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A Difficult Concept to Muse About
By Zachariah Patterson, Torrington
Noel Ambery, in his response to Jeff Messenger, made the bold and rather absurd riposte that the doctrine of the Trinity affirms that there are three Gods, and we’ve all put them into one God. That somehow it creates a new math that allows for 1+1+1=1 [Mythology Gone Crazy, March 8]. This is simply a false idea about a very complicated truth. He obviously has misconceptions and presuppositions that blind him from clear critical thinking. Mr. Ambery has presumed an anti-supernatural philosophy; this is a terrible fallacy in logical thinking. There is no legitimate reason to disbelieve in the supernatural, unless one first denies God. And there is no legitimate reason to deny God’s existence. It takes the same (if not more) amount of faith as believing God exists.
To see what the Bible means when it speaks of "the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit," it’s always a good idea to actually look at what the Bible says. 1 John 5:7 says, "For there are three that bear record in heaven, the Father, the Word, and the Holy Ghost: and these three are one" ("the Word" being Jesus Christ; refer to John 1). There are, of course, many other verses witnessing to the Trinity, but none so boldly as this. What did John mean when he wrote that? Well, I tend to think he meant that God is comprised of a Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. What we as humans don’t like is not actually knowing something to the fullest extent. I think what we’re trying to figure out it how exactly the Trinity is put together and functions as a whole.
There are a lot of analogies out there nowadays, i.e. "God is an egg—a shell, the white, and the yolk"; "God is H2O—steam, water, and ice"; and many others. I just don’t buy any of these, and therefore I conjured up my own. Think of God as our beloved sun. The actual ball of burning chemicals we look up and see represents the Father, the source of the son (Jesus). Jesus represents the light that causes us to see clearly. The light is sent from the sun; Jesus was sent by the father. And we still call the light part of the sun. Imagine you’re on the phone with your friend in southern California, and she says the sun is coming through her window—would you assume that a ball of burning gasses is going to fly through her house? No, because the light is as much a part of the sun as the burning gasses are. Finally, imagine the heat that radiates from the sun as the Holy Ghost. As we receive the light from the sun, we feel its heat, and we still say we feel the sun, although we are not placing out hands into its burning core. The more direct the light exposure, the more intense the heat. Likewise with Christ: the more direct we become with the person of Jesus Christ, the more intense our experience with the Holy Spirit.
Thus, it is not illogical to claim the doctrine of the Trinity, if one believes in God. Understandably, it is a difficult concept to muse about, but that doesn’t make a thing untrue. It just goes to show how limited we, as humans, really are.
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