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[Iron Man]

This won't be fruitful. I'm very aware of explanations of the trinity, and I'm well aware of the verses people present which they say supports the idea.

There's another angle I take on this too- scripture aside, trinity is an inherently incoherent concept, all by itself.

If Jesus is fully human, he has human flaws and limitations. If he is fully God, he cannot have human flaws and limitations. So any explanation involving "fully human and also fully God" is contradictory, because it requires a Jesus with human limitations who also does not have human limitations.

I understand, the standard explanation is to give up and say "Well, it's a mystery, it cannot be understood." But, people tend to only reach for that excuse, after presenting their nonsensical trinity explanation. They should instead have done there instead of landing on trinity first.

[jimwalton]

> I'm very aware of explanations of the trinity, and I'm well aware of the verses people present which they say supports the idea.

You've already agreed that John 1.1 speaks the theology of the Trinity without vagueness.

> There's another angle I take on this too- scripture aside, trinity is an inherently incoherent concept, all by itself.

It's not, really. I already gave you a perfectly good analogy of me putting myself as a character in my own book. But let's go to science if you think it's incoherent.

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.

There are 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. 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 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.

People say that the Trinity is a contradiction, but this occurred to me the other day: Mathematicians tell us that two parallel lines actually meet at infinity. Somehow we accept that as true, even though it seems self-contradictory. If we accept it in geometry, can we also accept it in theology?

If these quantum observations are not incoherent, then neither is the Trinity.

> If Jesus is fully human, he has human flaws and limitations.

This is a non sequitur. Flaws and limitations are one thing, but deity-denying sin is another. On what basis do you assume that God incarnated must necessarily not be God?

> it requires a Jesus with human limitations who also does not have human limitations

Physical limitations in an incarnated God is not an evidence of non-deity. You'll have to give a better rationale if you want to hold to this position rationally.

> "Well, it's a mystery, it cannot be understood."

I never said that and never do. Putting that in my mouth is a straw man argument.