PhilW

His analogy is only to illustrate how something can be both "many" and "one" at the same time. One government, three branches. One God, three persons. The word "God" refers to the unity of the three persons of the Trinity in a similar fashion to how the word "government" refers to the unity of its legislative, executive, and judicial branches. Thus when you say "government of God" you are really mixing the analogy with what it was meant to describe.

There is one God who is manifested as three persons. We insist on emphasizing both the oneness of God and the distinction between the three persons that God is, and insist further that there is no "better" way to look at it. Somehow, one God is three persons, and all three persons are fully God--all of this makes the Trinity a great mystery. It is thus not supposed to be entirely comprehensible, though things can be said about it that render the idea more tangible. I'll try to say some such things. Christians believe in a personal God--a God that can relate to his creations in a way that is somehow like how we relate to each other. In fact, how we relate to each other is supposed to be an image for what God is like, since we were created in his image. The point of describing God as three persons is not to suggest that there are three distinct Gods, but rather that God is "personal" in three distinct and essential ways. One way to think of it is as follows: if you've ever heard the phrase "God is love," (which is asserted in the bible) notice that, since love describes a relationship, for God to be love he must be at least two persons. The first person in the Trinity, the Father, is the lover, and he loves the second person in the Trinity, his beloved Son. What this is saying is that God is capable of both giving and receiving love: this "exchange" is essential to what God is. The Holy Spirit, who is the third person in the Trinity, can be understood as the love itself--what Christianity is saying is that this love relationship between the Father and Son is just as much a person as the lover or the beloved--all three are personal, and all three are essential for God to be what he is. In humanity, relationships of love are meant to follow this model, since we are made in the image of God. Take for example, a family: the husband is the lover, the wife is the beloved--both are persons, both are necessary for the family to be what it is. Further, the love between the husband and wife produces (provided all goes smoothly ) another person, their child. This is only an image, though. God made humanity both as an image of this relationship and so that we could really participate in this relationship of love that He is. In terms of one's personal relationship with God, Christians come to know God the Father through Christ, who is the Son, and by doing so God the Holy Spirit dwells within them. In turn we love each other as Christ loves us, as this whole process becomes a participation in the amazing love that God is. The "love" model of the Trinity doesn't tell the whole story though. It only describes the essence.

Thanks for the responses; a lot of this has been very helpful. This especially: To find myself sitting there doubting my faith because I can't come to terms with whether Shealtiel and Zerubbabel are different people in Matthew and Luke's geneology, I totally forget all that God has already done for me, all the amazing ways He has demonstrated His work in my life. This "other evidence" is always there for me, but it seems like less than what it is when doubts hit. My issue, I guess, is that I'm so much of a rationalist by nature. I try to believe with all my heart, and I do think that I have true faith, but a lot of times I want to be convinced beyond what is probably even possible in this life. When things work directly against that I get discouraged. Like you, though, I get the answer a lot. And usually its such a good answer that it was worth the doubt because it strengthens my faith.

Hi everyone. I'm new to this board, and pretty new to being a Christian. Maybe I'll post my testimonial sometime, but right now I'd like to just ask for some advice. I'm an intellectual type; I've spent most of my life looking for knowledge, thinking about philosophy and ideas, arguments, etc. In the short time that I've been a Christian, the first part of it was spent mostly trying to convince myself that what I'd come to believe was intellectually credible. I spent lots of time on the internet reading various objections to Christianity, to the bible, and so on, and defenses and refutations against those objections. I think this was very helpful in a lot of ways, in that I'm now able to defend my faith and answer almost any question that might come up in a casual conversation. But there are some difficulties in having delved this deep. Sometimes I am just overwhelmed with doubt about a particular point, a particular objection, and it seems like there is just no answer to the skeptic's position, even if I thought there was at one point. Last night I became obsessed with the issue of the different genealogies of Jesus in Matthew and Luke, and whether they can be reconciled. I spent hours reading various articles about this on the internet. This continued throughout today, and there were times that it seemed so likely to me, just based on this one objection, that Christianity simply isn't true. My faith that seemed so well grounded even just a few days ago seemed like it was standing on nothing--all my experiences where I felt close to God, all the prayers I thought were answered, all the amazing stories I've heard about God in other people's lives, all the historical evidence that I thought there was for Christianity, that all seemed to collapse into being nothing more than wishful thinking, in light of this one issue that I couldn't resolve in my mind. It doesn't feel like this now, but it did just hours ago, and that's the worst feeling in the world. To those of you here that spend a lot of time with this sort of thing--answering objections to unbelievers, dealing with issues in the bible, etc--do you go through this sort of doubt much? Does it ever make you want to just give up on even exploring those sorts of objections? How do you deal with all of this? I'm looking for anything right now, encouragement and advice for how to keep my faith strong.

I might have something to add to this. When I was a teenager, I used to go into Christian chat rooms and argue with Christians. I was a teenager who had just discovered Carl Sagan, and I thought that I could single-handedly pick apart the faith of believers. I said lots of stupid and foolish things. I never even took seriously the proposition that Christianity could be true, and really had no interest in the question itself. I just thought it was fun to argue with people who, in my mind, believed something absurd. I'm sure many of the atheists here have more intellectual honesty than I did, and its not my intention to characterize all of them as being similar to my case. What I want to say is that some of the things that people said to me those chat rooms actually stuck with me; I didn't remember any of it until later when I became a Christian and actually got the meaning of what was being said, but who knows--maybe some seeds were planted. Someone said to me, "I used to think I was so smart, but now I realize I'm just a child." It didn't make any sense at the time, but now it describes my own situation. I don't think we're in any position to judge whether or not what we say is of any effect. How could we know how God works on people? Obviously that's beyond our comprehension. I don't think we should give up just because what we are saying doesn't seem to be accomplishing anything--we really don't know what is going on in the hearts and minds of anyone. Someone who is railing day after day against God could, in fact, be quite close to being saved. People often put up their strongest arguments against something when they are afraid that it might be true. The best we can do is answer questions honestly, and do our best to explain what we believe and why, to love these people and pray for them.