The Trinity Program

I was rummaging through my files and I find this document which I had written 3 years ago. I thought I would share because it proves beyond a shadow of a doubt how big of a dork I am. Anyway, this is the doctrine of the Trinity as expressed in C++. Enjoy:

const Divinity YHWH=Divinity();

class Divinity
{
aaaDivinity()
aaa{
aaafor (int c=0; c<∞; c++)
aaaaaa{dimentions[c]=∞;}
aaa}

aaaThelitos will();
aaaString knowledge=∞;
aaaPotency power=∞;
aaaInt dimentions[∞];
aaaCharacter goodness=☺;
}

class HUnion
{
aaaHUnion(Divinity *divine, Humanity *human)
aaaaaaaaa{God=divine; man=human;}

aaaostream permeationAttributes (istream);

aaaDivinity *God;
aaaHumanity *man;
}

struct Messiah
{
aaaHUnion Christ;
}

int main()
{
aaaDivinity *Father=*YHWH,
aaaaaaaaaaaa*Son=Father,
aaaaaaaaaaaa*Spirit=Father;

aaaMessiah Jesus;
aaaJesus.Christ=HUnion(Son, *humanity());
}

A Criticism of Catholicism (archaic)

Right off the bat, I would like to state that I am ecumenical in my orientation. I consider the RCC, EOC and the Protestant wing all aspects of the church of Christ. When I am critical of Catholicism, it is done with an understanding that these are my siblings in Christ. That said, I have some major issues with the Catholic church. In this post, I used the word heresy to denote theological novelty as opposed to a more condemning sense of the word. I probably would use different language now (hence using archaic above), but I still agree with the assessment that I made here. I posted this October 31st, 2005.

There are many today who are way to critical of the Roman Catholic Church. That said, I still believe that there are some very legitimate strong criticisms to be made about it, especially pre-Vatican II Catholicism.

Last class, we had a Catholic priest come in and give us a run-down of Roman Catholic theology. I would also like to state that this guy based a lot of what he had to say on Vatican II, which means that he had good things to say.

Beforehand, the teacher asked us to develop questions to ask him. Mine was, pretty much, a harsh criticism of the Roman hierarchy, especially the Pope. Due to the plethora of levels of Catholicism I wished to address, I wrote out my question ahead of time in length (I was forced to summarize unfortunately). Here is what I wrote:

The heretic“wills to stand against authenticated, settled truth, opting for independent arbitrary self-willing “other than” or contrary to the settled historical reasoning confirmed by the intergenerational community of believers.[1]” For the sake of convenience, we shall consider heresy to be innovation: the introduction of an idea that was not formally established by the confessing church, and is imposed on the church by a sect or persons, considering their own personal understanding of God as above that of the consensus of the church and the apostolic fathers.

We remember that in the early the church, the patristic fathers gathered and declared in one voice:

I believe in one God the Father Almighty;
Maker of heaven and earth, and of all things visible and invisible

And in one Lord Jesus Christ, the only-begotten Son of God, begotten of the Father before all worlds [God of God], Light of Light, very God of very God, begotten, not made, being of one substance with the Father;
by whom all things were made;
who, for us men and for our salvation, came down from heaven, and was incarnate by the Holy Ghost of the Virgin Mary, and was made man;
and was crucified also for us under Pontius Pilate;
he suffered and was buried;
and the third day he rose again, according to the Scriptures;
and ascended into heaven, and sitteth on the right hand of the Father;
and he shall come again, with glory, to judge both the quick and the dead;
whose kingdom shall have no end

And [I believe] in the Holy Ghost, the Lord and Giver of Life;
who proceedeth from the Father;
who with the Father and the Son together is worshipped and glorified;
who spake by the Prophets.
And I believe one Holy Catholic and Apostolic Church.
I acknowledge one Baptism for the remission of sins;
and I look for the resurrection of the dead, and the life of the world to come.

Amen

From these points, I perceive the following as heresy, which I hope you to correct me on if I am wrong. About a thousand years ago, there was a split between the Eastern and Western church. The division was complex, and I cannot go through the details here.

Part of this split was due to the filique controversy, hence the reading of the Creed provided before. Whether or not the Spirit proceeds from the Son or not is not the point here: the issue is the methodology utilized by the Roman diocese in this debate. For the sake of argument, I will allow that Roman see is descended from Peter, and thus has an air of primacy about it. However, it was at this time that Rome became ill-content with being the “first among equals” and declared itself the “first among many”, and considered it proper to change that Creed which was the foundation of Christendom without the consent of the full body of Christ.

I see this as blatant heresy: most certainly an innovation that was not formally established by the confessing church, and imposed on the church by the persons at Rome, considering their own personal understanding of God as above that of the consensus of the church. Here Rome considered herself to be so divinely appointed that she had the right to alter all of Christendom without the established consensus required by her fathers.

I see this assumption as a key factor that eventually denied the East of the brotherhood of the West, and denied the West of their brethren from the East. This sense of primacy stole from Rome that appropriate humility required of the servants of God which forced Luthor into reaction instead of his divinely ordained reformation.

So here is my question: by what right had Rome elevated herself by her own will to a higher place of authority than she had previously enjoyed? By what right did Rome alter the Creed of Christ without waiting for His body to actualize her claims? By what right did Rome have to say that “wherefore they err from the right course who assert that it is lawful to appeal from the judgments of the Roman Pontiffs to an Ecumenical Council, as to an authority higher than that of the Roman Pontiff”? What right does the Roman see have to be above the confessing body of God?

(for your convenience, the filique controversy was when Rome had altered the Creed above, and therein declaring Roman authority as something greater than a council. Before that, the ultimate authority was a council because a council was a gathering of representatives from every part of the church. Thus it was a consensus of the entire church, and the voting had to be unanimous to be sure that the Spirit was behind what they were doing.)

His response to this criticism was that this is an issue that is currently in debate within the Catholic Church himself. Thus, he did not truly have an answer since the the church itself has not reached a consensus on this.

Personally, I found his answer adequate since he admitted that it was a legitimate criticism, and that the church was currently working to rectify it. Still, I feel no desire to leave Protestantism whatsoever.

Trinity analogies

I had originally posted this as a debate site called CARM, and then reposted it on my old website on April 30th 2005. I am now reposting here for your pleasure. Enjoy


We trinitarians tend to be over-reliant on analogy. Now analogy is important because we are discussing a topic which is unperceivable. However, we tend to present the analogy saying "Trinity is" instead of "Trinity is like" therefore denoting equivalence instead of similitude. So, here is a list of several analogies of Trinity and how they break down:

• Apple:An apple is skin, core, and fruit, but one apple.
  The problem is that there is a partition here. In the Trinity, the Father, the Son, and the Spirit are distinct, but not separate. In other words, there is a sense that the Father is other than the Son, but there is no point where the Father stops and the Son begins, they are united. Furthermore, there is the issue of variance. The Father, Son and Spirit are one being, but also one nature, in that they are all perfect, and do not different in attribute. Skin, core, and fruit are far too different.
  
• Stream:You can have a single river that, at a point, spits into three streams, that then come back together (like two parallel islands are in the river). At this point, it is still one river, but exists as three.
  This avoids the variance issue above, however, there is still the problem of partition. Additionally, if presented improperly, it can be used to support a change in God.
  
• Water: H2O can exist in the same environment as ice, liquid, and water vapor. However, they all remain water.
  If "in the same environment" isn't mentioned, this alludes to Modalism, and still can be viewed that we if presented improperly. Additionally you have the variance issue.
  
• Synonyms: Example: Dual, Double, and Binary are different words, in that they have distinct uses, however they all have the same meaning.
  This both overemphasises the unity and the distinction depending upon presentation. In the overemphasis on unity, there is a sense that the Father, Son, and Spirit are only a titular distinction, and not a substantial one. The distinct use point is presented to counteract this because there are times when the use of double is appropriate and the other two are not, and likewise for the other two.
  The overemphasis on distinction is what is known as alienation. This means you can have one without having the other two. Again, if presented correctly, this is avoided by saying that if something is only appropriately described as binary, there still exists a doubleness and a dualness. But this aspect is still quite weak.
  
  PS, please refrain from commenting on the numerical nature of the example. It was only used because of the lack of connotational difference.
  
• Jar o' Gas:Take three gases (for instance Oxygen, Nitrogen, and Neon) and put them into one jar. Though they are three gases, they are completely unified.
  there of course is still the variance issue (Oxygen and Neon are very different). However, this also introduced what is official called "confusion", but better understood as blending or mixing. this implies such a strong unification, that it becomes impossible to differentiate one from the other. Variance is still the stronger issue, for if you get down to the molecular level, confusion ends. But there is confusion on the Macrocosm.
  
  If you look at it at the microscopic level to avoid the confusion issue, you end up with the alienation issue, for Oxygen knows nothing of Neon, etc...
  
• Lamp: There is a lamp with three lightbulbs. When turned on it produces a single light. (This analogy came from Thomas Oden in his book The Living God.)
  We have two sets of three here, and there are different problems pertaining to what you emphasize. If you focus on three lightbulbs, one lamp (which is incorrect considering the phrasing), you have the partition issue.
  If you focus on the light (one light, three sources) you have the issue of confusion, where you cannot distinguish which photon came from where. If you change it so that each bulb is a different color (ignoring the variance issue this creates) its still doesn't end the confusion, for they merge as one color in the light.
  A more, overarching problem is a reversal of revelation: you have three revealed as one, instead of one revealed as three.
  
• Humans:Humans are mind/body/spirit, yet one being
  This one is a favorite primarily because unlike everything else mentioned, it is actually a trinity. You have three distinct substances (hypostasis) yet one essence (being). However, this is still an analogy towards the divine Trininy because, (a) we are not God, and (b) though we are a substantial trinity, we are not a trinity of persons. A person is a substance with a rational nature, and the body does not have this. Mind and spirit divide the rational nature, one having the ability to think, the other containing will. With mind and spirit you have soul, which is your "personhood" so to speak. (I'm not really an expert on anthropology so i remain correctable on these finer points)
  One other difference from the divine Trinity is, once again, variance. Now variance doesn't undo the one being/essence aspect which is necessary for trinity. However, it does contradict the one nature aspect which is necessary for perfection in the divinity, and besides its just incorrect.

Some Trinitarians have been know to overemphasize this analogy (I was guilty of this myself once) by saying that the Father is the mind, Son the body, and Spirit in spirit. This is given credence by the "mind in his image" aspect of humanity. However this limits the personal nature toward each member of the Trinity and is inaccurate.

The point of these analogies are to present elements of the concept of the Trinity, not to create the whole idea for you. A three dimensional example is an impossibility (human except due to our spiritual nature). Therefore, in order to properly understand it, it does take effort on the part of the listener to step beyond the analogy to that which is trying to be expressed.

Trinity

This was a post on the trinity that I made April 8th 2005. I never actually finished it. I intended to include a section listing the biblical evidence. Oh well. I edited out the references to that below. Enjoy.




Through the past couple of months, I have encountered several people who disapprove of the notion of the Trinity. I have also found that not a single one of these people has an accurate perspective as to what the Trinity is. Thus, I felt it necessary to formulate the doctrine in my head. This represents my effort to do so. Additionally this is to serve to help other people who have trouble putting the Trinity into words. Lastly, this is also something to hand to someone else if you want to explain it to them.

So this post will be divided into two categories: Definition and importance.

This, the definition section, is not an attempt to explain the full doctrine of the Trinity with all of its nuances of language and theological implications. Instead, I state here only what is necessary for the common believer to understand and verify as a foundation of faith. Because of this, I intentionally do not use the common theological jargon, as correct as it may be. I instead use terms with less connotation to them, so I can build concepts without the need of breaking others. Example: I will use the term persona here instead of person. This is not because persona is more correct, for it isn't, but because a homonym of person which is used in the vernacular has the implication of separate being which is incorrect. Therefore, I will use persona, and add concepts which the term lacks in definition.

First and foremost, the Trinity is an attempt to describe the anatomy of God. This undertaking alone is difficult, but nonetheless, that is the attempt. There are three aspects of God in the Scripture that seem a bit confusing without the Trinity. They are Monotheism, the deity of Christ, and the clear differentiation of the Father and Son. So, if the Father is God, and the Son is God, and they are different, but there is one God, what can we conclude? Simple, that the Father and the Son are different ways at looking at the same entity.

The Trinity goes on and says that God, Yahweh, is one entity, but has three different personas: Father, Son (Yeshua the Christ), and the Holy Spirit: Yahweh is the name of God in entirety, while Yeshua or Jesus is the name of one person of God: the Son. The Trinity means literally Tri-unity, a word that the church fathers made up. Thus the adjective form is Triune (literally three-one). This is divergent from the Triad, which is a collection of three deities (tritheism) which is heretical.

Now, in the sense of entity or essence, it is meant that there is only one God; all the personas of the Trinity are completely intact and united in a substantial way. By persona, we mean that there is a substantial differentiation between Father, Son, and Spirit. This difference is characterized by the possession of independent thought and action, but not independent being.
They are one entity, one substance. There is no absolute division among them.

As an analogy, just like God is Father, Son, Holy Spirit, a human is mind, body, soul. This is called the human Trinity. Many correlations have been made between these two Trinities, the most common being: Father=mind, Son=body, Holy Spirit=spirit. This correlation though is very simplistic, but does sort of get the idea across. However, it is important to remember that this is an analogy. Though this is a perfect example of a Trinity, it is a much different kind of Trinity than God's.

A second analogy is that of a lamp with three light bulbs. There are three sources of light, but there is one lamp, and the action of all three bulbs merge as one light. There is no division of being, purpose, or achievement, yet all three add to the one light.

Now, the Nicene Counsel defined the Trinity in reference to what it isn't, thus it is accurate to say that orthodoxy was formed as a response to heresy. So, for proper understanding, it behooves one to know the common non-trinity explanations:

• Tritheism: This is the most common confusion with the Trinity. Tritheism is polytheistic. It is the belief that there are three gods, the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit. A variation of this is held by the Church of Latter Day Saints Mormons).


• Monarchianism/Patripassism:This is the other common confusion with the Trinity. It is a denial of the separation within God. Modelism is a unique form of it saying that God was first the Father, then the Son, and then the Holy Spirit, but never simultaneously. Another form is Adoptionism/ Sabellianism, where the spirit of God came down on Christ at the baptism, and before that, he was completely human.
• Gnosticism:Actually a collection of various Greek based religions, only some of which incorporated Christian thought. Of these, we shall refer to as Christo-gnostic (I am making this word up by the way). Again, there are a collection of these, but all state that the creator of the universe is evil, and not truly God. Thus this is a denial of the Creator-God. (As a side note, The Matrix movies were not based on Christianity, but these Christo-gnostic religions)
• Arianism: This is the denial of the divinity of Christ. This is what is held by the Jehovah Witnesses, though it is a more developed understanding of it.
• Ebionism: basically a combination of Adoptionism and Arianism. Basically it was stated that Christ was 100% human, and that the Holy Spirit was just really really strong in him.
• Macedonism: Not really present any more. This is the denial of the divinity of the Holy Spirit.

The Trinity, therefore, is best understood by saying that Jesus, the Father, and the Holy Spirit are God, and Patripassism and Tritheism are wrong. Whatever you're left with will be some form of the Trinity. That is how the Trinity got defined, they took these concepts that I listed, and put the one concept that remained into words, and named it Trinity.

Ok, this is the end of the definition section. To show that there is a change, I will have a string of hyphens. Enjoy:
------------------------------------------------------------------------------

The importance of the Trinity falls on the reasons why the other doctrines are discredited. Number one is the Scriptural evidence. However, even those discrediting the Trinity will claim that Scripture is on their side. The second reason is the implications of the rejections towards salvation, or another essential doctrine. Therefore, let us look at each aspect one by one:

• Monotheism: Monotheism is probably one of the most precious doctrines of all the Hebraic faiths. Any attempt to contradict it will result in diminishing His glory. This is because encapsulated within the doctrine is that He is the Supreme authority, the Ultimate Being, that nothing even comes close to who He is. If there is more than one, the God shares His glory with others, meaning that one can appeal to them if they don’t like how God is doing things.
  
  Furthermore, it means that His word is not the end all and be all. This is because if there are other entities other than God, than they must be different. If they are different, that means that they do not always agree. If they do not always agree, than at some points one is right, and the other wrong. To claim that God can at times be wrong, is a very bad thing.
  
  
• The Deity of the Father: This is in refutation of Gnosticism. By Father, here, I mean the creator of all things. If the creator isn't God, but is rather an agent of God, then what good is God? Without God as our creator, what good is our loyalty to Him? It is in knowledge of creation that we derive purpose, and worth. It is in knowledge that we were created by His very hands that we come to understand and appreciate His love for us. If someone else created us, then why would the Father care to redeem us?
  
  
• The Deity of Christ: Only God has the ability to defeat sin. Any creature has the power to defeat one sin. If the creature is not perfect, then it can only atone for one of it’s own sin, thereby not being a sacrifice at all, for it died anyway. Even the most perfect man can only defeat a single sin. ONLY an infinite being can atone for all sin. Therefore, if Christ was not divine, he could only defeat a single sin.
  
  Jehovah Witnesses agree (I got this from an ex-Jehovah Witness, but I am open for correction here), and say that Christ atoned for Original Sin alone since they believe him to be a mere angel, a created being. Beyond that, one must earn their salvation. Therefore, without the deity of Christ, salvation comes from works. However, this is problematic. Upon the acceptance of the sacrifice, one would be cleansed of Original sin, and thus the innate desire to sin. But, one would still be surrounded by humanity, which stays in sin. Additionally all past sins would still not be atoned for. So, in order for one to be sinless, one must accept the sacrifice in isolation from man. But, the knowledge of the sacrifice was given to man. Therefore, in order to know of the sacrifice, and thereby be cleansed of original sin, one must be in contact with man. So in isolation of man, one is possessed of Original Sin, and with man, one is seduced into sin, therefore, all are still dead in sin, and the sacrifice is in vain.
  
  There is a second reason for the importance of the Deity of Christ. This isn't as important as the one above, but it is significant. If Christ wasn't God, then God did not save us from our sins, but sent someone else to do it for Him. This is a bit more of a subtlety, but it is a far stronger statement of love that God was willing to humble Himself, in the form of a man, to deal with a people so vile as to spit on His name and deny His very existence, and then, through an act of rejection, take on all of the consequences, and pain, and suffering, and defilement that comes through our wickedness, wrestle with it to the point of its defeat, and then declare Himself to us to be ignored again by many, simply on the grounds that He loves us. I know this, God loves me.
  
  
• The Humanity of Christ: Well, the primary reason has to do with the objective of Christ's mission. His intent was to cleanse mankind by first being a clean and honest man, and then, being pure, cleanse that which He is. If Christ wasn't man, then Christ couldn't heal man, because there is no purity in the parts. It wasn't' just individual man that had to be cleansed, but that which was essentially human! To do that, He must be a pure human in every sense of the word.
  
  Furthermore, The wages of sin is death, therefore the only cure to sin is death. Therefore, in order for a sacrifice to be viable, it must be able to die. God cant die! A man can!
  
  Therefore, Christ had to be fully man in order to truly die!Analogy: There was a great warrior who we shall call Josh. He had an apprentice, who we shall call Luke. Josh was greater than Luke in all ways, and out of jealousy, Luke rebelled, and was banished. Now there was also a town called Heere, that never allowed anyone to enter unless they are a citizen of Heere. Luke tricked a guard named Adam, who he subsequently killed, and then started running around Heere killing everyone he could. Now, only Josh had the skill to defeat Luke, but not being a citizen of Heere, could not enter the town. Therefore, he had to become a citizen first, and then he could enter, and defeat Luke.
  
  The point, only God had the ability to defeat sin and death, but only a human could gain access to it, for God cannot stand the presence of sin, and only a human can die.
  
  
• The Deity of the Holy Spirit: This is similar to the reason stated above. If the Holy Spirit is not God, than it is not God who meets with us when we worship, then it is not God who guides us in our actions, and it is not God who displayed the powers of God through the disciples. This, then, means that we are guided by a lesser being. The effect of believing this is simply that God is unwilling or unable to deal with us directly, and needs gofer. If God is unwilling to deal with us directly, then what was the point of the Passion? If God is unable to deal with us, then what happened at the Passion? For the Passion eradicated sin, that we be in fellowship with Him. Therefore, the Passion shows that He is willing, and the Passion means that He is able.
  
  
• The differentiation within God: This is most easily seen when examining the term Patripassism. The prefix Patri means father, the root pass is the same root as the word passion. Though Monarchianism and Patripassism have the exact same meaning, Monarchianism refers to how it is good (there being one ruler, thus emphasizing Monotheism), while Patripassism refers to why it is bad (that the Father endured the Passion). For those of you who don’t know what I mean by the Passion need to look up recent Mel Gibson movies.
  
  The basic problem with this is soteriological (that which pertains to salvation), as all things that pertain to the Passion are. The Passion is a sacrifice, and all sacrifices are offered from one who is humble to one who is exalted, signifying humiliation before the exalted one. Therefore, there are three elements to all sacrifices: a giver, a sacrifice, a receiver. In the Passion, humanity was the giver, Christ was the sacrifice, and the Father was the receiver. This is not to say that Christ and the Father are different Gods, but to say that Christ is the part of God that was offered up, and the Father was the part of God that received it. To unify all three, though the giver can remain separate, you combine the sacrifice and the receiver. Thus the sacrifice receives the sacrifice. This does not make any sense. The sacrifice receiving the sacrifice is like paying yourself, nothing really happens. Thus to say that the Father endured the Passion, is to say that the Father was offered to the Father, meaning that debt was not paid, thereby saying that the Passion is void, and we remain in our sin.