Did Jesus in the Bible say that He was not God?

[BrunoMaria]

Did Jesus in the Bible say that He was not God?

Catholic Christology is extremely subtle, and the classical, sophisticated and un-exoteric position is one of “relative subordinationism” or “relational subordinationism”…NOT “essentialist subordinationism”…

Yes, is very subtle in the sense of perspicacious and clearness, but Roman Catholicism is firmly non-Subordinationist; does accept a relational subordinationism of Son to the Father – see: en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Subordinationism

Christological subordinationism is denied at the cost of distorting Sacred Scripture and the essence of Christianity itself…

Nothing whatsoever stated in the Holy Sripture, the Cath. Church denies. But Jesus Himself made clear, that Mt 28.18, that: “All authority in heaven and on earth has been given to Me.“ Isn’t this enough evidence, that Jesus Christ is God in God the Holy Trinity?!
He who is able to receive this, let him receive it. He who doesn’t – let him. All will see the truth after hey passed the door to their real and eternal life in God or else…

Yours
Bruno

 

[tqualey]

Hi, Kakathriel,

One of the biggest problems with lifting isolated verses from the Bible - is that they can be conscripted to prove anything - and everything - imaginable. So, let’s look at a couple basic concepts.

1.) We will never understand God as God understands Himself. All efforts in this direction are doomed to failure. Our mission is to have Faith in God’s Word and then to act according to that Faith. God had to tells us that there are Three Person - ALL EQUAL and ALL DISTINCT from One Another.

2.) God always was. Time is the measurement of change, and God is changeless - God is not bound by time which would be the same as saying The Creator is limited by His creattion.

3.) The Co-Equal Second Person of the Blessed Trinity took the role of Savior for mankind and bore the punishment for sin by taking on Human Nature that was perfectly bound to His Divine Nature and perfedtly joined to His Person. In this sense, the Human Nature of Christ is subordinate to God the Father.

I think the take home message is that Christ had many saying in the Gospels that indicate His Humanity - and He did this because He was speaking to humans in human terms. The use of analogies like wheat, weeds, seeds, sheep, lambs, gates, vines, fig trees, etc are all very understandable to humans as a simple introduction into more complex realities.

By trying to subondinate the Trinity you are not showing any appreciation for what is there. While God IS NOT an equalateral triangle - we do use this image to demonstrate that the unity of Being and the differences between Persons. The truth of the matter is that in the terms of typical understanding, God does not have a ‘Right Hand’ (or, a ‘Left Hand’ for that matter… ) When the Scriptures tell us about being seated at the ‘Right Hand of the Father’ this is a metaphor indicating a place of honor.

By reading the 4 Gospels in their entirty, we come to a knowledge that God loves each of us and the Second Person of the Blessed Trinity freely and lovingly took on our nature and flesh to suffer for our sins to make reparation to God. If we are to benefit from this tremendous sacrifice, we must do all that Christ told us to do (which means more than just believe - we must act through the help of His Grace). Isolating out verses to make a point really proves nothing. What is needed to look at the context where these verses appear and then join them to the entire Gospel.

By the way, on a personal nature … I had to look up the term you used under “Religion” and the definition I got was: “When the pope has more control then the king”. Is this correct? And, if so, what does it mean?

God bless

Catholic Christology is extremely subtle, and the classical, sophisticated and un-exoteric position is one of “relative subordinationism” or “relational subordinationism”…NOT “*essentialist * subordinationism”…

An intricate, non-linear and qualified Christological subordinationism is denied at the cost of distorting Sacred Scripture and the essence of Christianity itself…

The “relative- or relational-subordinationist” stance highlighting the Father as the “fountainhead” of the Trinity is theologically inescapable, according to the words of Jesus Christ Himself:

“My Father is greater than I” (Jn 14:28)

“Why callest thou Me good? There is none good save one, that is God” (Mt 19:17)

Who is Jesus Christ the Son frequently praying to in the Bible if there is no hierarchicalism within the Godhead Itself?

On one side, we fall into the trap of Arianism; on the other, Nestorianism… The golden mean is relational subordinationism…

God the Father is the First Person of the Godhead, “God the Father almighty” of the Nicene Creed; to phrase the onto-theological “economy” a certain way, God the Father is the metaphysically axial, super-ontological, hyper-essential Absolute-Absolute, while the Son and the Holy Spirit are connate yet Relative-Absolutes.

If Catholicism does not set forth a relational/relative subordinationism, then the theologically anomalous and anti-monotheistic absurdities of Christolatry, Anthropomorphism, and other erroneous conceptions are given illicit liberty… A false, oversimplifying Christology of Anthropomorphite-type idolatry the Muslims are right to criticize in the confused Christians or Catholics so mentally deficient to become entangled in such heterodox, barbarous views inimical to Monotheism…

Saint Irenaeus calls the Son and the Holy Spirit the two “hands” of the Father (Against the Heresies, 4.20.1)…

Orthodox-Catholic Christology states the Father is the Cause or aitia of the Son and the Spirit, by either filiation or spiration…

Saint Gregory explains the First Person of the Father is the transcendent and inaccessible Unicity “from whom and to whom the order of the Persons runs its course” (Theological Orations, XLII.15)…

Unfortunately, modern Christians and Catholics, in their zeal to affirm the truly-existent Divinity of Christ in His Sonship, have oversimplified the “divine economy” and failed to affirm the supreme, pure Ipseity of God the Father as Being-beyond-Being…the God whom “no man hath seen at any time” (Jn 1:18)…

 

[Trevor_Stamm]

Ave Maria

“My Father is greater than I” (Jn 14:28)

Rheims commentary:

“For the Father is greater than I”… It is evident, that Christ our Lord speaks here of himself as he is made man: for as God he is equal to the Father. (See Phil. 2.) Any difficulty of understanding the meaning of these words will vanish, when the relative circumstances of the text here are considered: for Christ being at this time shortly to suffer death, signified to his apostles his human nature by these very words: for as God he could not die. And therefore as he was both God and man, it must follow that according to his humanity he was to die, which the apostles were soon to see and believe, as he expresses, ver. 29. And now I have told you before it come to pass: that when it shall come to pass, you may believe.

Read all of Phil 2

“Why callest thou Me good? There is none good save one, that is God” (Mt 19:17)

See my earlier post. This verse whe lifted out of context can say what you want it but when putting the verse back in, it’s the very opposite.

 

[Hakathriel]

Mr. Stamm,

I am not lifting anything out of context or distorting the text. The textual sources simply speak for themselves.

The Rheims commentary is somewhat vaguely worded, expressed in cloudiness. I can sense the commentator was perplexed.

“Relational subordinationism” is dogmatically orthodox, even if unpopular and Esoteric, Catholic teaching.

“Essentialist and ontological subordinationism” is heresy.

People bundle all subordinationist conceptions into one fallaciously.

I posit no absolutist monarchy within the Godhead…no dualism between God the Son and God the Father… I only posit the Father is relationally the fountainhead, for lack of better words, of the Trinity.

This is normative Catholic Christology. The apparent “Esotericism” of it doesn’t invalidate its truth.

I don’t know what kind of unsophisticated stuff is taught nowadays, but Catholicism, and Catholic Christology, is firmly Monotheistic, relationally subordinationist, and asserts the complete harmony of reason and religion, and requires of us not to offer human cognitive reason as a holocaustal burnt-offering to an intellectually barbarous, emotive “fideism”…

 

[trogiah]

I’ve been in discussion with Muslims in more recent times, mostly concerning Jesus. Now one of the arguments that keeps cropping up and which I’m struggling to answer is the claim that Jesus Himself in the BIBLE states that he is not God and that He should not be worshipped as God.

This is not really an answer to your question but I think it is worth suggesting to your Muslim associates (as well as all Christians that you know and anyone else) that the world would be a far better place if all those who claimed to worship Jesus actually did worship him. True worship would consist of listening to Jesus’s words and following His example. If this happened more often I think that all people - Muslims, Jews, Hindu, atheists, Buddhists, etc - would be encouraged by the thought of people worshiping Jesus rather than discouraged or offended by it.

peace

Jim

 

[Hakathriel]

Hello “tqualey”

I am not intentionally selectively citing scripture–the RELATIONALLY subordinationist motif is constant throughout the New Testament.

I agree indeed our human cognition can never understand God Himself. The via negativa of apophatic theology is relevant here. Have you ever heard or studied it?

The councils of the Church, I believe, function, primarily for the purposes of pure metaphysics, as **apophatic ** formulas for the average believer of what the Catholic Godhead is not–and where the boundary-lines theologically are to be established.

The Church Fathers and greatest theologians of Catholicism understood the Trinity is conceptually unspeakable, an antinomy of discursive, linear Reason, indeed a Supernatural Mystery of Faith inexpressible within the constraints of human speech…but they also, as best they could, carefully verbalized the relative–not the absolute, essential, or ontological–Principial nature of the Father, without sacrificing the mysteric consubstantiality of essence existing in the Divine Persons…

Your third statement is especially significant, as the link between Christology and soteriology is affirmed, and you also show you are not afraid of the apparently fashionably taboo word “subordination”…

I appreciate likewise how the Trinity implicitly is a trans-rational (not irrational) Mystery of the Kenotic Grace and Love of God, in its most important aspect…

As to analogical symbolic language, it is unfortunately inevitable…but still a tool of intellection and cognition… I fully know the figurative meaning applied to God… I guess most people are emphasizing this to me because so many others have failed to understand this…?

Dear tqualey, I am not “trying” to subordinate the Trinity–the fact exists independently of my words, and exists in the New Testament quite openly.

Jesus Christ prays to the Father innumerable times in scripture–how can RELATIVE hierarchicalism within the Godhead be denied here? How do you personally interpret Jesus constantly praying to the Father?

I hope you can understand because heretical simulacra and false semblances of orthodox Christological subordinationism have existed in the past, they neither invalidate orthodox relational/relative subordinationism; nor does their mere existence of these somehow show I myself am an adherent of any of these heretical misconceptions.

I do not believe we are philosophically divergent–you simply misunderstood me, or I spoke without adequate precision.

I also appreciate the Love-based, or Agapic Supernatural Kenosis of God in His Incarnation for the Restoration of our original sin beset selves back into the Divinity, by becoming Christ-Sanctified “partakers of the Divine Nature” (2 Peter 1:4)…becoming “children of God” (John 1:12) again in Edenic innocence, if we pursue the mystical path seriously enough, in Redemptive Deification or Theosis by “interpenetration” of the Deity of Christ…

I do not believe I selectively isolated verses out to superficially make a point. Only to reiterate the obvious. And God knows my heart, and knows I have no ill-intention. I’m sorry if you feel I am “scandalizing”… I only mean no ill-will and I sometimes am over-abrasive. I shall cease this discussion out of not wanting to injure or confuse Catholics with “esoterical” matters…

“Papalo-Caesarism” is just my own unique linguistic way of trumpeting to the world my unabashed opposition to modern desacralized statecraft and my militant allegiance to the Church and the Supreme Pontiff, as Maximal Spiritual Power without whose moral guidance, as “bridge to God”, and consecration, the State-Idea ultimately melts into triviality and nihility. At least according to my idiosyncratic definition, Papalo-Caesarism means ultimate control of all Spiritual and Temporal Power is the metaphysical property of the Pontifical Church, the Temporal Power being by moral right its possession “in virtuality” (i.e. the secular arm is left to do its own work without encroachment, yet exercises its powers under ecclesiastical-moral guidance), existing as sanctified “vassal”, the legitimacy of whose Authority being conditional upon its faithfulness and embodiment of Christian Moral Nobility, whose Judge is the (ideally righteous-hearted) Papal Prince. The modern Numen of Democracy doesn’t scare me, in other words…

God bless you too…

 

[tqualey]

Hi, Hakathriel,

Maybe we should set a limit on internal contradictions that can be contained in one post… So, let’s take an look and see if they can be straightened out…

Mr. Stamm,

I am not lifting anything out of context or distorting the text. The textual sources simply speak for themselves.
The Rheims commentary is somewhat vaguely worded, expressed in cloudiness. I can sense the commentator was perplexed.

Actually, Hakathriel, no written text ‘speaks for itself’ - especially text from the Bible! If your statement were true, then there wouldn’t be 30,000+ Protestant sects, groups, assemblies, institutes, gatherings, communities, etc - all claiming to ba a church and all claiming to have and correctly understand the word of God and all of the others are in error!

From my reading of the material, I think mr. Stamm is correct in his assessment.

Ultimately, we must acknowledge that Christ had both a Divine and a Human Nature perfectly united to the Second Person of the Blessed Trinity. Now, if the Three Persons of the Trinity are Equal in Nature and Seperate in Person - how could the Son of God be subordinate to God the Father? Really. Your statement that the response was vague is inaccurate. The only way your statement can make any sense (at least to me) is to deny the Trinity. Since Christ identified Himself as the Son of God, identified that His Father is God and that the Spirit is God.

I think what is being sensed is your own perplixity… it is almost palpable from over here…

“Relational subordinationism” is dogmatically orthodox, even if unpopular and Esoteric, Catholic teaching.

“Dogmatic orthocox” for what group? Seriously, just who are you talking about? For informational purposes, the “C” in CAF stands for Catholic.

I posit no absolutist monarchy within the Godhead…no dualism between God the Son and God the Father… I only posit the Father is relationally the fountainhead, for lack of better words, of the Trinity.

This is normative Catholic Christology. The apparent “Esotericism” of it doesn’t invalidate its truth.

“Absolutist Monarchy”? “Dualism”? “Fountainhead”? Hmmmmmm … were you aware that these issues have been previously address a while ago? Back in 325AD the First Council of Nicaea spoke about the very issues you are perplexed about. Here is a link: newadvent.org/cathen/11044a.htm Unless I am mistaken, you are promoting essentially the same doctrine as Arius did - which the proximate reason for the Council being called in the first place.

I would recommend that you check this out. Arius was condemned as a heretic.

This is normative Catholic Christology. The apparent “Esotericism” of it doesn’t invalidate its truth.

I don’t know what kind of unsophisticated stuff is taught nowadays, but Catholicism, and Catholic Christology, is firmly Monotheistic, relationally subordinationist, and asserts the complete harmony of reason and religion, and requires of us not to offer human cognitive reason as a holocaustal burnt-offering to an intellectually barbarous, emotive “fideism”…

I think the so-called truth you are trying to promote has been discredited 17 centuries ago. Well, I guess that error has real limits in that old mistakes keep on showing up in new robes every day.

By the way, that was really a very hollow ending paragraph you provided. If you are serious, about learning what the Catholic Church teaches, here is an appropriate link: newadvent.org/cathen/11049a.htm Your attention is especially directed to the Creed.

God bless

 

[tqualey]

Hi, Hakathriel,

Be careful… ponderous prose may be your undoing…

This was truly a tortured post to which I can add nothing but gratitude for the statement I took the liberty of enlarging …

May I request that your next post show real signs of genuine communications as opposed to the obfuscating oration we have witnessed? As Polonius famously said, “Brevity is the soul of wit”.

God bless

Hello “tqualey”

I am not intentionally selectively citing scripture–the RELATIONALLY subordinationist motif is constant throughout the New Testament.

I agree indeed our human cognition can never understand God Himself. The via negativa of apophatic theology is relevant here. Have you ever heard or studied it?

The councils of the Church, I believe, function, primarily for the purposes of pure metaphysics, as **apophatic ** formulas for the average believer of what the Catholic Godhead is not–and where the boundary-lines theologically are to be established.

The Church Fathers and greatest theologians of Catholicism understood the Trinity is conceptually unspeakable, an antinomy of discursive, linear Reason, indeed a Supernatural Mystery of Faith inexpressible within the constraints of human speech…but they also, as best they could, carefully verbalized the relative–not the absolute, essential, or ontological–Principial nature of the Father, without sacrificing the mysteric consubstantiality of essence existing in the Divine Persons…

Your third statement is especially significant, as the link between Christology and soteriology is affirmed, and you also show you are not afraid of the apparently fashionably taboo word “subordination”…

I appreciate likewise how the Trinity implicitly is a trans-rational (not irrational) Mystery of the Kenotic Grace and Love of God, in its most important aspect…

As to analogical symbolic language, it is unfortunately inevitable…but still a tool of intellection and cognition… I fully know the figurative meaning applied to God… I guess most people are emphasizing this to me because so many others have failed to understand this…?

Dear tqualey, I am not “trying” to subordinate the Trinity–the fact exists independently of my words, and exists in the New Testament quite openly.

Jesus Christ prays to the Father innumerable times in scripture–how can RELATIVE hierarchicalism within the Godhead be denied here? How do you personally interpret Jesus constantly praying to the Father?

I hope you can understand because heretical simulacra and false semblances of orthodox Christological subordinationism have existed in the past, they neither invalidate orthodox relational/relative subordinationism; nor does their mere existence of these somehow show I myself am an adherent of any of these heretical misconceptions.

I do not believe we are philosophically divergent–you simply misunderstood me, or I spoke without adequate precision.

I also appreciate the Love-based, or Agapic Supernatural Kenosis of God in His Incarnation for the Restoration of our original sin beset selves back into the Divinity, by becoming Christ-Sanctified “partakers of the Divine Nature” (2 Peter 1:4)…becoming “children of God” (John 1:12) again in Edenic innocence, if we pursue the mystical path seriously enough, in Redemptive Deification or Theosis by “interpenetration” of the Deity of Christ…

I do not believe I selectively isolated verses out to superficially make a point. Only to reiterate the obvious. And God knows my heart, and knows I have no ill-intention. I’m sorry if you feel I am “scandalizing”… I only mean no ill-will and I sometimes am over-abrasive. I shall cease this discussion out of not wanting to injure or confuse Catholics with “esoterical” matters…

“Papalo-Caesarism” is just my own unique linguistic way of trumpeting to the world my unabashed opposition to modern desacralized statecraft and my militant allegiance to the Church and the Supreme Pontiff, as Maximal Spiritual Power without whose moral guidance, as “bridge to God”, and consecration, the State-Idea ultimately melts into triviality and nihility. At least according to my idiosyncratic definition, Papalo-Caesarism means ultimate control of all Spiritual and Temporal Power is the metaphysical property of the Pontifical Church, the Temporal Power being by moral right its possession “in virtuality” (i.e. the secular arm is left to do its own work without encroachment, yet exercises its powers under ecclesiastical-moral guidance), existing as sanctified “vassal”, the legitimacy of whose Authority being conditional upon its faithfulness and embodiment of Christian Moral Nobility, whose Judge is the (ideally righteous-hearted) Papal Prince. The modern Numen of Democracy doesn’t scare me, in other words…

God bless you too…

 

[tqualey]

Hi, Trevor Stamm,



God bless

Ave Maria

Rheims commentary:

“For the Father is greater than I”… It is evident, that Christ our Lord speaks here of himself as he is made man: for as God he is equal to the Father. (See Phil. 2.) Any difficulty of understanding the meaning of these words will vanish, when the relative circumstances of the text here are considered: for Christ being at this time shortly to suffer death, signified to his apostles his human nature by these very words: for as God he could not die. And therefore as he was both God and man, it must follow that according to his humanity he was to die, which the apostles were soon to see and believe, as he expresses, ver. 29. And now I have told you before it come to pass: that when it shall come to pass, you may believe.

Read all of Phil 2

See my earlier post. This verse whe lifted out of context can say what you want it but when putting the verse back in, it’s the very opposite.

 

[JSimmons]

Hello,

The Quran mentions that Christians worship Mary because during Muhammad’s time, there was a heretical Christian group called Collyridianism (Mary-worshipers). Some historians believe the Quran was specifically referring to this heresy rather than Christianity as we know it today.

This is accurate. And, as pointed out later the Quran was written far after this heretical sect was discounted. However, in many of the eastern reaches of the Roman Empire, Orthodoxy was unable to “take hold” for lack of a better term. So often, many people assume (not anyone in particular in this discussion) that once Christianity was accepted as a legitimate religion within the Roman Empire, that everyone just magically became Christian according to Orthodox doctrine. Not so. Many heretical sects existed on the fringes of Roman society and even beyond the borders of the Roman Empire (such as the Collyridians in the Arabian peninsula, Gnostic-schools in the Egyptian desert, etc.). So, even though Orthodoxy rightly refuted these heresies, the heretical sects just moved further beyond the influence of the Orthodox Church. Ergo, when you get Mohammed and his family out in Mecca and Medina, the “Christianity” they were familiar with was a heretical non-Orthodox amalgamation, and all of the criticisms of Christianity within the Quran are unfounded because they are not criticisms of Orthodox Christianity. In fact, they are more likely correct criticisms of heretical beliefs (as Orthodox Christianity would likewise criticize those heretics).

Hopefully that made sense.

 

[Kouyate42]

Obviously that is a translation geared to Christian audiences.
From the very Moslem-sympathetic J P Kenny, “Christ Outside Christianity”, (far more authoritative than Wikipedia)

Yes that could be argued, but Mahomet was not making that argument. He was clearly confused by the way Christians used expressions such as “spreading the gospel” where “gospel” simply means the good news that God has become Man in order to take man to God. Unfortunately Mahomet obviously did not have access to any of the Gospels. He ignores Christ’s chief utterances and records others inaccurately. He seems to have had access to some material from the Old Testament and to have had contact with Jews, but his contact with Christians seems to have been confined to heretics (Gnostics, Docetists, Collyridians) or the poorly catechised. As Kenny also notes, (author’s emphasis)

Ever heard of the Q Gospel, which is believed by some to be the source for two of the Gospels? There’s some evidence to suggest that there is infact an earlier single gospel source, which, if it existed, could infact be the single source that Muhammad was talking about.

Also, the common Islamic belief is that 'Isa/Jesus WASN'T the author of the Injil but was, like Muhammad afterwards, taught this message by Allah and then the disciples were taught this message by 'Isa (Jesus).

Given that the Gospels of the Christian Bible were written some time after the death of ‘Isa, then the chances of curruption are high. And you have to remember that the Biblical Gospels were written by people with little first-hand experience of Jesus’ teachings or life.

 

[DJK100]

Ever heard of the Q Gospel, which is believed by some to be the source for two of the Gospels? There’s some evidence to suggest that there is infact an earlier single gospel source, which, if it existed, could infact be the single source that Muhammad was talking about.

Also, the common Islamic belief is that 'Isa/Jesus WASN'T the author of the Injil but was, like Muhammad afterwards, taught this message by Allah and then the disciples were taught this message by 'Isa (Jesus).

Given that the Gospels of the Christian Bible were written some time after the death of ‘Isa, then the chances of curruption are high. And you have to remember that the Biblical Gospels were written by people with little first-hand experience of Jesus’ teachings or life.

Actually, I think I remember reading that the Q theory has started to fall out of favor (I think I read that in one of Karl Keatings books, however I can’t remember exactly so take it for what you will.) And it is true that most of the gospels were not written by the Apostles, with the exception of John, they were written based upon the first hand account of the apostles and the their teachings. However, the gosples writers had extraordinary exposure to the Apostles, so it is likely that they were pretty accurrate in conveing the message. It is also interetsting that John’s gosple does the most to prove Jesus’ divinity. I don’t think I would classify the “chances of corruption as being high,” particularly when the Holy Spirit was guiding these men hands into all rememberance. Don’t be so quick to dismiss the gospels as a corruption.

 

[apfrita]

I’ve been in discussion with Muslims in more recent times, mostly concerning Jesus. Now one of the arguments that keeps cropping up and which I’m struggling to answer is the claim that Jesus Himself in the BIBLE states that he is not God and that He should not be worshipped as God.

Here are a selection of the quotes I was given from the Bible:

[BIBLEDRB]Luke 4:8[/BIBLEDRB]

[BIBLEDRB]Matthew 19:16-17[/BIBLEDRB]

A final one which seems to state that whilst being great, none of the disciples believed Him to be God.
[BIBLEDRB]Matthew 16:13-14[/BIBLEDRB]

Jesus being God knew exactly what was his purpose to be born into this world as a human being - to pay the price for the sin of the human race so that the human race would have a chance to be reconciled with God. He could have easily proved his divinity to everyone else, the same way he proved it some times to his apostles when he raised people from the dead, when he drove out demons from people by a mere word of authourity or when he calmed the rough stormy sea by a mere word, changed water into wine etc. But he did not do that because he did not want the people to crown him king of Israel before his Fathers’ plan for the salvation of mankind was fulfilled. In fact in the first three synoptic gospels (Matthew, Mark and Luke), whenever he does something which proves that he is God, he tells his disciples not to tell anyone about it. He purposely kept his Divine identity secret in order that he does his work for which he had come. But before his death he had to teach his disciples so that they could continue his work after his death. Jesus had come for 2 purposes in this world - 1) To die for the sins of the human race and pay the price that God’s justice required for their sin 2) To build his Church consisting of his disciples who would then teach the entire world his gospel. Before this happened, he did not want to proclaim his Divine identity to anyone else other than his disciples. He did not want to stifle his Father’s plan by doing this.

And he was right. The way he did it was correct because that fulfilled his purpose and his divinity was proved beyond a shadow of doubt by his resurrection. His Resurrection and his Church built upon Peter the Rock are the two greatest proofs of his divinity, though besides these there are many others stated in the New Testament.

 

[Hakathriel]

Okay, now I have been boxed in as an official “Arian heretic” for simply rightfully iterating the relational, economic subordination within the Trinity – in addition to being insulted as a brainless “troll” by the members of this forum… Pseudo-genteel ad hominem attacks and irrational, out-of-the-blue insults and accusations of ignorance and heresy I can only take so much. I don’t have the personal saintliness to “deal with” such psychotomimetic, uncharitably belligerent, and Ego-driven treatment. This is supposed to be Catholic forum!

Were St. Irenaeus, St. Gregory of Nazianzus, etc. all DEVIL-SPAWNED ARIAN HERETICS TOO? I am saying NOTHING different from what such Doctors of the Church have stated, even directly quoting their own words… This feels surrealistic…

St. Irenaeus was student of Polycarp, Polycrap being the student of St. John the Apostle! His teaching is heretical?

The Vatican directly refers in a positive light to the description of St. Irenaeus of the Trinitarian economy with the Son and Holy Spirit existing as the “two hands of the Father”:

vatican.va/holy_father/benedict_xvi/apost_exhortations/documents/hf_ben-xvi_exh_20100930_verbum-domini_en.html

In fact there can be no authentic understanding of Christian revelation apart from the activity of the Paraclete. This is due to the fact that God’s self-communication always involves the relationship of the Son and the Holy Spirit, whom Irenaeus of Lyons refers to as “the two hands of the Father”.

Here folks, let’s try the actual Catholic Catechism:

vatican.va/archive/ccc_css/archive/catechism/p1s2c1p2.htm

The eternal order of the divine persons in their consubstantial communion implies that the Father, as the ‘principle without principle,’ is the first origin of the Spirit, but also that as Father of the only Son, he is, with the Son, the single principle from which the Spirit proceeds.

No one dare call me a Heretic again.

 

[tqualey]

Hi, Hakathriel,

Feel better now? I guess in the future we will need need more light with less heat… Your first paragraph reminded me of something the first Mayor Richard J Daley of Chicago once said, “They vilivied me, they excoriated me, they culuminated me. They even dared to criticize me!” Ah, but let’s move on… please.

Okay, now I have been boxed in as an official “Arian heretic” for simply rightfully iterating the relational, economic subordination within the Trinity – in addition to being insulted as a brainless “troll” by the members of this forum… Pseudo-genteel ad hominem attacks and irrational, out-of-the-blue insults and accusations of ignorance and heresy I can only take so much. I don’t have the personal saintliness to “deal with” such psychotomimetic, uncharitably belligerent, and Ego-driven treatment. This is supposed to be Catholic forum!

Were St. Irenaeus, St. Gregory of Nazianzus, etc. all DEVIL-SPAWNED ARIAN HERETICS TOO? I am saying NOTHING different from what such Doctors of the Church have stated, even directly quoting their own words… This feels surrealistic…

Maybe it would be good if you provided the actual - and specific - references from St. Irenaeus and St. Gregory?

Basically, I understood your previous posts to indicate that the Three Persons of the Trinity were not equal. As I recall, there was a question about Who Christ was praying to - and since we pray to a superior Being - Christ was subordinate to the Father.

Christ is True God and True Man - two Natures presented in One Personality - the Second Person of the Blessed Trinity. How this is - is simply beyond our grasp … the issue, however is that we believe. Christ in His Human Nature was praying to the Father, was subordinate to the Father and could tell the young man, “Why call me good? Only God is good.”

The Vatican directly refers in a positive light to the description of St. Irenaeus of the Trinitarian economy with the Son and Holy Spirit existing as the “two hands of the Father”:

vatican.va/holy_father/benedict_xvi/apost_exhortations/documents/hf_ben-xvi_exh_20100930_verbum-domini_en.html

I am sorry, but how far do you want to carry that analogy? I can still be a man without my hands. Can God the Father shed the Son and Holy Spirit and still be God? I do not think so. If the idea is that the ‘head’ orders the ‘hands’ to do a task - we are still confronted with ‘the hands’ being inferior to the ‘head’. It isn’t that the 'hands; analogy can not be used - but, rather it needs to be explained correctly. As I appreciated your post, I just did not see the Three Persons - Divinely Distinct - are Equal in magisty, power, dignity and any other term one would use. This is an important clarification to be made that I did not find in your posts.

In fact there can be no authentic understanding of Christian revelation apart from the activity of the Paraclete. This is due to the fact that God’s self-communication always involves the relationship of the Son and the Holy Spirit, whom Irenaeus of Lyons refers to as “the two hands of the Father”.

Am I mistaken, or dose this represent a change in your focus - to a more Catholic view?
Hakathriel;8395978:

Here folks, let’s try the actual Catholic Catechism:

vatican.va/archive/ccc_css/archive/catechism/p1s2c1p2.htm

The eternal order of the divine persons in their consubstantial communion implies that the Father, as the ‘principle without principle,’ is the first origin of the Spirit, but also that as Father of the only Son, he is, with the Son, the single principle from which the Spirit proceeds.

What I am saying is that none of this implies that the Father is Older or Superior or more God than the Son or Holy Spirit.

Your attention is directed the the term ‘rigid’ as used below:

248 At the outset the Eastern tradition expresses the Father’s character as first origin of the Spirit. By confessing the Spirit as he “who proceeds from the Father”, it affirms that he comes from the Father through the Son.77 The Western tradition expresses first the consubstantial communion between Father and Son, by saying that the Spirit proceeds from the Father and the Son (filioque). It says this, “legitimately and with good reason”,78 for the eternal order of the divine persons in their consubstantial communion implies that the Father, as “the principle without principle”,79 is the first origin of the Spirit, but also that as Father of the only Son, he is, with the Son, the single principle from which the Holy Spirit proceeds.80 This legitimate complementarity, provided it does not become rigid, does not affect the identity of faith in the reality of the same mystery confessed.
God bless

 

[Hakathriel]

tqualery,

I’m not Jesus. I have a well-developed “fight-or-flight reaction.” The problem is not any constructive criticism given to me, as you falsely imply, but the attitudinal tone discernible in your words betraying total condescension and sanctimony.

Fraternal correction should be done in a spirit of loving-kindness, not provocative snootiness.

My position is not more Catholic because it was never anything but Catholic.

Do you want me to just heedlessly fling out accusations of Tritheism, Patripassianism, etc. to you? How would you like your core identity demeaned?

Maybe I didn’t use enough technical precision in diction, but, if you can detect I am sincere-intentioned, Catholics in intellectual exchange should try to understand each other in a spirit of mutual charity, not self-righteousness, false haughtiness, or judgmentalism.

If you have a philosophical problem with the “two hands of the Father” analogical metaphorical expression, it is between you and Papal Catholicism, as I have demonstrated. I have nothing further to say here.

You wrongly state I made no citations. They are there back in the thread if you look.

But for the sake of generosity, I shall supply another citation from a Doctor of the Church on these matters:

newadvent.org/fathers/310229.htm

…Monarchy is that which we hold in honour. It is, however, a Monarchy that is not limited to one Person, for it is possible for Unity if at variance with itself to come into a condition of plurality; but one which is made of an equality of Nature and a Union of mind, and an identity of motion, and a convergence of its elements to unity— a thing which is impossible to the created nature— so that though numerically distinct there is no severance of Essence. Therefore Unity having from all eternity arrived by motion at Duality, found its rest in Trinity. This is what we mean by Father and Son and Holy Ghost. The Father is the Begetter and the Emitter; without passion of course, and without reference to time, and not in a corporeal manner. The Son is the Begotten, and the Holy Ghost the Emission…

---

Who then is that Father Who had no beginning? One Whose very Existence had no beginning; for one whose existence had a beginning must also have begun to be a Father. He did not then become a Father after He began to be, for His being had no beginning. And He is Father in the absolute sense, for He is not also Son; just as the Son is Son in the absolute sense, because He is not also Father…

---

The Begetting of God must be honoured by silence. It is a great thing for you to learn that He was begotten. But the manner of His generation we will not admit that even Angels can conceive, much less you. Shall I tell you how it was? It was in a manner known to the Father Who begot, and to the Son Who was begotten. Anything more than this is hidden by a cloud, and escapes your dim sight…

---

In the next place, in what sense do you assert that the Unbegotten and the Begotten are not the same? If you mean that the Uncreated and the created are not the same, I agree with you; for certainly the Unoriginate and the created are not of the same nature. But if you say that He That begot and That which is begotten are not the same, the statement is inaccurate…

---

Just so neither is He Who is Unbegotten alone God, though He alone is Father. … Thus much we for our part will be bold to say, that if it is a great thing for the Father to be Unoriginate, it is no less a thing for the Son to have been Begotten of such a Father…

---

Father is not a name either of an essence or of an action, most clever sirs. But it is the name of the Relation in which the Father stands to the Son, and the Son to the Father. For as with us these names make known a genuine and intimate relation, so, in the case before us too, they denote an identity of nature between Him That is begotten and Him That begets…

~Should I quote more Doctors of the Church?

 

[Hakathriel]

Church Father and Saint Clement of Alexandria:

newadvent.org/fathers/02105.htm

And John the apostle says: No man has seen God at any time. The only-begotten God, who is in the bosom of the Father, He has declared Him, John 1:18 — calling invisibility and ineffableness the bosom of God. Hence some have called it the Depth, as containing and embosoming all things, inaccessible and boundless.

This discourse respecting God is most difficult to handle. For since the first principle of everything is difficult to find out, the absolutely first and oldest principle, which is the cause of all other things being and having been, is difficult to exhibit. For how can that be expressed which is neither genus, nor difference, nor species, nor individual, nor number; nay more, is neither an event, nor that to which an event happens? No one can rightly express Him wholly. For on account of His greatness He is ranked as the All, and is the Father of the universe. Nor are any parts to be predicated of Him. For the One is indivisible; wherefore also it is infinite, not considered with reference to inscrutability, but with reference to its being without dimensions, and not having a limit. And therefore it is without form and name. And if we name it, we do not do so properly, terming it either the One, or the Good, or Mind, or Absolute Being, or Father, or God, or Creator, or Lord. We speak not as supplying His name; but for want, we use good names, in order that the mind may have these as points of support, so as not to err in other respects. For each one by itself does not express God; but all together are indicative of the power of the Omnipotent. For predicates are expressed either from what belongs to things themselves, or from their mutual relation. But none of these are admissible in reference to God. Nor any more is He apprehended by the science of demonstration. For it depends on primary and better known principles. But there is nothing antecedent to the Unbegotten.

It remains that we understand, then, the Unknown, by divine grace, and by the word alone that proceeds from Him; as Luke in the Acts of the Apostles relates that Paul said, Men of Athens, I perceive that in all things you are too superstitious. For in walking about, and beholding the objects of your worship, I found an altar on which was inscribed, To the Unknown God. Whom therefore you ignorantly worship, Him declare I unto you. Acts 17:22-23

 

[Hakathriel]

Doctor of the Church and Saint Augustine:

newadvent.org/fathers/12021.htm

Have I spoken of God, or uttered His praise, in any worthy way? Nay, I feel that I have done nothing more than desire to speak; and if I have said anything, it is not what I desired to say. How do I know this, except from the fact that God is unspeakable? But what I have said, if it had been unspeakable, could not have been spoken. And so God is not even to be called unspeakable, because to say even this is to speak of Him. Thus there arises a curious contradiction of words, because if the unspeakable is what cannot be spoken of, it is not unspeakable if it can be called unspeakable.

 

[Hakathriel]

Saint (according to Pope Saint Martin I) Dionysius the Areopagite:

MYSTIC THEOLOGY.

CAPUT I.

What is the Divine Gloom?

SECTION I.

TRIAD supernal, both super-God and super-good, Guardian of the Theosophy of Christian men, direct us aright to the super-unknown and super-brilliant and highest summit of the mystic Oracles, where the simple and absolute and changeless mysteries of theology lie hidden within the super-luminous gloom of the silence, revealing hidden things, which in its deepest darkness shines above the most super-brilliant, and in the altogether impalpable and invisible, fills to overflowing the eyeless minds with glories of surpassing beauty. This then be my prayer; but thou, O dear Timothy, by thy persistent commerce with the mystic visions, leave behind both sensible perceptions and intellectual efforts, and all objects of sense and intelligence, and all things not being and being, and be raised aloft unknowingly to the union, as far as attainable, with Him Who is above every essence and knowledge. For by the resistless and absolute ecstasy in all purity, from thyself and all, thou wilt be carried on high, to the superessential ray of the Divine darkness, when thou hast cast away all, and become free from all.

SECTION II.

But see that none of the uninitiated listen to these things–those I mean who are entangled in things being, and fancy there is nothing superessentially above things being, but imagine that they know, by their own knowledge, Him, Who has placed darkness as His hiding-place. But, if the Divine initiations are above such, what would any one say respecting those still more uninitiated, such as both portray the Cause exalted above all, from the lowest of things created, and say that It in no wise excels the no-gods fashioned by themselves and of manifold shapes, it being our duty both to attribute and affirm all the attributes of things existing to It, as Cause of all, and more properly to deny them all to It, as being above all, and not to consider the negations to be in opposition to the affirmations, but far rather that It, which is above every abstraction and definition, is above the privations.

SECTION III.

Thus, then, the divine Bartholomew says that Theology is much and least, and the Gospel broad and great, and on the other hand concise. He seems to me to have comprehended this supernaturally, that the good Cause of all is both of much utterance, and at the same time of briefest utterance and without utterance; as having neither utterance nor conception, because It is superessentially exalted above all, and manifested without veil and in truth, to those alone who pass through both all things consecrated and pure, and ascend above every ascent of all holy summits, and leave behind all divine lights and sounds, and heavenly words, and enter into the gloom, where really is, as the Oracles say, He Who is beyond all. For even the divine Moses is himself strictly bidden to be first purified, and then to be separated from those who are not so, and after entire cleansing hears the many-voiced trumpets, and sees many lights, shedding pure and streaming rays; then he is separated from the multitude, and with the chosen priests goes first to the summit of the divine ascents, although even then he does not meet with Almighty God Himself, but views not Him (for He is viewless) but the place where He is. Now this I think signifies that the most Divine and Highest of the things seen and contemplated are a sort of suggestive expression, of the things subject to Him Who is above all, through which His wholly inconceivable Presence is shown, reaching to the highest spiritual summits of His most holy places; and then he (Moses) is freed from them who are both seen and seeing, and enters into the gloom of the Agnosia; a gloom veritably mystic, within which he closes all perceptions of knowledge and enters into the altogether impalpable and unseen, being wholly of Him Who is beyond all, and of none, neither himself nor other; and by inactivity of all knowledge, united in his better part to. the altogether Unknown, and by knowing nothing, knowing above mind.

 

[tqualey]

Hi, Hakathriel,

It sounds like you just have not gotten beyond your ego to see what I am trying to say. The fact that three post later you are still dancing around this matter is curious indeed - at least to me !

Heads up:

There is One God of Three Equal, Distinct and Co-Eternal Persons.

Jesus Christ, True God and True Man has Two Natures (Divine and Human) perfectly united in the Second Person of the Blessed Trinity.

The Father is not superior, older or ‘more God’ than the Son or Holy Spirit. The Three Persons are Equal.

In His Human Nature, Christ is saying that, “Only God is good”, “The Father is greater…” and in the garden, requestiong God to “Let this cup pass…”. In His Human Nature He suffered and died for our sins.

This should address any question about Christ praying to God.

Now, please, quite whining and just tell me where, in this brief summary, are you having a problem?

God bless

tqualery,

I’m not Jesus. I have a well-developed “fight-or-flight reaction.” The problem is not any constructive criticism given to me, as you falsely imply, but the attitudinal tone discernible in your words betraying total condescension and sanctimony.

Fraternal correction should be done in a spirit of loving-kindness, not provocative snootiness.

My position is not more Catholic because it was never anything but Catholic.

Do you want me to just heedlessly fling out accusations of Tritheism, Patripassianism, etc. to you? How would you like your core identity demeaned?

Maybe I didn’t use enough technical precision in diction, but, if you can detect I am sincere-intentioned, Catholics in intellectual exchange should try to understand each other in a spirit of mutual charity, not self-righteousness, false haughtiness, or judgmentalism.

If you have a philosophical problem with the “two hands of the Father” analogical metaphorical expression, it is between you and Papal Catholicism, as I have demonstrated. I have nothing further to say here.

You wrongly state I made no citations. They are there back in the thread if you look.

But for the sake of generosity, I shall supply another citation from a Doctor of the Church on these matters:

newadvent.org/fathers/310229.htm

…Monarchy is that which we hold in honour. It is, however, a Monarchy that is not limited to one Person, for it is possible for Unity if at variance with itself to come into a condition of plurality; but one which is made of an equality of Nature and a Union of mind, and an identity of motion, and a convergence of its elements to unity— a thing which is impossible to the created nature— so that though numerically distinct there is no severance of Essence. Therefore Unity having from all eternity arrived by motion at Duality, found its rest in Trinity. This is what we mean by Father and Son and Holy Ghost. The Father is the Begetter and the Emitter; without passion of course, and without reference to time, and not in a corporeal manner. The Son is the Begotten, and the Holy Ghost the Emission…

---

Who then is that Father Who had no beginning? One Whose very Existence had no beginning; for one whose existence had a beginning must also have begun to be a Father. He did not then become a Father after He began to be, for His being had no beginning. And He is Father in the absolute sense, for He is not also Son; just as the Son is Son in the absolute sense, because He is not also Father…

---

The Begetting of God must be honoured by silence. It is a great thing for you to learn that He was begotten. But the manner of His generation we will not admit that even Angels can conceive, much less you. Shall I tell you how it was? It was in a manner known to the Father Who begot, and to the Son Who was begotten. Anything more than this is hidden by a cloud, and escapes your dim sight…

---

In the next place, in what sense do you assert that the Unbegotten and the Begotten are not the same? If you mean that the Uncreated and the created are not the same, I agree with you; for certainly the Unoriginate and the created are not of the same nature. But if you say that He That begot and That which is begotten are not the same, the statement is inaccurate…

---

Just so neither is He Who is Unbegotten alone God, though He alone is Father. … Thus much we for our part will be bold to say, that if it is a great thing for the Father to be Unoriginate, it is no less a thing for the Son to have been Begotten of such a Father…

---

Father is not a name either of an essence or of an action, most clever sirs. But it is the name of the Relation in which the Father stands to the Son, and the Son to the Father. For as with us these names make known a genuine and intimate relation, so, in the case before us too, they denote an identity of nature between Him That is begotten and Him That begets…

~Should I quote more Doctors of the Church?