Monday, December 20, 2021

Imad N. Shehadeh on the Problems of the Common Illustrations Used to Explain the Trinity

In his 2-volume God With Us and Without Us, Trinitarian apologist Imad N. Shehadeh noted the following problems with the common illustrations to support the Trinity:

 

Avoiding Exaggeration in the Use of Illustrations

 

Many attempt to explain the Trinity through illustrations, pictures and examples . . . Though there may be some value in these methods, none of them is actually able to explain this doctrine. The Christian Arab philosopher Awad Samaan maintains that God is not compound and the persons are not parts in him that can be compared to anything in existence. (Samaan [God, His Essence and His Kind of Unity, 43])

 

The Pattern of the First Family

 

Eve was created out of Adam’s rib. Then through their physical union they had offspring. So Adam, Eve and their descendants from three elements, when they were originally one. However, in the Trinity, there was no temporal order in the presence of the persons, there was no causation for any of them and there was no time when God was not a Trinity.

 

The Pattern of the Head of the Family

 

The head of the family is used in his triple role as father to his children, son to parents and husband to his wife. But the problem in using this pattern for the Trinity is that it communicates modalism and not the Trinity.

 

The Pattern of Soul, Body and Spirit

 

The problem with using the illustration of soul, body and spirit to illustrate the Trinity is that it implies that God is composed of parts when he is simple and not compound.

 

The Triple Point Pattern

 

There is a condition called the “triple point” whereby, under specific pressure and at a certain temperature, water exists as ice, liquid and vapor at the same time. Three distinct conditions thereby exist in one essence (H2O). However, the problem in using this illustration for the Trinity is that there is a change from one nature to another, and this change requires certain conditions, not to mention the absence of the personal element. None of these features can be found in the Trinity.

 

The Pattern of the Sun: Its Rays, Heat and Light

 

One of the best-known illustrations of the Trinity is the nature of the sun, with its rays, heat and light being three elements of one entity. There have been variations of the sun illustration. The Greek Gregory of Nazianzus of the fourth century AD spoke of the Trinity not as the sun with its rays, but as three suns combined in one ray (Gregory of Naziansus stated that “the Godhead is, to speak concisely, undivided in separate Persons; and there is one mingling of Light, as it were of three suns joined to each other” [Schaff and Wace, Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers, Second Series, Vol. 7, 14:32]). The Arab Ammar Al Basri of the ninth century AD stated that, just as the soul with its spirit and word did not become three souls, and fire with its heat and light did not become three fires, and the sun with its light and heat did not become three suns, so God with his Spirit and Word did not become three gods. Threeness does not nullify oneness and oneness does not nullify threeness (Ammar Al Basri [The Book of Evidence], 48-49).

 

While these pictures provide great benefit, especially in supporting plurality in unity, it must be noted that they give only one aspect of the Trinity and not the whole. Moreover, they of course lack the element of persons in relationship.

 

Conclusion about the Use of Illustrations

 

If there is any benefit in using illustrations, it is not in explaining the Trinity, but at best in illustrating that there can be plurality in one respect and unity in another. But there is very far from explaining the Trinity. All a person can experience is to discover one of the many aspects of the Trinity, then another and yet another, all the days of his or her life. The greatest obstacle in these illustrations lies in preventing this discovery. (Imad N. Shehadeh, God With Us and Without Us, 2 vols. [Carlisle, U.K.: Langham Global Library, 2018], 1:90-91, emphasis in original)

 

While comedic, the following video from "Lutheran Satire" is spot-on, too, with the problems of the common analogies used to explain the Trinity:


St. Patrick's Bad Analogies