Richard Of Saint Victor's Explanation Of The Trinity

Bonhoeffer, Dietrick. The Cost of Discipleship, New York,NY 10022: The Macmillan Company, Published 1959. 344 pp. $1.95

The first topic that hit me in Michael Reeves book Delighting in the trinity was when he said, “the trinity is seen not as a solution and a delight, but as an oddity and a problem.”(8) Too many times people discuss the problems of the trinity, for instance the fact that Father, Son, and Holy Spirit are one but the same. I think too often people over think the trinity and cause this spur, the trinity should cause us to delight in Christ and we should consider the trinity a solution. Reeves is correct when pointing out Paul’s writing about the mystery and how God is mysterious. He continues to say that God is not like a “who cares” kind of mystery but that our God is a mystery that reveals itself. God is the kind of god that reveals himself to us. The trinity is our personal representation of a God that we can know and understand, one bit at a time. Throughout the book Reeves shows the audience exactly what the trinity is and how a Christian can use the trinity and worship to rejoice in the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit.

At the center of the Christian faith is a mystery. This mystery has everything to do with the identity of God, the nature of Christian community, the salvation history and our understanding of Christology. This is the mystery of the Trinity – how is the Godhead fully three persons, and yet one nature? Theophilus was the first to name the ‘triad’ nature of God in his letter To Autolycus in 170 A.D. Tertullian was the first to offer terminology to describe this mystery in Against Praxeas claiming “the Trinity” involved three ‘persons’ of one substance. This theology emerged from the Biblical witness, even though scripture offers no doctrine of the Trinity itself. Even more so, the development of the doctrine of the Trinity grew from the early church’s worship, witness and corporate experience. When faced with a mystery, heresies can’t help but emerge. Docetism and Arianism, Adoptionism and Monarchianism, Nestorianism and Monophysitism are just a few of the heresies that emerged in attempts to explain away the mystery. And yet, theologians from the second century to the twenty-first century are faced with the challenge of witnessing to this mystery in both the theologia and the oikonomia of the Trinity. The church experiences the economic Trinity as new believers are drawn into Trinitarian community through an ongoing

The word “trinity” is used to describe the relationship of the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. Though all three are used in scripture there is no description of the “trinity.” Throughout this paper the concept of the “trinity” will be examined. First, the paper will have a summary of relevant sections from three sources: the New Catholic Encyclopedia, the older Catholic Encyclopedia, and a peer-reviewed theological article from a contemporary journal. Two concise analyses will follow the summary. In the first analysis there will be a comparison between the older and newer Catholic encyclopedias to see how over time theological reflection has changed. In the second analysis there will be a comparison between the New Catholic Encyclopedia and a contemporary theological article to show the differences between the two theological perspectives.

Irenaeus on the Trinity: "The Church, though dispersed throughout the whole world, even to the ends of the earth, has received from the apostles and their disciples this faith: . . . one God, the Father Almighty, Maker of heaven, and earth, and the sea, and all things that are in them; and in one Christ Jesus, the Son of God, who became incarnate for our salvation; and in the Holy Spirit, who proclaimed through the prophets the dispensations of God, and the advents, and the birth from a virgin, and the passion, and the resurrection from the dead, and the ascension into heaven in the flesh of the beloved Christ Jesus, our Lord, and His manifestation from heaven in the glory of the Father ‘to gather all things in

The Trinity believes God is three persons that exist in one being – the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit. The scripture commonly used as a basis for this belief is John 1:1 “In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God and the Word was God” (Engelbrecht, 2009) If you ask a Christian to explain any biblical doctrine they can easily offer an explanation. However, if you ask them to explain the Trinity, they will cannot. This begs the question, “how is it you follow a doctrine which you cannot explain?”

The Holy Trinity is three person in one God. The 3 persons are: The Father, The Son, Jesus Christ; and The Holy Spirit.

To truly conceptualize the Trinity is very difficult. In our world, we have nothing to compare the Trinity to. There is nothing that is three

I will like to crave your indulgence to the fact that "Nicene concept of Trinity" is never stated in the Bible, and it is that early Christians as well as the scriptures clearly points out the fact that Jesus was fully divine and pre-existent. For the fact that, none of the early Christian theologians fully asserted the doctrine of the Trinity, not even a speculation about the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. According to the father of the paganism description of Trinity "God can in no way be described." (Schindler 148).

Throughout this semester I have learned many of the different christian doctrines. Many of them were challenged and also accepted in my weekend trip throughout Saint Louis. I think one of the most important topics that was discussed during my weekend was the consideration of the Trinity. In the Christian thought the word “trinity” is a term used to talk about the Christian doctrine that God exists as a unity of three distinct persons: Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. Three of the staple thoughts include; God is three person; each person is divine; there is only one God. In their relations to one another, they are stated to be on in all else, co-equal, co-eternal and consubstantial. With these three thoughts about the Trinity you also must remember that Christianity is a monotheistic religion.

It is important to note the defined goals of the Trinity. One being that God sent His Son, Jesus did not send God. Jesus tells us in John 6, that He came to do the will of His Father. Jesus was not doing His own selfish will but everything He did was for His Father. Jesus and God sent the Holy Spirit according to Jesus’ words in John 14:26, “But the Advocate, the Holy Spirit, whom the Father will send in my name, will teach you all things and will remind you of everything I have said to you”. It is necessary to recognize the distinctions of the roles of the Trinity as if the roles were not distinctive there would be no Trinity.

of God. Yet the doctrine of the Trinity is clearly intimated in a four-fold way.” (27). One of

In seeking to better understand an especially abstract concept, such as trinity, the use of analogies has understandably been common. Analogies are used to help us explain complex topics such as Trinity. Since the doctrine of the Trinity is often described and taught to be so complicated that no one can’t get a full grasp of it, we try to find a way to relay a clear understanding of the divine truth to not just new Christians, but to other people as well. A social analogy is able to emphasize the real, subsistent existence of each divine person, and bring out the understanding of the trinity a relationship of love. The strength of is that it shows how three things can share the same being or substance: memory, intellect, and will are distinct, but they share the same nature as constituting one human mind: they are not three minds. At this point we ask questions such as “how can we simplify this? What is a good analogy for the trinity? What if there is no analogy that can’t specifically break down the meaning of Trinity? I feel like this chapter desperately shuffles it way in trying to find answers for God being Trinity, which is a bit frustrating. Overall, we can just say that Trinity is one God, who is present in three persons (Father, Son and

We as humans have differences in interpreting the Bible and different opinions we developed in regards to the Trinity. I can contemplate a few reasons why some people would want to deviate from the orthodox view on the Trinity. First, I think some people abandoned truths because they are fearful of a God they cannot understand. Without the Holy Spirit being operative in our lives the human mind cannot successfully interpret the scriptures accurately thus causing human error. Another reason they fail to see the truths is due to the schemes of the enemy. He is the author of confusion and will stop at nothing to keep people from seeing the

The trinity of God consists of Him being described as three people in one. He is recognized in agreement by revealing Himself by, “Giving grace to you and peace from God our Father…” (Philippians 1:2)3, He grants us hope, “…appearing in the glory of our great God and Savior Jesus Christ.” (Titus 2:13)3, and we receive the gift of God by him, “…pouring out the Holy Spirit abundantly onto us…” (Titus 3:6)3. The Trinity is a demonstrated example o Christian for them to gain a better understanding of who God is and His relationships with humanity. Although God exposes Himself through three people, our Father is still made up of one essence; three people that share one sole.