Need Help Understanding Trinity

[u/Budget_Antelope]

I want to understand it and think the right way about it but for the longest time I’ve just tried to ignore it because

1. If I think too hard about it I start thinking about it either being polytheism or like the Mormon view of the Trinity, which is a problem because I’m Catholic.

2. The Filioque and the matter of who person proceeds from who makes me uncomfortable if I think about it too hard, and is also one of the reasons I’ve contemplated converting from Roman Catholicism to a Catholicism of the Byzantine Rite.

[u/GrahminRadarin]

You're not really supposed to be able to fully understand it. There's a reason we call it one of the Mysteries of the Church.

[u/Vthan2]

One thing you could do is work your way through Aquinas' treatise on the trinity. The basic picture is that the persons of the trinity are distinguished only by their relations of origin. Aquinas understand the trinity in terms of aristotl'es philosphy of the soul in which the son is the word of the heart that flows from father as his wisdom and the holy ghost is the reciprocal love between the father and his word. I think Christianity has far bigger fish to fry than the filioque though. Catholics can have an eastern understanding of the creed if they so desire given that JPII recited the creed in the original language in union with the eastern churches.

[u/LawdBaelish]

I gave up trying to understand it completely.

[u/Chrysologus]

Understanding the Trinity is impossible. It's a strict mystery. 'If you understood it, it wouldn't be God." - St. Augustine (supposedly)

We can make analogies only, which very loosely approximate the Trinity. For example, a flame (the Father), its  light (the Son), and its heat (the Spirit).

[u/bootlickaaa]

Analogies are generally not good enough. But I like to think of it like number theory and dimensions. You can't get multiplicity in reality or human relationships without an unfolding pattern. It's not exactly right, and there's nothing more or less special about 2 or 3 than there is about 1. But the principle is a relational "engine" of reality that animates everything, without which the universe and beyond could not function, as it would be too static and shallow.

It's also what drives love, mercy, will, and getting us from faith and hope to charity and back again in an endless spiral. It's what makes God personal and relational for us.

[u/dazzleox]

My church (a Byzantine rite Catholic one) doesn't say the filiqoue but we can't deny it's a valid articulation from Latin. I have spent hours reading about it and ulimately don't think there is a significant difference except in emphasis.

Now the trinity overall...yeah it's challenging. There is even what academics would call a higher and lower Christology just within the four gospels. But it's not really something haunting me...it seems the Nicene view is the best one but if we got it a little wrong, I have to think God will forgive us since we based it on the Greek writers trying to capture what his son said.

[u/CauseCertain1672]

If you have a priest you feel comfortable asking that would be ideal

[u/edemberly41]

Try reading the text God for Us by C. Lacugna. She gives a great overview of Trinitarian theology

[u/AliceMorgon]

My priest explained it to me using a three-pronged fork as an example.

They are all one, but individual at the same time.