In my story, I'm wondering how to display the Trinity. For those of you who do this, do you just make the same, triune God present in your story? Or are there three persons representing the three parts of God?

I generally don't write with symbolism; but I might have an older fellow in the inn's great room to give moral advice to a troubled younger person for the Spirit; the Father is pretty much the same in a different name; and the Son is... hard to put into words.

I make it just the same - a Triune God. Not something I would play around with, considering it's one of the most fundamental doctrines of Christianity.
God bless,
Crushmaster.

I didn't try for it either but it kind of just happened that way. I had an all powerful creator God who is unnamed and made all of the universe. An embodied Vili sent by him to master the earth and his fallen creation in person. And lastly God himself sent down to rescue the world's people and rule them by the magic power he is sent to recover. I never planned it out this way, in fact I wanted to avoid having the trinity involved in the book. If you are planning on including the trinity as a part of your book you need to understand their roles.

The Father: The omnipotent, omnipresent, all knowing creator of the universe who orchestrated space and time to form the perfect story and world.

The Son: The blessed redeemer who came to shed his blood in sacrifice for those he loved so that he would save them from themselves and rule them forever and ever.

The Holy Spirit:The intercessor sent by God to lead us in his absence that is the voice of the trinity and leads us in right and wrong.

I tried my best to describe the role of God in his three forms, I hope this helped.

Well... I've seen it done different ways and have incorporated it into my stories different ways as well. In one of my worlds, for example, the concept of the Trinity plays a HUGE role in the world, culture, and story. Why? Because the series is almost an allegorical picture of man's redemption, and the villain quite literally represents the devil.

In my other world, Arabah, however, there is very little mentioning of even God, only because few people in the world are actually "believers" in that sense. I did incorporate certain Christian ideas, however, and capped it off at the end since a large amount of a subplot revolve around the J'orge River--which is something the people consider a literal "river of life."

Then I have my other stories set in real world where God is God and I try my best to portray His real person--a hard enough feat on its own. I also have stories that don't have God involved at all, which is only because the whole point to dissect the whole belief system behind humanistic principles.

So it'd really depend on what you're trying to accomplish and what, as well as Who, you want to represent. Your story--depending on what it is--might not require you to mention the Trinity. But, then again, it might rely entirely on God's three persons in one. So, for instance, are you trying to represent something like man's redemption? Maybe something more like the concept of God being powerful yet close to us? Or perhaps something a bit different where you're allowing God to influence your story, without Him actually playing a big 'role' in your story.

In other words, I'd suggest you determine what characteristic of God you want to portray--or don't want to portray--in relation to the story of His greatness that you're showing. Only because we will never be able to fully capture God's glory in just one book. And, just as God reveals who He is to us piece by piece, part by part, in real life, we can do that as we show different facets of Who God Is to a world that doesn't truly know Him.

That's just my honest opinion and experience =)

I follow this maxim as well.

eru

Thanks, guys. This helps a lot.

I will, once I get around to the Messiah. I'm just not up to that point in history yet. I think it's important.

My view is threefold:

1. Your story's God doesn't have to be explicitly Triune, at least not if Christ hasn't come yet. After all, for most of our world's history, the Israelites were the keepers of His revelation and didn't know He was Triune.
2. Making God explicitly non-Triune puts you outside the realm of Christian fiction.
3. If you're going to talk explicitly about the Trinity, make sure you know what the Christian doctrine says. The Persons are not parts of God, nor forms of God. They are not like ice, water, and steam, nor are They much like a three-leaf clover. A lot of evangelicals are what is called material heretics with respect to the Trinity; that is, they may not have explicitly rejected the orthodox understanding and may even think they hold it, but they don't.

So your view about the Trinity is Triune cool.

I have the trinity in Ska'Lah'Seh as there is Yah (The Father/Creator), Ard'An (The Son/Messiah), and the Yah'Mon (The Holy Spirit) not to be confused with Ald'Mon (Literally a Good spirit/Angel)

Are you saying do you portray the Trinity the way Modalists portray the trinity? I think I got confused somewhere. Or are you just asking how to portray the Trinity?

Somewhat similar to what Sam said you might want to think about whether Christ has come yet or not, and in agreement with Crush its not something I would play around with much.

The majority of my stories has a Triune God, mostly in the form of a humble man giving advice. I have tried the three parts of God, however I have found that that seemed to detract away from the message of the Trinity.

I hate to be a pedantic jerk, but the Persons are not parts. If we're going to do this, we need to be very careful to do it right.

I realised that after I tried to place them into three. It won't work, because as you stated, the Persons are not parts and should not be treated as so.

Ah, OK. Yeah, representing the Trinity as such would be kind of hard. No man can see God and live. No man has seen the Father at any time. It's more important, I think, for your work to acknowledge or at least not contradict the nature of the Trinity than for all three Persons to be, properly speaking, "seen." After all, only One is visible in the ordinary sense.

So if I choose, as I have done for one particular story to represent the Trinity in the human body of a humble man representing the Christ, who is in essence represents the Trinity as we know it, would this contradict the Nature of the Trinity?

I think it would contradict the essence of the Trinity as we know it (unless you explained that there are three separate entities in the man), but I don't think a novel must have a Trinitarian God if it's set in a world other than our own. As long as it doesn't look like you as an author are actually promoting unitarianism, or (to go to the other side), polytheism. Otherwise, I don't think every single novel must have a Trinitarian God. Course, it might also depend on how big of a role the 'God' of your novel has in your book...

Thanks Rea

I hate it when people do this.

Am I to take Aratrea's suggestion as referring to some kind of incarnation of all three Persons in one body?

Umm, kind of? I was merely saying that that would be the only way for it to really remain a biblical representation of the Trinity (if you still consider that a semi-biblical way to view them.) I wasn't necessarily suggesting it though, as I don't think it's necessary to have the 'God' in your novels be representations of the Trinity...

Well, if the God in your novels is explicitly non-triune, your novel is as Christian as Muhammad.

Really? I guess that depends on your definition of explicitly non-triune. I think it more depends on the God-figure's role in the story. If he plays a major role and it is clear to the reader that this is a Unitarian God, then I can understand it. But if he's more minor/it isn't clear that this is a non-Triune God, then even if in the world that's how he is, if it doesn't enter into the book, I'm not sure if that would make a book non-Christian...

Well, if it isn't clear, that wouldn't fall under "explicitly non-Triune." But really, any Otherworld where God is not a Trinity is an Otherworld where Christianity is false. You can write it if you want (and I've read books like that; I'm not going on a moral crusade about it or anything), but I wouldn't consider that a Christian work.

EDIT: Nevermind my previous stuff here. In the interest of not derailing this thread from it's original topic, I have made a new thread about this here: viewtopic.php?f=31&t=7164