Could the Godhead be more than three persons?

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My advice would be to discuss this with your priest. I don’t see how one who rejects of the doctrine of the Trinity, and rejects of the legitimacy of the Church’s authority, can be considered to be in communion with the Church. Perhaps your parish priest can help to work through some of your questions. That the Church that put together the Bible you are quoting has never interpreted in the way that you do would suggest to me that maybe you ought to consider that you are misunderstanding it. But, when you say that you “never have and never will” accept the doctrine of the Trinity, it suggests that you are absolutely unwilling to be corrected on this.
 
Luke-Suncook said:
I don’t need to discuss this with my priest, I don’t have one
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Sorry, when you spoke of not wanting to “disfellowship” yourself from the Church and how you “love the sacraments,” I got the impression that you were receiving the sacraments
Luke-Suncook said:
I don’t accept any Church’s authority because I’m not in communion with any Church, I’m in communion with Christ.
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Luke 10:16: "Whoever listens to you listens to me. Whoever rejects you rejects me. And whoever rejects me rejects the one who sent me.”

If you reject the Church Jesus gave us, you reject him. You can’t have one without the other. He said so.

Anyway, since you’ve announced that you will continue to reject the deposit of Faith that Christ gave the Catholic Church, I see no point in continuing this conversation.
 
bquinnan said:
Anyway, since you’ve announced that you will continue to reject the deposit of Faith that Christ gave the Catholic Church, I see no point in continuing this conversation.
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Christ didn’t give us a Trinity, He gave us his life, death, and resurrection. The Catholic Church gave us the Trinity around the 2nd-3rd century.
 
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I am not here to be proselytized; I am here for Catholic faith-sharing. If you have questions about our faith, ask. If you reject our faith, have a nice day. For my part, I accept Christ and the Church he built.
 
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I’m just trying to get a feel for it here @Luke-Suncook - no judgement call:

But if I didn’t believe in the Holy Trinity, I guess I wouldn’t really be able to make the sign of the Cross either. The sign of the Cross is also a profession of our faith. We enter a Church, dip our fingers in the Holy Water if it is available and then as we bless ourselves we say , “In the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit… . . AMEN.” If we didn’t believe in the Holy Trinity, we would say in the “names” of the Father. . . etc. But when we say in the “name” - it is God’s name.

Personally, I’d be lost if I couldn’t make the sign of the Cross when I pray.
 
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Quite simply, because all things are possible through God, yes it could be…but since the complete public revelation of God’s plan was made complete through Christ, no.
 
Luke-Suncook said:
. . . That’s what I totally disagree with. It’s unimaginable to me that someone would believe the Holy Spirit is a separate yet the same PERSON as and equal to God yet we have no name for this person and he is not found around the throne of God because the Throne of God IS the Holy Spirit.
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The dogma of the Holy Trinity does not say the Holy Spirit is “the same person as God.” The dogma says, "God, who is one and unique in his infinite substance or nature, is three really distinct persons, the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit." Nowhere is the claim made that any of the three persons in the Holy Trinity are the “same person.”

From EWTN ; Questions and Answers on the Trinity
Unaided by divine revelation, the human mind could not know the existence of the Blessed Trinity because it is a supernatural mystery. Even after God has revealed the existence of the Blessed Trinity, we cannot understand it fully. When we believe, on the word of God, that there are three Persons in one God, we do not believe that three Persons are one Person, or that three gods are one God; this would be a contradiction
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As Catholics , how can we give our assent to an article of the faith if we are ignorant of that article’s definition ? And for that matter, how can we reject it - if we are ignorant of its definition : We wouldn’t even truly know what we were rejecting.

Consider for a moment how awkward the alternatives to rejection of the Holy Trinity are : Say for sake of argument, we reject that the Holy Spirit is God. What does that leave us with . . .the Holy Duo ? And that, only if one who rejected that the Holy Spirit is God , accepted that Jesus Christ is true God and true man. Either a person of the Holy Trinity is God . . .or they are not. There is no middle ground : God is eternal, so His nature cannot change. If we are to preserve our faith, we need to know our definitions. Here is another definition from Father John Hardon’s Modern Catholic Dictionary:
SIGN OF THE CROSS. The most popular profession of the Christian faith in action form. The cruciform sign professes one’s belief in human redemption through Christ’s death on the Cross. The pronunciation of the names of the Three Divine Persons professes belief in the Holy Trinity. The first of the Church’s sacramentals, it has its origins in apostolic times. It is made by saying, “In the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit,” and its action takes the form of a cross. One touches the forehead, the breast, and the left and right shoulders with the right hand as the words are recited. The prayer ends with “Amen” and is regularly made with holy water as a person enters a church or chapel or, in religious communities, upon entering one’s room.
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It would almost seem easy enough to trip up when attempting to wrap our minds around the Holy Trinity - as referenced in an earlier post even St. Augustine had it pointed out to him that the mystery of the Holy Trinity could not fit into his finite human mind. But we are more likely to avoid error, if we know our definitions of what the Church teaches.

I believe the error we are seeing presented on this thread now is known in theological circles as subordinationism. This error can occur when we fail to delineate the differences between the Ontological or Immanent Trinity and the Economic Trinity ; the former relating to roles and function , while the latter relates to nature and attributes.
 
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Is it that you don’t appear to be able to distinguish the difference between nature/essence, purpose and persons, or perhaps just that particular idea -
Luke-Suncook said:
that someone would believe the Holy Spirit is a separate yet the same PERSON as and equal to God
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. . . was not being expressed clearly ?
If you say the Holy Spirit is a separate person from God (which is what is being implied in the way you worded it) yet the same person as God - you have contradicted yourself. “Equal to God” OTOH is clear.
Granted, the wording is both critical and difficult on this particular tract. Yet in your argument, you don’t appear to allow for the possibility that God could be a unity of persons ; that God is not contained in a genus ; that the essence of God is beyond our human comprehension . . . and therefore very much a mystery.

What you call “debunking” a reply of mine, is actually a partial quote from Father John Hardon’s definition of the Holy Trinity. But when I tried to post the link the the, automated CAF elements kept reminding me I already posted it and suggested I didn’t need to post it again. So it wasn’t “debunking” my own reply but rather the definition of the Holy Trinity by Fr. John Hardon, SJ (Maybe if and when we all get to Heaven, you could take it up with him).Here’s his full definition, with the link for anyone interested:
TRINITY, THE HOLY. A term used since A.D. 200 to denote the central doctrine of the Christian religion. God, who is one and unique in his infinite substance or nature, is three really distinct persons, the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. The one and only God Is the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit. Yet God the Father is not God the Son, but generates the Son eternally, as the Son is eternally begotten. The Holy Spirit is neither the Father nor the Son, but a distinct person having his divine nature from the Father and the Son by eternal procession. The three divine persons are co-equal, co-eternal, and consubstantial and deserve co-equal glory and adoration. Modern Catholic Dictionary
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Your are free to believe what you will, but when someone comes on a Catholic forum to post error, I think we have a responsibility to question it.
The main problem with your argument that I can see, is that you propose no clear alternative - so we are left with a negative apologetic.
IOW : If there are not three divine persons in the Holy Trinity , how many do you think there are ?
If you say “one” it means you either don’t believe the Father who Jesus speaks of is God, or you don’t believe that Jesus is God (and man). If you say “two” - it would suggest you believe that God the Father is God and that Jesus is God (and man) in his hypostasis, but you don’t accept that the Holy Spirit proceeds from the Father and the Son and is consubstantial with the Father and the Son . . .

. . . Understandable, but I don’t envy your position.

Wishing you well : NI
 
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God is ONE God who revealed divine revelation from eternity in space and time in Trinity. God is divine revelation made present in the distinct persons of the Father, Son, Holy Spirit.

The distinct persons of the Father, Son, Holy Spirit are not divided, nor confused in nature and divine Essence eternal One God in divine Presence.

That life of the eternal divine, when made present in space and time is revealed distinctly by the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit.

The Father makes His PRESENCE known in space and time in Voice who speaks (sends). The Voice of God, who is the first Person of the Trinity, that is heard by divine revelation (in space and time), we call Father who is Person made Presence because that which is God= Father=Voice is never divided or separated. THus the Voice of God is made present in space and time, that which is present of God is Personal Presence or Person living.

The Son makes His PRESENCE known in space and time in the Word of God who is God incarnate. The Word of God is the second person of the Trinity. The Voice of God or the Father sends His Word who is Son. That which is Word = God is Person in Presence made known is space and time. Here, the Son can give divine revelation of the Trinity, when the Son proclaims “the Father and the Son are ONE”, I (the Son) am in the Father and the Father is in me (the Son)", “When you see me (the Son) you have seen the Father”. Because the Word who is God proceeds from the Father =Voice.

When the Father or Voice of God sends His Word. We do not separate the Father = Voice of God from His Word who is God. Here we can say the Son makes the Father known, simply the Word which proceeds from the Voice is ONE in Essence divine, (We do not separate the (Father) Voice of God from the (Son) Word of God) yet the Word =Son is distinctly known in presence from the Voice who is distinctly known as the Father.

The Father and the Son although, distinctly known (in space and time) from their respected distinct PRESENCE = (PERSON), Father =Voice, Son =Word. The Father and the Son are never divided or separated from divine eternal Essence present.

cont;
 
cont;

When the Word of God became God incarnate. The Word of God, the Father sends, became flesh. Here the Word of God incarnate can divinely reveal that the Father is greater than the Son. Because the Son who is the Word of God incarnate is present in space and time. When the Father never proceeds, who is Presence Eternal. That which is Eternal Present (Father) is greater than that which is Present in space and time (Son).

Here Jesus the Word of God incarnate can divinely reveal the Father ( Eternal Presence) is Greater than the Son (Presence in space and time).

Divine revelation reveals in space and time, that God is Spirit and God is Love. That Spirit and that Love we call Holy Spirit who is the third Person (God’s Presence made known in space and time) of the Trinity of God’s personal distinct Presence. The Presence of the Holy Spirit proceeds from the Father and the Son in ONE Spiration of Love. All three are Personal distinct Presence of God, Who makes divine revelation known in the Father. Son, Holy Spirit.

In summary, When God speaks His Word, God the Holy Spirit makes divine revelation known to our hearts and mind, what the Son divinely revealed of the Father. Simply, When God speaks, the Trinity does not divide God, by separating God’s Voice from His Word and God who is Love, When Love proceeds from and in the Voice and Word who are all distinct in divine Presence Father, Son, Holy Spirit is ONE GOD, never separated, divided or confused.

No man, made doctrine can define God, or exhaust the definition of divine revelation, made known in the Trinity of the divine personal Godhead.

Those who try and protest against divine revelation made known in the Trinity of persons. Try and separate God from His Voice, His Word and His Love. When all three are distinct in Presence yet never divided or separated. What man attempts to separate a Father who speaks His Word from His Love. Yet when the Father speaks we know His Voice from His Word and His Love which proceeds from the Father and the Son in the Holy Spirit.

In conclusion; all that is said here; does not touch on the divine revelation of the blessed Trinity.

Peace be with you
 
They ARE a unity of persons because they are of the same mind, NOT the same attributes!
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Upon reading your post about the Trinity, it is not clear how you define the personhood of God?

You claim “unity of persons because they are of the same mind”. Can you explain your definition of those “unity of persons” how they exist “of the same mind?” to use your own words.

Does your definition of Godhead possess more than three persons?
 
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