This is the typical representation of the holy Trinity.
It is supposed to make the dogma clearer and easier to understand but it always struck me as a clarification of the contradiction.
Warning! I am about to use logic and maths on theology:
There's a wonderful little property of equality known as the Transitive Property. If two values are each equal to a third, then the two values are equal.
if A = B and B = C
then A = C
Let us assume that by "is" in the diagram theologians mean "equals". (note Rational Wiki does a similar exercise by interpreting "is" as "subset", but since the "is" goes both ways (i.e. God is Father and Father is God) I just skipped a step and went straight to equality).
Using standard logic, we would expect that:
if Son = God and God = Spirit
then Son = Spirit
But according to our lovely diagram, Spirit is not equal to Son.
Is this a contradiction? I certainly think so and haven't found any explanations of how this works out. I did however find one guy who used the transitive property to prove the Trinity.
Anyone able to make sense of this or explain what I'm missing? I seriously don't understand how this one gets out of the gate!
This is all just too confusing:
This guy says "We can show that anyone who uses transitive identity against the trinity can only beg the question by assuming that TI must apply to the Trinity."
ReplyDeletehttp://home.comcast.net/~pascris/onlinestorage/trinity.pdf
I didn't read the whole thing. Anyone who thinks "A and B are alike in every way," and "A and C are alike in every way" does not mean that "B and C are alike in every way" sounds most foolish.
Warning! I am about to use logic and math (sic—I hate the word maths) on theology:
ReplyDeleteThere was your mistake. I know you realized it, but then you asked us to use logic and math on theology, too. It just doesn't work.