Difficult Christian concepts

I feel that in Christianity, and certainly in some other religions, there are certain aspects which are difficult to understand, and I started this therad in hope that I can state what I don't get, and others can too.

For example, I find it difficult to believe in the Christian Trinity, because I haven't seen any solid proof of it in the bible. It also doesn't make sense to me literally or metaphorically.
I don't understand the issue of original sin either - Why should humans take the responsibily/label of something they didn't do, and then accept salvation through the blood of someone who didn't do anything wrong either.
I just don't get it.

I personaly believe this was a scam created by the church to convert witches into Christianity. Mostly Catholics use The Holy Trinity, and they're the most obviously related to Wicca.

Mother, Maiden, Crone.
Father, Son, Holy Spirit.

It's suppose to mean the cycles of life. Also I think numerology mixes in.

Personaly through premanitions I have mixed it as

The Mother
The Son
And The Holy Spirit

Which sounds much more plausible to both witches and Christians seeing as witches believe in a god, and Christians (Well Catholics anyway..) hold alot of sincerity towards The Virgin Mary..

The Mother came first, she created The Son.
The Son though second, was always one with The Mother, he became his own being and liberated many. Proving to be more powerful then The Mother, but nothing without her.
Both are dictated by The Holy Spirit. The Living Force. That resides in us all.

It sounds a bit confusing, but I'm looking at this from a 4+ dimensional perspective..

The reason for Father/Son or Mother/Maiden is purely social sexism I believe. In the older days women were it, then untill recently, men were the big cheese. There is a constant battle over the supramacy of femmenine and masculine quantities, ying/yang. However, The Son realized he was nothing without The Mother, and The Mother realized she needed The Son to see any sortof change, so what the hell is our problem?

Magister? This thread is talking about Christian concepts and what they mean, not where you think they came from. plus, I have a hard time understanding what on earth you're talking about.

lanifel, it depends on what you mean by the Christian Trinity. If you mean the Catholic version, then it is God manifesting Himself as three separate beings - God the Father, God the Son, and God the Holy Spirit (apologies to any Catholics if I am wrong, and please correct me if that is the case). If you mean the other version, it's very similar (ie, Father, Son, Holy Spirit), but they are separate, individual beings rather than three parts of one omnipotent whole.

As for original sin, well...I don't understand it either. But someone on here probably does (that's your cue, Bobslob).

Lets on start with easy stuff but jump right into the big questions about Christianity, I’ll do my best and get people to help me with this. First the holy Trinity, it is he Father, Son, and Holy Spirit in one. The Father is God, Son is Jesus and Holy Spirit is Jesus after the resurrection. They are all the same thing just not really…..this is where it gets confusing and most Christians have trouble understanding it. Many people say that it is the mystery of the trinity but this is not so. A "mystery" is not something we can know nothing about; it is something which we know but can never entirely comprehend. Thus everything having to do with our Infinite Creator is a mystery, for the depths of God are ultimately incomprehensible. Yet we do know something about God, for God has revealed Himself to us. And one thing God has revealed is that there are Three Persons in the Godhead. The best way to say this w/o making a contradiction would be that there are Three Persons in one God, meaning that the Three Persons share one and the same Divine Nature. Are you confused yet because I’m starting to confuse myself, but first I need to explain Person and Nature to you. The words person and nature describe two different things. Person denotes who someone is, while nature denotes what one is. So if we ask "Who is God?", the answer is "God is Three Persons: Father, Son and Holy Spirit". If we ask "What is God?" the answer is "God is One - a Single Divine Nature". If we put these two truths together we find that God is Three Divine Persons who share one Divine Nature. (having a dictionary on your computer is really helpful!) I might have contradicted myself some where and if I did sorry, tried not to but with this issue one must choose their words carefully. But this should help clear things up a little bit.
Now I’m going to get a little anger towards your next statement about having “trouble believing in the trinity because there is no solid proof of it in the bible.” Of course there is no solid proof, the trinity is a concept not a tangible item like the triforce (though it was a good example). But if you understood what I said above Jesus had the same mind as God and the Holy Spirit, and Jesus was solid. People saw the Holy Spirit, and since it was a spirit one could not touch if, even thought Jesus told Mary no to touch him after the resurrection. God himself is not tangible but everything he made is (to an extent) but going by your logic you mush have trouble believing in God since he was never solid. Ah it’s all so maddening but do you get it?
I will get to the other two subjects later, right now I gtget to class, hope this did help some and if not tell me why and I will see what I can do.

Well firstly, we are told in the bible, in 1 Corinthians to 'Prove all things, hold fast that which is good',which means we must not take things for granted, but prove what we believe.

You said that they are

Three Persons share one and the same Divine Nature

, yet Jesus never once claimed to be man and God. In the contrary, he said 'But in vain do they worship me, teaching in doctrines the commandments of men'. If they have the same divine nature, surely that would mean they are equal in power, but that is not so. Jesus said:

'I can of my own self do nothing'
'My father is greater than I'
''My father is greater than all'
''But of that day (day of judgement) and that hour knew it no man, no, not the angels which are in Heaven, neither the Son, but the Father'.

You also said that there is not solid proof of the Trinity; why then should we belive in it? Where, if at all, did you get that information from? Surely it must have come from somewhere? Yet nowhere in the Bible does Jesus claim to be God.

Ok, on the part of Original Sin, original Sin was brought together when Adam and Eve took a bite of the fruit from the tree in the middle of the Garden of Eden(which they were instructed by God NOT to do). They sinned against God, and made the human race imperfect, therefore all born after that, have original sin from the sin that Adam and Eve commited. Hope that made sense.

^ I knew what it meant, I just don't understand how we can be responsible; if my grandfather did somethiing, I shouldn't be constantly punished for it. Surely the fact that they were thrown out of heaven is enough punishement. Is then a new-born child imperfect, before they even set eyes on the world? If a baby died, say without getting baptized, would they then go to hell?

^Well technically, I would assume yes. But Trust me, the Catholic church has lightened up since Vatican II. Not sure if that was adressed but, I doubt in my own mind that a baby would be sent to hell if not baptized.

youd think so aye. but i remmember someone saying that the ignorant still get into heaven. if they have never heard of god and christianity then its not their fault. but i find this to be a rather convenient way to worm your way out of the question though (aimed at Christians that use that line)

Originally Posted by Magister

I personaly believe this was a scam created by the church to convert witches into Christianity. Mostly Catholics use The Holy Trinity, and they're the most obviously related to Wicca.

Or perhaps, it is possibly you holding the absurd, ahistorical position.

In the first place, the idea that the Trinity is related to Wicaa is simply abusrd. Wicca is a modern invention (it may have roots in paganism, but it is modern), the concept of the Trinity has existed for nearly two thousand years.

Which sounds much more plausible to both witches and Christians seeing as witches believe in a god, and Christians (Well Catholics anyway..) hold alot of sincerity towards The Virgin Mary..

What? Has Pope Benedict XVI amended the Trinity to the Quadrinity without telling me?! I thought we only revealed that to the initiated...

I'll attempt to make a short Biblical exposition of the Trinity.

Jesus advises the Apostles after his resurrection: Matthew 28:19

"Go therefore and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit."

Also see 2 Cor. 13:14, Heb. 9:14 for more of the parallelism between the Father, the Son, the Holy Spirit.

Now, starting with the Augustinian tradition that the New Testament is revealed in the Old Testament, we can go right back to creation.

Start with creation (where else?).

Genesis 1 has a creation with three Divine actors

1 1 In the beginning, when God created the heavens and the earth,

So, verse one has God creating the earth.
Verse 2 has "the Spirit of God," rushing over the water. (Some translations have a poor rendering 'a mighty wind,' but following the Vulgate's "spiritus Dei" and the Septuagint's "pneuma Theos," the Spirit of God is most accurate.) And the text also God's Word that he speaks. (Note that Gen 1:26 seems to speak in the plural, "Let us create man in our image, after our likeness.")

Of course, that's just a peak at it. There are numerous times in Scripture where we see God's Spirit-- whether in the great glory cloud upon the Ark, descending over the waters in Genesis, or overshadowing Mary.

And of course, God's son. Notice how I mentioned God's Word in Genesis-- well, that connects rather nicely to John 1

1 In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God.

This delineates it pretty nicely. After all, John later explicitly tells us who "the Word," is: "And the Word became flesh and made his dwelling among us. (John 1:14).

In the beginning was the Word.

God is uncreated. Only God is eternal.

and the Word was with God

How can God be with God-- wait, we've got an explanation-- Jesus is one of the persons of the one divine being.

and the Word was God

In case you didn't get the point-- Jesus is God.

Another point in the Gospel where we see all three Divine persons interacting Matthew 16-17:

16 After Jesus was baptized, he came up from the water and behold, the heavens were opened (for him), and he saw the Spirit of God descending like a dove (and) coming upon him.
17And a voice came from the heavens, saying, "This is my beloved Son, 13 with whom I am well pleased."

Jesus is being baptized-- the Holy Spirit alights on Him-- God the Father sends His voice from the Heavens.

The question is, how to reconcile the fact that God the Father is God, Jesus is God, and the Holy Spirit is God, and their peculiar relationship.

The answer lies in Israel's monotheism.
John 17:3

3 Now this is eternal life, that they should know you, the only true God

"‘You are my witnesses,’ says the Lord, ‘and my servant whom I have chosen, that you may know and believe me and understand that I am he. Before me no god was formed, nor shall there be any after me’" (Is. 43:10).

How to reconcile the two? As orthodox Christians always have-- with the Trinity.

The only Son begotten of the Father-- a familiar quote? There's a reason Christians encased it in the Nicene creed in 325AD (although certainly believed it before that).

Some people falsely get caught up in Jesus' quote John 14:28 "the Father is greater than I," but the earliest creeds of Christianity explain it quite easily.

The Son is begotten. To beget is to become the father of, quite simply. The Father begets the Son. But since the Father is God, the Father begets God (you beget something of your own type). This isn't to say 'created,' you create something lesser-- a man begets a child but creates a sculpture. In the sense that the Son is begotten by the Father, He indeed is "lesser." (Likewise with the Holy Spirit, which proceeds from the Father, and the Son-- Jn 14: 16-17, 26) The lesser and greater refers to the relationship between Father and Son, not to their Divine essence, which is one and the same.

The real question is why Christians today would not want to believe in the Faith of their Fathers. You know-- the early Christians.

Justin Martyr:

"We will prove that we worship him reasonably; for we have learned that he is the Son of the true God himself, that he holds a second place, and the Spirit of prophecy a third. For this they accuse us of madness, saying that we attribute to a crucified man a place second to the unchangeable and eternal God, the Creator of all things; but they are ignorant of the mystery which lies therein" (First Apology 13:5–6 [A.D. 151]).

Theophilus of Antioch:

"It is the attribute of God, of the most high and almighty and of the living God, not only to be everywhere, but also to see and hear all; for he can in no way be contained in a place. . . . The three days before the luminaries were created are types of the Trinity: God, his Word, and his Wisdom" (To Autolycus 2:15 [A.D. 181]).

Tertullian:

"We do indeed believe that there is only one God, but we believe that under this dispensation, or, as we say, oikonomia, there is also a Son of this one only God, his Word, who proceeded from him and through whom all things were made and without whom nothing was made. . . . We believe he was sent down by the Father, in accord with his own promise, the Holy Spirit, the Paraclete, the sanctifier of the faith of those who believe in the Father and the Son, and in the Holy Spirit. . . . This rule of faith has been present since the beginning of the gospel, before even the earlier heretics" (Against Praxeas 2 [A.D. 216]).

"And at the same time the mystery of the oikonomia is safeguarded, for the unity is distributed in a Trinity. Placed in order, the three are the Father, Son, and Spirit. They are three, however, not in condition, but in degree; not in being, but in form; not in power, but in kind; of one being, however, and one condition and one power, because he is one God of whom degrees and forms and kinds are taken into account in the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit" (ibid.).

"Keep always in mind the rule of faith which I profess and by which I bear witness that the Father and the Son and the Spirit are inseparable from each other, and then you will understand what is meant by it. Observe now that I say the Father is other [distinct], the Son is other, and the Spirit is other. This statement is wrongly understood by every uneducated or perversely disposed individual, as if it meant diversity and implied by that diversity a separation of Father, Son, and Holy Spirit" (ibid., 9).

"Thus the connection of the Father in the Son, and of the Son in the Paraclete, produces three coherent persons, who are yet distinct one from another. These three are, one essence, not one person, as it is said, ‘I and my Father are one’ [John 10:30], in respect of unity of being not singularity of number" (ibid., 25).

Origen:

"For we do not hold that which the heretics imagine: that some part of the being of God was converted into the Son, or that the Son was procreated by the Father from non-existent substances, that is, from a being outside himself, so that there was a time when he [the Son] did not exist" (The Fundamental Doctrines 4:4:1 [A.D. 225]).

"No, rejecting every suggestion of corporeality, we hold that the Word and the Wisdom was begotten out of the invisible and incorporeal God, without anything corporal being acted upon . . . the expression which we employ, however that there was never a time when he did not exist is to be taken with a certain allowance. For these very words ‘when’ and ‘never’ are terms of temporal significance, while whatever is said of the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit, is to be understood as transcending all time, all ages" (ibid.).

"For it is the Trinity alone which exceeds every sense in which not only temporal but even eternal may be understood. It is all other things, indeed, which are outside the Trinity, which are to be measured by time and ages" (ibid.).

Augustine:

"All the Catholic interpreters of the divine books of the Old and New Testaments whom I have been able to read, who wrote before me about the Trinity, which is God, intended to teach in accord with the Scriptures that the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit are of one and the same substance constituting a divine unity with an inseparable equality; and therefore there are not three gods but one God, although the Father begot the Son, and therefore he who is the Son is not the Father; and the Holy Spirit is neither the Father nor the Son but only the Spirit of the Father and of the Son, himself, too, coequal to the Father and to the Son and belonging to the unity of the Trinity" (The Trinity 1:4:7 [A.D. 408]).

There's more where that came from.

lanifel, it depends on what you mean by the Christian Trinity. If you mean the Catholic version, then it is God manifesting Himself as three separate beings - God the Father, God the Son, and God the Holy Spirit (apologies to any Catholics if I am wrong, and please correct me if that is the case). If you mean the other version, it's very similar (ie, Father, Son, Holy Spirit), but they are separate, individual beings rather than three parts of one omnipotent whole.

The Catholic belief, as it has always been, is Three Persons in One Divine Being. Yes, they really are three distinct persons, and yes, they really share One Divine Being.

The idea of three persons in one being seems to trip many people up. But it's not that hard to grasp. Take any typical object-- say a rock. A rock is a being (or, if you prefer "metaphysical reality,"), but it is not a person. 0 persons, 1 being. A human is a person and a being. 1 person, 1 being. But God is 3 persons, 1 being.

Lets on start with easy stuff but jump right into the big questions about Christianity, I’ll do my best and get people to help me with this. First the holy Trinity, it is he Father, Son, and Holy Spirit in one. The Father is God, Son is Jesus and Holy Spirit is Jesus after the resurrection.

The Holy Spirit is not Jesus.

They are all the same thing just not really…..this is where it gets confusing and most Christians have trouble understanding it.

They all are united in one divine essence, or being. They are, however, distinct persons. Don't fall into the heresy of "modalism," which really reduces the three persons into one person with different "offices."

,yet Jesus never once claimed to be man and God. In the contrary, he said 'But in vain do they worship me, teaching in doctrines the commandments of men'. If they have the same divine nature, surely that would mean they are equal in power, but that is not so. Jesus said:

In John 8:58 Jesus notes "Truly, truly, I say to you, before Abraham was, I Am"-- using God's own name "I Am" (Ex. 3:14). And yes, his audience clearly understood him-- "So they took up stones to throw at him; but Jesus hid himself, and went out of the temple" (John 8:59). After all, he equated himself to God. That's blasphemy.

That's besides the obvious of John 1 "the Word was God."

What about Jesus's healing of the paralytic and forgiveness of his sins?

In John 20:28, Thomas falls at Jesus’ feet, exclaiming, "My Lord and my God!"

In Philippians 2:6, Paul tells us that Christ Jesus "[w]ho, being in very nature God, did not consider equality with God something to be grasped." So, they do have the same divine nature-- your assertion to the contrary doesn't lessen it.

Note God in the OT using:

"Thus says Yahweh, the King of Israel and his Redeemer, Yahweh of armies: ‘I am the First and I am the Last; besides me there is no god’" (Is. 44:6; cf. 41:4, 48:12).

And Christ in the NT using:

"When I saw him [Christ], I fell at his feet as though dead. But he laid his right hand upon me, saying, ‘Fear not, I am the First and the Last’" (Rev. 1:17)

"And to the angel of the church in Smyrna write: ‘The words of the First and the Last, who died and came to life’" (Rev. 2:8)

"Behold, I am coming soon, bringing my recompense, to repay every one for what he has done. I am the Alpha and the Omega, the First and the Last, the beginning and the end" (Rev. 22:12–13).

What about
Ezekiel 34: 11-12, 15, 19:

11 For thus saith the Lord God: Behold I myself will seek my sheep, and will visit them. 12 As the shepherd visiteth his flock in the day when he shall be in the midst of his sheep that were scattered, so will I visit my sheep, and will deliver them out of all the places where they have been scattered in the cloudy and dark day.

15 I will feed my sheep: and I will cause them to lie down, saith the Lord God.

19 And my sheep were fed with that which you had trodden with your feet: and they drank what your feet had troubled.

And
John 10: 15, 26-27:

15 As the Father knoweth me, and I know the Father: and I lay down my life for my sheep.

26 But you do not believe, because you are not of my sheep. 27 My sheep hear my voice. And I know them: and they follow me.

And then, see what Jesus commands to Peter in John 21: 14-19, "Feed my sheep."

According to your interpretation, these aren't Jesus' sheep because God says in Ezekiel "I will feed my sheep," and yet Jesus refers to "his sheep," in John.

The Catechism explains it succinctly:

The dogma of the Holy Trinity

253 The Trinity is One. We do not confess three Gods, but one God in three persons, the "consubstantial Trinity".83 The divine persons do not share the one divinity among themselves but each of them is God whole and entire: "The Father is that which the Son is, the Son that which the Father is, the Father and the Son that which the Holy Spirit is, i.e. by nature one God."84 In the words of the Fourth Lateran Council (1215), "Each of the persons is that supreme reality, viz., the divine substance, essence or nature."85

254 The divine persons are really distinct from one another. "God is one but not solitary."86 "Father", "Son", "Holy Spirit" are not simply names designating modalities of the divine being, for they are really distinct from one another: "He is not the Father who is the Son, nor is the Son he who is the Father, nor is the Holy Spirit he who is the Father or the Son."87 They are distinct from one another in their relations of origin: "It is the Father who generates, the Son who is begotten, and the Holy Spirit who proceeds."88 The divine Unity is Triune.

255 The divine persons are relative to one another. Because it does not divide the divine unity, the real distinction of the persons from one another resides solely in the relationships which relate them to one another: "In the relational names of the persons the Father is related to the Son, the Son to the Father, and the Holy Spirit to both. While they are called three persons in view of their relations, we believe in one nature or substance."89 Indeed "everything (in them) is one where there is no opposition of relationship."90 "Because of that unity the Father is wholly in the Son and wholly in the Holy Spirit; the Son is wholly in the Father and wholly in the Holy Spirit; the Holy Spirit is wholly in the Father and wholly in the Son."91

256 St. Gregory of Nazianzus, also called "the Theologian", entrusts this summary of Trinitarian faith to the catechumens of Constantinople:

(St. Gregory was writing that last bit during his life, which was from 329-389AD)

EDIT: Apparently I've been asked to explain original sin. Perhaps after I get some of my schoolwork done. (Perhaps this link might be helpful in the interim.)

Bobslob, I can't believe you're calling Jesus blasphemic.

Does the Bible distinguish between God the Father, Jesus Christ the Son, and the Holy Ghost as different persons? I don't see that that is possible. God has one mind, not three.

The extracts from Tertullian I found to be close to what kind of image the Bible gives of the Trinity. . .

Ok... Mrs Ganondorf. This is just a little hard to explain but bear with me. Yes there are God the Father, Jesus Christ the Son, and the Holy Ghost. But they are the same. (I'm just a little lost too) It's like a ham sandwich, theres bread, meat and mayo. They are all different but it's a sandwich. It is very hard to understand because god made us that way. He doesn't want us to understand all the hard concepts. (I wish bbd was here) If you were a god would you wan't all you creations to understand and know everything about you. You would wan't them to know enough so that they could get to heaven (in our case) If they knew all about you, you wouldn't seem so *tries to find the right word* godly. Somewhere in the bible (I can't remember wich book) it sez that once we go to heaven we will be able to understand such concepts as that.

Originally Posted by Mrs Ganondorf

Bobslob, I can't believe you're calling Jesus blasphemic.

It's blasphemy if Jesus is not God. The reason the Jews wanted to stone him was because they thought he was blasphemining in equating himself to God. People may not be convinced by the clear equation that Jesus makes with himself and God when he says, "Before Abraham was, I am." However, it is only all the more clear when you see it interpreted in the context of the Jews considering his statement as blasphemy.

Does the Bible distinguish between God the Father, Jesus Christ the Son, and the Holy Ghost as different persons? I don't see that that is possible. God has one mind, not three.

Mind is, perhaps, the wrong word. Mind invokes the idea that God has a brain-- he doesn't, really. God does have a Will. And God the Father, the Son and the Holy Spirit all have Divine Wills. Being as all three persons are Divine, they are in perfect harmony. (i.e., see Jesus praying in Gethsemane).

It becomes rather cumbersome not to say that there are three persons in the trinity. For whatever reason than that would one God pray to Himself? Or tell us that he is sending his Paraclete to guide us? If there are not distinct persons then how else could Jesus say "the Father is greater than I," while simultaneously holding "the Father and I are one?" The answer is, as always, that while the three persons do have a relationship to one another (the Trinity) they all share in the one Divine Nature, hence, one God. "God is one, but not solitary." "The Divine Unity is Triune."

The idea of a relationship might actually help you. One of God's innate attributes is Fatherhood. To be a Father means to have a Son. You can't be a father and not have a child. To say that God's Fatherhood is contingent on his created sons (i.e., on Earth) would be to say that God was not always Father. In order for God to be innately a Father he has to have had a Son from all eternity. Hence, Jesus Christ, the only Son of the Father, begotten not made. Were he made, he would not be eternal. Begotten, he becomes the Son of God, and yet is begotten, thus God. But since he is begotten, this is his relationship to the Father. The Holy Spirit can be explained as the love from the Father through the Son (but so amazingly real that it is a person). The Father begets, the Son is begotten, the Holy Spirit proceeds.

I must say, it is a difficult concept to understand. However, Mrs. Ganondorf, as you've expressed to me your interest in Orthodoxy, I must say-- no one can convert to Orthodoxy without professing belief in what Orthodoxy believes-- including the Trinity and the three persons therein. If it makes it any easier, this is the consistent interpretation of Scripture since the foundation of the Church. There's something to be said for an interpretation of the Bible that has existed consistently for nearly two millenia.