Don't Get The Trinity? So What?
The Trinity. If
that last sentence made you feel weary or made yourself prepared to be
confused, yeah, you’re not alone. I know a lot of Christians who feel
that way. I used to be there. I get it the feeling. What I don’t get is
when one’s inability to comprehend the Trinity is used as an objection
against it.
A distinction needs to be made between something not making sense, and something being incoherent. You can say reject something on the basis of it being incoherent, but you can’t reject it on the basis of you not being able to understand it. All things that are incoherent don’t make sense, but not all things that don’t make sense are incoherent.
For example, math. I hate math. I seriously have dreams, or nightmares, about taking math class. I don’t understand it. In my dreams, I show up a few days before my final after having ditched for a few weeks because the material was just too hard for me. The teacher shows me my F, and says if I don’t have a perfect on my final, I will fail at everything in life. I crack open my textbook. I see numbers and letters and symbols I don’t understand. I run away from math class, accepting I will never achieve anything in life. I don’t understand math. It just doesn’t make sense to me.
Now, in order for something to be incoherent, that thing needs literally make no sense. It’s not that you aren’t able to understand it, but you can pinpoint something to either be necessarily false, self-contradictory, or some other lack of logical connection. For example, take the sentence: I see the invisible monster. In order for something to be invisible, I can’t be able to see it, so to say I see the thing that can’t be seen, I am contradicting myself, and thus make no literal sense. I can see where it is that I am not making sense.
So there are a few differences between something not making sense, and something being incoherent. The standard or criteria for something not making sense is subjective, or relative to the person. For example, multiplying 7x7 and getting 49 makes perfect sense to me, but not to a kindergartener. If something is incoherent, that it is true or not that this thing is incoherent independently of what anybody thinks, which makes it objective. It is not person relative.
Now, when I try to explain the Trinity to someone like a Muslim or a Jehovah’s Witness, people who reject the Trinity, they reject it on the basis that it doesn’t make sense. But as I have just shown, that is a not an adequate reason to reject the Trinity.
Let me briefly define the Trinity. In one being, God, there are three Persons: Father, Son, Holy Spirit. One God; three persons. The Father is God. The Son is God. The Holy Spirit is God. Yet there are not three Gods, but one.
Now, does that make sense? Maybe, maybe not. I feel like I have a good enough grasp on it, and I do my best to explain my understanding of it. So, if we believe that the Bible is true, and the Bible teaches that the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit is God, and yet there is only one God, is it not necessary to understand how this is so in order to believe that this actually is so. We don’t need to know HOW it works in order to know THAT is works. If it doesn’t make sense to you, tough. There are lots of things I don’t understand about God, yet I accept to be true. I don’t understand how God can know everything. I don’t understand how God can communicate with us if He is immaterial. I don’t understand how God can interact with time. I don’t understand how God must always exist. Yet I take this to be true.
Now, if you want to reject the Trinity, you can’t just say it doesn’t make sense. You can’t say Trinitarianism is false because you don’t get it. You have to say that there is something incoherent in the notion of the Trinity itself in order for you to reject it. But I rarely ever get a response to this. No one has ever been able to show me that the idea of a Trinity is self contradictory or necessarily false. Why? Well, because Trinitarians are right. Duh.
Simply saying you don’t get the Trinity in no way makes the Trinity false. You have to do much more than that.
A distinction needs to be made between something not making sense, and something being incoherent. You can say reject something on the basis of it being incoherent, but you can’t reject it on the basis of you not being able to understand it. All things that are incoherent don’t make sense, but not all things that don’t make sense are incoherent.
For example, math. I hate math. I seriously have dreams, or nightmares, about taking math class. I don’t understand it. In my dreams, I show up a few days before my final after having ditched for a few weeks because the material was just too hard for me. The teacher shows me my F, and says if I don’t have a perfect on my final, I will fail at everything in life. I crack open my textbook. I see numbers and letters and symbols I don’t understand. I run away from math class, accepting I will never achieve anything in life. I don’t understand math. It just doesn’t make sense to me.
Now, in order for something to be incoherent, that thing needs literally make no sense. It’s not that you aren’t able to understand it, but you can pinpoint something to either be necessarily false, self-contradictory, or some other lack of logical connection. For example, take the sentence: I see the invisible monster. In order for something to be invisible, I can’t be able to see it, so to say I see the thing that can’t be seen, I am contradicting myself, and thus make no literal sense. I can see where it is that I am not making sense.
So there are a few differences between something not making sense, and something being incoherent. The standard or criteria for something not making sense is subjective, or relative to the person. For example, multiplying 7x7 and getting 49 makes perfect sense to me, but not to a kindergartener. If something is incoherent, that it is true or not that this thing is incoherent independently of what anybody thinks, which makes it objective. It is not person relative.
Now, when I try to explain the Trinity to someone like a Muslim or a Jehovah’s Witness, people who reject the Trinity, they reject it on the basis that it doesn’t make sense. But as I have just shown, that is a not an adequate reason to reject the Trinity.
Let me briefly define the Trinity. In one being, God, there are three Persons: Father, Son, Holy Spirit. One God; three persons. The Father is God. The Son is God. The Holy Spirit is God. Yet there are not three Gods, but one.
Now, does that make sense? Maybe, maybe not. I feel like I have a good enough grasp on it, and I do my best to explain my understanding of it. So, if we believe that the Bible is true, and the Bible teaches that the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit is God, and yet there is only one God, is it not necessary to understand how this is so in order to believe that this actually is so. We don’t need to know HOW it works in order to know THAT is works. If it doesn’t make sense to you, tough. There are lots of things I don’t understand about God, yet I accept to be true. I don’t understand how God can know everything. I don’t understand how God can communicate with us if He is immaterial. I don’t understand how God can interact with time. I don’t understand how God must always exist. Yet I take this to be true.
Now, if you want to reject the Trinity, you can’t just say it doesn’t make sense. You can’t say Trinitarianism is false because you don’t get it. You have to say that there is something incoherent in the notion of the Trinity itself in order for you to reject it. But I rarely ever get a response to this. No one has ever been able to show me that the idea of a Trinity is self contradictory or necessarily false. Why? Well, because Trinitarians are right. Duh.
Simply saying you don’t get the Trinity in no way makes the Trinity false. You have to do much more than that.
Comments
Post a Comment