I'd rather not point at things point-by-point. I took what you wrote as a synthesis of what those other guys wrote/said. What was yours and what was theirs was not evident.
And I don't simply dismiss them. But I have heard these ideas before. It did not first come to my mind when I read your post.
My starting point is not that they are simply right or wrong, or that those who discuss from the "traditional" trinitarian view are right or wrong. My starting point is that trying to understand it enough to develop such a comprehensive doctrine about it is to miss-aim in a somewhat serious way.
And while I like Lewis, and Piper (at least some of the time) (and not much opinion on Edwards), there is something about spending so much of our energies locked in discussion/debate about how to understand God that seems to be off-track.
No, you never said that it was like having two people living in one body. But if it is less than that, where are the two? Where are the three?
And at least one part of the argument put forward seemed backward. If God's image of himself is . . . let's quote that one part.
Quote:
God has a perfect relationship with himself, and he sees himself completely and perfectly. This view of himself is his self-image. His self-image is so complete and perfect it is another Person in God. This Self-image God has of himself is God the Son. He is the image of the invisible God.
This is why you can't see God the Father. Because he is God in himself. In order to see him you must, by definition, see God as he sees himself, because that is all he can express.
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If God as he sees himself is his self-image and that is another person that is the Son, then if you can see the Son, you
can see God as he sees himself.
I have some of these kinds of discussions (not about the trinity) with my son who just graduated from DTS. He starts by assuming that I am saying that what he has learned — both over the years and in seminary — is wrong. But that is not it. What I am saying is "why is this seen as important for the average Christian to even put his mind to?" And in the end he generally agrees.
I look at the whole revelation and I see a different "purpose" than Lee did. And different than so many heavy-duty theologians see. Man created to express God. To live on earth in the same way that God is in the heavens — in love and righteousness. God did not ordain that Jews would go to synagogue to worship God every sabbath. He only required that they go to worship at set feasts. The teachings of Jesus center mostly on the living of people. There is the relationship with God — and it is enhanced by the change in covenant. But even all that Paul says about so many high and spiritual things is related to our living.
I have yet to figure out how it is that creating a "reasonable" definition of how it is that the One God is Three enhances any of these. The revelation is of the "fellowship of the Holy Spirit" and other specific items that are truly meaningful to our lives. Deciding how to describe it in human terms of "person," "essence," "unity," etc., and then creating a doctrine out of it seems like there can only be one purpose — to discover who does not agree entirely and then at least keep them at a distance or even exclude them.
That is surely what Justyn and company are doing over at the other forum. It seems that concluding that there is a different way to describe it just changes the base from which others will be judged.
Now if each of these is used as a way to describe some aspect of the relationship of God that is admitted as being beyond cohesive description and that does not preclude almost any other view as having some basis, then I can agree.
But I must admit that the "I talk to myself therefore I am two" argument just doesn't fly for me. There is nothing about by inner discussions — even when I am arguing both sides of something as I seek an answer — that just does not do it for me.