Concise Discussion & Proofs of Trinity and Jesus' Divinity

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StRaphael

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The Old Testament mentions the Father [Dt 32:6; Psalms 89:26; Is 9:6; 63:16; 64:8; Jer 3:4; 3:19], Son [Psalms 2:7; 2:12; Pro 30:4; Dan 7:13-14], and Holy Spirit/Ghost [Gen 1:2; Num 11:17; 11:25,26,29; 24:2; Jdg 3:10; 6:34; 11:29; 13:25; 14:6; 1 Sam 10:6,10; 11:6; 16:13-14; 1 Ki 18:12; 22:24; 2 Ki 2:16; 1 Chr 12:18; 2 Chr 18:23; Job 33:4; Psalms 110:1; 139:7-12; 143:10; Is 11:2; 30:1; 32:15; 34:16; 40:13; 42:1; Hag 2:5; Mal 2:15] of the one God [Ex 20:3; Dt 6:4; Job 1:1,6,21; 1 Cor 8:5-6; etc.]. The Trinity as a whole is mentioned in Gen 1:26; 3:22; 11:7; Is 6:8. The New Testament also mentions the Father [Mt 3:15-17; 6:9; 6:32; 11:27; Jn 3:16; 4:23; 5:45; 6:27; Eph 1:4; Rom 1:7; 15:6; 1 Cor 8:6; 2 Cor 1:3; Heb 12:9; 1 Jn 2:22], Son [Jn 3:16; etc.], and Holy Spirit/Ghost [Mt 28:18-20; Jn 3:5-7; 14:26; 16:7; 16:14; Acts 5:3-4; 1 Cor 2:10,11; 12:11; 2 Cor 13:14; Rom 8:9-17; Titus 3:5-7; Eph 4:30; 1 Jn 2:27].

Let’s look at some alleged counter-claims.
“Why do you call me good? No one is good–except God alone. [Mk 10:18, Lk 18:17, Mt 19:17]” Here Jesus is not denying that He is God, but asking the rich young ruler to examine the ramifications of what he said.

“No one knows about that day or hour, not even the angels in heaven, nor the Son, but only the Father. [Mk 13:32]” Here I will quote the Catholic Encyclopedia; the traditional explanations are: “the Son has no knowledge of the judgment day which He may communicate; or, the Son has no knowledge of this event, which spring from His human nature as such, or again, the Son has no knowledge of the day and the hour, that has not been communicated to Him by the Father.”

“And everyone who speaks a word against the Son of Man will be forgiven, but anyone who blasphemes against the Holy Spirit will not be forgiven. [Lk 12:10]” This means that blasphemy against the Holy Spirit removes all hope of coming to Jesus Christ for forgiveness and salvation, since no one can come to Jesus except through the Holy Spirit. [1 Cor 12:3]

the Father judges no one, but has entrusted all judgment to the Son [Jn 5:22] … that all may honor the Son, just as they honor the Father. Whoever does not honor the Son does not honor the Father who sent him." Jesus is fulfilling the role of Yahweh described in Joel 3:1-3,11-12.

“By myself I can do nothing; I judge only as I hear, and my judgment is just, for I seek not to please myself but him who sent me. [Jn 5:30]” Atheists take this to mean that Jesus is denying that He is omnipotent since the Father can act of Himself; that is not the case. Jn 5:19 makes it clear that Jesus and the Father have the same power; Jesus’ power is derived from the Father’s in His eternal generation; i.e. the Father commands in the sense of eternally giving the Son knowledge and will to act by begetting Him. Jesus and the Father always work together. Jesus affirms His omnipotence (with respect to the execution of His own will) [Jn 6:35-40].

“I came from God and now am here. I have not come on my own; but he sent me. [Jn 8:42]” Here Jesus is showing how He works in perfect harmony with the other two persons of the triune God in fulfillment of their eternal reciprocal love [cf. Jn 5:19-29; 16:13]. Jesus affirms His glorious preexistence with the Father in Jn 6:36,38,41,50-51; 8:23-24,56-58; 16:28; 17:5. Since God does not give His glory to other beings [Is 42:8; 48:11], Jesus claimed to be God.

If God exists, He must exist as a plurality of persons:
  1. The greatest conceivable being, God, must be perfect.
  2. Love is a moral perfection.
  3. God must a be a perfectly loving being by His very nature.
  4. The nature of love is giving oneself away to another person.
  5. God must be eternally giving Himself in love to another.
  6. But God’s creation is not eternal and to create is not a part of His essence.
  7. Therefore, God’s perfect, necessary love is directed internally to God Himself.
  8. Therefore, there must be a plurality of persons in God, and unitarianism (the view that God is only one person) is false.
Continued in next post…
 
St. Thomas Aquinas, in Summa Theologica, demonstrates the veracity of the following statements:
  1. God is man.
  2. Man is God.
  3. The properties of Christ’s human nature can be predicated of God.
  4. The properties of Christ’s human nature cannot be predicated of His divine nature.
  5. God was made man.
  6. Man was not made God.
  7. Jesus Christ is not a creature.
  8. Jesus Christ did not begin to exist.
  9. Christ as Man is a creature.
  10. It is incorrect to say “Christ as Man is God.”
  11. It is incorrect to say “Christ as Man is an hypostasis or person.”
  12. The union of the Word incarnate took place in the person, not the nature.
  13. The human nature was not united to the Word of God accidentally.
  14. The union is something created.
  15. The union of the two natures in Christ is the greatest of all unions.
  16. After the Incarnation the person of Christ is composite.
  17. The Son of God assumed flesh through the medium of the soul.
  18. Christ is one.
  19. There is only one being in Christ.
  20. In Christ there are two distinct wills: divine and human.
  21. There is no contrariety of wills in Christ.
  22. The soul of Christ is not omnipotent.
  23. The flesh of Christ was derived from Adam (and thus David).
  24. The Godhead was not separated from the flesh when Christ died.
  25. Christ’s Passion is not to be attributed to His Godhead.
  26. Christ’s Godhead and humanity are to be adored with one and the same adoration.
The Bible gives no reasonable basis for any of the Christological heresies.

Ebionism, =Christ is not divine] Docetism, =Jesus Christ was not human] Docetism wrongly denies Christ’s humanity, and is unbiblical. Jesus had a human ancestry Mt 1:20-25; Lk 2:1-7; Mt 1:1; Lk 3:23-38], a human conception [Mt 1:20], a human birth Lk 2:4-7; Lk 1:26, 56, 57; 2:23 ; Gal 4:4; 1 Cor 11:12], a human childhood Lk 2:21-22; 2:41-49; 2:52], and human language and culture [Mt 1:1; 1:20-25; Gal 4:4; Jn 4:5-9, 21-22 ]. Jesus, who was human flesh and blood [Rom 5:12; Jn 19:34; Heb 2:14] and had human emotions Jn 11:35; 11:33; Mt 23:37; Jn 2:15; Mt 23:15-16] in addition to a human sense of humor Mt 23:24; Jn 21:5], experienced human hunger [Lk 4:2 ], thirst [Lk 4:6-7], fatigue [Jn 4:6; Mk 6:31], temptation [Heb 4:15; Mt 3; Mt 26:38-42], pain [Mt 27:34; Mt 27:46 ; Mt 26:38; Heb 5:7], and death Mt 16:21; Rom 5:8; 1 Cor 15:3; 1 Pet 3:18; Eph 2:13; Heb 9:14]. The humanity of Christ was made explicit in the Bible and leaves no room for heresy. Adoptionism, =Christ as man is the Son of God only by adoption and grace; Christ is not called the adopted Son of God anywhere in the Bible; also refuted by Jn 1:18; 3:16; Rom 8:32], Arianism, =Son of God began to exist (He was created—genetos—and of a different substance from the father: heteroousios); explicitly precluded by John 1], Apollinarianism, =Jesus Christ is not fully human because he lacked a human rational mind; that he had a human rational mind is demonstrated in the Docetism section above] Nestorianism, =Jesus Christ is two persons] Monophysitism, =Jesus Christ has one nature; this is a contradiction, whereas there is no contradiction in two natures].
 
I really want to understand:
  1. How did we come to the conclusion that Jesus and the Holy Spirit are co-eternal with the Father? Why does it matter?
    I read somewhere from a priest something like “everything is for the Father”. It does seem that the Father is greater than the Son and the Holy Spirit.
  2. Because Jesus is eternally generated from the Father, how is it that He is not in some small way younger than the Father?
  3. When did the Church come to understand that the love of the Father and the Son proceeded the Holy Spirit? (Is this right?)
 
Off the top of my head, I can think of an answer for #2 based on Aquinas’ writings. Jesus Christ, God the Son, is “from” the Father in that He is eternally generated (begotten) by the Father [Jn 6:57-58; Heb 1:3; Rev 21:23-25], not created or made, and this is because the Father is communicating His esse (nature) to the Son. This generation is natural, not voluntary, and is thus necessary and eternal. Since this generation does not involve motion, it is impossible for the Son Who proceeds to be posterior in duration to the Father. The Son receives the Father’s esse from eternity, and therefore has it from eternity. The Father is the source, not the cause, in this sense. Only duration, not origin, is excluded by eternity and so an eternal person can have a principle. The Father is eternally Father and so He also eternally begets the Son.

Jn 6:57-58 57 As the living Father sent Me, and I live because of the Father, so he who feeds on Me will live because of Me. 58 This is the bread which came down from heaven—not as your fathers ate the manna, and are dead. He who eats this bread will live forever."

Heb 1:3 who being the brightness of His glory and the express image of His person, and upholding all things by the word of His power, when He had by Himself[a] purged our** sins, sat down at the right hand of the Majesty on high,

Rev 21:23-25 23 The city had no need of the sun or of the moon to shine in it,[a] for the glory** of God illuminated it. The Lamb is its light. 24 And the nations of those who are saved[c] shall walk in its light, and the kings of the earth bring their glory and honor into it.[d] 25 Its gates shall not be shut at all by day (there shall be no night there).****
 
I based the following on a reply from Ghosty.
From Philosophical Foundations for a Christian Worldview:
“… it can be safely said that on no reasonable understanding of person can a person be equated with a relation. Relations do not cause things, know truths or love people in the way the Bible says God does. Moreover, to think that the intentional objects of God’s knowing himself and loving himself constitute in any sense really distinct persons is wholly implausible. Even if God the Father were a person and not a mere relation, there is no reason, even in Aquinas’s own metaphysical system, why the Father as understood and loved by himself would be different persons. The distinction involved here is merely that between oneself as subject (“I”) and object (“me”). There is no reason to think that the individual designated by “I,” “me” and “myself” constitutes a plurality of persons in God’s case than in any human being’s case. Anti-social Trinitarianism seems to reduce to classical Modalism.” [586-587]

An orthodox model of the Trinity must not diminish the divinity of the persons. It must state that the Father is fully God, the Son is Fully God, and the Holy Spirit is fully God. At the same time, it must deny that each of the persons is a “part” of God or 1/3 of God. It must not say that the persons are divine because of their participation in the Trinity; rather, the persons participate in the Trinity but they are intrinsically fully divine. In other words, the persons, having the same essence, are necessarily infinitely divine in themselves. Thomistic Anti Social Trinitarianism meets all of these requirements.

God’s name means “I Am Who Am,” which perfectly represents the personal and eternal Divine Essence. Personhood consists of three factors: Being, Intelligence, and Will.

The personal Divine Essence is “Being,” and is one omniscience, omnipotence, omnibenevolence, etc.

Intelligence and Will imply opposing relations that are truly distinct in their terms. Within the term knowledge, Intelligence logically implies “knower” and “known” as opposite terms.

This Personal “Being,” because it is omniscient and knowledge is known by the mode of the Knower, knows the infinite Divine Essence infinitely. This perfect Knowledge is distinct from the Divine Essence simply “Being” because It follows from the Divine Essence Knowing, which is logically “subsequent” to it Being (“one can’t know what is not”). The Divine Essence “Being” fully and perfectly, and the Divine Essence “Known” fully and perfectly are the Father and the Son, respectively. Since the notion of the Divine Essence implies Being, and the Divine Essence Known is perfect due to Omniscience, the Divine Essence Known has a reality eternally distinct from the Divine Essence Being by virtue of the opposite terms of “knower” and “known”, even though the Divine Essence is not divided in any way.

There is only one God – only ONE “Divine Essence Known” – because there is only one Intelligence of the Divine Essence. The Son doesn’t “know” another Son into Being, because the Son’s Intelligence is the Father’s Intelligence, and Intelligence proceeds from Being.

There is one omnipotent Divine will, and the Holy Spirit proceeds as the Divine Essence “Being” willing Itself, (Will follows from both “Being” and “Knowledge”, because one cannot will what one does not know. In the Divine Essence (Father) Knowing Itself (Son), It Wills Itself to Itself out of Love (Holy Spirit). The Holy Spirit is truly distinct from the Father and the Son; this follows from the opposite terms “willer” and “willed.” This model, without minimizing the Father’s absolute “monarchy,” allows for the filioque clause, since the Will follows from the Knowledge, and indeed proceeds in a certain manner from it since what is Known first is also Willed. The Willed Divine Essence proceeds in one act from the Being and Knowledge, but principally from the Being as the “source” of the Divine Will.

In the Divine Name, “I” indicates Personhood, which necessarily implies Being, Intellect, and Will, and “Am Who Am” implies eternal and immutable Being. Thus we can conclude that there are Three and only Three Persons from the Three aspects of Personhood, and these Persons share the One Essence while being really distinguished by relation. The Father does not “proceed” from the Divine Essence as He IS the Divine Essence principally, with the other two Persons eternally proceeding from the fact of Being, though lacking nothing of the Divine Essence as they are the Divine Essence perfectly Known and Willed, respectively.

The first part of their critique is based on a misunderstanding of how a relation is a person, and on a failure to grasp the significance of an omniscient, omnipotent, infinite Being “knowing” and “loving” Himself.

Continued…
 
A relation is a Person in the Trinity not because relations are persons per se, but because distinctions between opposite relations is the only “division” that can at once lead to real distinction but at the same time not divide the Divine Essence. “Known” and “knower” are opposite relations in the term “knowing”, so in the case of the Divine Essence being perfectly known and perfectly knower there arises two Persons that are the Divine Essence, as “known” and “knower” always remain distinct relations, one arising from the other.

Calling any Person of the Trinity is a “mere” relation is misrepresents the meaning of relation in this context. We don’t say the Father is “merely a relation;” we say that the Father is distinguished as a Person by relation. When Aquinas says “relation is the same as person in the Trinity,” he did not mean to equate relation with Person in any absolute way; rather, he wanted to show that where there is a real relation within the Godhead, there is necessarily a Person.

So Aquinas was not a Modalist; Craig and Moreland didn’t understand the significance of “absolute being” knowing “absolute being” perfectly and absolutely, as well as Aquinas’ point that “a thing known exists in the intellect according to the mode of the knower.” In the case of the Divine Intellect this is perfect and absolute knowledge: the Divine Essence known by the Divine Intellect exists perfectly and absolutely, distinguished only by virtue of it being “known” rather than “simply being” as the knower is, and the same applies to the Divine Essence “willed”.

Craig says, “… the Son’s intellect and act of understanding just are the Father’s intellect and act of understanding; the Son’s understanding himself is identical with the Father’s understanding himself. The Son seems but a name given to the Father’s me.” [587]

However, there is a difference between the Divine knowing Itself and me knowing myself. I am not my own being, nor is my essence absolute being. When I know myself, I’m incapable of absolutely perfect knowledge for a number of reasons, and even if I were I am not absolute being, but rather potential being made actual by God (I lack the divine attribute Aseity). Hence, even understanding myself perfectly would not necessitate a new “Intellectual” me, but would rather be a perfect potential me. This is the same as how God knew all things before He Created anything, and also how we are said to be “made through the Word” (Divine Intellect), as God literally “knows” us into being when He shares His Being with us. It is only by virtue of the absolute Being of the Divine Essence that knowing or willing it perfectly (as only God can do) puts forth a new Person of the Divine Essence.
 
See also:
newadvent.org/summa/1027.htm “Question 27. The procession of the divine persons”
newadvent.org/summa/1033.htm “Question 33. The person of the Father” - This shows that the Father is the Principle.
newadvent.org/summa/1042.htm “Question 42. Equality and likeness among the divine persons” - Answer to your question 1.

newadvent.org/cathen/07409a.htm “The Holy Ghost” - Chronology of the Church’s understanding; question 3 is answered in “IV. PROCESSION OF THE HOLY GHOST.”
 
Thank you! This is the sort of stuff that this forum should be talking about more. I need some time to read all this carefully. I wonder why the average Catholic myself included 😃 , have not learnt more about our God. No wonder other religions steam roll us sometimes. I wonder why there isn’t more focus on the Trinity. We know more about the saints than God. Maybe, God does not want us to try to get worked up understanding who He Is.

BTW what is the best, concise version of the Summa Theologica?
 
StRaphael said:
See also:
newadvent.org/summa/1027.htm “Question 27. The procession of the divine persons”
newadvent.org/summa/1033.htm “Question 33. The person of the Father” - This shows that the Father is the Principle.
newadvent.org/summa/1042.htm “Question 42. Equality and likeness among the divine persons” - Answer to your question 1.

newadvent.org/cathen/07409a.htm “The Holy Ghost” - Chronology of the Church’s understanding; question 3 is answered in “IV. PROCESSION OF THE HOLY GHOST.”
Click to expand...
Maybe I’ll start with these first.
 
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