Trinity has its own meaning in terms of religion and philosophy. What impressed me is the definition I found on
http://www.youtube.com/user/ereflect#p/u/0/OncIVg50o4I

I am sharing this so that it may help you all also.
Let me know what you feel.

Kirtil,

If I have found the website to which you are referring, it defines the orthodox Holy Trinity as Father, Son, and Holy Ghost. It then goes on to say, "As a general term, Trinity merely refers to three things or people that are considered as a unit, inseparable."

I feel this may be one of the most acceptable short definition of Trinity I have ever seen.

Can you help me correct and improve the arguments about the Trinity in my new book "Religious Pluralism and the Trinity Absolute: a Constructive Interpretation of World Religions and a Metaphysical Blueprint for Peace" currently previewing on the web at www.religiouspluralism.ca?

In my book, I define the TRINITY ABSOLUTE as a Systematic Unity reflected in Religions, demonstrated in Science, echoed in Psychology, and composed of the Three Absolutes of Creation:

1. The Deity Absolute Prime Creator – represented in religions by Allah, Abba or Father, as Jesus called him; Brahma, and others.

2. The Universe or “Universal” Absolute Supreme Being or Oversoul – represented in history by Jesus, Muhammad, Buddha, and others.

3. The Unconditioned Absolute Spirit of All That Is – the ultimate Destiny Consummator, who is expected to be Allah/Abba/Brahma glorified.

This definition is refreshing because the Trinity is discussed in terms unencumbered by specifically Christian dogma. Nevertheless, it is edifying because it ties in so well with the Holy Trinity expression of One God, while blowing the doors off orthodoxy.

I argue that the Supreme Being will probably be Jesus reincarnated in his return to earth as Christ, heading a supreme gestalt of the consciousness of all humankind.

I understand that it is orthodox doctrine that the persons of the Trinity are unified in spirit, universal in reason (mind), but threefold in personality. As the Chinese would say: "Same, same, but different." This reminds me of Plato, who called the Trinity: same (one), other (many), and essence (all).

The one "spirit of Trinity" is the spirit of God, which of course is also the spirit of the Son, and their same spirit is glorified in that person which is their consummation - the Spirit of All That Is. In a sense, maybe we could say that the spirit of Trinity is the same, other, and essential spirit of God thrice-glorified. Christians say that a spark of this same spirit indwells all humankind.

I believe that the persons of the Trinity are all of one will by mutual agreement, which has a danger (as the Qur'an points out), in that they each retains that prime personality prerogative - authonomous freewill - which constitutes them as persons, but which (at least potentially) might cause trouble.

Theoretically, they could each "take their portions of the kingdom and go their own ways," but they don't because among other dire consequences, such a distintegration would be catastrophic to the metaphysical coherence of heaven, earth, and all that is. Nevertheless, they do have different personalities, and there are obviously distinctive characteristics of freewill personal dignity, which the persons of the Trinity may exhibit, within the limits of necessary Trinity unity, and their metaphysical roles in it.

No matter how overbearing, or cantankerous, or vague the personal characters may sometimes seem to be, in the worst case, the eternal metaphysical need for their systematic unity of coherence in the Trinity Absolute still constitutes Trinity as the only adequate vehicle humans have discovered so far, which might form a basis for something, anything, and everything - without which there would be nothing.

There is also an exciting potential of variable relationship, in the circumincession or perichoresis (procession or dance) of the absolute persons of the Trinity Absolute. Believe it or not, this giddy vision of multi-dimensional consciousness, in an almost kaleidoscopic merry-go-round of joyous movement, creating an "overplus" of the divine energies characteristic of the persons of the Trinity (particularly justice, love, and mercy), is well-supported by Christian doctrine (Augustine and Aquinas).

This adds a lightness of being to the creation (which it would otherwise lack), bringing it alive through the co-creative activity of the three absolute persons consubstantial in the Trinity Absolute; and frees the Deity Absolute Father from the aweful fetters of his supposed "original" lonely existential absolute majesty and sovereignty.

Indeed, there may have been a dreamtime of the Father, in which his goals and their implications in all their goodness were known, but the means to produce them were not.

This seems to have been the "lesson that could not be taught," which if God had not resolved (in the Trinity), he would have gone mad, and we would have been trapped in a nightmare-like dream.

But we are not trapped in a dream. Reality is all too material these days. So God must have thought and pondered on the Trinity, until at a certain moment about 14 billion years ago, he "saw" that it was good, and instantly it exploded into material existence, and has apparently been expanding ever since. Trinity would seem to be the basis of a "theory of everything" - what Stephen Hawkings called "an idea so compelling that it brings about its own existence" - the one inevitability.

Sorry to just throw all this at you in a "stream of consciousness," but what do you think?

Samuel Stuart Maynes
www.religiouspluralism.ca

If you are interested in some new ideas on religious pluralism in relation to the Trinity, please check out my website at www.religiouspluralism.ca, and give me your thoughts on improving content and presentation.

My thesis is that an abstract version of the Trinity could be Christianity’s answer to the world need for a framework of pluralistic theology.

In a rational pluralistic worldview, major religions may be said to reflect the psychology of One God in three basic personalities, unified in spirit and universal in mind – analogous to the orthodox definition of the Trinity. In fact, there is much evidence that the psychologies of world religions reflect the unity of One God in an absolute Trinity.

In a constructive worldview: east, west, and far-east religions present a threefold understanding of One God manifest primarily in Muslim and Hebrew intuition of the Deity Absolute, Christian and Krishnan Hindu conception of the Universal Absolute Supreme Being; and Shaivite Hindu, Buddhist, Taoist apprehension of the Destroyer (meaning also Consummator), Unconditioned Absolute, or Spirit of All That Is and is not. Together with their variations and combinations in other major religions, these religious ideas reflect and express our collective understanding of God, in an expanded concept of the Holy Trinity.

The Trinity Absolute is portrayed in the logic of world religions, as follows:

1. Muslims and Jews may be said to worship only the first person of the Trinity, i.e. the existential Deity Absolute Creator, known as Allah or Yhwh, Abba or Father (as Jesus called him), Brahma, and other names; represented by Gabriel (Executive Archangel), Muhammad and Moses (mighty messenger prophets), and others.

2. Christians and Krishnan Hindus may be said to worship the first person through a second person, i.e. the experiential Universe or "Universal” Absolute Supreme Being (Allsoul or Supersoul), called Son/Christ or Vishnu/Krishna; represented by Michael (Supreme Archangel), Jesus (teacher and savior of souls), and others. The Allsoul is that gestalt of personal human consciousness, which we expect will be the "body of Christ" (Mahdi, Messiah, Kalki or Maitreya) in the second coming – personified in history by Muhammad, Jesus Christ, Buddha (9th incarnation of Vishnu), and others.

3. Shaivite Hindus, Buddhists, and Confucian-Taoists seem to venerate the synthesis of the first and second persons in a third person or appearance, ie. the Destiny Consummator of ultimate reality – unqualified Nirvana consciousness – associative Tao of All That Is – the absonite* Unconditioned Absolute Spirit “Synthesis of Source and Synthesis,”** who/which is logically expected to be Allah/Abba/Brahma glorified in and by union with the Supreme Being – represented in religions by Gabriel, Michael, and other Archangels, Mahadevas, Spiritpersons, etc., who may be included within the mysterious Holy Ghost.

Other strains of religion seem to be psychological variations on the third person, or possibly combinations and permutations of the members of the Trinity – all just different personality perspectives on the Same God. Taken together, the world’s major religions give us at least two insights into the first person of this thrice-personal One God, two perceptions of the second person, and at least three glimpses of the third.

* The ever-mysterious Holy Ghost or Unconditioned Spirit is neither absolutely infinite, nor absolutely finite, but absonite; meaning neither existential nor experiential, but their ultimate consummation; neither fully ideal nor totally real, but a middle path and grand synthesis of the superconscious and the conscious, in consciousness of the unconscious.

** This conception is so strong because somewhat as the Absonite Spirit is a synthesis of the spirit of the Absolute and the spirit of the Supreme, so it would seem that the evolving Supreme Being may himself also be a synthesis or “gestalt” of humanity with itself, in an Almighty Universe Allperson or Supersoul. Thus ultimately, the Absonite is their Unconditioned Absolute Coordinate Identity – the Spirit Synthesis of Source and Synthesis – the metaphysical Destiny Consummator of All That Is.

After the Hindu and Buddhist conceptions, perhaps the most subtle expression and comprehensive symbol of the 3rd person of the Trinity is the Tao (see book cover); involving the harmonization of “yin and yang” (great opposing ideas indentified in positive and negative, or otherwise contrasting terms). In the Taoist icon of yin and yang, the s-shaped line separating the black and white spaces may be interpreted as the Unconditioned “Middle Path” between condition and conditioned opposites, while the circle that encompasses them both suggests their synthesis in the Spirit of the “Great Way” or Tao of All That Is.

If the small black and white circles or “eyes” are taken to represent a nucleus of truth in both yin and yang, then the metaphysics of this symbolism fits nicely with the paradoxical mystery of the Christian Holy Ghost; who is neither the spirit of the one nor the spirit of the other, but the Glorified Spirit proceeding from both, taken altogether – as one entity – personally distinct from his co-equal, co-eternal and fully coordinate co-sponsors, who differentiate from him, as well as mingle and meld in him.

For more details, please see: www.religiouspluralism.ca

Samuel Stuart Maynes