I'm afraid this morning's "Give an analogy of the Trinity without falling into demonstrable heresy" competition was a bit of a washout. All entrants were disqualified for heresy. Including Morgwyn who somehow managed to invent the heresy of thrithelitism without even trying.
Now can everyone please have another bash, and try to at least aim for Nicene compliance this time. I know this theology business seems hard, and some Beaker Folk wonder why we bother. But people died for this stuff because it's so important. And it's only this one day of the year.
Almost modalism? I did use this one at the Family Service using a glass of water, some ice and a boiling kettle.
ReplyDeleteAt the triple point H2O is water, steam and ice, all at one and the same time because all three co-exist.
I think this is a reasonable metaphor for Barthian Trinitarianism. It isn't really modalism in my opinion because H2O really does co-exist in those three ways rather than passing through the different modes.
Anyway, a metaphor is a metaphor. I'm not sure it could be called a heresy because we are only using it to help us understand the Trinity not claiming that the Godhead is really like that.
Drew - an interesting one. And definitely far less worrying than the "Jaffa Cake" analogy I heard today. Indeed, I was thinking of using it. But I note that the triple point of water, while being c 273K, is at a pressure of c 6 thousandths of an atmosphere. How did you manage to evacuate the air from the church without the congregation either being sucked out with it, or dying of asphyxiation? Or is it one of those churches without much atmosphere anyway?
ReplyDeleteI pulled out three common explanations this morning and had the Children act them out.
ReplyDelete"What 'H' do these three have in common I asked"
There was silence apart from one teenager, Roman Catholic from an inter-church family.
"Heresy" she said.
And so we explored the mystery of the Triune God.
I am puzzled between the relationship of three in one and one in three, then I thought about the Wayne Rooney conundrum.
ReplyDeleteHe obviously possesses outstanding virility, the obvious sign being the hair loss he suffered (folklore says that losing your hair is a sign of virility).
He had a hair implanted from elsewhere on his body (I hesitate to guess where from?) the purpose being to restore his missing hair.
However, it would appear that the secret effect would be to lower his virility (and temptation) by having more hair.
I'm not sure what, if anything it has to do with the trinity, but it just came into my mind to stop my brain from hurting.
One of the better ones I heard was at college years ago. Our lecturer used the idea of a music chord. Of one nature but separate but make one sound.
ReplyDeleteI have asked friends to explain the Trinity to me twice, and both of them lapsed into heresy about 1 minute into the explanation. It's impossible not to lapse into heresy while trying to explain it. When you get beyond the supposedly simple stuff into perichoresis, coinherence, the Filioque, and which of the hypostases proceed from which, that's when it gets really difficult. And don't get me started on homoousis versus homoiousis. (By the way, Diarmid MacCulloch did the best ever explanation of homoousis versus homoiousis - oil and water mixed versus oil and wine mixed.)
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