Series: Question of the week by Dr. William Lane Craig, The Trinity and Siamese Twins"

Is the trinity like siamese triplets or like a cerberus?

What does triune mean?

For this week's question, Dr. Craig received a question about the trinity. The question had to do with an analogy he used in one of his podcasts on the Doctrine of the Trinity. We encourage you to listen to Dr. Craig's podcasts on itunes. In the search box under podcasts type in Dr. William Lane Craig, defenders or click here for a list directly from his website. And now the question:

Dear Dr. Craig,

I was looking into your podcast and came across your lectures on the Doctrine of the Trinity and I was amazed at how you were able to make sense of this doctrine even though there have been many attempts of analogies trying to illustrate our Triune God (none of which accurately represents the Trinity). Well, I would just like to note that I believe our Triune God is unique and that no analogy could illustrate his divine being. Nevertheless this doctrine has troubled me intellectually for a long time but wanting to know my God deeper, I came across your model of the Trinity which did helped me a lot. Thank you for that.

Well my question will eventually spring forth as I unravel my concerns. In part 8 of your lecture on "The Doctrine of the Trinity" you attempted to create a model of the Trinity by using the mythical character Cerberus. You did say that you felt uneasy using this model (I do too, but nevertheless it did help me).

Anyway, you began by saying that Cerberus has three heads and one body and so he has three minds and therefore three distinct states of consciousnesses. Cerberus therefore has three personalities and so he is Tri-personal. These three heads and one body can only be possible because the three minds are contained in this one physical body that Cerberus possesses. Then you further enhanced the story and added that suppose Hercules slays Cerberus and he dies yet his minds survived the death supposing they are immortal, In what sense then will they still be one being for there no longer remains a physical body to contain Cerberus's "tri-personal souls."

Well you then helped the listeners by looking into the nature of the Soul to better understand the doctrine of the Trinity. If I recall, you mentioned that what makes a human soul an individual person is because each soul is equipped with one set of rational faculties and volitional faculties which are sufficient for personhood. Now God is a soul, one being with instead of one set of rational and volitional faculties God has three sets of rational and volitional faculties. God is then one being that is three persons. This to me seems to preserve the doctrine of the Trinity. Thank you so much for this model and if I got everything right up to this point, here are my questions:

1) Would conjoined twins having two heads and one body or rather conjoined Triplets having three heads (three minds) and one body work the same way as in the scenario of Cerberus? That is, would there be one soul with three states of consciousnesses?

2) Furthermore, if that is true in the case of the conjoined triplets and thus having three states of consciousnesses, would the conjoined triplet be a Trinity if the triplet died because they are one soul or one being with three states of consciousnesses?

On another note I just want to add another question if you don't mind.

3) Earlier in this topic you mentioned that the Trinity is an identity statement to God himself and that when one says Jesus is God or the Father is God, one is not to understand it to be an identity statement but rather predications in which one means that Jesus has the property of being divine. Then you said that Jesus is not identical to the whole Godhead which is the Trinity but rather Jesus is a member of the Trinity. I became unsure of this because in Colossians 2:9 Paul writes, "For in him dwelleth all the fullness of the Godhead bodily." Am I to understand this as Jesus being equivalent to the Godhead or something else? Could you please help me out with this passage, I might not be taking it into context or I might not understand it the way it should be understood.

I just want to thank you again Dr. Craig for your work as it has helped me intellectually and faithfully with my walk with our Triune God.

Sincerely,

Thien
Canada

Dr. Craig responds:

Please click HERE to see Dr. Craig's response.

For  more questions of the week check out Dr. Craig's website reasonablefaith.org and if you have any questions you can email me or pastor J at intelligentfaith315@gmail.com or jason@claycup.com.

There is nothing wrong with asking questions, there is if you don't ask!!!