[B]Catholic and Islam[/B]

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So let me ask this: If the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit walk into restaurant, do they say party of one, or party of three?
 
Conor7 said:
So let me ask this: If the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit walk into restaurant, do they say party of one, or party of three?
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Both. We must free our minds of the false notion that being one and three at the same time is impossible.
 
brianwalden said:
No offense taken, if we’re going to share our beliefs it’s important that we both honestly express what we believe. I would say in response that Jesus claimed to be God as recorded in all of the Gospels. If he is not God he is no prophet, but instead a liar.
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and about ‘Gospel’, maybe what do you trying to say are Bible not Gospel. in Islam, there are particularly different between ‘Gospel’ and Bible. Gospel are pure made from God, sent by Angel, and received by Jesus to tell the followers. but Bible (in my ways of view) made from the person after Jesus, yes maybe the part of it still have some relativeness with the pure Gospel. but in Islam view nowadays Gospel are terribly corrupted by ordinary human thinks, not God. if the Gospel made by god, we as ordinary human can added anymore things to it. like your pope always do.
 
Could I liken it to this? OK, bare with me as this is going to be a really perfunctory analogy. Let’s say I am a really great musician and I compose an extraordinary symphonic piece and I pour my heart soul into this work. This symphonic piece would be a manifestation of myself, but exist outside of me.

Does that make sense?
 
islamfellow said:
“At that moment, a voice was heard by the followers of St. John the Baptist, ‘This is my Beloved Son, in Whom I am well pleased’. So God Himself is introducing Himself now as Father. The Holy Spirit also appeared over Christ in the form of a dove. So we have here a new introduction of God: Father, Son, and Holy Spirit.”

so if God said that Jesus is the son, why it make you think that Jesus as a God? is that God introduce Jesus as a God? i think not. and about the holy spirit, it called angel in islam. is that holy spirit say that they are god?

iin islam view that they are messengers of God. they have no free will, (unlike humans or jinn) and can do only what God orders them to do. An example of a task they carry out is that of testing of individuals by granting them abundant wealth and curing their illness. Believing in angels is one of the six Articles of Faith in Islam. yes we need to believe it to, but not as God.
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I think we’re running into language barriers. I don’t understand exactly what you’re saying concerning Jesus’s baptism but I will try to respond. The Christian view is not that God made Jesus his Son at his Baptism. Instead, the Christian view is that the Second Person of the Trinity (Jesus) existed with the Father since before the creation of the universe. The Second Person of the Trinity (Jesus) took on flesh and became man approximately 2000 years ago. I realize this is a scandalous doctrine, we believe it only because we believe that God has revealed this to us. Therefore, at Jesus’s baptism, God the Father merely revealed to us the nature of Jesus’s relationship with Himself - he did not make Jesus anything that he wasn’t before the baptism.

Christians do not believe that the Holy Spirit is an angel. Are you saying that Muslims believe Angels have no free will. Christians believe that angels have free will.
 
In JudeoChristianity, God made all things free. Each has its own value and intelligence.

We are not puppets or slaves, but are made in the image of God by our free will and reason.

Jesus is called Son by God the Father, witnessed not by the Apostles but by John the Baptist and his followers. Jesus and God the Father, and Holy Spirit are of one substance.

About talking with one another…The other thing Christ did is that He called His apostles, ‘friends’. And when we become close to Christ, we also become friends. Talking is another form of loving, of communicating, of praising God. Through Christ, God connects with us in His Spirit.

Talking with God is praying with God , to God. Praying can take many forms. Keeping God before you in all you do, living in His presence with your will…these are forms of praying as well…continual prayer.

Islam believes in two persons in one God…you believe in Allah and you believe in his spirit.
 
islamfellow said:
and about ‘Gospel’, maybe what do you trying to say are Bible not Gospel. in Islam, there are particularly different between ‘Gospel’ and Bible. Gospel are pure made from God, sent by Angel, and received by Jesus to tell the followers. but Bible (in my ways of view) made from the person after Jesus, yes maybe the part of it still have some relativeness with the pure Gospel. but in Islam view nowadays Gospel are terribly corrupted by ordinary human thinks, not God. if the Gospel made by god, we as ordinary human can added anymore things to it. like your pope always do.
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Jesus in the Gospels does indeed make the claim to be God. Either he is the I AM or he is a liar who has condemned many generations to hell. There is no in between option of Jesus being a prophet.
 
Truth always comes first. The evil one comes after to disprove or disrupt or distort.

The Christians have the true sense of Who Christ is. That is why we are named Christians.
 
Conor7 said:
Could I liken it to this? OK, bare with me as this is going to be a really perfunctory analogy. Let’s say I am a really great musician and I compose an extraordinary symphonic piece and I pour my heart soul into this work. This symphonic piece would be a manifestation of myself, but exist outside of me.

Does that make sense?
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Not quite, because the symphonic piece would merely be a manifestation of you rather than being an inherent property of your existence.
 
KathleenGee said:
In JudeoChristianity, God made all things free. Each has its own value and intelligence.

We are not puppets or slaves, but are made in the image of God by our free will and reason.

Jesus is called Son by God the Father, witnessed not by the Apostles but by John the Baptist and his followers. Jesus and God the Father, and Holy Spirit are of one substance.

About talking with one another…The other thing Christ did is that He called His apostles, ‘friends’. And when we become close to Christ, we also become friends. Talking is another form of loving, of communicating, of praising God. Through Christ, God connects with us in His Spirit.

Talking with God is praying with God , to God. Praying can take many forms. Keeping God before you in all you do, living in His presence with your will…these are forms of praying as well…continual prayer.

Islam believes in two persons in one God…you believe in Allah and you believe in his spirit.
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you are wrong if said Islam believes in two person in one God, we see Allah as one matter, not person or maybe a man, nor a spirit. In Islamic theology, God (Arabic: Allāh) is the all-powerful and all-knowing creator, sustainer, ordainer, and judge of the universe. Islam puts a heavy emphasis on the conceptualization of God as strictly singular (tawhid). God is unique (wahid) and inherently One (ahad), all-merciful and omnipotent
 
One could always try the St. Patrick analogy (which always seems to be passed up when explaining the Trinity).

Take for instance the 3 leaf clover. Each branch (is it called a clove? I have no idea :o) is distinct from the other 2. However, they all share the common ground of being a clover.

So it is the same with God. Each person is distinct from the other 2. However, they all share the common ground of being God.

Rudimentary for sure. And someone correct me if I’m wrong :o

👍
 
brianwalden said:
You’re asking all the right questions. The claims of the doctrine of Trinity are incredibly difficult to understand - and I think it’s a concept that it is probably misunderstood by many Christians.

Christians believe that God is one being. There is only one being that is God. We also believe that the one being of God consists of three persons. This is very difficult to understand because in our ordinary life all beings consist of at most one person. But we know of beings that consist of no persons, such as animals. So the Christian claim is that there are beings that consist of no persons (like animals), and beings that consist of one person (like humans and angels) and only one being in all of existence that consists of three persons - that being is God.
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You are correct about our ordinary lives and how we see things. However, growth in understanding of faith and God, reveals to us more of what/how things really are and lead us deeper into the mystery of God. The Church claims to be closer to God and consequentely to know more details of his identity as well as the realities of Creation. For example, we say that all Creation worship God instinctively. What I have come to understand by this is that creatures worship God by their being, the fact of being…

I don’t know details about angels, but all other creatures seems to worship the Holy Trinity in the fact they all have the characteristic of the three in oneness. This is how they have the natural capacity to ‘recognize’ each other for example. Even plants recognize each other, otherwise there would not be reproduction. I found this a gradual way God uses to show us how there his fingerprint is marked on every creatures and each nature reveal/glorify the Trintity.

About Man, saying that man is a being which is one person is an ordinary simplification. Otherwise, as you can not have a man who is not related to an other, then Man is not a one ‘person’ being. From the beginning and original simplicity, Man is ‘male and female’. Genesis also confirms this by stating that God made one Man. Yet this one Man was ‘them’, they were male and female’. It says ‘male and female’ He created them.
Also in the male and female relationship and the associated blessing of fruitfullness, we see here overshadowed, the ‘father, mother, child’. So to be precise, Man is a three persons being.
Actually, sin is a result of forgetting or disregarding this fact, which is equivalent to failure to worship the Holy Trinity. Imagine how much less evils we would have in the world if we looked at each person as someone’s son, doughter, mother, father, husband, wife? Evil become very easy when every person is considered as a ‘whole’ being in himself. I believe that this is violence since actually every person IS someone’s son/daughter/… this violence is without surprise, magnified wherever/whenever the Holy Trinity is not worshiped (ex. Islam) or not worshiped aright or seriously (ex. sometimes in Christianity itself)

God bless.
 
coolduude said:
One could always try the St. Patrick analogy (which always seems to be passed up when explaining the Trinity).

Take for instance the 3 leaf clover. Each branch (is it called a clove? I have no idea :o) is distinct from the other 2. However, they all share the common ground of being a clover.

So it is the same with God. Each person is distinct from the other 2. However, they all share the common ground of being God.

Rudimentary for sure. And someone correct me if I’m wrong :o

👍
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Another one is three flaming torches held together. They exist as three separate torches and flames, but there is also only one flame and one superstructure.
 
Cavaradossi said:
Another one is three flaming torches held together. They exist as three separate torches and flames, but there is also only one flame and one superstructure.
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I always like the flame one.

If you show a flame to many people and ask them what they see. The answers may be different and all correct, yet, naming three different things which makes us one: flame, light, energy. They are different, related, exists together, in deep intimacy.
None of them can be mentioned without the others being implied. In fact what we really name is always one of them, yet, the others are always implied. For instance, when you said, ‘flame’, we all know what you mean, yet, you point at only one aspect of the three.

God bless
 
KathleenGee said:
In JudeoChristianity, God made all things free. Each has its own value and intelligence.

We are not puppets or slaves, but are made in the image of God by our free will and reason.

Jesus is called Son by God the Father, witnessed not by the Apostles but by John the Baptist and his followers. Jesus and God the Father, and Holy Spirit are of one substance.

About talking with one another…The other thing Christ did is that He called His apostles, ‘friends’. And when we become close to Christ, we also become friends. Talking is another form of loving, of communicating, of praising God. Through Christ, God connects with us in His Spirit.

Talking with God is praying with God , to God. Praying can take many forms. Keeping God before you in all you do, living in His presence with your will…these are forms of praying as well…continual prayer.

Islam believes in two persons in one God…you believe in Allah and you believe in his spirit.
Click to expand...
Kathleen, have you read that Islam believes in two persons in one G-d? I’ve never heard that before, but then again I’m no expert with regard to the beliefs of Islam.
 
islamfellow said:
and about ‘Gospel’, maybe what do you trying to say are Bible not Gospel. in Islam, there are particularly different between ‘Gospel’ and Bible. Gospel are pure made from God, sent by Angel, and received by Jesus to tell the followers. but Bible (in my ways of view) made from the person after Jesus, yes maybe the part of it still have some relativeness with the pure Gospel. but in Islam view nowadays Gospel are terribly corrupted by ordinary human thinks, not God. if the Gospel made by god, we as ordinary human can added anymore things to it. like your pope always do.
Click to expand...
Thank you for explaining what those terms mean from your perspective. Here’s what I mean by those terms. The Bible is God’s revelation to man as He inspired the writers of each book to record it. The Gospel is both the events of Jesus’s life recorded in the Bible, and as you stated the direct revelation of God (although Christians wouldn’t say the Jesus received this from an Angel but from the Father Himself). Catholics in no way believe that the Pope adds to God’s revelation. In fact the Catholic Church teaches that the Pope has no ability to add to the deposit of faith given to us by Jesus.

I hope that begins to clarify what I mean by those terms, i’d be happy to discuss our disagreements over what they mean.
 
Thank you guys for attempting to explain this to me. I now think I have a better understanding and am no longer having (what was a short-lived) crisis of faith.

I don’t think our friend Islamfellow, however, will be so easily convinced since I am still a bit on shaky ground and I grew up as a practicing Christian.
 
Frere said:
You are correct about our ordinary lives and how we see things. However, growth in understanding of faith and God, reveals to us more of what/how things really are and lead us deeper into the mystery of God. The Church claims to be closer to God and consequentely to know more details of his identity as well as the realities of Creation. For example, we say that all Creation worship God instinctively. What I have come to understand by this is that creatures worship God by their being, the fact of being…

I don’t know details about angels, but all other creatures seems to worship the Holy Trinity in the fact they all have the characteristic of the three in oneness. This is how they have the natural capacity to ‘recognize’ each other for example. Even plants recognize each other, otherwise there would not be reproduction. I found this a gradual way God uses to show us how there his fingerprint is marked on every creatures and each nature reveal/glorify the Trintity.

About Man, saying that man is a being which is one person is an ordinary simplification. Otherwise, as you can not have a man who is not related to an other, then Man is not a one ‘person’ being. From the beginning and original simplicity, Man is ‘male and female’. Genesis also confirms this by stating that God made one Man. Yet this one Man was ‘them’, they were male and female’. It says ‘male and female’ He created them.
Also in the male and female relationship and the associated blessing of fruitfullness, we see here overshadowed, the ‘father, mother, child’. So to be precise, Man is a three persons being.
Actually, sin is a result of forgetting or disregarding this fact, which is equivalent to failure to worship the Holy Trinity. Imagine how much less evils we would have in the world if we looked at each person as someone’s son, doughter, mother, father, husband, wife? Evil become very easy when every person is considered as a ‘whole’ being in himself. I believe that this is violence since actually every person IS someone’s son/daughter/… this violence is without surprise, magnified wherever/whenever the Holy Trinity is not worshiped (ex. Islam) or not worshiped aright or seriously (ex. sometimes in Christianity itself)

God bless.
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You’re correct in one sense and yet i don’t know that you clarify the situation for the OP. You as a being consist of one person. The fact that you are a son or daughter of a mother and father is essential to your psyche, but not your ontological nature. Your mother and father on not consubstatial with you. If you are married, as much as you and your spouse imitate the Holy Trinity, your spouse is still not consubstantial with you. You are in essence one single being consisting of one single person.
 
Meltzer,

I remember reading a passage from the Koran speaking of Allah and His spirit…so I thought when reading that it was in the same context we understand God and His Spirit, but we go further saying person.

People think when ‘person’ is used, they are thinking of 3 people. We believe in One God, one substance.
 
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