Could the Godhead be more than three persons?

[ajcstr]

In Luke, the Holy Spirit is called, “THE POWER OF THE HIGHEST” DEBUNKING A THREE PERSONED ONE GOD TRINITY.

And the angel answered and said unto her, The Holy Ghost shall come upon thee, and the power of the Highest shall overshadow thee

Again - Separate persons

John 14:26, “the Helper, the Holy Spirit, whom the Father will send in my name, he will teach you all things and bring to your remembrance all that I have said to you.

Matt 28:19 “Go therefore and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit”

1 Corinthians 12:11, “the same Spirit . . . apportions [spiritual gifts] to each one individually as he wills.”

 

[Benadam]

There is One God who is greater than His Son Jesus, and you can’t find the Holy Spirit around the Throne of God because that IS the Holy Spirit!

a son is not greater than his father. The one who is sent is not greater than the one who sends

The River of Life
22 Then the angel[a] showed me the river of the water of life, bright as crystal, flowing from the throne of God and of the Lamb

John is seeing a spiritual imaqe of the Holy Spirit in the form of a river of water. Jesus the Lamb. God the Father

John 4
those who drink of the water that I will give them will never be thirsty. The water that I will give will become in them a spring of water gushing up to eternal life.

John4

when the true worshipers will worship the Father in spirit and truth, for the Father seeks such as these to worship him. 24 God is spirit, and those who worship him must worship in spirit and truth.”

 

[phil19034]

My question is whether there could be more than three persons in the Godhead.

That’s actually a heresy called Quadtheism. Quadtheism introduces a 4th person into the Trinity. It’s typically a devotional heresy and a dogmatic one. But still a heresey.

Sometimes people have added the Blessed Mother into the Trinity, which is of course the heresy.

But more often, its’ one of these two ideas:

1. They are adding the idea of “the Sophia” into the Trinity, which is the idea of a female goddess.
2. A cult adding their founder into the Godhead.

God Bless.

 

[phil19034]

Benadam:

I just don’t know how anyone can think that the human imagination could come up with the Trinity.

God would have become a man and dwell among men for us to know that

If that’s the case, why did the One who dwelt among us say the Father is Greater?

Careful, that sounds a lot like the heresy of Sebordinationism, which teaches that The Holy Trinity is tiered.

What Jesus taught us is that The Son is Consubstanital with the Father, Begotten not made. This means that God the Father is ever generating God the Son and that they are the same substance or essence. While God the Holy Spirit proceeds from the Father and the Son (or though the Son for our Orthodox brethren).

No one part of the Trinity is more important than the other, they are all equal and all equally the one God.

God Bless

 

[Wesrock]

If anyone is saying THREE Gods it’s the trinitarians.

This is a misconception of the Trinitarian position. There is one divine nature who is three persons. Or one divine being who is three persons. Notice the different words used. Trinitarians do NOT claim that one nature is three natures, or one person is three persons, or vice versa. That would be a mathematical contradiction. There is just the one divine nature who is three persons.

If that’s the case, why did the One who dwelt among us say the Father is Greater?

The Divine Nature is certainly greater than a human nature. And the appearance of a servant is lower than that of a master, even if He is equal to the master, there is the difference in the form.

 

[Benadam]

Only God can say " I always was". If it were true that something else could say that it could be God…But that isn’t what God Himself revealed to us of course. Also a previous post offers how the Church explained why only three is possible.

Wes posted:

But, all that said, Thomas Aquinas did have thoughts on how this can be confirmed through reason (even if not arrived at only through reason). The Son is a generation of self-knowledge via the Intellect, and the Holy Spirit is a procession of love via the will. He explains this in great detail and why he believes there cannot be more than one Son and more than one Spirit, or any other persons, in Part One of the Summa Theologica, 27 through 30 at a minimum.

 

[phil19034]

Benadam:

That’s evident because you believe that they aren’t One God. You say three Gods are the Godhead

That makes Jesus one of the three gods

Is comprehension a major problem on this forum, or is it that you guys like to mis-construe what people say? You still don’t have it right. If anyone is saying THREE Gods it’s the trinitarians. ‘THEY’ are not three God’s! There is One God who is greater than His Son Jesus, and you can’t find the Holy Spirit around the Throne of God because that IS the Holy Spirit!

I’m sorry, but what are you arguing exactly? The heresy that teaches that there are three gods is called “Tritheism” not “Trinitarianism”

The Trinity is not mathematically represented by 1 + 1 + 1 = 3. But rather, the Trinity is more correctly represented as 1 x 1 x 1 = 1

The are 10 major Trinitarian Heresies:

1. Arianism - incorrectly teaches that God the Son didn’t always exist
2. Binitarianism - incorrectly teaches that Father & Son are God but not The Holy Spirit
3. Christomonism - incorrectly teaches that Christ is the fullness of the Trinity
4. Eunomianism - incorrectly teaches that The Father Created the Son and The Son created The Holy Spirit
5. Mormonism - incorrectly teaches the henotheistic idea that there are multiple gods, while only worshiping the One God
6. Quadtheism - incorrectly adds another person to The Holy Trinity
7. Sabellianism - incorrectly teaches that there is one God who wears 3 different masks , or that God has 3 different “modes”
8. Sebordinationism - Correctly teaches that The Father, Son & Holy Spirit are all God, but incorrectly teaches that they are tiered
9. Tritheism - incorrectly teaches that The Father, Son & Holy Spirit are all three separate Gods, not of the same substance.
10. Unitarianism - incorrectly teaches that there is only one God and that Jesus is simply a good teacher

There are a number of Biblical verses which support the Trinity, including (but not limited to) the following:

• Matt 28:19
• Gen 1:2
• Gen 1:26
• 2 Cor 13:14
• John 14:26
• John 1:1-5,14
• Matt 3:16-17
• John 10:3-36
• 1 Pete 1:2
• John 14:16-17
• Gal 3:20
• Luke 1:35
• 2 Cor 3:17
• John 17:20-22
• John 15:26

God bless

 

[ajcstr]

Arianism - incorrectly teaches that God the Son didn’t always exist

Doesn’t Arianism also deny the deity of the Son?

 

[ajcstr]

DEBUNKING A THREE PERSONED ONE GOD TRINITY.

So since you disagree with everything that is said here, why don’t you tell us who the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit are according to what you believe. I am guessing you are Unitarian?

 

[Luke-Suncook]

Catholic assss wwwhhhooolllleeeesss

 

[ajcstr]

They are Equal in nature

 

[Luke-Suncook]

Catholic asss wholes

 

[Luke-Suncook]

adfh drh mryujoh nety

 

[Luke-Suncook]

sdfth qwyh myjwer rt jwuwru

 

[Luke-Suncook]

SEDG wsrtjh qaerh qeryh

 

[phil19034]

Take them one at a time and show how they support a trinity. Not a one of them do!

I will take each one, one at a time. NOTE: I said these verses support the Trinity. I did not say whether they directly combat one of the 10 heresies about the Trinity.

But before I do, could you please explain what your belief is? Do you believe that All Three are God? Or only The Father? What is your religious affiliation?

Do you believe that Jesus is God?
Do you believe that The Holy Spirit is God?

Because if you don’t believe in the Divinity of Christ or the Divinity & Personhood of the Holy Spirit, then we need to first discuss that instead of the Trinity.

Please advise & God bless

 

[ajcstr]

Take them one at a time and show how they support a trinity. Not a one of them do!

Taking them one at a time WON’T support the Trinity, they have to be taken together. If you are looking for an explicit text that defines the Trinity by name then I agree its not there.

Try this:

 

[ajcstr]

The father is the Almighty, all powerfull and all knowing God. Jesus is His son is the MIGHTY God,

So then Jesus is a false god since there is only one true God? Or are you saying there is more than one God?

 

[phil19034]

Doesn’t Arianism also deny the deity of the Son?

This is according to Dr. Taylor Marshall and The New Saint Thomas Institute:

Arianism: God the Father and God the Son are of different but similar substances – that the Son is created and subordinated under the Father. Arius and Eusebius of Nicomedia would say that the Father and Son were of “like substance” but not the “same substance.” Jehovah witnesses are Arians.

Based on the above, it looks like Arians could disagree on this point, as perhaps they would view The Divinity of Christ as open to interpretation since Arianism believes that The Father and The Son are not of the same substance.

 

[ChunkMonk]

Jesus is not greater than the Father.

As a man, Jesus is not as great as the Father. As the ascended Christ who is crowned in glory, he is equal to the Father.

Jesus’ human knowledge was not infinite.

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Those verses don’t. Because you’ve cherry-picked the ones that don’t and ignore the ones that do.

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St. Thomas calls Jesus: “My Lord and my God” when he sees the ascended Christ. Jesus does not “correct” him.

God the Father is referred to as “Lord” many, many, many, many, many, many times in the Old Testament.