The Pope goes full retard

[Hawkmoon]

There's a huge difference between "this is mysterious" and "this is a triangle with four angles"

But God is limitless, and not confined by the three spatial and one temporal dimension we can perceive. Who are we to say that God can't have a geometric object that has three angles in the dimensions we can perceive and a fourth angle in a dimension we can't perceive?

[Perd Hapley]

It does matter if you cannot describe it in terms that are without contradiction.

There's a huge difference between "this is mysterious" and "this is a triangle with four angles"

If you would so lower yourself as to read up on the concept of the Trinity, even by reading the links I posted, you could set yourself straight on your imagined contradictions. The fact that some guy named Ron, on the internet, may have said one or two things that contradict is a very flimsy excuse for you to claim that the Trinity, or the incarnation, are contradictions. That would be like dismissing evolution, because my science teacher made a few mistakes in the presentation. As if it were his idea, and I couldn't get a clearer understanding from other sources.

In brief, the Bible does not teach three gods, but only one god. Nor does it teach that God is three persons, but only one person. It teaches one God, consisting of three equal, co-eternal Persons. To call that a contradiction assumes a whole lot more about divine ontology than we can claim to know. It's certainly not a logical contradiction. As for God being limitless, eternal, etc; but able also to limit one of Himself to human form (even as a zygote) - no contradiction, there, either.

[De Selby]

But God is limitless, and not confined by the three spatial and one temporal dimension we can perceive. Who are we to say that God can't have a geometric object that has three angles in the dimensions we can perceive and a fourth angle in a dimension we can't perceive?

You can't be serious.  What the hell is "an angle in a dimension we can't perceive?"

That's like saying the obvious contradiction might be so because maybe in some alternate universe everything is a contradiction yet still exists!

Fistful, you're defending it by ignoring the core doctrine.  The trinity teaches that God is 100 percent limitless, beyond all things (not mortal) God, and 100 percent flesh and blood human (mortal) at the same time.  That's a textbook contradiction.  The three "persons" in the trinity are all the whole God, indivisible yet distinct at the same time?  Mystery doesn't answer the problem - the contradiction isn't mysterious at all.  The real mystery is that so many people believe it without recognising just how obviously it is in the nature of the four angled triangle.

[KD5NRH]

This still dodges the two true mysteries:
 What the heck did snakes look like before the fall?
 And https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PybtBKSAtLM

[Perd Hapley]

The trinity teaches that God is 100 percent limitless, beyond all things (not mortal) God, and 100 percent flesh and blood human (mortal) at the same time.  That's a textbook contradiction.

Yeah, if you restate the doctrine to suit you, you can turn it into quite the dog's breakfast. Given that the doctrine describes a God with three persons, all three with different characteristics, I'm not sure why you choose to characterize that as "100 percent" anything.

It sounds more like you're struggling with the incarnation, and the classic formula of Christ - oh, sorry Hawkmoon - make that, THE Christ as "fully God and fully man." I guess that could be a contradiction, if you insist on it meaning what you insist that it means. Personally, I don't see why an all-powerful creator couldn't stuff himself into a human body, and go native. It seems that would be within his all-powerful powers.

[makattak]

What the heck did snakes look like before the fall?

Dragons.

[roo_ster]

Methinks Augustine of Hippo makes a better case than DS.

Heck, all one has to do is read Matt Ch3 to see all of them in one scene.  Or Matt ch28 to see the Trinity in the great commission. 

The concept may be a mite ticklesome, but the text is pointing to it repeatedly and fervently.

[De Selby]

Methinks Augustine of Hippo makes a better case than DS.

Heck, all one has to do is read Matt Ch3 to see all of them in one scene.  Or Matt ch28 to see the Trinity in the great commission. 

The concept may be a mite ticklesome, but the text is pointing to it repeatedly and fervently.

Yes, his chapter on the magical nature of the number three was particularly compelling. 

[Ron]

Methinks Augustine of Hippo makes a better case than DS.

Heck, all one has to do is read Matt Ch3 to see all of them in one scene.  Or Matt ch28 to see the Trinity in the great commission. 

The concept may be a mite ticklesome, but the text is pointing to it repeatedly and fervently.

The chapter I posted earlier (John 14) has Jesus conflating himself, the Father and the Spirit (the comforter) repeatedly.





 

[Hawkmoon]

You can't be serious.  What the hell is "an angle in a dimension we can't perceive?"

Of course I'm serious. That's what "limitless" is all about. How can you possibly constrain into our three geometric dimensions and one temporal dimension something (God) that not only exists both inside of and outside of those dimensions but existed before those dimensions were created -- by Him?

[lupinus]

Of course I'm serious. That's what "limitless" is all about. How can you possibly constrain into our three geometric dimensions and one temporal dimension something (God) that not only exists both inside of and outside of those dimensions but existed before those dimensions were created -- by Him?

Because because.

[grampster]

Here is a comment described in human terms about how the Trinity is not a contradiction at all.   This is (though a bit simplistic) how three can be one in the flesh.  So not contradictory it is for God to be One yet Three at the same time.

Take oneself as an example.  1.You are married with a kid, thus the person who is known as the husband/father/ family man and you relate to that and exhibit that function.   2. You have a job, thus known as the person who is the employee and worker. Your married/family state does not relate to the job side as that calls for another person's skills.  And 3. there is yourself, all by yourself,  with your private thoughts that no one knows.  Everybody is that someone that no one knows at all. 

So you have one meat critter walking around as three different people all wrapped up in Eddie Bauer glory.  Of course the One God is a rather more complicated notion, but I don't see any contradiction in Him at all.

[zxcvbob]

"There is a fifth dimension beyond that which is known to man. It is a dimension as vast as space and as timeless as infinity..."   

[Perd Hapley]

I feel we've been unfair to DS, and other skeptics. We really should invite them to present their alternate interpretation of the Old and New Testaments, that somehow avoids the Trinity.