Board index ‹ The Trinity

[Kapow]

How can God,Jesus, and the Holy Spirit talk to each other if they are all god?

Is it that each are avatars of god that occupy a different plain of existence? Jesus - physical world, God - Heaven, Holy Sprit - spiritual world (he is with everyone at the same time even though he isn’t seen). I used to just take the Bible at face value not questioning it but once I started to really read it I had more questions and this was a big one.

[jimwalton]

Possibly this analogy will help. Suppose I write a book, and I put myself in it. The character "me" says what I would say and does what I would do. It's ME in the book. He's exactly as I am. Now, is the character in the book different from the me outside of the book? Of course he is. But is it me? Of course it is. He's all me, but he's all a separate character. I can easily be both the author and a character without compromising either. I could easily also have the character in the book talk to me as the writer (as Winnie the Pooh does to Christopher Robin as author and the author does back to Pooh).

> Is it that each are avatars of god that occupy a different plain of existence?

No, that's not accurate. It's neither a biblical nor a theologically accurate way to look at the Trinity.

[Kapow]

So instead of avatars of god it’s like the Holy Spirit and Jesus are copies of god able to talk to him and do there own thing but in the end they are him they are all the same being just that Jesus is the physical representation and the Holy Spirit is the spiritual

[jimwalton]

"Copies of God" is not the right way to think about it. Nor is it accurate to think that Jesus is the physical representation and the HS is the spiritual representation.

There is only one "essence" of God. There is only one God. Christianity is monotheistic. Jesus is not a copy of God. He is God incarnate, sharing the very nature and being of God (and thus is God, Jn. 1.1) and yet appearing in human flesh to show us what God truly is. Jesus bears the very stamp of God's nature and being (Col. 1.15; Heb. 1.3). Since He is God, He expresses all that God is, and yet in a human body.

Augustine (I believe it was) expressed it in this sense: the Trinity distinguishes between the principle of divine action and the subject of divine action. The principle of all divine action is the one undivided divine essence, but the subject of divine action is either Father, Son, or Holy Spirit. The Father can send the Son according to his power, and the Son can be incarnated according to his nature without dividing the divine essence.

[Kapow]

I’m going to be completely honest with you right now I don’t understand what you said at all the most I can grasp is that the three can exist at once but not like three separate beings but honestly to me that just doesn’t make sense to me how can the three speak to each other and be each other but be different if god did not put apart of himself into each without splitting it from himself. I think if the trinity is just copies of the same god in different forms it would still be monotheistic since in the end they are the same god but you know maybe my 15 year old mine just isn’t advanced enough to understand this. If you can somehow make this simpler to understand I will be forever grateful but currently I will go with each one is god BUT they can act independent of one another (which sounds like they would be copies since god came first and the the Spirit and then Jesus)

[jimwalton]

Thanks for your honesty. I wasn't trying to be confusing.

> the most I can grasp is that the three can exist at once but not like three separate beings but honestly to me that just doesn’t make sense to me

I used a literary analogy that didn't seem to help. Let me try to take you to the world of science, where we see possible truths that could help us understand the Trinity.

All physical reality has a dual nature. Mass and energy are in principle inter-convertible, through nuclear fission or fusion reactions. E = mc^2. We can, therefore, speak of the universe as a "space-light-time" universe. It is significant that this motion of light is famous for its mysterious and paradoxical complementarity. It has the characteristics of both waves and particles, and yet it definitely behaves as a wave motion under some conditions and as a particle motion under others. This duality applies both in radiations of electro-magnetic energy and in the atomic structure of matter, in which the orbiting electron likewise behaves both as a particle and as a wave. The two disciplines of modern physics known as quantum mechanics and wave mechanics have been developed from these two concepts. So if light (one essence) can be both a wave and a particle (two completely different characteristics), and not be a contradiction, then maybe that can help us understand how God can be Father, Son, and Spirit (one essence) but three Persons (different characteristics).

There are also several principles from quantum mechanics that may show us some analogies. The first is called superposition, where subatomic particles are able to exist in two states simultaneously. Get that—that very same things existing in two separate states at the same time. The second is that of nonlocality and entanglement. The principle here is that objects in far reaches of the universe seem to "know" about each other's states, and yet these separate particles can behave as a single entity. These may be possible analogies, if that helps.

For another potential scientific "validation" of such possibilities, in 2017 a group of quantum scientists (University of Science and Technology of China in Shanghai) successfully teleported a photon from Earth to a satellite in orbit. It's called quantum entanglement. As far as our discussion here, quantum entanglement means that the two quantum objects share a wave function and share the same identity, even when separated. What happens to one happens to the other—wherever it exists. They are more than identical twins, the article said, "the two are one and the same." Apparently, according to the article, when they interact with matter on Earth they lose certain aspects of entanglement, but in the vacuum of space, they can extend infinitely (eternally). It's just interesting.

And have you had in geometry class where two parallel lines meet in infinity? That's weird. It sounds like a contradiction, but it's considered to be true.

> my 15 year old mine

Oh, you're 15. That makes you a freshman, right (9th grade)? Then you haven't had this science yet. And maybe not the math.

> If you can somehow make this simpler to understand I will be forever grateful

I thought my first analogy (about the writer putting himself in the book) was the easiest to understand. Maybe you've had in science that light is both a particle and a wave. Those are two different things while being the same thing. Am I helping or no?

I'm glad you're asking your questions rather than just thinking Christianity is stupid and walking away from it. It's better to ask and find out the answers.

[Kapow]

I was raised a Christian I’m not gonna walk from it. But back to the literature analogy you said if you put yourself in the book it’s the same as yourself in the physical the two are different (ones in the book and one is in real life) could I take this as Jesus being in the book and God being the writer they are both God but Jesus talks and walks to other people on earth in the same way God would talk to people but can’t since he has to oversee the world and heaven so he writes himself into the book as Jesus to teach the people of earth about him? Or have a completely misunderstood this.

[jimwalton]

> I was raised a Christian I’m not gonna walk from it.

Good to hear.

> But back to the literature analogy you said if you put yourself in the book it’s the same as yourself in the physical the two are different (ones in the book and one is in real life)

Right. But the character in the book is not a copy of me. It may do things I've never done, or be in situations I've never been in. The character in the book is its own person, even though it's me.

> could I take this as Jesus being in the book and God being the writer they are both God but Jesus talks and walks to other people on earth in the same way God would talk to people but can’t since he has to oversee the world and heaven so he writes himself into the book as Jesus to teach the people of earth about him? Or have a completely misunderstood this.

No, you haven't misunderstood. It seems that you understand what was intended by the analogy.