*Exactly* three persons in one God?

[jc_escobar]

ricatholic:

Because Jesus bound God to do what the humans on earth tell Him to do, St.V is correct. God couldn’t send another son to another planet , even if He wanted, the church prevents Him from doing so.

Peace

Ricatholic,

What you are saying doesn’t make any sence. Humans can’t tell God what to do. We are subject to Him and He is NOT subject to us. The Church can’t make error because God won’t let that happen not the other way around which is what you are saying. In other words, God controls what the Church say.

I hope you understand.
Blessings,
J.C.

 

[ricatholic]

jc_escobar:

Ricatholic,

What you are saying doesn’t make any sence. Humans can’t tell God what to do. We are subject to Him and He is NOT subject to us. The Church can’t make error because God won’t let that happen not the other way around which is what you are saying. In other words, God controls what the Church say.

I hope you understand.
Blessings,
J.C.

JC, that is not what the binding and loosing verses say. And from the standpoint of free will your comments would contradict that notion as well.

And if God is really “in control” of what the church says (and does) then we are in big trouble.

Peace

 

[Myhrr]

jc_escobar:

Myhrr,

Jesus is God incarnate. He became man for a very specific purpose: to save us from sin. He, a man had a gender, but only in his incarnation. God, can’t have a gender since He is wholly simple.

Blessings,
J.C.

Hi JC, seems pretty complicated to me…

So Jesus the man isn’t all God?

Then are you saying that Jesus God incarnate with male gender is not really God since God can’t have a gender? Where does the maleness of Jesus go in that case? Isn’t that saying he isn’t God in his humanity?

OK, I think I’ve got what you’re saying, please correct etc, you’re saying that God in his incarnation as Jesus isn’t God because having gender excludes him from that. So the trinity doctrine which says they are each that one God can’t be right because the Son of God has gender and can’t be God.

.

 

[ricatholic]

Myhrr:

Hi JC, seems pretty complicated to me…

So Jesus the man isn’t all God?

Then are you saying that Jesus God incarnate with male gender is not really God since God can’t have a gender? Where does the maleness of Jesus go in that case? Isn’t that saying he isn’t God in his humanity?

OK, I think I’ve got what you’re saying, please correct etc, you’re saying that God in his incarnation as Jesus isn’t God because having gender excludes him from that. So the trinity doctrine which says they are each that one God can’t be right because the Son of God has gender and can’t be God.

.

The act of discussing exactly how big God really is or what gender S/He It, really is similar to trying to ascertain how many angels can dance on the head of a pin. Remember the men who “decided” what God was, didn’t even know that the earth wasn’t flat.

We are much better off deciding if we are doing, to and with the least, what Jesus would want us to be doing.

Peace

 

[Myhrr]

ricatholic:

The act of discussing exactly how big God really is or what gender S/He It, really is similar to trying to ascertain how many angels can dance on the head of a pin. Remember the men who “decided” what God was, didn’t even know that the earth wasn’t flat.

Hmm, infinite minus x.

We are much better off deciding if we are doing, to and with the least, what Jesus would want us to be doing.

Peace

What are you saying here Ri, that there are some smaller than JC and I?

 

[ricatholic]

Just saying that as we discuss the minutiae within these types of issues and require concordance with them, people are going hungry.

Peace

 

[cestusdei]

ri, sell your computer and give the money to those hungry people. Put up or shut up.

 

[Myhrr]

ricatholic:

Just saying that as we discuss the minutiae within these types of issues and require concordance with them, people are going hungry.

Peace

Ri I understand and appreciate that, there aren’t enough tears in the world to shed for all the hungry and cold and suffering, we can each only do as much as we can.

I don’t think this is a frivolous discussion, everyone here has raised interesting perspectives about something that Christ himself said, if he thought it worth saying i think it’s worth thinking, learning about. He thought it worth leaving the washing up to listen to his teaching, I’m not arguing with him about that…

A time for every purpose under heaven.

 

[jc_escobar]

Myhrr:

Hi JC, seems pretty complicated to me…

So Jesus the man isn’t all God?

Then are you saying that Jesus God incarnate with male gender is not really God since God can’t have a gender? Where does the maleness of Jesus go in that case? Isn’t that saying he isn’t God in his humanity?

OK, I think I’ve got what you’re saying, please correct etc, you’re saying that God in his incarnation as Jesus isn’t God because having gender excludes him from that. So the trinity doctrine which says they are each that one God can’t be right because the Son of God has gender and can’t be God.

.

Hi Myhrr,

It actually is quite complicated. In fact, we can’t fully understand the Holy Trinity or God in any case. He goes far beyond our limited understanding.

But you still didn’t get what I mean. I explained in previous posts that the Trinity is intrinsical to God and he is a Trinity. Now, God in his nature is NOT the same as man and has no gender. However, He still is omnipotent and can do all things. For our salvation He, in the person of God The Son, became encarnate. He “took the form of sinful flesh” in order to redeem us to Himself. So to become a man (or a woman if He had chosen to do so but didn’t), he had to, in his earthly body get a gender. But, his body, is not something that is essentially God, he just took it from Our Blessed Mother Mary, to accomplish what He came to do on earth. So when you talk of God, you don’t attribute any gender to Him. But I want to make it clear that I’m not negating the Most Holy Trinity and I’m not negating Jesus Divinity. What I’m saying is that Jesus had 2 natures, human and Divine. He was a perfect man (therefore with gender) and He is also God the son (as such, wholly simple).

Did you read the part I sugested from the Summa Teologica of St. Thomas of Aquinas?

Blessings,
J.C.

 

[Myhrr]

JC, oops, I meant to and got distracted. will come back to this tomorrow.

 

[Myhrr]

Not quite sure how the following got to be green, I had a URL in copy which for some reason turned green when pasted and it seems to have remembered it when I then copied this from my notes, and I don’t know how to change it.

jc_escobar:

Hi Myhrr,

It actually is quite complicated. In fact, we can’t fully understand the Holy Trinity or God in any case. He goes far beyond our limited understanding.

But you still didn’t get what I mean. I explained in previous posts that the Trinity is intrinsical to God and he is a Trinity. Now, God in his nature is NOT the same as man and has no gender. However, He still is omnipotent and can do all things. For our salvation He, in the person of God The Son, became encarnate. He “took the form of sinful flesh” in order to redeem us to Himself. So to become a man (or a woman if He had chosen to do so but didn’t), he had to, in his earthly body get a gender. But, his body, is not something that is essentially God, he just took it from Our Blessed Mother Mary, to accomplish what He came to do on earth. So when you talk of God, you don’t attribute any gender to Him. But I want to make it clear that I’m not negating the Most Holy Trinity and I’m not negating Jesus Divinity. What I’m saying is that Jesus had 2 natures, human and Divine. He was a perfect man (therefore with gender) and He is also God the son (as such, wholly simple).

Did you read the part I sugested from the Summa Teologica of St. Thomas of Aquinas?

Blessings,
J.C.

Your post with the Newadvent link didn’t actually take me to a page so I did a search, Aquinas God, and found this choice

http://www.google.com/custom?domains=NewAdvent.org&q=aquinas+God&sa=Search+New+Advent&sitesearch=NewAdvent.org&client=pub-8168503353085287&forid=1&ie=ISO-8859-1&oe=ISO-8859-1&safe=active&cof=GALT%3A%23008000%3BGL%3A1%3BDIV%3A%23336699%3BVLC%3A663399%3BAH%3Acenter%3BBGC%3AFFFFFF%3BLBGC%3A336699%3BALC%3A0000FF%3BLC%3A0000FF%3BT%3A000000%3BGFNT%3A0000FF%3BGIMP%3A0000FF%3BFORID%3A1%3B&hl=en

From which the first that seemed suitable was …which attributes should be appropriated to each…

newadvent.org/summa/103908.htm

I think I now understand where you’re coming from so to speak, because this takes us into the Trinitarian arguments with the Orthodox. Aquinas agrees with Augustine that the Holy Spirit comes from both the Father and Son and so his understanding of God and his theorising is based on that.

I don’t want to go into the politics of the relationship between RCC and Orthodox in the last few decades, but I should note that there are classic differences in their respective understanding of the Trinity and this being ‘fudged’ by the RCC and some Orthodox since Patriarch Athenagoras and Pope Paul VI got together and also, or as a consequence of that, since the Vatican began giving serious recognition to the Rome’s Byzantine rite Churches.

I’m not knowledgeable enough about these arguments and suggest you find someone who is and holds to the classic Orthodox view if you want to go further into them.

It appears from these recent developments that the RCC is denying that it ever held to the Augustine and Aqinas view that in principle the Holy Spirit proceeds from the Father and the Son and not the Father only as the Orthodox say.

continued

 

[Myhrr]

Originally Posted by jc_escobar

Hi Myhrr,

It actually is quite complicated. In fact, we can’t fully understand the Holy Trinity or God in any case. He goes far beyond our limited understanding.

*But you still didn’t get what I mean.etc *

If we can’t understand the Trinity then the definition in the Creed is redundant and the Church’s dogma is that it contains the fullness of Truth.

From Summa

"The second consideration of God regards Him as “one.” In that view Augustine (De Doctr. Christ. i, 5) appropriates “unity” to the Father, “equality” to the Son, “concord” or “union” to the Holy Ghost. It is manifest that these three imply unity, but in different ways. For “unity” is said absolutely, as it does not presuppose anything else; and for this reason it is appropriated to the Father, to Whom any other person is not presupposed since He is the “principle without principle.” “Equality” implies unity as regards another; for that is equal which has the same quantity as another. So equality is appropriated to the Son, Who is the “principle from a principle.” “Union” implies the unity of two; and is therefore appropriated to the Holy Ghost, inasmuch as He proceeds from two. And from this we can understand what Augustine means when he says (De Doctr. Christ. i, 5) that “The Three are one, by reason of the Father; They are equal by reason of the Son; and are united by reason of the Holy Ghost. etc.”

All Aqinas’ other examples and analysis of God revolve around this explanation, that unity excludes two or more, i.e. that it belongs to the Father alone and so the other persons can only be spoken of in terms of equality while the Orthodox hold that they are of the same essence; also that the Holy Ghost proceeds in principle from both while the Orthodox say that He proceeds in principle from the Father only. This appears to be because of this idea: “But if the other persons be removed, we do not find equality in the Father, but we find it as soon as we suppose the Son” as Aqinas first defines unity as being, logically, between two.

And of the Holy Ghost:

“… because His equality is considered firstly in regard to the Son: for that the Holy Ghost is equal to the Father, is also from the Son. Likewise, if the Holy Ghost, Who is the union of the two, be excluded, we cannot understand the oneness of the union between the Father and the Son.”

This raises another objection from the Orthodox who say it’s precisely here that the RCC makes the Holy Ghost ‘a creation’ of, from, two which misses the point in the Creed which states definitively that the Holy Spirit proceeds from the Father alone.

It appears to me from reading Aqinas now that this is where you get confused with my musings about persons, because it seems to me that Aqinas does not include in his analysis that the Son is eternally begotten before the ages, he says:

“The Son is the begotten ‘Who is,’” inasmuch as “God begotten is personal.” But taken indefinitely, it is an essential term. And although the pronoun “this” [iste] seems grammatically to point to a particular person, nevertheless everything that we can point to can be grammatically treated as a person, although in its own nature it is not a person;"

And so you say
continued

 

[Myhrr]

And so you say:
[color=#000000:
[QUOTE]
jc_escobar
[/QUOTE]
]“So to become a man (or a woman if He had chosen to do so but didn’t), he had to, in his earthly body get a gender. But, his body, is not something that is essentially God,”

“The Greek word ??µ???s??? indicates in orthodox theology that The Father and the Son are “of the same substance” or “of the same essence” because the Son is begotten of the Father’s own being (e? t?? ??s?a? t?? pat???)”

http://www.wordiq.com/definition/Nicene_Creed#Interpretation_of_the_Greek_text

But I want to make it clear that I’m not negating the Most Holy Trinity and I’m not negating Jesus Divinity. What I’m saying is that Jesus had 2 natures, human and Divine. He was a perfect man (therefore with gender) and He is also God the son (as such, wholly simple).

So here I think we’re talking at cross purposes, I hold with the Orthodox that the person of Jesus is eternally begotten of the Father’s own being.

It appears to me that what you, the RCC, say here could be another description of the heresy that Jesus is not God in his humanity.

Perhaps the difference between the Orthodox and RCC is the explanation given that the RCC understands “knowing” God as rationalising about God while the Orthodox understand “knowing” God as a personal experience of God through acquisition of the Holy Spirit, a completely different approach to this.

As I said I don’t know enough about these arguments so an Orthodox well versed in this might correct me here, but an Orthodox objection to Aqinas and the RCC’s:

“I answer that, Our intellect, which is led to the knowledge of God from creatures, must consider God according to the mode derived from creatures.”

would be that we know God from revelation by the nous through GOD’s uncreated energies not by the limited capacity of the rational mind as is being described here, which you call intellect.

The nous is the “I” in us, described as knowing through the heart it is not feeling as opposed to rationality, but incorporates both in the ‘inward eye’. So this “mode derived from creatures” limits the intellect and this is where I think you misunderstand me because you don’t include in your reasoning that we are created in the image and likeness of God, and I can’t separate that from mine.

There is also a critical difference between the Orthodox and RCC understanding of ‘created creatures’ which shows itself in the disparate views of grace, etc., the RCC holds to the Augustinian view that grace is created, something created by God for creatures while the Orthodox hold that grace is an uncreated energy of GD. It seems to me that all your disagreements with my musings has separation from GOD as its source, as something utterly other from us creatures which is at odds with Genesis I.

Orlapubs has quite a lot on the different understanding of GOD with reference to created and uncreated energies, light, grace etc. a search such as the following will give this and other sources if you’re interested in this aspect of the Trintiarian arguments between the RCC and Orthodox.

http://www.google.ie/search?q=Orthodox+uncreated+grace+energy+&ie=UTF-8&hl=en&btnG=Google+Search&meta=

 

[Myhrr]

Hi again JC, sorry about the strange colour mix, sometimes my editing stayed in green other times it reverted to black.

 

[jc_escobar]

Hi Myhrr,

You’ll have to give me some time now, you’r reply is too long, but I’ll get back to you shortly…

Blessings,
J.C.

 

[humble_spirit]

hia as far as i know the catholic belief and even the orthodox belief is that there is 3 persons and only 1 god,father son and holy ghost or holy spirit.they even go as far as saying that the holy spirit is the 3rd person of the trinity, even though you can`t see the holy spirit or god,so it is a little confusing b ut the catholic church is monolitic in its reasoning.one god like our jewish brothers believe and the son which most of them reject and the holy spirit.

 

[FelixBlue]

I apologize for not having read through the whole thread, but to answer the original question (is it possible…etc.):

When the Church teaches dogmatically, she is doing two basic things and not doing another:

1. She is positively defining or giving a positive statement about what the truth is (e.g. there are three persons in the Trinity, the son is consubstantial with the father, God created ex nihilo, etc.)
2. She is restricting the truth or doctrine by saying what it is not (e.g. to say there are three separate gods in the Trinity is wrong, in arianism, to say that the son is subordinate to the father and not consubstantial is wrong, to say that God made use of an eternal material to create is wrong)

She is not:

1. Giving all possible explanation and understanding to the doctrine…

Noting the two above, and what the Church is not doing, I believe Racer is correct in saying that one may speculate beyond the positive definition and around the restrictions. In other words, the SPECULATIVE question: could there be more than three persons seems ok as, and only as, a speculative question.

I believe to go beyond speculation would be very dangerous for a number of reasons:

1. The positive teaching of the Church seems extremely clear on this teaching.
2. The historical evidence regarding the question seems extremely clear: I cannot recall a Father or Doctor who ever proposed more than three persons
3. The philosophical underpinning of the Trinity would be totally undermined by introducing another person.

But as a purely theoretical, speculative question, it seems legitimate…just long as it remains on the level of thought experiment (which one does not give an assent of mind or will to…).

As a thought experiment, it is not heresy. As a personal, positive theory that one actually assents to, it moves beyond interesting question to heresy.

Tim

 

[jimmy]

Myhrr

The church does not claim to have all truth. They do not claim to know everything about the trinity. I would like to remind you of the Gregorian demetia or what ever it is that Fr Ambrose refers to. He will admit that the church does not claim to know everything about the Trinity. You can not completely understand it and that is why it is called a mystery.

 

[Antonio_B]

“There is only ONE God…and there are 3 ‘expressions’ of the one God.”

Are you sure this is the Church’s teaching? Someone long ago was condemned for stating exactly what you just stated. That’s why theological language has be very precise in order to convey truth.

There are three distinct Persons yet One God. The Father is NOT the Son, the Son is NOT the Holy Spirit, the Holy Spirit is NOT the Father. Three distinct Persons yet one God. How is that possible? That’s why we called this essential Christian belief a “mystery.” What’s a mystery in theological terms. Something one can’t fully comprehend.

Antonio

 

[Antonio_B]

“The church does not claim to have all truth.”

How do you reconcile the above statement with the teaching of the Church that It has the “fullness of truth”?

Now, if the Church is Christ in time and space, and if Christ if the very fountainhood of all truth since He is God, how is it possible for the Church NOT to have the fullness of truth?

Antonio