Roller

Hello everyone!

OK, an apologist is trying to sell me an explanation how Holy Trinity can be explained with water analogy. How water can be ice, liquid and steam and how that corresponds to three God persons. My response was that he has to show me all three states coexistent at the same time in order for his explanation to be correct. He told me how that’s stupid and that all I need to do is take chunk of ice, glass of water and cup of steaming water. I'm planning to response with this: he needs to take a glass of water and show me all three states at the same time. Not by taking 1/3 for ice, 1/3 for water and 1/3 for steam.

Any comments?

Roller

Oxymoron

I think that one of you is stretching the metaphor too far. After all, they aren't suggesting God is a glass of water It all sounds a bit "life is a bowl of cherries" to me.

Nevertheless: water, ice and water vapour (steam is misleading) are made of exactly the same stuff. All that changes is the nature of the forces acting between the molecules, which is a function of the ambient temperature. To say this another way, its all dependent on context: change the context, change the state.

So if this is how The Holy Trinity is supposed to work, get your apologist to start talking about what the context is and how it changes to generate the three forms: get them to flesh out what they're really waffling about so that it can be shot down in flames.

Alternatively, you might try attacking the theological and philosophical history of the trinity (I'm sure a Google search or some clever Infidel out there can provide a link).

Synaesthesia

I don't think that there's a logical problem with the trinity because, remember, everyone claims that the trinity is incomprehensible to the human intellect - it's not supposed to be understood.

So the fact that you don't understand it does not count against the trinity, it simply counts against the epistemology by which people conclude that there is such a thing.

long winded fool

Maybe instead of water, the apologist could have compared the trinity to a cone? A cone can technically be a circle, (base) a triangle, (side) and a point (very tip) at the same time. All three are required to make a cone, even though each can exist separately, and to someone in a 2-dimensional world, the cone and the circle couldn't possibly be the same thing. We can imagine the three aspects of the trinity existing separately, but putting them together into one entity is difficult, if not impossible. But if two 2-dimensional shapes can encompass a 3-dimensional shape, then maybe an entity in a higher dimension can be comprised of three seemingly unrelated objects in our own dimension?

Keith Russell

Greetings:

It is irrational to believe in something for which there is no evidence.

One can say 'it is beyond human comprehension', but one cannot know that it is; to 'know' is to 'comprehend'.

Keith.

Jobar

Hi, Roller, welcome to Internet Infidels.

My take on arguments of this sort is to just brush them aside. I mean, they are trying to build a house before they build the foundation; they have not, and in my opinion *can* not, explain what they mean when they start talking about God. Bringing in a Son and a Holy Ghost is like some UFO nut explaining why we need to wear a tinfoil hat to protect against the alien mind control rays, when the existence of aliens is utterly unproven!

Sometimes in this forum, we argue as if we grant the theists their basic premises- that a God or Gods exist, or that Biblical theology is true to one degree or another. This is largely because we are fascinated by the architecture of their castles in the air; any time the argument gets serious, I personally attack the root of their belief, and require that they explain God first.

As to the water analogy, I've heard it used before; you might point out that all the phases of water can be easily sensed, but that none of the aspects of their Trinity may be shown to exist. Another monkey wrench you might throw in is that ice has several different 'phase states'- I don't recall how many, but the crystalline structure of ice changes according to the amount of pressure it's subjected to. So water has more than three forms!

**makTHRAX**

I finally understand. The Holy Trinity is the triple point, the exact pressure and temperature at which water is in all three physical states at once. Wow, theists make so much sense.

thx,
makTHRAX

Roller

Thank You all for your comments!

I'm aware that were building home before foundation because he didnt prove the existence of such thing as Holy Trinity but I'm willing to forget that for now, otherwise I could have said "Prove it!" and than I really dont know how in the Earth he would be able to do so. Its just like the problem of evil, were discussing it although no one ever proved the existence of the entity were discussing about (but than again, this almost entire forum is based on that

I'm also very well aware that if I dont understand something doesent mean how that thing is impossible. But from my understanding of how Trinity should work, than he should be able to show me exactly this:

I agree that that doesent make much sense but Trinity itself is not making any much either. I guess extraordinary claims require extraordinary proof and that "triple point" would be such proof. Too bad thats very, very hard (I would say impossible).

Thanks Oxymoron for "vapour", steam is misleading but since English is not my native language, "steam" was the best I could come up with.

But his interpretation rests heavily on surrouding preassure and temperature (is that the "context" Oxymoron was talking about?). So after a couple of minutes on room temperature, all of his states would become water. Below zero (im working in celsius it would turn to ice and over 100C to vapour. So water is either ice or either liquid or either vapour. For me, that explanation fails (although its is a nice analogy but ultimately it fails). He would need exactly "triple point" in which water would be all three states coexistent.

That reminds me of Richard Porson who was a known skeptic when it came to belief in the Trinity. "Once, while discussing his
doubts on the doctrine of the Trinity to a friend, they both looked up,
and saw a buggy passing by them with three men in it. "There" said Porson's
friend, "is an illustration of the Trinity". Porson shot back, "No, you
must show me one man in THREE buggies, if you can"." This last part is a qute from <a href="http://mac-2001.com/philo/crit/NEWTEST2.TXT" target="_blank">http://mac-2001.com/philo/crit/NEWTEST2.TXT</a> (excellent web page)

Once again thank You for all the comments You've made! <img src="graemlins/notworthy.gif" border="0" alt="[Not Worthy]" />

This is a great forum and I'm enjoying reading all of your posts! (together with infidels.org excellent library)

Roller

doodad

The water analogy of the Trinity is a little rought I'll admit. Your statement that water, steam, and ice are made of the same stuff touches on what the guy was trying to say but apparently didn't know how. If you can take the words "same stuff" to means the same attributes then you are close to the crux of his problem. The orthodox version of the Holy Trinity says that the Godhead, not God, one or unity, but consists of three entities that have the essence of God, where essence is taken to mean divine qualities or divine attributes. Modalists think that Jesus is God, and cannot handle the concept that Jesus has the divine attributes of God but in fact is not God himself.

The Holy Trinity is essentially a man made definition of the relationship between God the Father, Jesus the Son, and the Holy Spirit, or Holy Ghost, which is synonomous. Constantine the Great apparently promoted, perhaps demanded, that such a definition be finalized and established as the "official definition". The Holy Trinity has been derived by consideration of what biblical scripture means. Constantine wanted a monotheistic religion as an official state religion of his Roman Empire, and to his way of thinking one with three Gods, which is the Modalist view, is not monotheistic. He got what he wanted for secular reasons, and it's been hotly disputed ever since. However, he's not the culprit, because the clerics couldn't agree on a concept of trinity to begin with. He just brought the festering boil to a head.

doodad

I hope you are being facetious, because if not you evidently have missed the point of the discussion or the purpose of the water analogy.