People have have some pretty good formals if “Trinity” on here, but just for the record, I’ll tell you what I heard from general Orthodoxy, it doesn’t mean any of that, it means that God is a three dimensional solid person. Always has been. It’s related to the doctrine of the incarnation, where Jesus became one of the men, but a perfect man, and as some people have it “a second Adam”, not fallen. They connect it to the verses describing “living beings around the heavenly throne” in revelation. Some people think the most interesting thing about the Trinity is that if God has always been a solid, maybe Jesus Christ fell, and became man instead of angel as Eden receded. It doesn’t have anything to do with there being three faces of God like the moon goddess crowd is into, though.
Whoa. I have not said that is a bit. Hello @anon29734630. I’m trying to understand what you are saying. Not attacking, not arguing, just trying to honestly understand. You present a speculative interpretation that diverges fundamentally from classical Christian theology and historical Eastern Orthodoxy, despite claiming to come from “general Orthodoxy.”
Here is why I feel this statement is inaccurate according to historical theology, alongside how classical Christian doctrine actually understands these concepts.
I will admit, I have never heard this before. Which is somewhat rare at this point. You claim that the Trinity means God is a “three-dimensional solid person” with physical dimensions who has “always been a solid.” Thank you for that.
However, traditional Christian theology (Eastern Orthodox, Roman Catholic, and Protestant alike) explicitly rejects the idea that God the Father or the divine nature is physical or a “3D solid.” The historical definition formulated at the Council of Nicaea (325 AD) and the Council of Constantinople (381 AD) states that God is one in essence (ousia) and three in distinct persons (hypostases) Aka Father, Son, and Holy Spirit.
God’s divine essence is immaterial, eternal, and infinite. Jesus took on physical human flesh in time (the Incarnation), but the divine nature itself is not a physical shape or solid body.
Then you claim that Jesus became a perfect, unfallen man, functioning as a “second Adam.” This actually aligns with mainstream Christian theology. The Apostle Paul explicitly calls Jesus the “last Adam” or “second man” in 1 Corinthians 15:45–47 and Romans 5. The doctrine holds that while the first Adam introduced sin into human nature, Christ, as an unfallen, sinless human, restored human nature.
What I do not understand is your claim that Jesus may have “fallen” from an angel to a man as Eden receded. This is entirely alien to me and to orthodox Christian doctrine and is considered a severe heresy in historical theology (resembling elements of ancient Gnosticism or Arianism).
Hebrews 1–2 explicitly addresses this, stating that Jesus was never an angel, but rather the uncreated Son of God through whom angels were made. Orthodox theology holds that Christ did not “fall” into humanity as a form of demotion or punishment, but willingly took on human nature out of love for humanity.
The “Living Beings” in Revelation? You claim that the Trinity is connected to the “living beings around the heavenly throne” in Revelation. The four living creatures (Seraphim/Cherubim) mentioned in Revelation 4:6–8 (and Ezekiel 1) are angelic or heavenly beings, not the Trinity. In Christian symbolism, the four faces (lion, ox, man, eagle) have traditionally represented the four Gospels (Matthew, Mark, Luke, John), not the three persons of the Godhead.
While you correctly reject Modalism (the “three faces” view), your claim that Eastern Orthodoxy teaches God as a “3D solid person” or that “Jesus fell” is factually incorrect regarding historical Christian doctrine. Trinitarian theology views God as immaterial and relational, existing eternally as three distinct persons in one divine nature.
Be blessed, be a blessing, Jesus is LORD!
Peter
The doctrine of the Trinity is supposed to say that God has a substance and is tangible, as do angels including the fallen ones. It’s just that their substance isn’t the created type listed in the periodic table of the elements. It’s one of those things. What they mean is that “if a spirit being was there, you’d sense it”. Have you ever heard of the fourth dimension? Think fourth dimension mathematics and theory. Another thing that most people don’t realize is from a very traditional source is “the sixth sense”. John Locke came up with that in “An Essay Concerning Human Understanding”, he thought it was the sense of reason that could perceive a spirit, for example in church if the pastor says an invocation, maybe you feel a difference in the atmosphere. This is all really old school European stuff, it was actually within the government and a law back then back there, today most people don’t even know it.
Thanks for elaborating on your perspective! However, it feels like you are shifting goalposts quite a bit here. You are moving away from your initial claims about Orthodox theology and leaning into a mix of 17th-century Enlightenment philosophy, speculative math/physics metaphors, and popular paranormal folk theory.
To keep things clear from a historical and theological standpoint, a few quick clarifications are helpful.
When historic Trinitarian theology speaks of God’s “substance,” it isn’t describing an uncreated physical matter or subtle material density. It refers to divine being or nature. Classical Christianity (Eastern and Western) maintains that God’s essence is strictly incorporeal and immaterial, distinct from all created substances (whether periodic table elements or created angelic spirits).
John Locke’s Epistemology? John Locke’s “An Essay Concerning Human Understanding” is actually the foundational text of modern British Empiricism. Locke argued that all human knowledge originates strictly from the five physical senses (sensation) and the mind’s internal processing of those inputs (reflection). He explicitly rejected innate spiritual perceptions or a mystical “sense” for feeling spiritual atmospheres.
Using higher-dimensional geometry to visualize spiritual realms became popular in 19th- and 20th-century literature and apologetics (like Abbott’s Flatland or C.S. Lewis). While it’s an interesting modern analogy to help imagine realms beyond our perception, it remains a modern mathematical metaphor rather than traditional Church doctrine or Eastern Orthodox teaching.
It’s fine to explore philosophical metaphors or higher-dimensional ideas, but conflating those modern conceptual tools with historical Eastern Orthodoxy or classical Nicene doctrine misrepresents what those traditions actually teach.
Anyone else care to join in?
Be blessed, be a blessing, and Jesus is LORD!
Peter
What happens, Peter, is that I am also aware of Christian recognition call signs on the WAN & WEB too. Most people use the “road to Emmaus” paradigm, it’s a binary recognition code embedded in many congregations. Also, it’s Greek, so people think it’s orthodox, not that there’s nothing orthodox about the conversion of Saul. I don’t really ever use that particular Masonic handshake; I do know it and know of it. There’s a previous orthodoxy, it’s found in the first book of Euclid’s Elements, where he says “There is no Royal Road”. Euclid was a contemporary of Solomon, and yes, at a later date, there was a Royal road to Emmaus. People do that a lot, it’s gotten to where I definitely know the call letters, but the fact I don’t always know them! You can’t say “hi Saul, I see you’ve become Paul” in a drama to someone you don’t actually really from church life/real life”. That’s the issue. Also, Euclid, although an outsider (notice my screen name), was a near contemporary of the first Saul), so if someone just kinda offers you a “Solomonic key” or “Masonic handshake near the Nile” and you two are not otherwise acquainted except on screen, it’s awkward. I’m more classical about my orthodoxy than some people, and by the way, I also know that both Jews and Greeks are people who consider themselves orthodox, but in different languages. But I know all kinds of outward bound people and land surveyors and Ansel Adams and all that. The “All Who Wonder are not Lost” bumbler sticker wasn’t lost on me at all or anything.
No. It says no such thing.
The word “substance” is used to mean the same thing as “being” or “essence”.
God is not tangible.
The “substance” of God is unknowable, intangible, immaterial, infinite, incomprehensible, ineffable, and immutable. God is God.
What the Trinity says is that there is one God, the Father. And the Father has a Son, who is of the Father’s own essence. The Son is God because the Father is God. The Son did not come to exist at some point in time, but is eternal, because the Father is eternal. And the Holy Spirit is of the same essence as the Father and the Son: truly God, eternal, infinite. So that God is indivisible. And yet there are Three distinct Persons: Father, Son, and Holy Spirit.
The Divine substance or essence or being is not solid or tangible; but infinite, unknowable, and immaterial. God is beyond understanding, beyond defining. And God is beyond speaking except where and what He has revealed.
I don’t know what God is.
I know what God has done.
And I know who God is, because of what He has done, and because the Son became incarnate–enfleshed–in the womb of Mary: Jesus Christ.
I therefore don’t know what God is.
I instead know God’s acts, and I know God hypostatically through Jesus. I don’t know the Father, except that He is the Father of Jesus Christ.