Reply #63: Rabrrrrrr's quick and dirty explanation of the Trinity and God=Jesus thing [View All]

[Rabrrrrrr]

I'll be leaving out some subtleties, and of course this will be incomplete, but in a nutshell, this is how it works.

There is God - the God guy/woman that we hear about.

God has three, for lack of a better term, facets: the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit.

The Father is, one can say, the creative aspect of God.

The Son, of course, is Jesus, who is the Christ - the redeemer, and also the Son of God.

The Holy Spirit is God's power - it's the spirit that calls us together into the Church, calls us to mission, brings us love, empowers us to have courage in adversity, etc. It's kind of like The Force, though not so controllable, and it acts on its own a lot more.

And to further help with the God/Jesus thing: Jesus was, according to orthodox (NOT capital-O Orthodox, but small-o orthodox) Christian teaching and understanding, fully human and fully divine. That is, Jesus WAS God on earth. So on the cross, we have God - God saying to a sinful humanity "here is how much I love you - I am letting you crucify me" and then God died, but raised himself from the dead, thus conquering death and the stain of sin and showing us our forgiveness so that, as I see it, we would stop making up rules and laws and trying to discern who is more holy than the other, since we're all God's children equally, and all God really wants from us is to love God, and to love and show mercy and compassion to all human beings. Not to worry about who is praying best or properly, or who has banned Disney from their family video collection, or whether one is sufficently anti-gay or pro-peace or anti-violence or pro-women wearing skirts.

Remember, theologians have written entire VOLUMES on the trinity, so this is quick and dirty. But it's the basic nutshell understanding, so hopefully will help you out.