| I'm not entirely sure how it all works. C.S. Lewis gives the best explaination I've heard in Mere Christianity. About a fourth of this book is devoted to the concept of the Trinity, so I'll try to get to the heart of it as best as I can.
"God is a Being which contains three Persons while remaining one Being, just as a cube contains six squares while remaining one body. But as soon as I begin trying to explain how these Persons are connected, I have to use words which make it sound as if one of them was there before the others. The First Person is called the Father and the Second the Son. We say that the First begets or produces the second; we call it begetting, not making, because what He produces is of the same kind as Himself. In that way, the word Father is the only word to use. But unfortunately, it suggests that He is there first-just as a human father exists before his son. But that is not so. There is no before and after about it. And that is why I think it important to make clear how one thing can be the source, or cause, or origin, of another without being there before it. The Son exists because the Father exists: but there never was a time before the Father produced the Son.
...we must think of the Son always, so to speak, streaming forth from the Father, like light from a lamp, or heat from a fire, or thoughts from a mind. He is the self-expression of the Father--what the Father has to say. And there never was a time when He was not saying it."
I don't know how much more I can quote without violating copyright or something, but I really like what he has to say about the subject. If there are more specific questions, I'll answer them as best as I (rather, as Lewis) can. As I said, there's about 1/4 of the book devoted to the Trinity. |