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LovePatience
Guest
That doesn’t explain. Isn’t it possible that nothing could have come into existence and nothing would have ever existed? Also, if God is necessary - why is God a trinity. Why three beings instead of four?
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jochoa
Guest
Excellent questions my friend! I really enjoy answering these questions.
I am 100% certain Jesus Christ is God and Roman Catholicism is His Church,
How do I know…let me count the ways! I have several from sensing parts of the Word in my life in name only to understanding the Strong Wisdom which comes from various Scripture passages to experiencing the amazing joy and humility which comes from the experience of the Mass to having a conceptualization of the angels descending upon man to a simple concept of the Holy Trinity, as well as, the Incarnation to knowing some of the Absolute Truths of Existence. However, my most beloved method of knowing God exists comes from the Beauty of the Cross:
Happiness is universal to every human being. We can know this because every person wants, and the act and fulfillment of wanting causes happiness. But in order to have happiness, there must first be peace. Without peace, happiness is lost. In order to have peace, there must be patience and to have happiness, there must be kindness. Which is why Jesus said the Greatest is Charity/Love, where it is patient and kind.
Then expand this and we recognize that a society of ignorant people will fail at being patient and kind all the time, which causes the loss of peace and happiness in the society to some individuals.
The beauty of the Cross is that when in the face of impatience and meanness, one will desire and choose to react with patience and kindness in order to restore peace and happiness in the society in such a humble and serving manner. This is how there will be an unbreakable peace in Heaven and a limitless happiness.
Jesus Christ demonstrates this perfectly during His Crucifixion.
Thoughts?
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Marianna_Mills
Guest
Because he saved my life.
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Khalid
Guest
The first is the principle of sufficient reason - why something exists instead of nothing. It is obvious that something exists, because we either exist to observe it (everyone before Hume), or exist to think about observing it (everyone since Hume). It is an axiom that something exists, even in the most outlandish simulation hypotheses and brain-in-a-vat scenarios: something exists. If something exists, God exists, as demonstrated by the first way of Aquinas.
Now, if it is possible that God never existed, and if God never existed, nothing else ever came in to existence - but God must exist in all possible worlds (cf. Anselm), so that’s quite impossible. God doesn’t need to create in all possible worlds: it is possible for a possible world (i.e. hypothetical plane, universe, metaverse, multiverse, cosmos) to exist, where nothing except God exists.
The second is not a truth accessible to unaided human reason - it is outside of the realm of natural theology (which we have been discussing so far, and is just the height of philosophy - where philosophy attempts to comprehend the divine), and is in to sacred theology, those truths which are available to us only through divine revelation. For that, it seems possible that God could subsist in four persons consisting in one being, or ten, or nineteen, if that was his nature (although everything even in nature, reflects the number three), but could never be other than one being (as Aquinas’ first way demonstrates). It’s not impossible that God could have consisted in creating the Valar to sing the Aiunindale and made the Maiar to be their helpers, be named Eru Illuvatar instead of YHWH, and to have Satan incarnate as Sauron in the Third Age of Middle-Earth, if that is how God plus free will determined salvation history would play out (as these are incidental instead of essential properties of God). The fact that he hasn’t lowers such from theology to mere speculation.
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tonyrey
Guest
What better reason could there be?
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LovePatience
Guest
If you can’t answer the second, you can’t answer the first. The leap from something exists to GOD exists, the great alpha and omega is a great chasm. It is possible to suppose that one day nothing will exist as well as that multiple gods exist.
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Khalid
Guest
Multiple gods can not exist in the sense you are supposing. One God must always be the creator, the pure act, the possessor of all perfections: if anything else was to be that, it would be, a priori, indistinguishable on any level - including ontological - from the One God, and would be the One God. God, if he already exists (which he does, as something exists) can never cease to exist. God exists in all possible worlds, but creation does not necessarily exist. God is not incidental: he is essential. One day, in some possible world, it is not possible for nothing to exist: God would still exist. It is possible for nothing except for God to exist, as I pointed out above, but God can not cease to exist.
However, depending on how one defines “a god” (for what in an Angel, but something that humans would consider a god by any other name?) - that is, soft polytheism - that there is One God, who created many subordinate gods (angels, etc.) to do his will, “many gods” can exist by that definition - but there is still One God who is absolute sovereign over all of the other “gods” (angels), and apart from which the “gods”/angels are as impotent as a grain of sand. I define “a god” as “an ontologically necessary being who is the first cause and unmoved mover, who is pure actuality and possesses all perfections”. This can be shortened to “an ontologically necessary being”, or “a first cause”, or “an unmoved mover”, or “pure actuality”, or “that which possesses all perfections”, and the meaning remains the same - the each and every characteristic is implied - nay, demanded - by each and every other characteristic. A being can not exist that has one of those characteristics, without having them all.
The second question about the mechanics of God, and the economic or ontological trinity, have nothing to do with the existence of a first cause, or the One God - they are incidental aspects, as the first cause and pure act doesn’t need, by its very essence, to consist in more than one person. But it must always be one, and only one, Being, or divine essence/divinity. About the Trinity as well, you must not be confused - God could never be more than one Being. To speak of the persons of the Trinity as beings is incorrect: if the persons of the Trinity were beings, the Trinity would be absurd. One can not be both one Being and Three Beings. God is “one” in one aspect (being), and “three” in a different aspect (personhood): that is why we say, “we believe in one Being or Essence [ousia] in three persons [hypostases]”, with all of the talk of consubstantiality. God is one in one way, and three in another: to say that God is one person and three persons, or one being and three beings, is as absolutely absurd and illogical as any Mormon or Jehovah’s Witness would dream it to be.* The Trinity is one Being - but, in some possible world, could be more or less than exactly three persons. God is one Being, one divine essence, one Divinity, but that being is hyper-personal.
We have contact with beings that are non-personal (rocks, computers, loudspeakers, food), we have contact with beings that are exactly one person (men, and on the supernatural plane, angels), so there is no reason to automatically discard the possibility or declare illogical that there can be a being that is more than exactly one person.
It actually is a pretty good illustration between what is natural theology (philosophy contemplating the divine) and sacred theology (philosophy dealing with the revealed truths of a given religion).
*It is hard for me to explain further, as all of the metaphors I have currently invented for the matter (that of what we mean by talking about “being” and “person” as two different parts of God) fall towards the heresy of Monarchic Modalism (as they include the words “aspects” or “views”, or “from our perception”) as my grasp of English is insufficient as of yet.
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jochoa
Guest
Excellent thoughts my friend! Please consider the Wisdom found in John 1:1-2 DRB:
“In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. The same was in the beginning with God.”
First, recognize how this is the Wisdom of all things which come into existence:
If one interprets “the Word” as “unchanging forces” and “God” as “single source/entity of creation,” it can be read as “In the beginning were unchanging forces, a single source of creation acted with the unchanging forces, and the creation along with the single source is the source of the following creation.”
Used in a simple example of the earthly creation of a human being:
In the beginning were many unchanging forces and laws, from laws of gravity, laws of physics, laws of biology, laws of love, as well as, the unchanging force of history.
At some point in the history, the soon to be full human being came into existence as a single cell, but was not developing.
Then, the unchanging forces acted with the single cell in perfect unity to create a full human being.
The human being along with all the past unchanging forces, as well as all other human beings, work together in perfect unity to be the new source of creation.
Now given these interpretations, it would seemingly limit to “God is everything” or pantheism. Therefore, it becomes necessary to recognize how God is a person, Jesus Christ.
To recognize this, one must ponder the first substance to exist. Given that the first substance had to come from “nothing,” the first substance had to either be living (cell-like) or non-living (atom-like). If we assume the first substance to exist was non-living, then we have limited to God being everything. And if we assume the first substance to exist was living, and this living cell was Jesus Christ, then ALL things would have been created through this one living cell, which would not only validate prayers which state, “Through Him all things were made,” but would also validate why there are only two declarations of this principle instead of only 1 or three or more.
Now given a concept which recognizes that God as being bodiless, as well as having a body, prior to creation, one could use an alternate interpretation to demonstrate these two lines to refer to the body of the Father and the begotten (not created) body of the Son.
Before the beginning of creation, God somehow existed as a single living cell that could think, feel, and will, and it is of the same exact image as the Host of the Eucharist, and we are created in this same exact image and likeness, both male and female. (Please note: I can’t conceptualize how the cell came into existence, but I can assure you that there was the Word, the Word was with God, and the Word was God-John 1:2).
God thought of a highly complex and just plan to bring free-willed creations to choose to Love as He Loves, so that the creations may experience the same unbreakable peace and perfect happiness He experiences, but also so that when the creations love in union with Him, they will experience a limitless happiness.
At the fullness of time in the plan, the single-cell life duplicated, and therefore there is only one exact/eternally begotten body of God. And since the initial cell still exists, it has all-power and knowledge for all eternity. However, when the life duplicated, the mind/knowledge of the initial cell did not carry over to the second cell. Therefore, the second cell has the full divinity in body and the full humanity in mind and can have both the divine and human will, since the will proceeds from the body and mind. It was this second cell that God, the Father (the initial cell), placed into the spotless womb of the Most Holy Virgin, therefore it can be said that the second cell came down from Heaven and became Man.
Throughout the life of the second cell, He demonstrated to the world the Truly Loving Nature/The Greatest Commandments Perfected, even in the face of the hateful Crucifixion. It is this level of perfection that Jesus Christ fully reveals His Holy Spirit to His Creations.
Since the initial cell still exists and still has all-knowledge and all-power, and all other beings which come into existence after the initial one cannot be as powerful as the initial, therefore, there is only one all-powerful and all-knowing God, the Father.
What is more brilliant is the recognition that Jesus Christ gave up that all-powerful, all-knowing, and perfect state of being for each one of us. Which is where the reality of “This is my Body, which will be given up for you,” and the sight of the image of God’s Body including the reliving of the bloodless Crucifixion during the Eucharist makes one fall to his/her knees in adoration of such an Amazing Love and Person, and deep humility for failing to Love as He Loves.
Thoughts?
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LovePatience
Guest
You are taking what has been revealed and trying to show that it was logically apparent and did not need to revealed. If so, I doubt it would have ever needed to be revealed. More than that, it starts to conflict with free will by assuming necessity instead of choice.
Imagine that a God existed as a being with all perfections and all power. Being able to do all things, he could do away with himself or create other beings like him. Thus, there would be no God or multiple Gods.
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jochoa
Guest
The question becomes how do you define all perfections?
Please consider a few concepts:
If you were the only being that existed, and you could create or destroy whatever you wanted, and you decided to destroy yourself…would you consider that a state of perfection?
or
Do you consider creating something that could destroy you a state of perfection?
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Khalid
Guest
He could not create another being like him, as it would be him. Since he already possesses all perfections, it is an absurdity. For the same reason, he could not cease to exist.
If you read my post, you will see that I am in no way saying that which has been revealed (Christ, the Trinity) could have been deduced by unaided human reason. I am saying that the existence of God, as a first cause etc., etc., can be deduced by unaided human reason: the first part of my post deals with unaided reason (natural theology), and the second part with divine revelation that is beyond the grasp of unaided human reason (sacred theology).
God can be deduced without ever having been a revelation, by mere observation of nature and familiarity with the rules of logic as presented in the Organon of Aristotle. Paul says as much in Romans 1:19-20. That God is a Trinity, or Incarnate, or died for our sins, could never be deduced by natural reason: those aspects of religion had to be revealed to us by God, “for it is not you, Peter, who say this, but my Father in Heaven who gave you to say it” (that is, he could never have realized it using his own reason, but required divine revelation), as Jesus replies to Peter’s declaration “Amen, you are the Christ, the Son of the Living God!”
Vatican I speaking on natural theology:
Vatican I speaking on sacred theology:
Canons of the Third Session of Vatican I Council
Which states the sufficiency of unaided human reason to know that there is God, he is one, and that he is Creator, and the insufficiency of human reason to achieve knowledge of the divine mysteries apart from divine revelation.
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mexilad
Guest
To quote instein, We couldn’t have been an accident and there is no way we created ourselves.
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soylatte3
Guest
Hello
- The more I know about Science and human history, the more I am convinced that God exists.
- Faith is our response to God and it falls outside and beyond the confines of confidence.
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LovePatience
Guest
You are adding too much to what can be known. Your “etc. etc.” is subject to debate and not all of this can be deduced. Psalm 82:1 “God standeth in the congregation of the mighty, he judgeth among the gods.” So it seems that multiple gods do exist. But what does the word gods mean?
Genesis 1:26 "And God said, let us make man in our image. "
Jeremiah 10:11 " The gods that have not made the heavens and the earth, even they shall perish from the earth, and from under these heavens."
John 10:34 “Jesus answered them, Is it not written in your law, I said, Ye are gods?”
So who are all these gods if multiple gods cannot exist?
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Khalid
Guest
You are not even reading my posts, are you? Do you understand terms such as “ontological necessity” (which doesn’t mean necessity in the sense we normally speak of), or “possessing of all perfections”? Existence is a perfection; uniqueness is a perfection; impassibility is a perfection; omniscience is a perfection; so on. The “etc.” where you seem to take objection, was actually a rhetorical flourish: take it out and re-read it without the “etc.”, and my point still stands; it infers nothing.
The first one is translated incorrectly or misleadingly. It says, “God stands in the congregation of the elohim; he judges amongst the elohim”. Same word both times.
Elohim is also applied to the (human) judges of the Book of Judges. Much like the dual eloah in Job, it can refer to judges, angels, the “sons of God”, mighty ones, or God - but never gods (look it up in the BDB or Koehler-Baumgartner). John 10:24 is ripped out of context, and refers to the Judges reference: he is referring to the Judges who were called elohim. We in English use a similar phrase, such as in the game “Rock God”, or saying, “that man is a tennis god!”. We do not ascribe divinity to those men (unless they’re faithful non-celibate LDS on the way to exaltation.)
For context:
[BIBLEDRB]John 10:27-40[/BIBLEDRB]
Jeremiah is translated incorrectly or misleadingly. I see that “elohim” underlay those references you give (even though the best “polytheist” references are actually in the book of Job, with the “divine court”); look up “elohim” in the BDB (the standard Biblical Hebrew dictionary) and read.
What translation are you using? KJV? Try comparing translations for a change, with, maybe, the Douay-Rheims, the NRSV, the RSV, the NASB, the ESV, etc.
You are quoting the verses that every Mormon uses in the Mormon translation-of-choice that very few Catholics use, along with starting with the premise of sola scriptura - it’s a dead giveaway. And the lack of familiarity with or rejection of the canons of ecumenical councils. Why is your religion listed as “Catholic”? Catholics aren’t polytheists (or “divine pluralists”, or “monolatrists”), and there are other Mormons on this forum who are accepted and are honest about their religion.
Gen 1:26 refer to the Trinity, or, according to Jews, God speaking in the majestic plural.
The first one is translated incorrectly or misleadingly. It says, “God stands in the congregation of the elohim; he judges amongst the elohim”. Same word both times.
Elohim is also applied to the (human) judges of the Book of Judges. Much like the dual eloah in Job, it can refer to judges, angels, the “sons of God”, mighty ones, or God - but never gods (look it up in the BDB or Koehler-Baumgartner). John 10:24 is ripped out of context, and refers to the Judges reference: he is referring to the Judges who were called elohim. We in English use a similar phrase, such as in the game “Rock God”, or saying, “that man is a tennis god!”. We do not ascribe divinity to those men (unless they’re faithful non-celibate LDS on the way to exaltation.)
For context:
[BIBLEDRB]John 10:27-40[/BIBLEDRB]
Jeremiah is translated incorrectly or misleadingly. I see that “elohim” underlay those references you give (even though the best “polytheist” references are actually in the book of Job, with the “divine court”); look up “elohim” in the BDB (the standard Biblical Hebrew dictionary) and read.
What translation are you using? KJV? Try comparing translations for a change, with, maybe, the Douay-Rheims, the NRSV, the RSV, the NASB, the ESV, etc.
You are quoting the verses that every Mormon uses in the Mormon translation-of-choice that very few Catholics use, along with starting with the premise of sola scriptura - it’s a dead giveaway. And the lack of familiarity with or rejection of the canons of ecumenical councils. Why is your religion listed as “Catholic”? Catholics aren’t polytheists (or “divine pluralists”, or “monolatrists”), and there are other Mormons on this forum who are accepted and are honest about their religion.
Gen 1:26 refer to the Trinity, or, according to Jews, God speaking in the majestic plural.
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LovePatience
Guest
Lucifer is perfect. “EZEK 28:15 Thou wast perfect in thy ways from the day of thy creation, until iniquity was found in thee.” Now, he is obviously no longer perfect. So how do you define perfect?
It doesn’t seem less reasonable that a perfect being could destroy himself than that a perfect being could create perfect beings that destroy themselves.
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LovePatience
Guest
If you want to spend your time insulting me or telling me that I am not a Catholic, perhaps we do not need to continue the discussion.
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Anthony_V
Guest
All qualities exist in a manner that is proper to the being’s nature. Perfection of any nature (that is not supernatural) is not necessarily in the sense that the being’s nature is complete. However, being perfect does not necessitate being complete in the sense of the relationship being complete. If you imagine two jigsaw puzzle pieces that go together, the nature of the puzzle piece can be perfect, insofar as its nature is flawless. So, if the nature of the puzzle piece was imperfect, it would be disfigured. But even if the puzzle piece is perfect, and flawless, it’s still not complete, because the nature has not met its desired end; the nature is not immediately efficacious in the sense of its created role.
In this way, Lucifer’s original angelic nature was perfect in the sense that his nature was fully angelic, but his nature was not yet completed in God through beatific vision. Therefore, he did not share in the eternal perfection of God, but rather had his free choice of eternity in sanctifying grace, or not.
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LovePatience
Guest
Thanks for the reply. However, the sense of perfectness without completeness is why it is possible (discounting revelation) that there be multiple gods. It is possible that a lower order god could have created the Earth under the command of a higher order God.
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adrift
Guest
This is usually used to show the Trinity.
This is speaking of idols
this is from the commentary of the NAB bible
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