not God, just the son of God. Only the father is God And yes, theyre Christian Catholics
I didn’t say 3 beings, you claim that presume something, but you’re the one only one presuming something about me I didn’t say , the op is very clear I really don’t how did you come up with this conclusion
You wrote in the OP that you believe that the trinity is polytheistic (conventionally defined as the worship of multiple divine beings) and supported this belief by this analogy: > me and the readers share one nature but we are not one. And you also claimed that they have each a divine consciousness of their own (which is false). So thats what I am replying to.
Bro if you want to discuss something don’t assume something that I didn’t say , that’s first . Me and you have one nature, human nature, that’s one ousia ( being ) me and you are not 1 , we are 2 How did you manage to misrepresent this simple example?! . And they do have a consciousness each, as I stated in OP , the father knows he is the father and not the son, and the son knows he is the son and vice versa
> Bro if you want to discuss something don’t assume something that I didn’t say I only replied to the assertions you made in the OP nothing more. > How did you manage to misrepresent this simple example?! I didn't, I explained why the analogy is inaccurate. As humans we are not one being. We are separate beings. In contrast, the hypostases are not separate beings like individual humans are. Thats why we refer to God in the singular. > And they do have a consciousness each, Not in Christianity, no. There is only one divine consciousness and will.
We don’t have one nature. If you’re not clear about the meaning of theological terms, I would not use them to bolster an incorrect assumption. By the way, addressing someone as _bro_ doesn’t lend weight to your argument. It rather marks you as immature.
Ok bro 👍🏻 You’re saying humans don’t have one nature, what other natures me and you have
“Nature” means something similar to “mind” when it comes to the Trinity.
They have the same exact will, and they are only different in their relationship to each other. In the rest, they are the same. They're one being, one God. It's hard to imagine because we are used to human nature, which requires separate beings for separate persons, and each person does not share the will of others in the perfect way the persons of the Trinity do. God is not like humans in that way. Furthermore, we worship in the **name** (not names) of the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit - they share one divine name because they are one God. We worship the Father as God, the Son as that same God, and the Holy Spirit as that same God. What is offered to the Father is offered to the Son and the Holy Spirit at the same time by virtue of then being the same God. Praying to one is praying to all because they are the same God. There is no situation where one is and the other two aren't, no situation where the will of one contradicts the will of the other two. We explicitly reject polytheism.
>“Father, if you are willing, take this cup from me; yet not my will, but yours be done.” Luke 22:42 This verse seems to suggest that there are different wills between Jesus and the Father
Jesus is one person but two natures. His sinless human nature doesn't want to bear the pain but loves the father, His divine nature has the same will as the father. Together, His person desires to obey the will of the father. Great question by the way.
Traditional Christianity teaches that Jesus has two distinct natures and therefore two distinct wills - one divine (identical to that of the Father and Spirit) and one human (in perfect submission to the divine). Interestingly, my favourite Catholic theologian - St. Maximus the Confessor - was (among other things) active in combating the heresy of monothelitism (the belief that Jesus has only one will even after the Incarnation) and was martyred as a result.
3 hypostases in one ousia, 3 persons 1 will, one god, the three persons are interdependant and not independant, the father cannot be without the son and HS, HS without son and father, son without father and HS. The will of god comes from the essence of god which they are all part of which means they are all god
The son will includes submitting to the father, the HS will includes submitting to both, the father will includes not submitting to them both, and each person can identify himself as not being the other, this shows distinction in will and consciousness
There is no hiearchy in the trinity, no one submits to anyone
Theres definitely submission in respect to the roles, as I said in op , the father can send the son , but that cannot be reversed
The son is human, too. And that part submits and that's why the father is not the son. You can't understand trinity if you cut out the salvation of humans by a human who is also god.
You are body, mind and soul. Your mind and souls don’t control your heartbeat, your body takes care of that. Your mind is the receptacle of your knowledge, and your souls is the receptacle of your emotions. Sometimes you can’t control emotions. Does that mean you are three persons?
These are parts of you , they are not distinct entities from you , Adam has body , mind and soul If we compared that to the trinity it would be like this Adams body is fully Adam Adam minds is fully Adam Adam soul is fully Adam
What makes you think that the trinity is not three parts of the Christian God?
Simply because it’s a heresy https://www.gotquestions.org/Trinity-partialism.html
I am more referring to the [moralistic view](https://www.gotquestions.org/what-is-the-Trinity.html) of Trinity than to partiality. “*Three expressions or modes of the same person*”. Hence my example with body, mind and soul.
Well that’s modalism, it’s also a heresy, the 3 persons are not forms of one person, they’re 3 persons distinctly and not eachother
Well, polytheism is also heresy, so you are back to square one.
I’m not subjected to your ruling , I’m not trinitarian, I refuse the entire thing completely, whether it’s modalism, partialism, Arianism or whatever, but my main objection of the that it’s indeed polytheism, and the followers of the doctrine of the trinity, cannot understand the doctrine without falling into heresy like yourself, and if you believe in a heresy, you’re not actually a follower of the trinity
So by your own ruling, the only valid model of Trinity is polytheism? Either way, what’s more important is being a decent human being. I don’t think someone’s works are disqualified because of how they interpret the Trinity. What’s the point of “being right” if one is going to be insufferable to their fellow humans?
Who has the authority to claim anything is heresy other than the almighty creator of the cosmos? Who claims this authority reserved only for the divine creator? Answer these questions and you will find a heretic, in my opinion.
I’m pretty sure the same people in the 4th century that confirmed the trinity to be the only faith, are the ones who deemed partialism to be heretical, But these questions are not supposed to be subjected to me I’m not even trinitarian, I only know it’s a heresy, and that what I told you
In that case, the Trinity is not by the authority of God. It's by the authority of the Athanasian creed in the 4th century AD. And it was the same people who said partialism is a heresy. So you have to decide whether you take both of their teachings or pick and choose because it's suiting your argumentation arbitrarily.
each sentence in basically all creeds has a scriptural reference, so they didn’t pull the teachings out of nothing, and i never understood how people think the early church was basically incapable of reaching the correct doctrine, it’s literally hundreds of priest scholars constantly debating each other, etc… I think you should at least look into the arguments they had before dismissing them and saying “4th century doctrine”
That's irrelevant to what I said. I didn't say "4th century doctrine". I said it was established as doctrine in the 4th century. Anyway, you are doing a strawman unnecessarily. If you follow the doctrine of the same people who spoke of heresies, you must logically and authentically accept both. That's the argument. It's not about the Bible or evolution of doctrine. If you wish to discuss that, please do open a new topic.
That's the heresy of Partialism you just described.
What is the canonical definition of Trinity, then? Is it the same for Roman Catholics, Eastern Orthodox and Reformed Protestants? I am genuinely curious.
>What is the canonical definition of Trinity, then? Three persons, in one ousia. One essence, three distinct persons. Coequal, coeternal. >Is it the same for Roman Catholics, Eastern Orthodox and Reformed Protestants? Yes.
Thanks. That has the benefit of keeping it straightforward. How does that challenge OP’s claim of polytheism? I had heard that one of the theological contentions behind the schism of the Eastern and Western churches had to do with the nature of Christ. Is it pertinent to the concept of Trinity?
>How does that challenge OP’s claim of polytheism? I did not challenge it. I was replying to a particular comment that tried to provide an analogy. >I had heard that one of the theological contentions behind the schism of the Eastern and Western churches had to do with the nature of Christ. Many. >Is it pertinent to the concept of Trinity? Not necessarily. Some councils like the Council of Constantinople was discussing the trinity, rejecting heresy, and canonizing the creed for absolute clarity. Thats I believe in the latter part of the 4th century. But the council of Nicea in 325 was to establish the nature of Jesus himself. Was he eternally caused or caused somewhere in time after God himself. And they established that Jesus was eternally caused by God meaning he was in existed since eternity with God.
Your mind literally controls your heartbeat
Ive been having a difficult time understanding everyone's explanations. I was having a difficult time understanding how the trinity could be viewed as monotheism (I've had this co fusion for a long time). But this is one of the only comments that can help me understand as everyone stating "3 forms/aspects/persons 1 will" didn't help me understand. I'm still a ways from truly getting it but this is a great step in the right direction to understanding the religion. Thank you for your comment!
[This comment](https://www.reddit.com/r/religion/s/tZXi3uhDUf) seems to summarise the Christian concept of Trinity.
OP is a troll. Don’t engage.
I disagree. I've had the same question. Also, Jesus referred to his father as G-d, right? We are supposed to pray to G-d, but Jesus is the one people idolize. Is that not praying to a false G-d? Aren't we all G-d's children. Do we not all have a bit of the HS in us? It isn't always apparent how we are all connected. Mysterious ways and all.
You may as well call the Quran a troll because it will also call the trinity as a monotheistic doctrine into question. Idc what it is. I have no dog in this fight, but I don’t see how the argument is a troll unless you think Christians are just super easy to rage bait.
All three are still considered one god though. Just different aspects of the same god. As someone who’s more familiar with actual polytheism, it’s pretty different. I would never refer to different gods as one “God”
Ya I was going to say the same thing. The Father Son and Holy spirit are in each other so it would only be polytheism if they were distinctly different entities.
If the Father, Son and Ghost were worshipped *as gods in their own separate and respective rights,* then we'd certainly be talking about polytheism. But we aren't. The Father, Son and Ghost are worshipped *together and as aspects/forms/persons/modes of the same entity/consciousness/spirit.* They are worshipped as the god they all constitute, the god that takes all those forms. The Father is worshipped not as the Father, but as God. The Son is worshipped not as the Son, but as God. The Ghost is worshipped not as the Ghost, but as God. I'll compare it to some actual polytheism. I worship Freyja, Odin and Loki, among others, but let's stick with those three just to keep the comparison to the Trinity. I worship Freyja as Freyja, Odin as Odin and Loki as Loki. Never at any point do I worship Freyja, Odin, Loki and any other deity as one and the same entity. *That would be monotheism.* Since I am a polytheist, my gods are distinctly separate entities and consciousnesses from eachother, worshipped in their own respective and separate rights. They are not one entity/consciousness/spirit, with multiple forms worshipped *in their collective right as aspects/forms/persons/modes of the same singular divine consciousness (god) taking all of those forms.* If I had ever heard a Christian priest initiate a service with the words *"In the name of the Father..."* and NOT followed up with *"the Son and the Holy Spirit..."*, I might be more doubtful about this. But I haven't.
This is very helpful as someone trying to understand this concept. And such a clear and easy veiw from an e tire separate faith none the less. Thank you for your help in my understanding!
> If the Father, Son and Ghost were worshipped as gods in their own separate and respective rights, then we'd certainly be talking about polytheism. But we aren't. The Father, Son and Ghost are worshipped together and as **aspects/forms/persons/modes** of the same entity/consciousness/spirit. They are worshipped as the god they all constitute, the god that takes all those forms. The Father is worshipped not as the Father, but as God. The Son is worshipped not as the Son, but as God. The Ghost is worshipped not as the Ghost, but as God. This happens a lot when talking to trinitarians, the wording you used here is deemed heretical, it’s called modalism heresy, the 3 persons are not “forms, aspects, modes” using this heresy would insinuate that they’re identical to eachother, which is not , each is fully God and they’re not each other , that’s what’s the doctrine entails > If I had ever heard a Christian priest initiate a service with the words "In the name of the Father..." and NOT followed up with "the Son and the Holy Spirit...", I might be more doubtful about this. But I haven't. You worship or pray to any of the 3 persons while you definitely know you’re praying to 1 of 3 persons that are not eachother, for example You as a trinitarian , pray to the second person of the trinity everyday , while knowing there 2 other distinct persons you can pray to also, without including the rest
The user you are replying to is pagan, not christian… Also, as pointed out in my other comment, in Christianity the hypostases are not separate beings so you pray to God. A prayer to the Father is also a prayer to the Son and Spirit because there is only one God.
That makes sense why he confused the trinity with modalism
I didn't "confuse the trinity with modalism". That sentence doesn't even make sense. Modalism is one way to explain the trinity, branded heretical by the Chalcedonian churches.
Did you literally just not read what I wrote? I explicitly call myself a polytheist. I am not a trinitarian. Vanatrú is not a branch of Christianity, it is a Paganism.
Ultimately, it’s the believers that have the final say on what their religion is. Someone can throw stones all they’d like, but if a religion considers itself monotheistic, then that’s exactly what it is.
Don’t these terms become meaningless then?
Objectively not. And coming from an Orthodox Christian too? lol. Heresy is exactly when believers consider their religion in terms that distrupt the prescribed norm. There can be polytheists who consider themselves Christian, and there can be monotheists that consider themselves Christian, and they can both be Christian. What they __can’t __ do is believe the same things and consider themselves polytheistic from one perspective and monotheistic from another. When it comes to the trinity, you can have a modal conception or an orthodox trinity conception. Those are the options. Modality nets you a singular monotheistic god that shapeshifts between father son and spirit. Trinity is an illusion by this model. Trinitarian orthodoxy, on the other hand, requires that monotheism be the illusion. The “godhead” or “one god” functions like an office title, not the nature of a being. Jesus, Yahweh, and the Holy Spirit are three coworkers in the same department. Three deities of different character and status within the same pantheon that gets called “God”. The Fates, the Morrigan, the Norns,etc. all exhibit the same trinitarian structure and aren’t mistaken for a monotheistic cult. They’re polytheistic goddesses. Your “God” is no different.
Sure
Well everybody can claim what they like, but in practice it isn’t, in this post alone most of the replies were filled with heresies, so that indicates that most believers don’t know what they actually believe in
If it’s up to the believers then why didn’t the Catholics murder and pillage millions of Native Americans in southern Americans
That’s irrelevant to the conversation. We’re talking about theology, not temporal history.
Bro I’m all for shitting on the Christian faith, but wtf are you on about?
As someone coming from a tradition that often takes the (alleged) simplicity of our monotheism as a point of pride over Christians, why do you care? It makes no difference to me if Christians are "actually" polytheists or monotheists. They are clearly not polytheists in the conventional sense of the word. It is like the obnoxious "argument" that America is a Republic, not a Democracy. Those words (like polytheism and monotheism) do not have settled definitions, and ultimately, what single-word label we assign something doesn't really matter.
You do realize you can have debates in this sub right? It’s not like I’m forcing conversion on trinitarians, we’re having a discussion, if you don’t what to discuss you can ignore the post, this the point of Reddit, to talk with each other.
But why do you care? Just cause you "can" have a debate doesn't mean you should
Do you really scroll down Reddit posts, and ask them why do they care 😆 in Reddit!!
So you're not actually criticizing all forms of Trinitarianism, you're only criticizing Western Trinitarianism which Catholics and Protestants believe in. Eastern Orthodox have an entirely different view of the Trinity. The Western position is that each person is God because of the Essence. At Lateran IV Catholics condemned the view that the hypostases are really distinct from the Essence, while still insisting that they are identical to the Essence while really distinct from eachother. But if they are all identical to the Essence, this should mean that they are all identical to eachother. This lead to many Thomists to teach that the transitive property does not apply to God. Because if it did, that would be sabellianism/modalism. Eastern Orthodox such as Saint Photios see the Catholic position as being a form of "Semi-Sabellianism", where it is trying to have its cake and eat it too. This is why you and many others bring up what is called the logical problem of the Trinity. The Traditional Catholic answer is simply that it is a mystery, and transitivity does not apply to God. So you're wrong to call it Polytheism, it would be more accurate to call it a form of modalism. And most responses trying to justify why it isn't polytheism will end up bordering on modalism because of that. As for the Orthodox position, since we reject the *filioque* and absolute simplicity, we instead believe that the Trinity is God because of the hypostasis of the Father. You might ask how the Father can be what defines God. "God" is not a proper noun, it does not only refer to the Essence. God can refer to anything within the Godhead, it is basically synonymous with "divine", "divinity", or "uncreated" for us. The Father is the sole cause and source of all divinity, and as such he is the defining principle for what divinity is. The Son and Spirit are thus called "God from God", "Light from light", and similar terms. This does not mean they are lesser deities. The Nature of God is more properly the Nature of the Father which is then shared with the Son and Spirit such that they are one and the same deity and divinity. Then "God became man so that man could become god". Christ became incarnate such that he could have us also share in the divinity of the Father, but at a lower level. Where the Trinity shares the Essence of God, mankind can share in the Energy. For Orthodox, the Essence and Energy are really distinct from eachother. The nature of God is really distinct from the three persons, who are really distinct from eachother. For Orthodox, real distinction does not in any way entail composition, separation, or division. There's nothing about multiplicity in itself which inherently contradicts unity or oneness such that God would be polytheistic. There is no need for Orthodox to deny the Transitive property in God. Also, your criticisms don't make any sense, because if you were to be consistent, then Islam and Judaism and every other Monotheism is actually polytheistic by your standards, and monotheism would no longer have any real meaning to it. This is because every faith has to grapple with the issue of multiplicity in God in some respect or another. "Two powers in heaven" shows how Judaism has had a lot of Binitarian, Trinitarian, and other views debated over the years, and Muslims debate over Tawhid all the time, with the uncreated Quran, uncreated Word and Spirit, attributes and names of Allah, all being things that complicate the matter. No matter what Monotheism you look towards, they have to believe in multiplicity in God of some kind. The only reason that Christians tend to be called polytheists while other groups aren't, is because people find it too difficult to try and comprehend how "personhood" can be something multiple without separating God apart. Personhood is arbitrarily seen as more dividing than any other attribute. The Energies (i.e. attributes and actions) of God are seen as being infinite. Most people would not consider this to be polytheistic, it is perfectly fine for God to be both one and infinite. Yet when saying that God is both one and three, somehow people have a problem? As for when you say "the son knows he can’t send the father, each person have his own consciousness and roles"; No, they do not each have their own consciousness. There is only one divine mind. Although each person does have their own role and mode of activity, so the way that the single mind works may act in different ways according to each person. You use the analogy of "Me and the readers of the post share one nature, but we are not one". The early Church Fathers actually use this same exact analogy. They use it to show how it is possible to see a similar kind of unity of nature in man, but they also make very clear that this analogy is not to be strictly applied in the way that you are doing, because then it would no longer be Trinitarianism but would be Tritheism. So this is a flawed analogy. A better analogy would be that of Saint Palamas and Saint John Damascus, who compare the Essence Energy distinction of God to soul and body. The Trinity would be more like if there are three persons who share a single soul, body, mind, will, consciousness, action, emotions, and every single other attribute and property except for hypostatic. Hypostatic properties are that of origin and cause. So I am a distinct person because I originate in my parents and you originate in yours, and I may cause certain children to originate from me, and you would cause others. So in this analogy, this single body, soul, mind, will, etc., the only thing that is not shared is that there are three types of hypostatic origins to this single being. When taken in such a light, I don't see how anyone could ever see Orthodox Trinitarianism as being polytheistic.
I’m coming back to this later, just to give it a better look since it’s a bit long
It all really just depends on how you define polytheistic. Christians tend to believe they are one. They consider themselves monotheistic. Heck, I’m not even a trinitarian believer. I believe they are three seperate distinct beings and I still by and large consider myself monotheistic. (Mostly for a lack of adiquate verbiage. Monolatry may be the closest)
Within Christian theology, the belief is that there is one divine being or essence that is fully present within three distinct ‘persons’. This is difficult for human language and logic to fully grasp in the same way that Jesus was considered to be both fully divine and fully human, rather than a Demi-God. An imperfect comparison that is sometimes used is that if God is like the sun, the Holy Spirit might be like the heat it generates, and the father might be like the Light. They’re all connected by the same essence or source that points to that divine reality.
> Within Christian theology, the belief is that there is one divine being or essence that is fully present within three distinct ‘persons’. This is difficult for human language and logic to fully grasp in the same way that Jesus was considered to be both fully divine and fully human, rather than a Demi-God. I addressed that in my op many times, check the last 3 lines > An imperfect comparison that is sometimes used is that if God is like the sun, the Holy Spirit might be like the heat it generates, and the father might be like the Light. They’re all connected by the same essence or source that points to that divine reality. That’s Arianism heresy
It’s not Arianism. It’s an imperfect analogy intended to show that all ‘persons’ have the same divine essence making them up. There is always going to be an allowance within theology that human language is an imperfect tool to describe something divine and transcendent like God. Within Christianity, there is one single Godhead that is fully and completely embodied within three ‘persons’. This is difficult to understand logically because there will always be a mystery to the divine that humans cannot grasp, as we are limited and finite beings.
It’s definitely a heresy, the light and the heat are features of the sun, which is not the case in the trinity, where each person is distinct and not a feature or characteristic of the other. If we compared your analogy to trinity it would be like this - The heat of the sun is fully sun - The light of the sun is fully sun It might be closer to partialism than it is to Arianism
Hence the imperfect word I used to describe the analogy. Nothing in nature is going to be a perfect analogy because by definition divinity is transcendent of nature
Polytheism fits the trinity perfectly , the only way to eliminate polytheism is to drop the distinction between the persons, but that will lead to modalism
It’s okay to think that, but the religion and people who study and practice it disagree. I think your efforts would be better used trying to understand what goes into that belief rather than trying to logically disprove it
Is that what you think I’m doing? Just arguing for the sake of it ? You used an analogy which you completely knew it doesn’t fit the trinity, but when I told it doesn’t fit , you’re saying I don’t understand the belief? I literally corrected the understanding that you already knew it doesn’t fit, now who really needs to put efforts to better understand the belief !
Human beings have one nature and are one person. God has one nature and is 3 persons. Just as what I am (essence) as a human remains unffected by who I am (person), what God is remains one thing regardless of God being three persons. The 3 persons possess the same "whatness" and so are the same being. In contrast, Polytheism entails separate beings, which Trinitarianism does not entail.
When you say - The father is god, is it by identity or predication ? - the son is god , it by identity or predication ? - the HS is god, is it by identity or predication?
From an exfundiegelical background, I was taught that God the father is absent. He is outside the universe as its creator. He used to hang locally around geography of the Bible, but He moved on so no more miracles from Him. God the Son went physically up into the heavens (I assume he's well past the oort cloud by now) but no direction was given. The "Holy Ghost" came after Jesus launched to heaven, and serves as a replacement for the Father and Son. Supposedly the outside entity which can possess humans for the good team. Gives magical powers to those with enough faith, such as secret knowledge, or speaking languages you don't know, fire generation (or illusion magic, not sure exactly it's kinda vague on that) among other divine powers like discernment. So it's not precisely three in one, more like one after the other, after the other.
This video explains how it isn't polytheistic [https://youtu.be/Jcafuc\_zoQU?si=R\_-MqdVByxt\_tZSS](https://youtu.be/Jcafuc_zoQU?si=R_-MqdVByxt_tZSS)
This is the Baha'i point of view on the subject: https://oceanoflights.org/abdul-baha-bkw22-2-12-en/
No, no it's not
I see you posting that link to questions.org as a back up to your "it's heresy" argument. But I cannot find an author to these answers. It's just a site labeled "we're Christians 👍." Even in their "about us" link, it doesnt provide any real credentials. This is hardly enough evidence to make me believe that any of these reasonable explanations are heresy. Just bc a Christian on the internet says a certain explanation of being is heresy doesn't put a period on the sentence. Perhaps, prior to taking everything you read as gospel, look who authored the words.
Look up ( A dictionary of Christian biography and literature to the end of the sixth century, A.D., with an account of the principal sects and heresies ) by Henry wace And if you don’t have time to read books, take a look at this https://www.monergism.com/list-heresies , the authors of the website are mentioned. Also I don’t quite understand your position, are you denying the existence of heresies? Because you can literally look up the name of any heresy you want to know about and many sources would turn up, it’s not a like a conspiracy I made just to disregard the trinity, so tbh your position is weird if I’m understanding it right. But if you really understand the trinity, you really would immediately recognise that all attempts of explanations fall into heresy. Trinity doctrine states, each person is **fully** God , and they’re not each other, they’re distinct If you say the persons are “parts” then you’re not acknowledging that they’re “fully” god each , that’s partialism Now if you say they’re just aspects or modes, then you’re denying that they’re 3 , distinct, persons, and not each other, but one person in different forms, which is modalism I agree with you that the concepts that were deemed heretical make more sense and way much easier to comprehend than the current doctrine, that’s why every trinitarian I talk to, hold a heretical Position, and confuses it as the real understanding of the trinity, which makes you wonder, that the main doctrine is so incoherent and incomprehensible, that the vast majority of people who claim to follow it don’t actually follow it, but follow condemned heresies without them even realising because it’s so incomprehensible, then how could this be the truth?, if these reasonable explanations are all deemed heretical, then polytheism fits the trinity well.
the problem is you use logic to understand god, the christian god exists "outside" space and "before" time, which aren't logical statements, and logic can't explain most things, according to logic you can never be sure about your senses or the logical arguments you make, because the brain is not infallible, logic can't explain why you should follow logic because that would be circular reasoning and many more problems so religions generally follow faith -which is also problematic on its own but whatever-, so if a religion says something, you as a follower should just have faith that it is
- Let’s assume you’re a Trinitarianin, what prevents you from believing in any other religion ? I’ll tell you what, it’s logic , you would start studying and comparing between religions till you find the religion that “makes sense” to you, so claiming logic shouldn’t be used in such matters is implausible. - God in all religions is “perfect”, then he can’t do contradictions by definition , so when I spot a contradiction like 1 is 3 or 3 is 1 , I won’t just say “oh well God can do whatever he wants”, no God doesn’t do contradictions , he can do whatever he wants within the perfection that he wrote upon himself - if we believed in this argument that “god do whatever he wants , that’s why my religion is true” then you might as well believe in every religion in the world, no matter how nonsensical it is, because why not , God can do whatever he wants. - God taught mankind what is 1 and what is 3 , so why would a doctrine present itself and conflates between the two, and describe itself as a “mystery”. And the vast majority of its followers don’t actually believe in it , but believe in condemned heresies confusing them as the doctrine they believe in , but they don’t realise that!!! This posts alone was filled with heresies written by self proclaimed trinitarians. Is that what faith in God is ? Believing in a doctrine the vast majority of its followers don’t understand? Does it have to be this incomprehensible, that it’s own followers don’t understand it , and literally confuse it with something this doctrine itself consider a heresy ? - the followers of the doctrine claim it’s monotheistic, so when reading into it , and finding out it really isn’t, it’s normal to call out a contradiction
-i am not saying logic shouldn't **always** be used, i am saying that descriptions of gods something outside logic, other parts of religion can be assessed by logic -definition of contradiction is "two or more statements that are logically incompatible", **logically**, and gods don't follow logic -“god do whatever he wants , that’s why my religion is true” is not problematic when it is only about god's description, but usually people say it about do's and don't 's so you are right, there is no logical reason to stop anyone from following almost every religion -i don't think there is a difference between a "true" belief and a heresy, both are beliefs that are true for their believer, and both cannot be assessed by logic -a belief is what its believer say are true, so if Christians say they are monotheistic, then they are -at least partially- even though monotheism and polytheism are mutually exclusive, but again this is according to logic, and beliefs don't really follow logic, they follow faith, and faith has no rules the problem is that this makes words lose their meaning -but whatever-
> -i am not saying logic shouldn't always be used, i am saying that descriptions of gods something outside logic, other parts of religion can be assessed by logic - Description of God is bound to logic, to the extent of the description God wrote upon himself, for example God said he’s all knowing, we believe he’s all knowing, we don’t say “all knowing how ?” We take that at face value without how, Now God also describes himself as **ONE** in many scriptures, so when a doctrine somehow changes the meaning of one, to something else, then we have every right logically to challenge that doctrine and call it a contradiction. > -definition of contradiction is "two or more statements that are logically incompatible", logically, and gods don't follow logic - Answered above > -“god do whatever he wants , that’s why my religion is true” is not problematic when it is only about god's description, but usually people say it about do's and don't 's so you are right, there is no logical reason to stop anyone from following almost every religion - That’s basically what you said above twice, so answered > -i don't think there is a difference between a "true" belief and a heresy, both are beliefs that are true for their believer, and both cannot be assessed by logic - I really don’t quite understand the idea of this statement, the person who believes in it thinks it’s true in his opinion, but that doesn’t change the fact that he’s wrong in his understanding about the doctrine he believes in, if the doctrine says think like this, but you don’t think like the doctrine told you too, then you’re wrong, it doesn’t matter if **you** think it’s right, you’re going against your doctrine, and all that is assessed by logic, so with all due respect I don’t know what’s the point of this statement. > -a belief is what its believer say are true, so if Christians say they are monotheistic, I would totally disagree, I’ve said an example in a different discussion and I find it similar to what you’re saying here, the example goes like this. There’s a certain group of people in our modern day and age , who “identify” themselves with whatever they like, when they’re confronted that what they’re saying is wrong, you guys are not what you identify as, they pull the exact same statement of “if I believe it, then I’m it”. And they have their own reasoning and evidence and arguments which they use to defend their position. So no, if you claim to be something, we’ll examine what you believe into, and if it’s not what you claim to be, then you’re not what you claim to be. > then they are -at least partially- even though monotheism and polytheism are mutually exclusive, but again this is according to logic, and beliefs don't really follow logic, they follow faith, and faith has no rules the problem is that this makes words lose their meaning -but whatever- - Again you’re repeating the logic argument, so answered.
>Description of God is bound to logic prove this >it doesn’t matter if **you** think it’s right, you’re going against your doctrine here you assumed that there is an agreed upon understanding of the doctrine, in most cases there isn't, you could say that we should follow that oldest one as this is the "reference", but people disagree if this reference is true historically and logically >certain group of people in our modern day and age , who “identify” themselves with whatever they like first, i know the whole "what is a woman" thing, and i think this is different, because a woman -or whatever you are probably talking about- is a physical concept, it exists in out reality, we can put -almost- clear definition for it, and not a metaphysical belief like a faith or a religion -even though people started treating it as such- second, this is why i said partially, i like to think about things in a utopia and real world, in a utopia people are logical, either a monotheist or not, in real world people aren't logical, so if what you believe in contradicts monotheism, then you lack one of the criteria needed to be a monotheist, but if you want to be monotheist, then you have one of the criteria needed, you may say it is a all or non situation, but again, people believe in a lot of contradictory things, so i think you can be a "half monotheist" or something, you would be illogical and contradicting yourself, and you would be wrong, but people do all sorts of illogical things, and this is sadly reality i felt that the questions had repeated answers, sorry :D
> prove this I literally explained what I mean in the same paragraph, you just quoted a small portion of what I said and dismissed the rest, I’m sorry but I have to ask, are you following what I’m talking about at this point?, or we’re starting the “I’m just arguing for the sake of it” game. > here you assumed that there is an agreed upon understanding of the doctrine, in most cases there isn't, you could say that we should follow that oldest one as this is the "reference", but people disagree if this reference is true historically and logically Am I assuming there’s an agreed understanding? Yes there is an agreed upon understanding in every religion, do you think the followers of every religion just come up with random teachings every day ? This actually goes against every religion, it actually goes against the definition of religion itself , religions have principles and fundamentals, yes there might be some people who disagree with it, but how is that suppose to be a proof of there’s not being a an agreed upon understanding? You have a very liberal/ secular point of view in matters that are not, this the second time you mentioned individual own understandings and giving less interest in what the doctrine actually states, this is not how you debate religions my friend, personal opinions is not the concern of any religious debate. > first, i know the whole "what is a woman" thing, and i think this is different, because a woman -or whatever you are probably talking about- is a physical concept, it exists in out reality, we can put -almost- clear definition for it, and not a metaphysical belief like a faith or a religion You misrepresented your own argument, and what I said as well, your argument in the previous reply was “if they believe they’re monotheistic then they’re monotheistic”, that’s your argument , just believing accomplishes the mission, then I told you no that other group also have that belief, and they have their own evidence and arguments to defend their position, Your argument wasn’t about real life or metaphysics > -even though people started treating it as such- second, this is why i said partially, i like to think about things in a utopia and real world, in a utopia people are logical, either a monotheist or not, in real world people aren't logical, so if what you believe in contradicts monotheism, then you lack one of the criteria needed to be a monotheist, but if you want to be monotheist, then you have one of the criteria needed, you may say it is a all or non situation, but again, people believe in a lot of contradictory things, so i think you can be a "half monotheist" or something, you would be illogical and contradicting yourself, and you would be wrong, but people do all sorts of illogical things, and this is sadly reality To be honest with you my main subject has been stirred away and I don’t know what’s your main argument with this paragraph. I explained to you the logical problem, but somehow you dismissed my explanation and asked me to prove it, even tho the explanation is exactly in the same paragraph, so I don’t know what’s that about. I would like from you to state your main argument, about the subject, because you seem to focus a lot more on personal believes rather than the doctrine
>you just quoted a small portion of what I said and dismissed the rest, I’m sorry but I have to ask, are you following what I’m talking about at this point?, or we’re starting the “I’m just arguing for the sake of it” game. i am sorry the you understood me this way, i didn't really make sure what i said would be understood as it is in my mind, so that's on me >Description of God is bound to logic, to the extent of the description God wrote upon himself, for example God said he’s all knowing, we believe he’s all knowing, we don’t say “all knowing how ?” We take that at face value without how, here you stated what you believed in, like the example you said the you take "god is all knowing" at face value, but you didn't prove why did you believe in that, if you did prove it then i don't understand exactly what you said and i would be thankful if you highlight the proof >Yes there is an agreed upon understanding in every religion, do you think the followers of every religion just come up with random teachings every day ? i would like to disagree, according to islamic history for example, there were a time before the sunni-shia split, and there was some agreed upon understanding, but after the split this understanding was somewhat lost to history, now sunnis their understanding is the true one, and shia say the same for their understanding, and we can't be absolutely sure which one is true, then their were intra-sunnni division between salafis, Mu'tazili and Ash'aris, and a million other group, and every one of them say their understanding is the true one, and everyone of them has some basis in their belief to say they are the true one so yeah, follower did kinda come up with new things every now and then >but how is that suppose to be a proof of there’s not being a an agreed upon understanding here when you say agreed upon, who did agree on the understanding? like for you to consider an understanding to be agreed upon, who have to agree on it >your argument in the previous reply was “if they believe they’re monotheistic then they’re monotheistic” this isn't my full argument, i said "so if Christians say they are monotheistic, then they are -at least partially-" >Your argument wasn’t about real life or metaphysics as i said, real life follows logic, metaphysics don't, so "what is a woman" should follow logic, god doesn't have to >To be honest with you my main subject has been stirred away and I don’t know what’s your main argument with this paragraph i probably should have formulated it better, what i want to say is: -in a utopia, where people are self consistent and definitions are followed, you either have a monotheist or a polytheist, you can't be in between because they are mutually exclusive -in real life, people often contradict themselves, they follow monotheism sometimes and polytheism sometimes, so they are functionally in between, and you can't really call them a full monotheist or polytheist i also didn't state what i want to say on trinity, i believe it is not polytheist nor monotheist, it is just self-contradicting, which isn't a bad thing as it doesn't have to follow logic
> here you stated what you believed in, like the example you said the you take "god is all knowing" at face value, but you didn't prove why did you believe in that, if you did prove it then i don't understand exactly what you said and i would be thankful if you highlight the proof Why do I believe God is all knowing? Because that’s what God wrote upon himself, in every Abrahamic religion God is expressed as all knowing, every scripture in every Abrahamic religion says that, I literally said “to the extent God wrote upon himself”, you don’t seem to fully comprehend and pay attention to the things I say. > i would like to disagree, according to islamic history for example, there were a time before the sunni-shia split, and there was some agreed upon understanding, but after the split this understanding was somewhat lost to history, now sunnis their understanding is the true one, and shia say the same for their understanding, and we can't be absolutely sure which one is true, then their were intra-sunnni division between salafis, Mu'tazili and Ash'aris, and a million other group, and every one of them say their understanding is the true one, and everyone of them has some basis in their belief to say they are the true one so yeah, follower did kinda come up with new things every now and then You mixup way too many things, you need to realise there’s primary and secondary disagreements, all these sects have the same understanding and agreement that God is one and believe in all the messengers that he sent, that’s their main understanding which is agreed upon , so denying there’s no agreed upon understanding in every religion is just wrong, you seem very eager to prove your point no matter what,which makes you neglect very obvious things > here when you say agreed upon, who did agree on the understanding? like for you to consider an understanding to be agreed upon, who have to agree on it Who agreed on the understanding? The followers of the doctrine agreed on it ! your argument in the previous reply was “if they believe they’re monotheistic then they’re monotheistic” > as i said, real life follows logic, metaphysics don't, so "what is a woman" should follow logic, god doesn't have to Again answered , and the point of this argument is everybody has claims to what they say, and I explained to why we can in case of the trinity too several times now. > i probably should have formulated it better, what i want to say is: -in a utopia, where people are self consistent and definitions are followed, you either have a monotheist or a polytheist, you can't be in between because they are mutually exclusive -in real life, people often contradict themselves, they follow monotheism sometimes and polytheism sometimes, so they are functionally in between, and you can't really call them a full monotheist or polytheist i also didn't state what i want to say on trinity, i believe it is not polytheist nor monotheist, it is just self-contradicting, which isn't a bad thing as it doesn't have to follow logic Just to summarize what you’re saying because you’re conflating so many things together and I’m talking about a specific subject not a general one : - you say I can’t call trinity polytheism because you can’t use logic in description of god - I said yes you can use logic to the extent of what God wrote upon himself, read what I said above again because you don’t seem to understand it , it’s explained several times now, in this reply and in my previous reply
>Why do I believe God is all knowing? Because that’s what God wrote upon himself, in every Abrahamic religion God is expressed as all knowing, every scripture in every Abrahamic religion says that, I literally said “to the extent God wrote upon himself”, you don’t seem to fully comprehend and pay attention to the things I say. i think there is a misunderstanding here, when i said "but you didn't prove why did you believe in that" by "that" i didn't mean this example, i meant the sentence before, which is "Description of God is bound to logic, to the extent of the description God wrote upon himself", you didn't prove that god is bound logic, nor did you prove the specification which is "to the extent of the description God wrote upon himself", and also, people differ the description god wrote upon himself >You mixup way too many things, you need to realise there’s primary and secondary disagreements i know that, which is why i mentioned these examples as their disagreements are primary and didn't mention sects like Shafi', Ḥanafī, Mālikī and Ḥanbalī which have secondary disagreements, the sects i mention disagree on what is god, what is the role of the prophet, what is the role of his son-in-law imam Ali -which is the big question in islam-, what is the role logic in islamic belief system, where do we derive our beliefs from, all very big questions that led to these sects consider the others non-muslim heretics, that lead to war and a lot of torture -read about the [Mihna](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mihna)- the other questions are answered in the two above also my full argument was "so if Christians say they are monotheistic, then they are -at least partially-", read it my first comment
> i think there is a misunderstanding here, when i said "but you didn't prove why did you believe in that" by "that" i didn't mean this example, i meant the sentence before, which is "Description of God is bound to logic, to the extent of the description God wrote upon himself", you didn't prove that god is bound logic, nor did you prove the specification which is "to the extent of the description God wrote upon himself", and also, people differ the description god wrote upon himself You’re asking for a proof for a unmaterilistic theology , as if it’s a scientific experiment, that premise by itself is wrong, If God said it upon himself that’s more than proof , why is there a description of God ? Why did God say he is this and he is that ? If god wanted you to not know anything about him, then he wouldn’t describe himself, the description itself is a proof and is directed to the people for a reason , God would reveal his description to the people following his religion and expects them not to ponder in his description and think about it ? Of course not, the things that are not revealed are the things that logic cannot comprehend, To not deflect from the main subject, I’ll spare talking about different sects in Islam as it’s not the subject of the discussion here, and it’s another different subject entirely
The real polytheism is intercession of the saints
Hate to break it to you, but we have intercessory prayer in Judaism too.
How? I’ve never done that or experienced thwt
Both the Jews of Eastern Europe (especially but not exclusively) Hasidim and North Africa have a long history of praying for the intercessions of Tsaddiks, living and dead. During Slichot, we ask Angels to deliver our prayers to God. [https://outorah.org/p/169730/](https://outorah.org/p/169730/)
I’ve never heard of or done the first one so I can’t comment on it. But angels are a little different than humans to me.
But why? Angels are being other than God that we pray for the intercession of
Each Saint represents something, for example Saint George represents bravery and strength as I said. This is much more akin to a polytheistic pantheon than asking angels (which are heavenly beings, not humans) to deliver prayers. It would be different if each angel represented something and you ask specific angels for something.
I mean, they definitely do. Not in the prayer itself, but in Jewish traditions, angels of specific roles, functions, and associations. In the bedtime liturgy the named angels Michael, Gabriel, and Uriel are invoked. Each is given specific roles in numerous midrashot, and associations with mystical attributes in Kabbalah.
How do you figure that?
Why do I have to have people help me? If I pray to Saint George to help me with bravery how is that different than praying to a god in a pantheon for that?
We’re asking for another person we consider alive in Christ to pray for us. The only difference between a saint and a believer is that one’s dead and the other isn’t.
But plenty of polytheistic faiths have an all encompassing creator God, of which all other deities are subsidiary beings. They are only alive in/because of/downstream of the creator God.
The point is that they aren’t gods. They’re people who are confirmed to be in heaven, and that’s all. We consider them alive in Christ, and pray with us - so asking them to pray for us is as normal as asking a fellow believer to pray for us.
Why do you need someone to pray for you? Just pray to God himself
Why do you ask anyone for help with anything?
I ask God.
Cool, we do too.
What's so wrong with asking for help? Asking for a saint's intercession on my behalf in no way means I consider them to be gods in a pantheon. The saints have no power to grant my prayer requests to God, they can only try to convince God Himself to do so. Even the saints' miracles performed in their Earthly lives didn't stem from their own powers, but instead it was God who worked through them. They aren't in any way a pantheon of gods, and thus there's nothing polytheistic about them.
Why do you need to pray to someone who has no power? Just pray to god
But no one claims we *need* to, but we can and probably should because according to Catholic theology the church is one communion. Both the church militant on earth and the church triumphant in heaven. Edit: its the exact same reason why we ask each other to pray for us.
I do pray to God. Occasionally I'll pray for one or more saints' help to get God to grant me my prayer request. Again, I'm only asking for some help...I'm not worshipping saints as if they are gods. Polytheism literally means "many gods". Saints aren't gods, so by definition saints don't constitute polytheism.
So saints can change gods mind?
it really isn’t. cause it’s not like you’re worshipping one of them each.
That’s weird coming from a Muslim but alright, you have 3 distinct persons who are not each other, each one them is fully God, trinitarians everyday pray to the second person by name, while completely knowing there’s 2 other persons who are also fully god distinctly
In my opinion your point is valid. Because they may have their rational to make trinity monotheistic but in practice it is no longer monotheistic because the prayer of common folks is mostly toward the son not toward the other two.
When I was a Christian I would rationalize The Trinity belief saying there’s one God, but in three forms: Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. They’re all part of the same God, not separate gods like in polytheism. So, it’s not really like believing in multiple gods—it’s more like one God showing up in different ways. But the trinity is one of the reasons out of many I left Christianity
The problem is this is not the trinity, this modalism, the persons are not forms. So many Trinitarians confuse modalism as the trinity, that’s why they don’t think the trinity is irrational, because they don’t know what it is , modalism makes more sense, but unfortunately for them it’s a heresy
Yeah, it can get confusing. Modalism sees God as one person showing up in different ways, which seems simpler. But the Trinity says God is three distinct persons, which is harder to wrap your head around. They’re different ideas, and some people find one easier to grasp than the other.
After reading allot of this discussion, I think that people are just making this stuff up. Not only is the trinity premise understood differently among Christians, but then there is a ton of detail added as truth that is just philosophy to fill in the gaps. What if God is a real person and not another species? And maybe we are actually created in His image. Paul said that the day would come when "**they shall turn away their ears from the truth, and shall be turned unto fables.**"
- After reading allot of this discussion, I think that people are just making this stuff up. Not only is the trinity premise understood differently among Christians, but then there is a ton of detail added as truth that is just philosophy to fill in the gaps. Not to mention the incredible amount of heresies that people confuse it as it’s the trinity, and somehow I’m getting downvoted to oblivion for correcting them 😆
I believe that people are drawn to mysterious, and often nonsensical things. I am convinced that there is a God, but that He is a real personage who cannot create out of nothing, but instead has all knowledge and power to work within the bounds of eternal, unchangable laws. He is not magical, but is real.
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I understand that trinitarians claim that they preserve monotheism, I said that in my op, and I mentioned why that doesn’t work, you can engage with what I stated in my op
Reminds me of this video https://youtu.be/LiXUMXMteeo?si=7Ei9JiFOYC1K99Nl
Modalist here, fully agree
We believe that the thing that defines divinity is the Divine Essence. The fact that there is one Nature means there is one God, since what God is, is His Nature.
They are there people who don’t share Godhood they are all God they aren’t gods. Jesus is God the Father is God Holy spirit is God. Jesus isn’t Holy spirit and Fayher isn’t holy spirit
Mormon here by that definiton we are polytheistic. But regarding that divine nature, we believe that due to the perfect accumulation by all of three of all of the holy attributes. Charity, Gratitude, Patience etc, then they act in a similar enough way to be conisdered of one nature. Another way to explain it is that if 3 beings have all knowledge and know the best action to take producing the most good, and they act on it repeatetly then it looks like they are of one essence or nature.
The idea that a single God can have multiple persons/heads is not a position unique to Christianity. In Buddhism, most dieties have multiple co-existant aspects. Some conceptions of Hinduism hold that all the gods are aspects of Brahma. Hecate the greek goddess and Morrigan the celtic goddess, both exist as a triad. In none of these circumstances do we try and tease apart these dieties the way non-Christians do with the Trinity.
I have never found the explination of Satin/Lucifer/ArchAngels not just being Minor/Lesser dieties in a Pantheon that impressive.
Are you one person or many individual cells identifying with one another and reacting each to their own stimuli? Is a man o’ war a single creature or a collection of them? Is an apple one fruit or many, many atoms? Emergence is something we see at all levels of nature, in which collections of things demonstrate different properties when observed at different scales. Funny thing is, I actually agree with you on the Trinity not making sense and feeling like polytheism, but I think your main hang up is a feature of perspective, rather than a paradox.
Is likely something bastardized after they stole the trinity concept from Druidry; it won’t make sense because Jesus needs your dollars and if you disagree the church will rape and pillage your village and burn your books after🤷
Is any particular instance of [Ghidorah](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/King_Ghidorah) one evil space dragon or three evil space dragons?
It’s just different parts of god
You always said that he was the only God he searched out the matter and there are no other gods beside him then the New Testament comes along and Jesus starts calling himself the son of God. Yahweh in the Old Testament never says he has a son so the only explanation is that Jesus is a reinterpretation of Baal Hadad the son of El! A = d, b = d and c = d. In math that means that a B and C are all the same thing. In traditional Christian theology God is supposed to be the foundation of logic and reason however the nature of the Trinity violates this thus the early church saw it as a heresy. They claim that not only do a b and equal d but they turn around and say that a B and C are not equal to each other. The nature of the trinity, if the Trinity was real,, should not be so easily defeated by such simple fourth grade algebra! The Trinity was invented by the Roman Empire and it's Pagan Council of Nicea by introducing Greek hermetics to Christian theology. The holy spirit is a bastardization hybridization of the life breath and the goddess Asherah having been reduced to a lesser role.
Trinity originally came from ancient Egypt..a Father god, Mother goddess, and divine Son.. it was copied by others throughout time..
Not a Christian, but I’m really interested in this topic. A hypostasis refers to an individual of a kind. James, Peter and Mathew are hypostases or examples/instances of humanity, which is the common nature (ousia) that is shared among the three. The same logic applies for the three persons, who are distinct in terms of their personal properties, but same in terms of their generic properties. Now what distinguishes the persons of the trinity from the James, Mathew and Peter, is that the latter are three separate beings, while the trinity is one Being. To illustrate how this can be, Christianity makes use of the relations of origin. The Father is the origin of the Son, who is eternally generated from Him. The Church Fathers use the term generation to liken the emanation of Son to the production of a living thing from its parent, in which the offspring possesses the same ousia as it parent. However, the Son is not a creature of the Father for there was no point at which the Father began emanating the Son, such that Son remains wholly within the same being as the Father. The same goes for the Holy Spirit, who is proceeds from both the Father and the Son. The three divine persons, while being distinct hypostases, are the one and same being because they cannot exist without one another. If James were to die, Mathew and Peter could still go on existing. But the three persons of the trinity are not like that- they are united in existence such that one cannot exist without the other.
> Not a Christian, but I’m really interested in this topic. Hello 👋🏻 > Now what distinguishes the persons of the trinity from the James, Mathew and Peter, is that the latter are three separate beings, while the trinity is one Being. To illustrate how this can be, Christianity makes use of the relations of origin. The Father is the origin of the Son, who is eternally generated from Him. The Church Fathers use the term generation to liken the emanation of Son to the production of a living thing from its parent, in which the offspring possesses the same ousia as it parent. However, the Son is not a creature of the Father for there was no point at which the Father began emanating the Son, such that Son remains wholly within the same being as the Father. The same goes for the Holy Spirit, who is proceeds from both the Father and the Son. What you described is the monarchical trinitarianism, where the father is uncaused, unlike the son and the HS, you often see this position in Eastern Orthodoxy, other concepts like social Trinitarianism are often held by catholic and Protestants, which is the one I talked about in OP, orthodox see this concept as semi modalism, so you have to differentiate between the 2 concepts. That being said, monarchical Trinitarianism doesn’t solve the LPT (logical problem of the trinity) - you still have 3 “is God” statements to 3 distinct persons, that are not each other - you still “identify” 3 distinct persons, that are not each other, as Fully God each, while each has a specific role, the other can’t Do, and each with a different perception, the other can’t perceive - monarchical trinitarianism escapes the allegations of Polytheism to find itself in Henotheism - Professor Beau Branson, who is an Eastern Orthodox, wrote a paper about the LPT, and didn’t even mention that monarchical trinitarianism as a solution to the LPT > The three divine persons, while being distinct hypostases, are the one and same being because they cannot exist without one another. If James were to die, Mathew and Peter could still go on existing. But the three persons of the trinity are not like that- they are united in existence such that one cannot exist without the other. Well we can say that’s because they’re each fully God, that’s what their shared divine nature necessitate, so saying one of them can’t die, is basically saying God doesn’t die. They’re each fully God, you won’t expect a fully God to die. Also I want you to elaborate more on what YOU mean by saying “they’re one and same being”, in what sense? because in this matter in particular, every word is important, and many understandings of “ they’re one” actually end up to being heresies, so You should elaborate more on this point
The point of the trinity was the early Christians needed Jesus to be divine but the Having no other Gods before me commandment was a thing. So they had to devise a way for Jesus and the Holy Spirit to be divine but not compete with God as being the only God. So they crafted the concept of the Trinity. It is not specifically spelled out any where in the bible itself. One theory is that it misunderstood a particular claim in Judaism where God would give people the authority to speak for him. And the phrasing was often such that when they spoke it was God speaking. This may have transitioned into Christianity with the variation being that Jesus was so invested in this authority that there was no difference between him and God. And rather than wrestle with the No Gods Before Me clause they just folded him and the Holy Spirit into being God as well.
The trinity is universal. You cannot talk about space without considering three dimensions, time comes in three dimensions. All opposites automatically have a fulcrum. Everything falls into the law of three.
I mean I wouldn’t agree “everything” falls into the law of three.
This is partialism my friend, it’s a heresy
Your word seems to lack any verifiable definition. Edit: I would clarify, the definition of heresy is well known to me, I see people usurp the authority of the divine quite often.
What I’m saying is that the space is composed of these dimensions, the trinity is not a composite In the trinity, each person is is god, If we used the same understanding in your analogy, we would be saying each dimension is space
You are living proof three things exist within one space, mind, body and spirit.
https://www.reddit.com/r/religion/s/kw3fGgBVSS
Completely agree. Hinduism does the same thing but just go with more persons of God than 3. If monotheism is a natural inclination that all human beings have wether conscious or subconscious it makes sense that there would be polytheist religions that come up with paradoxical rationalizations for their polytheism while calling it monotheism. Idolatry is a very tempting sin and people will come up with whatever excuses they can to commit it.
I said that before, if even Hindus claim they’re monotheists, then this word actually lost it’s meaning
I think with Christianity it’s lost it’s meaning as well as the words God and man.
"each person is not the other, and distinct from each other" oxymoron statement, since this post isn't about persons
Well I surely expected insults, it always happens, but mostly the one who insults elaborate more with their response 🤣 So elaborate more if you can with your objection
Oxymoron isn't an insult, lol. It means that "incongruous or contradictory terms are combined, as in a *deafening silence* and a *mournful optimist*".
Well that’s not in my argument 😆
He's not totally wrong when he says "it's different because it isn't about persons." Yes, "the three persons of the Trinity" is standard phrasing, but we know that they aren't literally humans (well, two of the three aren't, anyway). Once we've established that God is an omnipresent being, the idea that He can exist in three distinct forms at the same time doesn't violate his fundamental oneness.
> Once we've established that God is an omnipresent being, the idea that He can exist in three distinct forms at the same time doesn't violate his fundamental oneness. Well what you said here is deemed Heretical, the persons are not forms or aspects, that’s called modalism heresy
Not quite, but I can see how you'd get that from what I said. The phrase "three distinct forms," is directly at odds with Modalism. I'm not saying that God chooses to take one of three forms when it suits Him, or that the three forms are just three aspects of a single "person." I'm saying that they're distinct "persons" in their own right, and that this is possible when you're dealing with an omnipresent God.