Father, Son, Holy Spirit?
A professor friend emailed me recently:
I’ve lately been reading a book (at a student’s request) …a piece of bad Christian fiction called “The Shack” by William P. Young. … it might interest you in light of your trinitarian research. The persons of the Trinity make an appearance in the story: God [...]
Hi Everybody?
Trinity? Suuuure - I know all about those things!
I’ve always been interested in not only what intellectuals think about the Trinity, but also about what ordinary Christians think. Thus, this is an interesting find - five helpful wikites step in to wiki-answer the following important questions:
WikiAnswers - What is the trinity and could you [...]
The trinity occurs at :55 and 1:13. Even sorta looks like a church. There’s other rich trinitarian imagery there as well, for those with eyes to see.
Impossibly beautiful. Literally. (image credit)
Check it out: a whole site and blog devoted to art featuring impossible objects!
I can’t help but think that the picture above had a trinitarian inspiration: according to the babelfish, it means “You must in such a way live”. (German speaking readers - feel free to correct the translation.) I read [...]
So that’s where the magic is.
People interested in ancient heresies - you have to check out this, by “Probably the world’s greatest systematic theologian cartoonist.”
Jack T. Chick has got nothing on our friend Fred! Nice work, Fred.
Background: Fred is goofing on a long-extinct sect that was famously embraced by St. Augustine (354-430 CE) [...]
Can’t make this stuff up: The Brick Testament: Holy Trinity
Natch, a Trinity of comments:
The Father looks kind of mad.
The Holy Ghost seems to have been designed by someone who was a little too literal-minded! Reminds me of one of Charlie Brown’s friends, out trick-or-treating.
$30 + $3 shipping = total ripoff
Technorati Tags: Trinity art, lego [...]
He’s baaaaack. A smokier, bluesier, dirtier “Trinity Schminity”. Now in basement music video form! Apparently there’s been some big shakeup in the band. Their website says “we are now a Christian father and son band”. Mother and daughter, we hardly knew ye.
Thankfully, they’re still “100% monotheist”. And they still ROCK.
Get it? Winter has [...]
Four vivid, moving, memorable depictions of Love.
A post on some previous post commentary - no one can navel-gaze like a philosopher! Here’s a pictorial recap, and some additional thoughts on the comments here, in response to Scott and JT. The point of all this: we’re exploring why people who call themselves “social trinitarians” don’t [...]
Poetry, anyone?
Karen Armstrong is a famous ex-nun who has written, among other things, a puffing biography of the prophet Muhammad. She frequently appears on TV confidently gassing about various religious matters. But I was really taken a back by this, which I ran across in a podcast:
Ms. Armstrong: Well, you see, I think theology is [...]
I’m giggling so hard, I can’t see straight to make a comment. Just skip to about 1:20 for the Trinity stuff. Enjoy.
My favorite comment from the Youtube page: “Somehow you make modalism rock… it’s still wrong, but you made it rock.”
His band’s page is here.
Props to the first commenter who can stop laughing, get beyond [...]
(Picture credit.)
Swinburne isn’t what you’d call a theological liberal. He’s not a conservative evangelical either, given his rejection of things like biblical inerrancy. He was, I believe, a life-long Anglican, until 1996 when he converted to Eastern Orthodoxy. As I understand it, at least part of his motivation was his exasperation with anything-goes style Anglicanism [...]
Swinburne sez: Two thumbs up for the social analogy!
Richard Swinburne is an Emeritus professor at Oriel College, Oxford University, and is widely considered one of the greatest living Christian philosophers. He’s done original work in philosophy of science, epistemology, philosophy of mind, and general metaphysics, but is perhaps best known for his work in philosophy [...]
They tend to carve things like this
or this
Get it? One self/personal substance/entity (represented by the one head) with three faces, i.e. ways of presenting himself or interacting with us. Or alternately, three ways of living (with or without us in the picture).
To be fair, though, one might think that the artists’ inspiration was something like [...]
Below are some more comments on Fred Sanders’ piece. Here is Part 1.
After pointing out that Oneness people have a hard time interpreting passages relating to the pre-existence of the Son, Sanders gets theological:
The fundamental problem of all forms of modalism is this: if God, in order to reveal Himself, becomes something other than what [...]
How many times have you seen one of these offered as an explanation or illustration of the doctrine of the Trinity?
There’s a really neat article about these here, complete with some links to real medieval examples. Basically, this sort of Shield of Faith (Latin: scutum fidei) diagram seems to have originated in the [...]
