Trinity Lesson 11:Using Analogies to Understand the

Trinity

Analogy

1) The use of a similar example or model to explain or extrapolate from

2) Drawing a comparison in order to show a similarity in some respect; "the operation of a computer presents and interesting analogy to the working of the brain"; "the models show by analogy how matter is built up."

Don’t confuse the analogy, or model, with the thing itself. Understand the

limitations of analogies.

Some Common Trinity Analogies

Water: Exists in three different states – Liquid, Solid, Gas

The Egg: Shell, White, and Yolk. Three parts, yet one egg.

Scissors: Two parts, acting together for a single purpose

St. Patrick’s Analogy

St. Patrick, the evangelist to Ireland, tried to teach about the Trinity by showing the shamrock, a three leaf clover, to the

ancient residents of the island [Ireland]. The Trinity is composed of three persons (the 3 leaves) who are in nature one being (the

shamrock itself). Each has a distinct function in relation to humanity.

St. Augustine’s Analogy (6th Century)

St. Augustine wrote a major treatise “On The Trinity”, in which he notes that of all creatures, only man is made in the ‘image’ of God. He reasoned therefore, that the best analogy for God’s nature would be found in the creature who bears His image.

He sought to understand God’s Triunity in studying dimensions of man’s personality.

“Spirituality” and “Personality”

The most basic or fundamental reality is spiritual.

Genesis 1:1 – In the beginning, God created the heavens and the earth.

God ‘created’ the material world.

John 4:24 - God is a Spirit: and they that worship him must worship him in spirit and in truth.

Eastern Thought: (Pantheism) God is perceived as only spiritual – not as personal.

Gnosticism – Matter is perceived as fundamentally bad, weighing down upon the spiritual.

Christ perfectly embodied the co-existent relationship of spirit and matter, and such is the ultimate destiny of the Christian. But in seeking to understand the trinity, we shall explore the analogy of ‘personality’.

We do not hold to this ‘dualism’, yet we acknowledge the fundamental nature of God to

be spiritual and personal.

PerichoresisPerichoresis is a Greek term used to describe the triune relationship between each person of the Godhead. It can be defined as co-indwelling, co-inhering, and mutual interpenetration. Alister McGrath writes that it "allows the individuality of the persons to be maintained, while insisting that each person shares in the life of the other two. An image often used to express this idea is that of a 'community of being,' in which each person, while maintaining its distinctive identity, penetrates the others and is penetrated by them.” [Theopedia)

Personality requires interaction. Thus we think of the triune God as three

persons, continuously interacting and interpenetrating one another.

Video Clip: Ravi Zacarias – “Why God Must Be a Plural Being”

1 John 4: 8, 16

8He that loveth not knoweth not God; for God is love.

16And we have known and believed the love that God hath to us. God is love; and he that dwelleth in love dwelleth

in God, and God in him.

Genesis 2: 24Therefore shall a man leave his father and his mother, and shall cleave unto his wife: and they

shall be one flesh.

Love is such a powerful dimension of God that it binds three persons truly as one.

“There is a sense in which the fact that God is love requires that he be more than one person. Love must have both a subject and an object. Thus, prior to the creation of other persons humans, God could not have really loved, and thus would not have been truly love.”

Millard J. Erickson, Making Sense of the Trinity

Also, a trinity makes more sense than a duality. Where two love, there can tend to be an inward, central focus. With three, there is more a sense of community and an outward focus.

God’s perichoresis has none of the limitations we face as humans:

Physical Bodies: We cannot occupy the same space. We are also individually distinguishable.

Communication: We must communicate through some medium, imperfectly.Differing Experiences: We have difficulty relating to one another. The same symbol, word, image may have different meanings to each of us.

Pre-occupation with Self: Keeps us from ever fully focusing on or empathizing with others.

Each of the persons of the trinity is interdependent. None can be

without the other two.

The Son, begotten of the Father

The Spirit, proceeding from the Father and the Son

Each of the three subsisting, not existing.

Two Final Analogies

The Human Body

Neither by itself constitutes a person, nor can any of them exist without the third, yet all three depend upon one another and only in their

successful working together does the person exist.

Creation (Constructing a Building)

Architect Contractor Construction Worker

The source of the design.

Organizes and oversees the workers.

Performs the actual work of construction.

So, who is responsible for the existence of the building?

What’s it mean to us?John 14: 16 – 20

16And I will pray the Father, and he shall give you another Comforter, that he may abide with you for ever; 17Even the Spirit of truth; whom the world cannot receive, because it seeth him not, neither knoweth him: but ye know him; for he dwelleth with you, and shall be in you. 18I will not leave you comfortless: I will come to you. 19Yet a little while, and the world seeth me no more; but ye see me: because I live, ye shall live also. 20At that day ye shall know that I am in my Father, and ye in me, and I in you.

John 15: 8 – 108Herein is my Father glorified, that ye

bear much fruit; so shall ye be my disciples. 9As the Father hath loved

me, so have I loved you: continue ye in my love. 10If ye keep my

commandments, ye shall abide in my love; even as I have kept my Father's

commandments, and abide in his love.

John 17: 20 – 23 20Neither pray I for these alone, but for them also

which shall believe on me through their word; 21That they all may be one; as thou, Father, art in me, and I in thee, that they also may be one

in us: that the world may believe that thou hast sent me. 22And the glory which thou gavest me I

have given them; that they may be one, even as we are one: 23I in them, and thou in me, that they may

be made perfect in one; and that the world may know that thou hast sent me, and hast loved them,

as thou hast loved me.

Ephesians 5:28 – 32He that loveth his wife loveth

himself. 29For no man ever yet hated his own flesh; but nourisheth and cherisheth it, even as the Lord the church: 30For we are members of his body, of his flesh, and of his bones. 31For this cause shall a man leave his father and mother, and shall be

joined unto his wife, and they two shall be one flesh. 32This is a great mystery: but I speak concerning Christ and the church.

Christ calls on us to have the same unity through love that He has with the Father, and the Spirit. We need to overcome all

the barriers to relationship which impede us as sinful humans and lay hold of Christ’s perfect love, that we may be one as God is

one.

Father

SonSpirit