Rcan is almost enough just of his own accord to make an agnostic like me slide towards the atheism end of the bench. One angry, unhappy dude. JB
You chuck.ells, are positioning to be the ET "stock phrases" pundit: "This, ladies and gentlemen, is Christianity, lock stock and barrel." "Ahh, a one man Christan crusade." And Turok is hooping to horn in on your job: "...to make an agnostic like me slide towards the atheism end of the bench." Nothing I have seen impresses me towards either, either. But go ahead, insert your next snappy phrase below:
I suppose this didn't cover it: He is God/Creator and His sovereign grace is the singular means to my salvation
Much of Christian theology is philosophically indefensible and unintelligible. Indeed, the Trinity does not even appear in Scripture; it is more or less implied from various verses. Most Christians do not care if they cannot defend their faith on rational grounds. That is something atheists cannot grasp.
The trinity is a conceptual teaching aid I used to bring salvation to the mind that makes this world. It is not understood by what passes today for Christianity because Christianity as it is known, has strayed from "the Way", which was subverted by Saul/Paul. A very brief explanation: Father creates Son who is given everything, so who is everything. Son wanders off in his mind, making himself into something other than as his Father created him. Mind wandering makes this world, which sets the Son up in a nearly impossible situation in which he is trapped within his own mind, weak, helpless and destitute. As the Son sets off to destroy himself, a twin brother is created and made one with the Son. The twin saves the brother's mind from it's own destruction, bringing the brother Home to his reality as the Son of God, created as spirit, not as form. The twin is spirit, as is his brother. The twin is holy and restores wholeness to his brother's mind. So the twin is called, among many various descriptions, the "Holy Spirit". But the Holy Spirit is essentially the same as the Son of God, because the brother's are one. This means that I am the Holy Spirit, who "came to save the world"...which is is lost brother. This also means that you are the Holy Spirit, in your reality, not as your lost self. And we are one with the Father. These are concepts that help you become aware of the problem that you might become aware of the solution and be saved. It is imperative that you lay down the sense of individual identity and identify instead with the Holy Spirit, who is the Son of God with the mission of saving this world. After we are saved, the Holy Spirit remains as our brother, and our equal. You must "lay down your self, that you may live". This means you must merge your false identity with his reality. This is all to say that only the Trinity exists. There is no such thing as the Trinity plus man. Man is the Son of God pretending to be something other that what he is...and therefore in need of salvation. Jesus