How to explain the Holy Trinity w/ Fr. Thomas Joseph White, OP 

Chwała Ojcu i Synowi i Duchowi Świętemu. Jak była na początku, teraz, zawsze i na wieki wieków. Amen Greetings from Poland 😊

Be a lot faster if you just said Jesus. He is the Father, Son, and Holy Ghost. What’s the “name” mentioned in Matthew 28:19? It can only be Jesus!

@@alexanderh2345No He isn’t, thats modalism

@@basedsigmalifter9482 Pray tell, how is it modalism?

@@alexanderh2345 If Jesus is all 3, then it is one person in 3 forms. That is modalism.

Maybe he couldn't grasp it because it is unscriptural and doesn't make sense. Anyone, even a child, can understand the relationship between a father and son. But the trinity must be repeatedly 'explained' by an endless number of videos. That's because it's untrue and is not in the Bible. It is an invention of a 4th century clergy that sought Roman approval and gave more credence to philosophy than to God's Word. A lie cannot stand up to scrutiny and logic. Jesus is the Son of God, just as he said he was and Peter confessed ( Matthew 16:15).

Can the council of Nicaea make this statement ( Galatians 1:10-12 )

@@DroknarsForge4198 , thank you for the information; I have research to do. 1) As to Bishop Sheen's analogy of the state's of water in his effort to help people comprehend the Trinity, one would need to view the video clip. He was firm in his explanation of the Trinity as 3 persons, but 1 substance, and not separate personalities or "masks" which were switched out per the heresy. He would have been aware of Sabellianism, which drove how his explanation was structured. Based on what I have read to date of the bishop, he does not appear to subscribe to the idea. 2) As to the Athanasius Creed, can you clarify the author?

Do I pray to the Father, in the name of the Son, through the Holy Spirit? Can I just direct my prayers to Our Lord?

@@lostboyrc623 Mister, The trinity is a heresy. Mister, The trinity is a heresy. Prophet Jesus (PBUH) Prophet Jesus (PBUH) didn’t preach the trinity. He preached to believe in one God only. I invite you to embrace Islam, the pure monotheism.

@@lostboyrc623 If you have any questions about Islam, please tell me.

@@lostboyrc623 All prayers are through Jesus, as St Paul said. Following the Lord’s Prayer as a rubric, I’d say to direct your prayers towards the Father, say them in Jesus’ name, and then in the name of the Father, Son and Holy Spirit. I’m just a guy and could be wrong, but that makes most sense to me.

That’s because God is one Not three ! Jesus and the father are EJad in hebrew , meaning yes there is a father and a son but you can approach them as one , they are the same and the Spirit of Elohim is just that , the spirit of Elohim the father. Just pray to the father as Jesus said . Than as you become closer you will know how they are one , Jesus and The father and the Ruaj or spirit helps us , guides us …

No, Patrick, that's partialism, espoused by the five robot cars in Voltron that combine to form one massive robot.

That's actually a super badass way to think about it. Well done

Strictly by definitions of the words you used: the atom/component analogy is limited because the nucleus/proton/electron are not fully in and of themselves the atom. Perhaps consider God as the Creator of Everything, then see that the Creator of Everything exists as three distinct persons. The Father, the Son and the Holy Spirit are each independently fully the Creator of Everything, as well as being the Creator of Everything in perfect Trinitarian Union, where the Son proceeds from the Father by generation and the Holy Spirit proceeds from the Father and the Son by spiration.

@@elwynnforest1452 one being would not be referred to as more than one. God is one being. But even at that God is spirit and only God the son (jesus) has a gender which is male. So you are right in saying he wouldn't be called "he" but usuallaly this is how we refer to God.

@@elwynnforest1452 I really don't want to have an argument on RU-vid right now so we'll just agree that my grammar sucks

Why not 3 whats and 1 who?

@@KnuttyEntertainment because it's three persons in one God. God has knowledge of self and self love. In love there is the lover the beloved and the love they share. God loving himself generates the son. the father is the lover and the son is the beloved and the holy ghost is the love they share. They are three distinct persons who are all God. They do not share the nature of God but each posseses it entirely. The mystery of the Trinity cannot be understood by human reason and is best described in the words of that Athanasian creed. If there is any heresy in my words please point it out so I can repent immediately and fix my error.

​@@oscarvaldez8636 That sounds to me like something made up to satisfy philosophers instead of giving reverence to the scriptures. Col. 2:8 “Beware lest any man spoil you through philosophy and vain deceit, after the tradition of men, after the rudiments of the world, and not after Christ.” Is there anything in the Bible about how God loving himself creates multiple personalities for him to love, or that such a thing is even necessary? And isn’t saying “the mystery of the trinity cannot be understood by human reason” a cop out and an admission that the trinity isn’t logically consistent? I read the whole New Testament a couple weeks ago. It seems to me that the people behind the trinity had two problems: 1. They were having trouble reconciling verses that say there is only one God; that the Father, the Son, and Holy Ghost/Spirit are all God; not each other; and all one. 2. They had to justify their religion in the eyes of Greek Philosophers who had a quickly growing influence in the church (re Col. 2:8) So they created the trinity which just put the cart before the horse by embodying the logical contradictions into the nature of God. But if logic, nature, and consciousness all stem from God and all his creations operate from the logic that is within God, and all of creation echoes the existence of God, then the nature of God should be intuitive to us, just like how morality is intuitive to us. Everyone understands that it is wrong to lie, steal, or kill. Those ideas come naturally to us. So why would God’s nature not be the same way? If the nature of God cannot be logically understood by creatures that operate of off God’s logic with the divine spark of conscience, then God is at odds with himself. He invented math and then said that 1 = 3. (Romans 1:20; 2:14-15) Having read the whole New Testament recently, I was able to look at those verses about the nature of God in a new light. Everything makes much more sense if we consider that God is 3 beings of 1 person rather than 3 persons of 1 being. Think of 3 actors that portray Hamlet. Three people but one character. This puts many things into new context, like how we become children of God and joint-heirs with Christ. How we take upon ourselves the name of Christ when we are baptized. If God is defined not by *what* he is, but *who* he is, it suddenly makes more sense when we are told to be like him. Take John 14:20 and 17:20-23 for example. It says that the disciples may be made one with Christ and the Father the same way that Christ and the Father are one with each other. If they are one in substance, then this verse means that the apostles can fuse combine together with Jesus into some weird amalgamation. If they are one in character, will, and purpose, then the verse makes total sense. Jesus’s baptism also makes more sense. The Father, Son, and Spirit all appear separately. Jesus is the water, the Holy Ghost as a dove, and the Father’s voice is heard calling out of heaven. Those three separate things can hardly be one undivided substance.

It’s amazing how many people will totally ignore this fact. Instead they will choose the convention of man for the last 2000 years rather than the wisdom and Word of God which is eternal.

But God is all three at the same time while h20 can only be one form at a time. I think anyway.

@@chidoman1595 Look up "triple point of water"

That’s modalism.

It's an an analogy for small children to point to the reality that there is One God in three persons... The Trinity... you give me a better anology and I will cheerfully utilise it 👍🏼

@@dwong9289 It can't be modalism, however, if water has no person. Modalism implies a single person with three modes. If water had a person for each of its three states, it would be a perfect analogy of the Trinity. As I mentioned earlier, "triple point of water" is very helpful.

Because it's nonsense! Read the book of Acts, read the New Testament epistles, read what God says at Jesus's baptism and Transfiguration. Read Peter's declaration about Jesus's identity in Matthew chapter 16 (and how Jesus responds).

Right, I would never call a statue a "being". If I was in a dark woods and someone said "there is a being behind you", I would 100% expect a living something, as opposed to a concrete statue.

I agree that being is a bit confusing, but basically to be, is to exist, to be a person is to have a will, so a being can be without person but a person can not be without being.

Wow, this is completely useless

But each human person has a different center of conscience. If you have more than one center of conscience you are distinctly different from any other and are entirely your own. To believe this of God is to believe, quite literally, in 3 gods.

@@alexanderh2345 what center of conscience? God does not have a conscience as humans have. The knowledge of God is infinite and does not need a guide to act prudently.

@@winstonbarquez9538 Nor does he share divine nature as humans share human nature. “I am the LORD: that is my name: and my glory will I not give to another, neither my praise to graven images.” - Isaiah 42:8 “Ye are my witnesses, saith the Lord, and my servant whom I have chosen: that ye may know and believe me, and understand that I am he: before me there was no God formed, neither shall there be after me. I, even I, am the Lord; and beside me there is no saviour.” - Isaiah 43:10-11 “Fear ye not, neither be afraid: have not I told thee from that time, and have declared it? ye are even my witnesses. Is there a God beside me? yea, there is no God; I know not any.” - Isaiah 44:8 God is numerically, indivisibly, and distinctly one. This is the great revelation of the Bible.

@@winstonbarquez9538 I'm not seeing where my response to you was posted, so I'll try again. God does not share in divine nature with another as all humans share in human nature, so Gregory of Nyssa is wrong. My point of the three centers of conscience is that God speaks and acts as one, indivisible divine being. The trinity would make that one become three beings, thus three places from which God can speak and act. That God speaks and acts at all is only through the power of His word. Hence by the Logos, were all things made (John 1) and by him (Jesus Christ) were all things created (Colossians 1). There is no need of a trinity to act as God. Just the One God who is Spirit working through His Word.

He didn’t change his person, he took human as a form

@@gshere5890 The Bible doesn't say God doesn't change as a person. It says God never changes.

But Jesus has two natures. One human and one Divine, human nature encompasses change but Divine nature doesn't change. Fr. Thomas White has a good book about this topic called "The Incarnate Lord"

@@johnn633 Did he have that from eternity?

@@mattblaise9160 No but the point is that his divine nature didn't change in the moment of Incarnation

A family does not include two of the same gender, so you cannot make that analogy for the Trinity because there are no feminine parts of the Trinity according to mainstream doctrine

Christianity intentionally backed itself into a corner that they cannot escape from. They will Anarchonistically say that the Trinity was always there in their scriptures but the fact does remain that the doctrine was successively evolved (by their early theologians and philosophers - drawing directly from Platonism) in response to various early 'heresies', including the original Jewish-Christian position shared by James and most of the apostles that God is God and Jesus is only a divinely created son who serves the role of prophecied messiah.

In the proverbs you hear Wisdom speak, saying, before God made the earth and settled it upon the waters, before the age old hills and valleys were formed, I was there. Who is saying this? Even in Genesis you have the plurality when God speaks and says, Let us make man in our image. Who is us and 'our'? You say these things because you failed to notice them. It was inevitable that the Trinity should be discovered, and undeniable after the gospels.

@@Zematus737 Even if the Trinity is in the Old Testament, that's irrelevant to my argument. My argument is that the Trinity is internally contradictory, and is incompatible with divine simplicity, which is an understanding of God that is demonstrably true.

@@danzo1711 God is Truth. He is wherever there is truth, as its own light. Can it be said that God can forget? Yet in scriptures we often see that God remembers his servants, when they remember him. Wisdom is the wellspring of knowledge, She being more precious than riches or jewels. She is the reservoir of all that is and has been. Christ, who is called the Spirit of Prophecy in Revelation, is and becomes all that could be. He does not change when paths alter, because when they are what IS, they meet with Truth. All three exist with each other, and to each other they are distinct but together. You cannot have one without the other since the existence of one implies the necessity of the other. God, The Father, is ever-present. Is that not simple enough for you?

@@Zematus737 Nice word salad. None of that addressed anything that I said in both of my points.

The old testament (Tanakh) was simple and logical. There is YHWH, the only God, end of question. Trinitarian Christian theology is always going to be self-contradictory and incoherent because it not only contradicts Biblical theology but is simply not the God that Jesus worshipped.

@@sonder152 Yes, you're correct, Trinitarians and Modalists are 100% deceived and incoherent. The only thing i disagree with is the Tetragrammaton. The God of Israel has no name, only titles. Wonder why *nobody* in the OT and NT never used YHWH? Because it comes from the Kabbalah. Yahweh and Yeshua are two demons from the Kabbalah. You will find those names *only* in Kabbalistic text and other high level Satanists.

@@JudeOne3Four YHWH is all throughout the OT. The NT was written in Greek though, so any references to it are vague. Yahweh is not a proper transliteration of YHWH though, the only real way to pronounce it is by saying the four letters (yod he vav he). I do agree with what you said about kabbalah (which is a Jewish mystical system from the middle ages) but the Tetragrammaton didn't originate in kabbalah.

@@sonder152 No man, YHWH comes from the Kabbalah. Any references are vague? So God is playing hide and seek? The Tetragrammaton IS Jewish mysticism. Let's see if you believe what the Bible says or some Christ hating rabbi's. Exodus 3:13 And Moses said to God, Behold, I shall go forth to the children of Israel, and shall say to them, *The God of our fathers* has sent me to you; and they will ask me, *what is His name?* What shall I say to them? 14 And God spoke to Moses, saying, *I am THE BEING;* and he said, Thus shall ye say to the children of Israel, *THE BEING* has sent me to you. 15 And GOD SAID AGAIN to Moses, Thus SHALT thou SAY TO the sons of Israel, *THE Lord GOD of our fathers, the God of Abraam, and God of Isaac, and God of Jacob,* has sent me to you: *this is My name* FOR EVER, AND MY MEMORIAL TO GENERATIONS OF GENERATIONS. Question: How does God say Himself *how* He wants to be adressed forever?

@@JudeOne3Four "the lord" is just a common English placeholder for the Tetragrammaton, in Hebrew one of the common placeholders is "Hashem". Aka the original Hebrew text will say "YHWH hath sent me" whereas someone reading it aloud will say "Hashem hath sent me", in accordance with this tradition English translations will read "The Lord hath sent me".

Good question. I don't believe Jesus was eternally begotten but I believe He was begotten when He took on humanity

@@mrsir8094 "In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God." The eternal sonship of Christ was elucidated by the first council of Nicaea. It is absolutely infallible doctrine.

I'm a newbie in thomistic theology but i try to explain it as far as i understand it right now and hope to be corrected where i'm mistaken: 1. God is eternal and is the cause of His own existence, because His existence is His essence. 2. God is simple, that means He has no parts, He is not a complex 3. Through revelation we now, that God one but three persons, the Father, the Son and the Holy Spirit 4. The things we can say about God, we say analogically, because our finite minds cannot grasp his infinite essence 5. Because God is three persons there is relationship within God and these relations between the persons we describe with the specific words like the Word of God signifies, that He is his eternal law, that leads everything to it's end, Son of God because God is his own cause. In the latter we now have an analogy to farher and son, like the father begets the son, God is his own cause eternally, so the Father begets the Son eternally. Please correct me where I'm wrong

@@kirkjungles4901 John 1:1 doesn't go against what I said. Let me tell you what I believe. I believe that Christ is Eternal and that He always existed as the Word as John 1:1 says. Btw John 1:1 doesn't say anything about Christ being eternally begotten

@@mrsir8094 Thanks for sharing, and I understand why you would think that, but 1 John 4:9 is another passage that makes it clear that the Father sent His Son into the world; He was already Son before entering the world. Aside from just Scriptural exegesis, I strongly suggest looking into the consensus of the early Church on the matter, both ante-Nicene and post-Nicene. The deposit of faith from the Apostles is consistent with eternal sonship, and it's very important that we have an understanding of Jesus that is consistent with what the faith handed down by the Apostles. Christ be with you.