It is impossible to state the trinity simply in your own words without contradicting yourself or committing a heresy.
Notice how long-winded and obscure trinitarians get as soon as they start trying to say anything.
John-1-1-Colossians-1-16-all-other-things - Part 2
by Wonderment 59 Replies latest watchtower bible
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TTWSYF
it's so totally understandable why JWs [former too]have such a problem with the trinity concept. The WTS talks always about how good the bible is and it's God's word and all that, but then tells you that the bible doesn;t mean what it says. Doomed to be like posters we all love to debate with. I'll be a brief as possible. Below from the NWT states explicitly that the Holy Spirit is God and Jesus is God.
Acts 5'3 But Peter said: “An·a·ni′as, why has Satan emboldened you to lie+ to the holy spirit+ and secretly hold back some of the price of the field?4 As long as it remained with you, did it not remain yours? And after it was sold, was it not in your control? Why have you thought up such a deed as this in your heart? You have lied, not to men, but to God.”
This one [explicitly prophesying Jesus IS GOD] is from
IS 96 For a child has been born to us,+A son has been given to us;And the rulership* will rest on his shoulder.+His name will be called Wonderful Counselor,+ Mighty God,+Eternal Father, Prince of Peace.
One for Cofty- We have 3 dimensions in our reality. We have [and can observe] length, depth and height. Engineers will use the terms x,y and z axis, carpenters like Jesus would use the square, level and plumb. When you have three dimensions, you can see a clear picture in 3 dimensions. Take away a dimension and you have a lesser picture or view. Height is not more important than depth, and width is not more important than height, these dimensions work together to give us a clearer view and do not contradict at all. They work together to create an image that we can see. The trinity could be explained like that without committing heresy.
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cofty
TTWSYF - Your analogy does absolutely nothing to explain the trinity.
3 dimensions don't "work together", that's just gibberish.
Take away a dimension and you have a lesser picture or view
How do you "take away a dimension" and what has that got to do with the trinity? What would a one-dimensional picture look like exactly?
You have just thought of something that involves the word three and thought that if you muttered something about threeness and oneness you would have answered the question. Only theists are that gullible.
The challenge was to explain the trinity simply in your own words and illustrate it.
You have made no attempt to explain it.
Christians are polytheists.
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Wonderment
TTWSYF: Below from the NWT states explicitly that the Holy Spirit is God and Jesus is God.
Acts 5:3, "But Peter said: ‘An·a·ni′as, why has Satan emboldened you to lie to the holy spirit and secretly hold back some of the price of the field. 4 As long as it remained with you, did it not remain yours? And after it was sold, was it not in your control? Why have you thought up such a deed as this in your heart? You have lied, not to men, but to God.’”
Does the Bible really teach explicitly that the "holy spirit" is God?
The same chapter of Acts (5.9) say that ‘the spirit is of the Lord God.’ Since the spirit emanates from God, it can be said that lying to the spirit is lying to God. Something similar is said in James 3.14 about "lying against the truth." Is the truth a person?
No. The truth of James 3.14 stands for the truth of the Gospel. Analogies of this sort are common in Scripture. No need to impose a foreign doctrine to Scripture to have "tradition" come on top.
The Anchor Bible Dictionary states: “One does not find in the NT the trinitarian paradox of the coexistence of the Father, Son, and Spirit within a divine unity.” (Ed. by David Noel Freedman, Yale University Press / 2007)
TTWSYF: This one [explicitly prophesying Jesus IS GOD] is from
IS 9:6, "For a child has been born to us, A son has been given to us; And the rulership will rest on his shoulder. His name will be called Wonderful Counselor, Mighty God, Eternal Father, Prince of Peace."
There is no doubt that Jesus is referred to as "Mighty God" in Scripture. The question is:Does this mean that Jesus is "Almighty" God? No. There are only a handful of texts (at most) in all the Bible which are interpreted to mean that Jesus is God. On the other hand, there are more than 100 references in the Gospels alone which state that Jesus is "the Son of God." The wiser course, then, is to put greater weight on the majority of Scriptures which explicitly say Christ is "God's Son," rather than rely on the few disputed texts which describe Jesus as God.
Psalm 82.1, "God standeth in the congregation of the mighty; he judgeth among the gods." (KJV)
This text indicates celestial beings near God are called divine, mighty, gods.
Are you willing to claim that no other heavenly beings can be called "gods" in Scripture? Jesus is certainly above other heavenly gods. He is ‘the only-begotten God.’ (John 1.18)
Moses served as "God" before the nations. (Ex. 4.16; 7.1) Was Moses Almighty God? No, he only represented God in one mission. Jesus as the Greater Moses was sent by God to represent him before the world, to save those in the world willing to hear the divine message. (John 3.16)
The crux of the matter is this: “The New Testament says that Jesus was the Word of God, it says that God was in Christ, it says that Jesus is the Son of God; but it does not say that Jesus was God, simply like that.” (John A.T. Robinson, Honest to God, p. 70.)
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slimboyfat
I agree the NT doesn't teach that Jesus is God. Even in the gospel of John which arguably has the highest Christology of the NT you find highly subordinationist statements:
1. That the Son is the only begotten God.
2. That Jesus owes his life to the Father.
3. That the Father is greater than the Son.
4. That the Son can do nothing himself except by direction from the Father.
5. That the Father has given the Son authority to judge men.
6. God sent Jesus into the world as saviour.
All these are clear indications that the author of John, whatever else he believed about Jesus, he did not believe he was equal to God.
And yet John has Thomas describe Jesus as "my Lord and my God" at the end of the gospel. It's a bit of a mystery what the intent was there. To me at least.
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MercyBrew
Wonderment, I don’t know you personally but I sensed a sincerity and commitment to apprehending and defending the truth from the very moment I saw your post on this subject. Your construction of arguments, matching of opposing positions, layout of your analysis and deductions, reference to scholarly works, etc., are some of the qualities that made me choose to contribute to your post.
Honestly speaking, most of what I believe and am persuaded of about Jesus being God and about the Trinity, my analogies, etc., come from self-discoveries on my knees in fervent and continuous prayers to God over a period of about 18 months between 1993 and 1995 after all my research in Bibles, commentaries and such still left me neither here nor there. It was much long after I had received these mode of understanding and manner of reconciliation of these seemingly conflicting concepts by myself that I started seeing some of them being used by others in books, videos, online, etc. to explain the concepts.
I will first share this experience with you and then share my thoughts and convictions on John's explicitly stated objective of writing his gospel account to the intent that we may believe that Jesus is the Son of God and show that it still ends up in the same place proving that he is God.
I was born and grew up in a Christian family that believed in the Trinity but in a rather nominal and conformist, no-questions asked way. So to a large extent I just accepted it as a mystery that was not to be probed into but just accepted. When I eventually became a Christian by informed choice in 1991 I simply carried it over as true and settled until sometime in 1993 when I met some Jehovah’s Witness who engaged and disputed with me in many areas of our general doctrines till we came to this and they raised serious doubts in me by sound and convincing arguments from passages of the Scripture that I could not sincerely and convincingly answer with a clear conscience. This caused me to decide to question EVERYTHING I had believed about this and embark on an intensive search for the truth.
Over a period of a year or so I resumed early in the morning twice, thrice or more times a week at a Christian library a city away from mine and left when only the library was ready to close in the evening. I pored over Bible translations, concordances, commentaries, topic-specific literatures and all sorts that I could find to give me information on it and answer my reasonable doubts but found no peace with virtually all. I then began to mop up Watch Tower literatures as much as I could and also bought their Bible, searching for the truth in their own position but was disappointed as well and I never was fully persuaded by their explanations either. This situation left me in a fearful state of flux that made me practically a non-believer in either.
I had questions based on my studyof the Bible pertaining to the Trinitarian position that none of the books and persons I consulted to seek clarifications on it ever answered to the satisfaction of my conscience. Virtually all of the analogies and models of explanation that I read or heard about how these things could be true never quite satisfied my fear of God and sense of responsibility to him and the truth. It got really bad to the point that a Christian brother close to me then suggested openly among our group that I was close to becoming an heretic or an apostate of sorts.
The NWT Bible, WT literatures and JWs too did not offer better in clearing up my questions about their own position.
For each position I had a list of passages of Scripture that just would not be satisfied by the answers offered in defence of the position without me violating my reason and more importantly my conscience.
In this state of confusion I immersed myself in continuous spontaneous and structured prayers with weeping, petitions, cries for God's mercy and forgiveness, admissions to him of my utter bankruptcy in knowledge with regards to the subject matter, confessions of my presumption and foolishness and all sorts to the end that by some means (a spiritual/supernatural encounter, separated completely from human analytical and deductive reasoning processes, was by this time my only remaining hope of ever clearing this up effectively without doubts) God would just clear up the matter for me and tell me the right position.
Days turned into weeks and then to months, but gradually, to my amazement, thoughts out of context and never previously imagined or heard (the question of where God was before he created Heaven is one of such) would sneak up in my mind, familiar activities (the candle flame analogy I used in my last response is one of such) out of band with my religious inquisition would spark my understanding suddenly without prior contemplation, and several other things I cannot now enumerate, were all occurring, as it were, randomly but divinely (I say so now with hindsight) awakening my senses to how they answered different aspects of my questions and doubts. These kept happening so peacefully and without violation to my conscience or bullying of my reasoning except some patient stretching and upending of it here and there. The experience was so beautiful, painstaking and condescendingly humbling that I could not but acknowledge it as divine and submitted to its leading to the abandonment of my set mind of closed persuasion that only some spiritual/supernatural encounter could clarify my confusions in the subject matter.
At the end of it all I had about four passages remaining that were never resolved and still remain unexplained of themselves till date. Somehow, however, I could see clearly where the weight of evidence lay. This made any insistence on my part of having every passage being specifically cleared up before I would make my commitment to a position appear as faithlessness. It seemed like God was saying to me indirectly that he had done enough to give me good foundation and reliable framework for discerning which position was correct and that I had to go the rest of the journey by faith. After some considerable period of reluctance to decide in favour of a position I suddenly found a suggestion in my head one day prodding me to, with regards to the question of Jesus’ essential identity as removed from his human manifestation, to use a method of elimination based on my established knowledge of the kinds of self, morally and spiritually aware beings that exist. To my knowledge, there are three: mankind, angel-kind (fallen or standing) and Godkind. The mankind option was struck out automatically since I knew it was Jesus’ secondary and later assumed nature and not his original one. Angel-kind could not stand in the face of the very forceful and rhetorical-questions-foreclosed comparison and contrasting exegesis put forth to distinguish him from angels in the first chapter of Hebrews, which in the last verse concludes ALL angels (nominal, great, cherubim, seraphim, archangel, etc., all angels) as fundamentally ministering spirits. This left me with only the option of Godkind for his essentially nature. At this point I owned up to myself in all honesty that even though I could not fully grasp how Jesus being of Godkind is consistent with God being one given that he himself calls God the only true God, I cannot deny that the proposition is very pervasive in the Scriptures, even if just by inferences, and logically very tenable as I just showed. I was confronted with the question of whose honour I was defending by rejecting Jesus’ Godhood and if doing so really was protecting that honour. How was I protecting God’s honour by refusing to acknowledge Jesus as God when clear manifestations of God in the Old Testament are interpreted in the New Testament as his manifestation and God does not mind? Exclusive appellations of God are claimed by him and claimed for him and God does not mind. Words of worship and adoration spoken pointedly of and to God in the Old Testament are quoted in the New Testament and said to have been referent of and directed to him and God does not mind. Works previously sealed off as exclusively and directly God’s are accounted to his credit and God does not mind. He occupies God’s throne with him, the very centre without delineation or deference of any sort and God does not mind. He is said to have, in a glorious post-resurrection manifestation of him, spoken with God’s unique voice signature and God does not mind. Very curiously, visions of the heavenly realms that show him in the company of God show every other being, no matter how great or close to God and his throne, attending and bowing to God at some point, but never him, not even so much as a quarter bow (bowing of just the head) to God when he receives from God’s very right hand, yet the same receiving however causes him to divert heaven’s attention to himself and receive full bows with a song of worship and the offering of the prayers of saints before him by the same others, right in God’s presence, thus temporarily depriving God of his own never-ceasing adoration from these others and God does not mind. He makes several claims about himself that can only be true in an infinite and uncreated being and God does not mind. He affirmed that God wants all to honour him in the same way we honour God and God does not mind. I could go on and on.
Against the backdrop of the foregoing and more, I was done with fighting it lest I ended up like the Jews who thought they were defending God’s honour by killing Jesus when they were in fact violating the honour.
So Wonderment, my advice to you is to pray like it is the only way revelation of the truth of this matter can be received by you, yet study like it is the only way the same revelation can come to your understanding. Somewhere there I am sure God will show up for you. Avoid raising an idol in your heart like your statement that only if it is plainly detailed in the Scripture will you accept it. It sounds spiritual and noble but it is setting you up as the judge of what is plain and detailed or what should be plain and detailed. It could become a stumbling block, just like my confused conclusion that only a spiritual/supernatural encounter could ever get my questions and doubts convincingly answered, but for the mercy of God on me.
Now concerning John's explicitly stated objective of helping us to believe that Jesus is the Son of God as the his reason for writing his gospel account, I see not conflict in it too. I have come to personally understand it as still connotative of Jesus’ Godhood, albeit in a way submissive to the Father’s. It was probably John’s unique and profound way of encapsulating the concept without offending the doctrine of the oneness of God. By capturing it so, he was clueing us to deduce by the law of kind begetting kind that he was by kind God, in the sense of essence, but separate from the one who begat him. In this way, the honour of the one who begat is preserved as the preeminent one and only, and the honour of the one begotten is subordinated to the begetter by the protocol of the begetter being greater than its begotten, but not denigrated to the level of a created being, or else the begetter’s honour is destroyed. It is however inevitable that someone of deep thought and contemplative disposition would see past all this to the logical conclusion that even if it is not explicitly stated, the one begotten cannot but be indeed and in truth God.
To underpin my argument, consider when Jesus asked his disciples who people said among themselves that he is and after hearing their responses he redirected the question to them for their position as to how he is and Peter blurted out that he was the Christ, the Son of the living God. Jesus then goes on to praise him for speaking out of high revelation rather than from sense knowledge. Divine revelation, really? You mean after being identified to them from the very beginning by John the Baptist as the Son of God, after numerous unclean spirits at different times had proclaimed him so to their hearing, after they themselves had fearfully confessed him so some time previously after the episode of him calming the storm, it still takes highest revelation to cause one to grasp that Jesus is the Son of God? I think not! Except of course it means more than its face value.
What of the occasion where he told the Jews that He and his Father were one? How does mere claiming that one is one with God elicit such angry reaction when oneness can be interpreted easily as commonality of mind, purpose or cause? How in the world did they get the sense that the statement meant he was claiming equality with God? There must have been something about the way or tone that he used that strongly communicated to them that meaning. We have an adage in my culture which interprets to say that sorry has a sarcastic version and an apologetic version; it’s all in the tone. Unfortunately, the gospel writers could not all the time and in every situation capture this for us. We can only figure it out by careful analysis and deductions, and even then sometimes we just never can be sure. But consider you were part of his audience then as he talked about his sheep, his giving them eternal life such that they cannot perish. He then goes further to brag that they cannot be snatched out of his hands. For some strange reason he then brings God into the discourse and brags that God's grip is immune to snatching in the same way that he had earlier bragged for himself and then finishes off by saying he and God are one. Would you see that as a claim to mere oneness of mind, purpose and cause or as an audacious claim to oneness of might? I see the later. What level of might is it that God has that makes it impossible for anything to be snatched from him? All-might of course! So by extension, what level of might was Jesus therefore claiming he had? Certainly it is all-might as well. If that is not a claim to equality with God, one worthy of blasphemy charge under Jewish laws, I wonder what is. For God's might is by nature not status.
Reading even further, we find that the Jews picked up stones with the intention of stoning him for which he asked them what their charge against him was. It is recorded that they were categorical in saying that it was for blasphemy for equating himself with God. I have read people comment on this episode and posit that it was the Jews’ misunderstanding not Jesus’ intention. I strongly object for the following reasons:
- Observe that in defending himself, Jesus does not deny or correct the understanding. Given that this was a very sensitive topic bordering on the dignity and majesty of God, all he needed to have done to douse the tension was to say something like: “Brothers, you are mistaken, that is not what I mean. How dare I insinuate such a thing? Why would you think such of me?” As if intent on pushing needlessly for trouble, he does no such thing.
- Not only does he not do as readily recommendable as shown above, he rather brazenly goes on to reference a passage about godlikeness for his defence. Of all the passages in the Scripture that you can cite, especially in the light of the numerous ones that exalt God and diminish man, which if you cite would clearly show that you meant no affront on the majesty of God, why would you be appealing rather to a passage exalting man and appealing to the godlikeness in him? Does this look like a humble man’s way of defending himself against a grave accusation of veiling a claim to being equal with God?
- If the Jews were mistaken about Jesus’ intent, should he be mistaken about their understanding or interpretation of his words? Or why would he finish off by saying that they were charging him with blasphemy for him saying he was the Son of God? Is that true to their clearly stated reason for charging him with blasphemy? Where they not explicit enough that it was for making himself equal with God? How come he now says it is for saying that he is the Son of God? Are they different ways of saying the same thing? Most definitely yes! So there is not difference in the two? Yes, with respect to meaning. However, with respect to undertone, there is a difference. Their way was disrespectful to God, it presented it like an affront or a confrontation to Him, while his way was respectful and deferring to God. This, I should note, is the attitude alluded to in the book of Philippians, Chapter 2. The attitude of lowliness of mind where you esteem others of your same class better than yourself, seeking not glory for yourself even when you have a valid right to.
- Finally, he points them to his works and asks them to believe his claim of being the Son of God by them, so that they may know and believe that the Father is in him and he is in the Father. Why, for God’s sake, would he keep making these kinds of inciting statements if he were not holding on to the ground of equality? For we should note that if he denied his equality he would be dishonouring God and denying his sourcing from Him as His essence kind and replica, and if he does not defer to God he would be dishonouring him as if he were not sourced from Him. The two are mutually consistent while appearing mutually exclusive and so must be held with firmness and humility.
Do I have doubts as to my conviction about these things? No! But do I check and recheck them regularly? Yes! I should let you know that I did another round of verification using your post and your series of exchanges with particularly leaving-quietly and jw-verite before I joined in the post. I am full persuaded of my conclusions but never closed to been proved wrong.
My conclusion is still the same my dear Wonderment. The Son of God as intended by John for us to see, believe and have eternal life by, in Jesus, I believe, is his Sonhood (my special construct to convey nature reproduction in contrast to Sonship which can be mere positional status and not necessarily implicative of nature). For it is not believing a positional status that gives life but rather believing in the essence.
I rest again here.
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TTWSYF
Cofty, please tell me which words you do not understand and I'll try to explain. You seen to be attacking and not wanting to understand. Tone down your anger. My analogies are not gibberish. You asked for someone to explain in simple easy to understand ways. That;s what I did. I am not trying to convert you, just explaining in a way that someone like you could. I don;t know if I can be any clearer with an analogy about a being {GOD} with no peer.
Wonderment _Yes, the bible states explicitly that the Holy Spirit is God and that Jesus is God. I gave explicit examples from the NWT. Reading other passages takes nothing away from what I posted.
Slimboy-Yes, there are scriptures that indicate that Jesus is subordinate to the Father. Of course, the Father speaks and Jesus IS HIS WORDS. And the Father's words are so awesome that they are alive. They are Jesus and has ALL of the POWER of God. How could it all be true if Jesus is only a messenger? You are saying that the scriptures that put Jesus as below prove that he is not God. How do you reconcile the scriptures that indicate him as God?
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Wonderment
MercyBrew:
Thanks for your words of paragraph 1 from your last post.
You mention so many points in your last two posts that it is not easy for me to pick just one to address. Even though we may disagree on the subject of the extent of Jesus' Godhood, your calm tone is appreciated in the exchange.
You mentioned that the fact that Jesus should be ‘honored’ just as the Father is honored is indicative of Jesus being the equal to God. (John 5.23) The way I see this is explained in my previous post in page 3 to jhine. This is not a matter of: The Father gets 50% of honor and the Son gets the other 50% to prove they are equal. To illustrate: If a King sends an envoy to represent him before the recipient, the King expects the envoy to be treated just as if he was the King in person. To disrespect the messenger is to dishonor the King himself. To honor the envoy is just as good as honoring the King himself. As Jesus said: ‘The one sent is lesser than the one doing the sending.’ The King is greater than the messenger, and Jesus was happy to report that his mission involved being "sent" by God. (Compare to Jesus' description in Heb. 3.1 of an "apostle".) Is this gibberish?
No, because Scripture overall subordinates Christ throughout as slimboyfat succinctly indicated in his post. The letter to the Philippians speaks of Christ being ‘exalted by God to a superior position.’ The author of the epistle writes that ‘God kindly gave Christ the name that is above every other name.’ (Phil. 2.9) Why so?
"So that in the name of Jesus every knee should bend—of those in heaven and those on earth and those under the ground--and every tongue should openly acknowledge that Jesus Christ is Lord to the glory of God the Father." (vv. 10,11) Thus, whatever glory Jesus was to be honored with - had the ultimate purpose of further glorifying the Supreme God. It ends with God. No mention of "the Holy Ghost" receiving any glory in this text, nor is there any mention in John ch. 5 that "the Holy Ghost" should be honored just as the Father and Son is honored.
Another interesting tidbit is found in Philippians (2.9) where it says that ‘God exalted Christ to a superior position and kindly gave him the name above every other name.’ If Jesus was the equal of God, how could he be exalted "to a superior position" than the one he previously had? There is no higher position that God's. Logically, the One doing the exalting is superior to one being "exalted." And if that wasn't enough, the author of the letter states that God kindly gave him the name above every other name. The Greek word (echari'sato) there implies that the name was handed out as ‘a gift of grace,’ an act of kindness, from someone mighty to a lesser one. Whatever glory and might Jesus gained was all due to God's will. (Col. 1.19)
And finally, it is crucial to abide by Jesus' own words, and not by Plato's. Did Jesus at any time claim to be God? Can you mention ONE explicit verse from anywhere in the Bible where Jesus claims: "I am God"? You mention that the Jew's blasphemy response indicated that Jesus was God. The blasphemy charge itself could be brought by various actions. Even if the accusation of blasphemy was justified, more important by far is whether Jesus believed he was God. When pushed against a corner, Jesus only admitted being "God's Son," not God. (John 10.36)
Jesus did, however, ask Mary Magdalene to inform others that he was going back to God (incidentally the same God of the disciples). (John 20.17) He literally said: ‘I am ascending to...my God and your God." Any lengthy appeal to Jesus' Godhood must take into account Jesus' own admission.
Even Thomas confession at 20.28 must be viewed in light of Christ's statement in 20.17 and 20.31. Can long-winded trinitarian explanations (to use Cofty's words) be accommodated with Jesus' own statement at John 20.17? Do they agree with the exalted Christ's own declarations in Rev. 3.12 where he speaks of his Father as "my God" repeatedly? Is "the Holy Ghost" ever called out as "my God" by anyone anywhere? Why would Jesus speak so highly of his Father as "my God" but not even mention "the Holy Ghost" in equal share? Obviously, the purported "Christian" Trinity is just as weak as the multiple triads of the pagan nations. There is no equal strength or attention among the so called "three persons" of the "trinity."
Hence, what I would like to bring out here is exactly what Jesus instructed Mary Magdalene: "Go to your brothers and say to them, ‘I am ascending to...my God and your God.’"
This is what we should be preaching about. That Jesus had a God he worshipped, and his God is the One he instructed others to worship." (John 4.23) Is that instruction so difficult to carry out?
I suppose not as difficult as trying to explain Plato's trinity concept and how his ideas influenced "Christian" worship!
Nouveau Dictionnaire Universel: “The Platonic trinity, itself merely a rearrangement of older trinities dating back to earlier peoples, appears to be the rational philosophic trinity of attributes that gave birth to the three hypostases or divine persons taught by the Christian churches. . . . This Greek philosopher’s [Plato, fourth century B.C.E.] conception of the divine trinity . . . can be found in all the ancient religions.” (Edited by M. Lachâtre, Vol. 2, 1467, Paris, 1865-1870).
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jhine
Wonderment , I have noticed that JWs when faced with the Isaiah passage always sieze on Mighty God . I looked into this a bit and the word translated as " Mighty " is " g'bur " . Isaiah uses that same word 2 or 3 more times in verses where he is clearly referring to Jehovah .
What get overlooked is the title " Eternal Father "
Jan
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cofty
TTWSY - I have made a very simple challenge that you explain the trinity in your own words.
You have made no attempt to do so.
Imagine you are talking to somebody who has never heard of the idea. They know that christians worship Jesus and also that they worship the god and father of Jesus. Then they are told that you also worship somebody you call the holy spirit. They naturally assume you are polytheist.
Your task is to show that you are monotheist without resorting to esoteric Greek philosophy or committing heresy.
In this context your waffling about 3 dimensions is totally unhelpful.
The challenge still stands.