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dorrbell
Guest
Everything and anything is possible when it comes to God.
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WesleyF
Guest
Logical contradictions are not possible even with God.
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catholictiger
Guest
everything that isn’t intrinsically impossible
but that’s for another time and place.
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Nom_the_Wise
Guest
God doesn’t change, but God is infinite. Our finite minds cannot comprehend infinity. The infinite unchanging God is revealed to us, little by little, as we finite beings move through time. For us the fullness of God is ultimately unknowable, only what God has revealed to us, little by little.
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Nom_the_Wise
Guest
As Trishie cited the Gospel of John, In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God.
In our tradition it is said when the angels rebelled in the beginning, it was because they were shown the Incarnate Word. God’s substance never changed, but to participate in humanity God’s accidents changed.
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Soldier_Of_God
Guest
As a personal entity, the divine Person has not changed. The specific combination of personal cognitive dimensions has not transformed and that His perfections, decrees, purposes, and promises are immutable. Immutability does not mean static, unreactive and stagnant. Immutability means the aforementioned attributes are set.
If the purposes, promises and perfections of the divine Person lead to and result in the Incarnation, then how can one say the divine Person was changed? By becoming immanent in creation, this allows for the acquistion of the addition of human nature by the second Person of the trinity, fulfilling the purpose, decrees and promise of their divine nature.
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Jaaanosik
Guest
Then the Holy Spirit particle by particle, atom by atom, cell by cell formed the matter and the end result is Jesus’s human nature. Jesus’s human nature has a human soul that is connected through the Holy Spirit with His divine nature. He is one person with divine and human natures.
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Whadyamean
Guest
“Person” means “mask” an metaphysically there is an excellent reason that you and I are called therefore “persons.” If God is as you claim a “Person,” What is the mask Deity wears? “Person” by nature is a covering and is temporal.
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Soldier_Of_God
Guest
If you want to engage in etymological sophistry, that is your concern. Let’s use the philosphical meaning of person, as this thread has a philosophical context. A person is one that posseses a continuing self awareness or conscienceness with a rational nature.
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Nom_the_Wise
Guest
This merits repeating.
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Nom_the_Wise
Guest
The Father, The Son, The Holy Spirit. Three persons.
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Whadyamean
Guest
And that is an answer how?
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Nom_the_Wise
Guest
Not sure how you didn’t get that.
Your term “mask” is perhaps causing you trouble. Three persons = three masks. It’s all semantics at a point.
God is One, the Infinite Being, et. al. “Immutable” as Soldier of God said (you kids are breaking off some of the rust from my metaphysical studies years ago). God revealed to us that God is Three Persons. So the point becomes, we only know that God is Three Persons because God told us. We know that the Incarnation is a fact, and we are left to puzzle out the mystery of how that is possible.
I try to think of the Incarnation in these terms. I prefer narrative because it works for me. You may not agree, but hear goes. It helps to think of it from God’s point of view, which is impossible, but let me elaborate.
*Imagine you are God/The Word/Paraclete, THE ONLY Infinite Being. Being Perfect and Love Overflowing, You Create as is your Divine Nature. You start with beings much like yourself, Spirit, and you figure that their minds can handle it, so you introduce to them, upon their creation, this plan you have. Not all of them think it is a good plan so you kick about a third of them out.
You haven’t created anything physical yet, and already there are problems with creating creatures of volition. Then you set the physical Universe in motion (big bang or not, the Universe is not infinite–only You are). Creation fits within a designated space, growing incrementally. Planets are formed, living creatures are created on (at least) one of those planets. You set up one race to be the steward race of all of them: humanity. The first humans disobey you, when you would have given them all of your graces, but they turned on you, too; one of the, let’s call them “angels” from Pre-Physical Creation; got to them and caused more trouble. Some punishmets are laid down, but the time will come when you will set things right again.
Then after a good deal of begetting, along comes Abram. Abram understands you as “Lord.” That’s fine for now. You reveal more and more of yourself and give hints to the generations that one day you’re going to come among them, and won’t that be just great!
Then the time comes when you, the Infinite, Immutable, Omnipresent consciousness, enter into your creation as one of them. You teach and found a church. Then before you defeat death on behalf of your creation, in this human body that you’ve poured yourself into, you tell your followers that your abiding presence will be called the Paraclete (changing names until in English it is one day rendered as “the Holy Spirit.”) *
Obviously this is imperfect, but as a paradigm it works for me. I tried to describe it this way when I taught CCD to 7th and 8th graders. The Word existed before Time, but the Word took its acutal flesh and blood from Mary, which is how the Incarnation was possible.
There! Wasn’t that easy?
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Soldier_Of_God
Guest
The issue I have is that the term “mask” is not what is being attributed biblically. The latin root of person comes from the Greek word prosopon. Further, prosopon come from ‘pros’ ‘ops,’ which means ‘about the eyes.’ The Old and New Testament uses prosopon in the context of meaning face (metaphorically speaking) or presence. So, when we refer to the prosopon of God, we are referring to God’s presence.
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Nom_the_Wise
Guest
You’re making me reach for my Linguistic Key to the New Testament!
But I do remember that lesson. It’s a kind of metonomy, like calling a tough man “Knuckles.” And then someone saying, “But how can a man be ‘knuckles’? A man is a man, isn’t he?”Sometimes metaphysicians need a good swift kick in the junk.
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Soldier_Of_God
Guest
Yup.
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Whadyamean
Guest
Prosopon ( /ˈprɒsɵpɒn/[1] or /prɵˈsoʊpən/;[2] from Ancient Greek: πρόσωπον; plural: Ancient Greek: πρόσωπα - prosopa) is a technical term encountered in Greek theology. It is most often translated as “person”, and as such is sometimes confused in translation with hypostasis, which is also translated as “person.” Prosopon originally meant “face” or “mask” in Greek and derives from Greek theatre, in which actors on a stage wore masks to reveal their character and emotional state to the audience. Both prosopon and hypostasis played central roles in the development of theology about the Trinity and about Jesus Christ (Christology) in the debates of the fourth through seventh centuries.
also:EtymologyPrior to the advent of Christianity, the word “persona” (Latin) or “prosopon” (πρόσωπον: Greek) referred to the masks worn by actors on stage. The various masks represented the various “personae” in the stage play, while the masks themselves helped the actor’s voice resonate and easier for the audience to hear.
So while prosopon may be translated as person, it is not quite the actual root, unless you are looking sideways and theologically at later constructed meanings.
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Soldier_Of_God
Guest
Your selective copying of this Wikipedia reference omitted the following:
The term is used for “the self-manifestation of an individual” that can be extended by means of other things. For example, a painter includes his brush within his own prosopon. (Grillmeier, 126)
St. Paul uses the term when speaking of his direct apprehension in the heart of the Face (prosopon) of Christ (II Cor 4:6).
Prosopon is the form in which hypostasis appears. Every nature and every hypostasis has its own proper prosopon: face or countenance. It gives expression to the reality of the nature with its powers and characteristics. (Grillmeier, 431)
In the context of the bible, prosopon refers to presence and/or face and not mask.
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Nom_the_Wise
Guest
Well y’all some Greek scholars. I’m just wondering if this helped at all. I don’t imagine that I helped, but the only real point I was after is that the Trinity is public revelation (we didn’t make it up off the top of our heads, God revealed it) and the reality of the Incarnation causes us to have to think backwards, in a sense.
We have the answer to the equation and so metaphysics tries to show the work backwards toward that equation with limited success. (You have to forgive me; I’m fluent in metaphor). I’ll just go away if I’m being a hinderance.
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Nom_the_Wise
Guest
You’re *scary *good. I didn’t even think to check for a Wikipedia copy and paste. I was a writing teacher and used to do it all of the time. :tiphat:
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