Isn't the Trinity Logically Impossible

@Solace,

Everyone here is talking about logic out of context. You have to read up on the meanings behind the Trinity. Like I posted earlier, These religious texts are filters of deeper meanings. Words have multiple definitions, in different languages. If you want the truth about things you have to do some research. I suggest you learn Hebrew and work from their.

@Solace,

Solace wrote:

This is remarkably toned down from the one statement post of "God created logic", and is much more acceptable to me.

And yet still unacceptible.. We recognize logic in parts of nature and cannot tell what we are seeing until we can see its logic... Think of how often we interchange words like normal and logical, or reasonable and natural... We have to understand republican nature before we can see what is reasonable to them... Everyone always tries to make logical rules for God to follow... Savages thought they could bribe God with a human sacrifice... The Jews thought burnt offerings with cymbals and shofahs would do the trick... You see, understand the nature of God so through a form (rule, law) of behavior, you can make God do your will...That is absolutly the limit of why people want to understand God...They feel like they have to deal with God, so they learn the absolute minimum to keep God off their backs...They do not want a relationship of affection as Jesus was suggesting, or a relationship of Lovers as the song of Solomen suggests... They just want to use the bastard and live their little lives unmolested... God is just a form...

@Fido,

Actually, you're right Fido. I thought about what I said to Austin afterward, and it's not acceptable. If logic is a tool for problem solving and to further understanding, why would God possibly have created it if he's omniscient? An omniscient God would have no problem to solve nor would he need to further his understanding. Neccessity is the mother of invention, after all, so man created logic for his own need. And yes, Austin, logic can be a vice, especially when we rely on it to the point where we dismiss faith as being useless and outdated.

@Solace,

Solace wrote:

Actually, you're right Fido. I thought about what I said to Austin afterward, and it's not acceptable. If logic is a tool for problem solving and to further understanding, why would God possibly have created it if he's omniscient? An omniscient God would have no problem to solve nor would he need to further his understanding. Neccessity is the mother of invention, after all, so man created logic for his own need. And yes, Austin, logic can be a vice, especially when we rely on it to the point where we dismiss faith as being useless and outdated.

Well, as a path to truth, faith is outdated, and in a sense worse than useless...Ultimately faith comes out of fear, in that we fear to not have faith, and is based ultimately upon faith in other people, on their experience and their revelation.... And there it shares a point of agreement with knowledge, that each sooner reaches its limit than its destination...

Look at our history...We have had our enlightement, our argument for humanity as rational, and along came Freud and Nietzsche saying: No; that is not humanity at all, that no person can escape the magic and monsters of childhood anymore than humanity can escape the faith and mystery of its beginnings... It is what we are, and we should not deny it; but discount it, economize it, employ it, and be aware of it, so that we are not abused by it... Look at our concepts...Not a fraction of them deal with physical reality; and nearly all deal with moral reality, which you can see from the common use of the word Morale, has to do with the spiritual conception of humanity... Because of who we are and what we are, we do not conceive of ourselves as animals who cannot conceive at all, but through our ability to conceive we see ourselves as spiritual, and all of humanity as spiritual, and then there is no limit to the amount of spirituality we can perceive... The primitive saw spirits in all of nature, and later in all animals, and finally as reason whittled the meaning out of that spiritual world he saw only God and Mankind as spiritual...

We are at work in the business of understanding mankind because only there can we discern what is good for mankind... We have to understand man to grasp the ideal man, if there is such an animal... And we cannot understand man without seeing the power of magic and faith and religion in his life... Religion ties back.. That is the word... Only by seeing how the man of the past becomes the man of the present can we see mankind; because just as we do not escape our childhood, mankind cannot escape our childhood of the past, and we carry our hopes and fears and beliefs with us... That is what we are...

@Fido,

Faith is NOT useless, nor is logic. Logic is not completely satisfactory, nor is faith. There should be an interplay between the two in religious (or any metaphysical) belief. So I do agree, Solace, that logic can be a vice (sorry for my first remark against it).

As for God & logic, are we really sure that God or humans created it? Perhaps it is something above both us & God that we've discovered and that we're all, including God, bound by. If God did create logic, then it is for our use, not his. Just because he is omniscient and doesn't need logic does not mean he wouldn't create it for our benefit.

Finally, Fido, I don't think believing that sacrifices to God is the same as believing he is bound by logic. Saying God can't make square circles is vastly different than saying that if we make a sacrifice to him (which, by the way he did ask for in the Bible) he'll forgive us. So I ask you, what is wrong with thinking God is bound by logic in the way I've described (I am legitimately curious about others' responses, as I'm very interested in this topic).:bigsmile:

@Axis Austin,

Axis Austin wrote:

So I ask you, what is wrong with thinking God is bound by logic in the way I've described (I am legitimately curious about others' responses, as I'm very interested in this topic).:bigsmile:

I'd suggest that God cannout be bound by logic because logic is simply a way in which humans come to understand reality: it's human language, which God, in nearly every tradition, transcends.

@Didymos Thomas,

Well, then can God make square circles, two plus two equal five, a rock so large that he can't lift, etc?

@Axis Austin,

Axis Austin wrote:

Well, then can God make square circles

What would a square circle be but a square? These terms, square and circle, are human terms.

Axis Austin wrote:

two plus two equal five, a rock so large that he can't lift, etc?

Two, plus, equals and five are, again, all human terms. Even rock and large, and the notion of not being able to lift something are all human in origin. These are the ways we organize reality. Why must our methods of organization apply to God?

@Didymos Thomas,

:listening: I understand that they are human terms and that God is not human, so I kind of see your point. But if we can't talk about God because he transcends any language we use, then how can we understand him and have any basis for our belief in him?

Also, you're dodging the issue. Can God make an object that has four sides and four corners yet at the same time has no sides and no corners? Or can God create an object that both exists and doesn't exist at the same time, in the same place, in the same sense of the word?

@Axis Austin,

Axis Austin wrote:

:listening: I understand that they are human terms and that God is not human, so I kind of see your point. But if we can't talk about God because he transcends any language we use, then how can we understand him and have any basis for our belief in him?

We can talk about God: we just have to be careful and sensitive to the practice of doing so. Really, that's what the Trinity is all about: a way to talk about God in order to cultivate greater understanding of God by engaging the paradox of the concept in discourse and meditation.

Axis Austin wrote:

Also, you're dodging the issue. Can God make an object that has four sides and four corners yet at the same time has no sides and no corners? Or can God create an object that both exists and doesn't exist at the same time, in the same place, in the same sense of the word?

To ask these questions assumes that God can make something. What does it mean for God to make something? Does he make things in the same way I make tables and chairs? If not, I'm not sure the concept is applicable to the notion of God.

@Axis Austin,

Axis Austin wrote:

Faith is NOT useless, nor is logic. Logic is not completely satisfactory, nor is faith. There should be an interplay between the two in religious (or any metaphysical) belief. So I do agree, Solace, that logic can be a vice (sorry for my first remark against it).

As for God & logic, are we really sure that God or humans created it? Perhaps it is something above both us & God that we've discovered and that we're all, including God, bound by. If God did create logic, then it is for our use, not his. Just because he is omniscient and doesn't need logic does not mean he wouldn't create it for our benefit.

Finally, Fido, I don't think believing that sacrifices to God is the same as believing he is bound by logic. Saying God can't make square circles is vastly different than saying that if we make a sacrifice to him (which, by the way he did ask for in the Bible) he'll forgive us. So I ask you, what is wrong with thinking God is bound by logic in the way I've described (I am legitimately curious about others' responses, as I'm very interested in this topic).:bigsmile:

He asked for in the bible??? If you believe the prophets that is about the last thing "he" asked for...

@Axis Austin,

He didn't ask for human sacrifices, but he did ask for burnt offerings (sorry I wasn't clear). And to Thomas, does it matter in which way God makes an object? Can he make a square circle at all (no matter in what way he does so)? [But if you don't want to give a straight answer I'll stop bothering you].

@Axis Austin,

Really? There is some evidence of a human sacrific or two in the Bible; Jesus for one and Isaac for another... I am certain it has been noted that there is no after the sacrifice stories of Isaac; or Isaac going home again with dad stories... At the same time; there was absolutly no question that what God asked, God got with Abraham.. Not much critical self examination with that one...

@Fido,

Axis Austin wrote:

And to Thomas, does it matter in which way God makes an object? Can he make a square circle at all (no matter in what way he does so)? [But if you don't want to give a straight answer I'll stop bothering you].

Yes, I think it does. To say "God makes X" is to describe God's actions in human terms (make being a verb, part of human language). It's saying that God acts in a way analogous to the way in which humans act, which seems to contradict the very nature of God. It's okay figuratively, but not literally, I think.

Friend, I doubt you could bother me if you tried. I reply because I want to. Never hesitate to ask a question. Smile

Oh, and most importantly, remember: 99.9% chance that I'm completely wrong about everything I say.

@Axis Austin,

Saying that God acts is not saying that God acts in the way humans do. Saying God makes, is not saying that God makes in the same way humans do. You're applying necessity where it's not necessarily due. Furthermore, saying that for God to act they humans do is contrary to his nature his without proof. Our our actions necessarily contrary to his nature? I don't think so. Even if I'm wrong, he need to offer further reason.

@Axis Austin,

Saying God is, is not saying God is as we are... And saying anything about infinites except what we can observe from one single perspective in time is just about as meaningless as it is impossible... Certainly, if you are going to have a God, a single God is more logical than many Gods, and more logical that a triune God....But what is that; logic in regard to a subjective experience of an infinite object??? Come on... Belief is unaviodable for most... It is like our blind spot, which no one ever sees because the mind fills in the blank... Just because we reach the limits of what we know almost before we begin going does not make us content with ignorance, which is scary...Instead we fill up our void with this friendly fuzzy creature of our imaginations when honesty says there is only us, and our fears...

@Fido,

Fido;45075 wrote:

Certainly, if you are going to have a God, a single God is more logical than many Gods, and more logical that a triune God....

I'm not so sure about that. Many cultures seem to have independently come upon paganism. Paganism deifies phenomena -- phenomena are observable, and observation fortifies logic -- it makes it concrete. Monotheism requires abstraction, and abstraction requires longer leaps of logic.

@Aedes,

Triune God, or Trinitarian notions of God, are admittedly illogical, Fido.

@Fido,

Logic my Dear Watson,

Energy and mass are logically different,
yet equally the same. E = mc2 (Thanks Professor)
Thusly God is different than the Son Jesus is different than the Spirit,
yet equally the same. E(Spirit) = m(Jesus) = c(Light or God) = One = the same.
Science unites with religion at the point of truth, the infinite true light of equality.
So beautifully clear, truth is nature is e is m is me.

=
S Holmes

@MJA,

MJA wrote:

Logic my Dear Watson,

Energy and mass are logically different,
yet equally the same. E = mc2 (Thanks Professor)
Thusly God is different than the Son Jesus is different than the Spirit,
yet equally the same. E(Spirit) = m(Jesus) = c(Light or God) = One = the same.
Science unites with religion at the point of truth, the infinite true light of equality.
So beautifully clear, truth is nature is e is m is me.

=
S Holmes

Mass and energy are different, but each is in a certain ratio of the other...There is simply no energy without mass, nor mass without energy...

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