Youre right, theyre all good but not perfect because only God IS perfect. Yet God lovingly chose to create and eventually redeem us anyway (both thoroughly Trinitarian acts), at great cost to Himself. What portion is erroneous? Another wrong illustration is using ourselves: I am one person, but also a wife, mother, and writer. He is one God in three persons, all at the same time. in that while water can change into vapour or ice, Jesus cannot change into the Father or the Holy Spirit. I did read about the shamrock analogy! Thought of Tim Its amazing to think that everything will be so clear when we het to Heaven! Does that make sense? Also, the egg is made up of three distinct and unalike parts. The visual form of God seperated from Jesus on the cross. An analogy illustrates that in a similar way, one shamrock can have three leaves on it, and the trinity has three persons that comprise one God. 2A) Dave is a father of four children: three boys and a . Modalism teaches that the trinity is not three distinct persons, but just different modes that God reveals himself to human beings. How do we make sense of the Trinity? Water is water, but exists in three different forms: liquid, frozen, or steam. The Trinity is established by 3 Biblical truths, . What portion of the analogy holds true with Church Teaching? A man might be a father to his children, a husband to his wife, and son to his parents. The Father, Son, and Holy Spirit are each called Jehovah (or Spirit of Jehovah), given divine attributes, and are distinguished from one another. Water has three states: solid, liquid, and gas. Holy Trinity, the downtown Greek Orthodox church that was partially destroyed by fire 11 years ago, was a special place for 57-year-old Georgiou. An essential factor lacking from those concepts is the relational quality of God. The analogy breaks down because the three cloves are overly distinct and cannot represent the unity of God. And whos the Holy Spirit? Therefore the eternal brightness shines forth before Him, and co-exists with Him, in that, existing without a beginning, and always begotten, He always shines before Him; and He is that Wisdom which says, I was that wherein He delighted, and I was daily His delight before His face at all times.. May the grace of the Lord Jesus Christ, and the love of God, and the fellowship of the Holy Spirit be with you all (2 Corinthians 13:14). The Unseen Father is in Christs mind. The Egg and I - Part Two Each one is fully 100% God. But understanding the Trinity is important. Ontological means the nature or essence of something. The Holy Spirit is the shell, Jesus is the egg white, and the Father is the egg yolk. God controls that light. Love your blogs! God is kind of like a man who is a father, a son and an uncle God is kind of like a three-leaf clover, or a triangle; one object, but three different, identifiable leaves, or sides* Now, as youve probably guessed, this analogy also breaks down. The problem with this analogy is that an egg yoke is of a very different substance than a shell. The Father sends the Son, and both the Father and Son send the Holy Spirit. Did I leave out any analogies? God is Great, I always try to figure out how to explain it to my Sunday school kids and they get confused which i get, how would you explain it to them? The Father hears their intercessory prayers. The word God in this sense is defined as a single being, having all divine attributes. Not just for explaining it to others, but to bolster our own faith and see how each One works in our lives. 3. However, Christians through the ages believe in the Trinity because the truths it represents are taught in the Bible. [4] The goal of an analogy is to draw out similarities between it and its referent in illuminating ways, not to define the referent itself. Memory, Understanding, and Will. At that moment heaven was opened, and he saw the Spirit of God descending like a dove and lighting on Him. Haydn Lea is an Ordained Minister, and is currently serving as an Air Force Chaplain in Adelaide. History, lifestyle, family, music, theology, scripture, literature, the saints, church history, parenting, politics, prayer, the pope, and more. 1. To help you out, here is a comical and silly video that teaches about these bad analogies. Take a moment and give it a try. RELATED: What Does The Bible Say About Ghosts? Tritheism denies that there is only one God. Though I find the video to be hilarious and often . But remember, it is much better to let Scripture teach the 3 points above which establish the doctrine of the Trinity than to rely on analogies. Somewhere in the recesses of my mind lived the doctrinal truth about the Trinity. THE DISTINCTION AND UNITY of the Trinity is not for us to fully understand because it is a supernatural mystery. Similarly, light and heat are simply creations of the sun, yet it is the heresy of Arianism to claim that the Son or Spirit are mere creations of the Father. The Holy Spirit descended upon Him to equip Him for His ministry. I write to see memory and language wrestle with reality. Son and Holy Ghost are each fully God. Some people think that H2O cannot exist in all three states simultaneously but that is not true. His ways are not my ways! But God is the eternal Light, which has neither had a beginning, nor shall ever fail. If we separate them we still may have God the Egg yolk, God the Holy Spirit Egg white and God the Son, the Egg shell/image, three individual parts of an Egg, but they cannot be a Trinity, or tri-unity unless they are unified and are seen as one Egg, so to speak. This is a bad analogy because it fails at the truth that all three persons comprise the fullness of God. It is still H20, but just different forms. It does not represent 3 persons existing simultaneously. So comparing God to water isnt really as helpful as it seems on the surface. Well the issue is, the water analogy is akin to the heresy of Modalism. I and My Father are One (John 10:30). The military would end up destroying themselves. This is the error of Arianism (not to be confused with Aryanism, which is also bad). Unfortunately, there is a problem with this view of the Trinity. He taught that the son was at one point created by God the father. If the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit are three separate beings, then its not really clear how someone can say that God is one or that only one God exists. I do not have the time or space to exhaustively demonstrate in scripture these truths, but the Biblical witness teaches these three truths consistently about God. Our limited intellects are unable to comprehend its reality, yet, our Scriptures and scholarly Tradition makes it known to us. And if I go and prepare a place for you, I will come again, and receive you unto Myself; that where I am, there you may be also (John14:2, 3). But thats not how they understood it. Humans as we are, we cannot fully understand how the three divine Persons, though really distinct from one another, are one and the same God. The idea that the Trinity can be compared to a shamrock is largely attributed to St. Patrick. So whats one good way to explain what the Trinity is? Armstrong. Jesus Person is the image of Gods Person (Hebrews 1:3), and the Invisible Spirit of the Father that is in Him - God was in Christ reconciling the world to Himself (II Corinthians 5:19). Only the Son became incarnate, took on flesh. She would explode!" So if all of these explanations are heretical, what is a good analogy? Infinite thy vast domain, everlasting is thy reign.. While an egg has a yolk, a white and a shell to make up the whole, each part is only ever . Water can be frozen and is called ice. Good and Bad Analogies of the Trinity - Answers . Its downright hard to understand. The doctrine of the Trinity is one of the primary tenants of the Christian faith. The Trinity is not real in my life because of superior knowledge or insight. But we cannot do that (assuming we can) with God. In humans, our spirits are designed to operate with and be united to the soul which is the person of anyone and so it is with our Egg. This is because the H20 is changing forms in representing each person. The water analogy of the Trinity follows this line of reasoning: water can be a solid (ice/frozen water), liquid, and gas (water vapor), and yet all three forms are still water (H 2 O), and likewise, God manifests Himself in 3 different ways in the Father, the Son and the Holy Spirit. A good example would be an electrical cord. One popular and simple illustration of the Trinity is the egg. The Son "proceeds" from the Father, and the Holy Spirit "proceeds from the Father and the Son.". RELATED: What Did Jesus Really Look Like? It does not imply Jesus was created if you emphasize that the Sun existed from eternity past. For instance, we know that God is perfectly loving. It is a miraculous invention, the egg. Before I even began writing this post, I had an unusual song stuck in my head Holy God, we praise thy name. They are three in one egg. One of the more traditional analogies is to the states of water. But you cannot be broken when your faith is in Jesus, for the Spirit of the Son that lives in us and gives us the voice through which we cry Abba, Father, (Galatians 4:6,) this Spirit of the Father that dwells within you is there to strengthen, protect and guard your person. Many of us would use analogies to explain the Trinity. Similarly, people have used the example of the apple in the same way- skin, flesh, and seeds. The watermelon has a skin, pulp and seeds; the egg is shell, yolk and egg white. It became real to me because I have experienced His love, grace, guidance, redemption, conviction of sin, and fellowship that comes from Father, Son and Holy Spirit. For through him we both have access in one Spirit to the Father., 22 In him you also are being built together into a dwelling place for God by the Spirit. And if I go and prepare a place for you, I will come again, and receive you unto Myself; that where I am, there you may be also (John14:2, 3). You can throw away one part of an egg (e.g., shell) and still have essentially an egg. I can only shake my head when He does these things! The Trinity is one of the most foundational doctrines of Christianity. The military would like to have that power. The three distinct notes come together to make one beautiful sound. How can we explain what it means to have three persons in one being? As a result, this analogy actually teaches modalism. And the reason we know that is because the Persons of the Godhead have perfectly loved each other for all eternity. This was first used by Patrick of Ireland (yes there really was a Patrick of Ireland and he was a great guy), around 400 A.D. 2. The Son was begotten by the Father IN ETERNITY, and the Holy Spirit proceeds from the Father and the Son. It only has 1 person acting in three different roles. My interview: https://www.readlotswritelot.com/wp/podcast/episode-21-john-k-adams/, More from Catholicism for the Modern World, https://www.readlotswritelot.com/wp/podcast/episode-21-john-k-adams/. The trinity is a like a Three-Leaf Clover. If water is inadequate, there are a wide array of alternative analogies we can turn to in modern theological parlance. True, we humans are image bearers but nothing in creation serves as an analogy for the Trinity because the Trinity is a doctrine of special (biblical) revelation not nature or reason. But the Trinity is our belief as Christians that God is one being who exists in three Persons- Father, Son, and Holy Spirit.. The trinity is like water. Water at room temperature is liquid. . God does not morph from one person to another, nor does God exist as three separate beings. TO AVOID HERESIES, LET US LIVE BY WHAT HAS BEEN REVEALED TO US: 1. 1B) This son of Graham and Lois Armstrong is Dave. So, part of understanding the Trinity is realizing that God is personal and relational. Wow! Three persons is false. In Biblical Trinitarianism we can never have one without the other because they are one Spirit; each is the totality of the other which means we cannot have the Holy Spirit without the Father and the Son, We will come (into the believer through the Holy Spirit, John 14:23), and we cannot have the Son without The Father whose Holy Spirit is the Spirit of the Father (Matthew 10:20). We worship one God who exists in three persons. Modalism teaches that one God just changes forms or modes over the course of scripture. So God performs 3 different roles/relationships but 1 God. What makes it hard is that all of our analogies and metaphors fall short of capturing what the Trinity actually is. There's a simple reason they don't work: The Trinity, as such, isn't like anything in creation. RELATED: The Biblical Principle Of Baptism By Fire. His motto was that "There was a time when the son did not exist". The past is not the present and the present is not the future, yet all three together is what we call time. But they are one God. What does that really mean? The beautiful depth of Gods eternal Triune nature is a sublime reality which should bring an end to our attempts to cognitively master Him. Analogies of the Trinity. When we speak of someone as being a "person", we often mean an individual who is separate from other people, or we simply mean a human being. It is still important that we have some understanding of the concept, however. My prayer is to infuse God's character into your everyday lives with short ( 4-5") devotions and Bible Studies every Monday morning. When we view the egg in its entirety we have the Biblical Trinity, One that is Three. There are two basic ways that people misunderstand the Trinity: 1. Modalism, or Sabellianism, denies the three distinct Persons of the Trinity and claims that God is one Person who appears in different modes at different timesin the Old Testament He appeared as the Father, in the Gospels He appeared as the Son, and from Pentecost onwards He appears as the Holy Spirit. In other words, one stuffness. However, He exists in three Persons: the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit. On a whim, I looked up the lyrics at a later time. In one egg you have the white, the yoke, and the shell composing one full egg. Time exists as 3 things: past, present, and future. Discover the richness of the old yet living 2,000-year-old religion which built the West. Matthew 3:16-17- As soon as Jesus was baptized, He went up out of the water. The Father, Son, and Holy Spirit also exist eternally and concurrently. The Spirit white is connected to Jesus Person I will come to you (John 14:18) and the Fathers Person, We will come to him and make our abode with him (John 14:23). This is not an exhaustive list: For further reading on the Trinity, I would recommend James Whites The Forgotten Trinity, Wayne Grudems Systematic Theology and online articles by CARM.org. But while this idea is central to the Christian faith, it is also incredibly mysterious to us. H2O can exist as a solid, a liquid and a gas but they are all still H2O. Further, his dialectic is guided by the particular consideration of what true love is: a trinity of lover, beloved and the love that binds . In the second instance, the truth of Gods Trinity reveals a further aspect of Gods love for His people. Others compare God to an egg, which is part shell, part white, part yolk. The Gospel is theperson, work, and message of Jesus Christ that provides salvation to all repentant believers. Jesus is the visual form of God. The Cathedral of the Holy Trinity, constructed between 1800 and 1804, is the first Anglican cathedral to have been built outside the British Isles. A chicken egg consists of a shell, a yolk, and an egg white, yet it is altogether one egg. And let us once more come to illustrations. Space Analogy God is like space. One day, however, the image will be clear. Hi Im not a theologian and I dont disagree with what you say but when you state that we know the persons of the Trinity have perfectly loved for eternity etc how do we know? A, distinguishes himself from others by saying me, mine, you, yours, etc. A. is the whole nature or essence of something. When we separate them we can fall into the error of tritheism, which is the worship of three individual deities as one. And then theres Jesus, Gods son. The egg shell is the image of the yolk and the white. Unfortunately, Arianism is still around and can found within the Jehovah's Witnesses teachings. So "son" = "Dave". We can admit it is a mystery and accept that our incomplete knowledge cannot fully comprehend it. THE TRUTH IS: The Father, Son, and 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. (CCC 254), 3. There are some analogies that come close. The sun comprises the sun itself, its light and its heat. The Bible teaches three truths: 1 - there is one God. Paul leaves the Corinthians with this blessing in 2 Corinthians 13:14- May the grace of the Lord Jesus Christ, and the love of God, and the fellowship of the Holy Spirit be with you all.. The problem with this analogy is that no one molecule of H2O can actually exist as solid, liquid, and gas at the same time. Genisis 1:17, KJV. Trinity Egg Analogy . When we see them as three individual spirits, (God is one Spirit John 4:24), then that is the blasphemy of polytheism which is the worship of more than one God. THE TRUTH IS: The Father, Son, and Holy Spirit are not three different parts or components of God, but the . An explanation that is so common, and seemingly does elucidate how something can simultaneously be three and onecan it really be that bad? There would be three thrones. Perhaps we must be content to admit that we cannot fully understand Gods nature in our finitude. Unfortunately, no analogy is perfect. It taught there is one nature in God, and that there are two processions, three persons, and four relations that constitute the Blessed Trinity. There are, however, some that work better than others. We also know that God didnt create humanity out of loneliness or boredom. Just as water changes forms so too is the trinity. At the Cathedral, we recognize that there are responsibilities that come with . I go to prepare a place for you. 1 Corinthians 8:6: Yet for us there is but one God.. Therefore, we would rightly say, within the Ontological Trinity, there is no variation or distinction made. According to modalism, God does not actually exist in three persons. The God of the Bible is one God. The egg white represents Gods Spirit. I and My Father are One (John 10:30). Analogies that we present would always be insufficient as none of them would equate to the incomprehensible beauty of God. And in our efforts to grasp it, weve come up with a number of analogies. He wondered how it was possible that the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit could be inseparable, while, in . I bet I havent sung or heard this song in years! So, the egg analogy doesnt work after all. While it captures the idea that God is one, it doesnt do such a good job of showing how God is three and one at the same time. This analogy actually teaches the heresy of tritheism. Each one is fully 100% God. You can throw away one part of an egg (e.g., shell) and still have essentially an egg. God is not made up of 3 parts like the 3 parts of the egg. Through the brokenness of the Shell, His Son, the Spirit white pours out into our beings through our faith in what was done and believers are joined with the yolk, for it is by One Spirit we have access to God the Father (Ephesians 2:18). The Holy Spirit is the shell, Jesus is the egg white, and the Father is the egg yolk. This is a worse analogy than the egg because it is more analogous to the heretical doctrine of Modalism/Oneness than for the Trinity. God is like H2Olike water. Yet, as we view the pages of the Bible, we see that God is a personal and relational God. When we view the egg in its entirety we have the Biblical Trinity, One that is Three.