Quote:
Originally Posted by Scott  How would you guys explain the Trinity to a child (say 6 and 8 years old)? God is one nature in three persons is beyond their understanding. |
It's going to stretch them a bit.
I think maybe you could use different analogies. One analogy might only illustrate one truth about the Trinity, but would be false if applied further. You can use that fact to help show what is not true about the analogy. For instance, the water, ice, and steam analogy shows specifically that it is all one substance (H2O) but three persons (ice, stream, and water). But you need to point out that God is three at the same time, while water can not exist in all three states at once. Also point out that God the Father and the Holy Spirit do not have a body so substance in the Trinity is not physical.
The egg illustrates that God is one, but has three persons (shell, yolk, egg white?). But the egg has three substances, unlike God. All three parts are often referred to as simply "egg" but each is unique in nature (the persons).
A singe business could be defined by as a President, Secretary, and Treasurer - each in a sense represents the business - but all three are required to define the one business.
So I think analogies are good tools since they can illustrate particular truths of the Trinity, but one should always point the limits of the analogy. Each potential false application should also be pointed out. Maybe using a couple analogies will help illustrate how the analogies are limited to pointing to specific truths.