I may be wrong, but I’m not sure if the statement that “a person is a mind” necessarily is true. This is certainly the case for humans, but human personhood is at best analogous to divine personhood. To answer your question, each of the three persons possess the single divine nature in its fullness. I think it helps if we consider the relationships between the three persons. The Second Person is the result of the First Person perfectly knowing Himself (since the knowing is infinite, the known Person is equal in every way to the Knower). The Third Person is the result of the infinite pouring of the First and Second Person into the love of each other. So it may be more apt to say that the single, metaphysically simple nature of God is expressed by the three persons: the infinite lover, the infinitely beloved, and the infinite spirit of love between lover and beloved. Does that help answer your question?
What would be the definition of a person in the Divine sense, then? And how would we define it such that apologetic arguments, like Biblical evidence for the person of the Holy Spirit, could be preserved? Thanks.
I sort of agree and sort of have a problem with what you say, but no matter what any human being can say, I/we would probably have a problem. At first I said, balto nailed it, then almost immediately I said, wait a minute, the Father is not the only one who loves, the Son loves the Father, so in that way the Son becomes the knower and the Father becomes the known, and no sooner did I see that then it occurred to me that the Holy Spirit is no laggard or passive part with respect to love, so to speak, he too loves the Father and he too loves the Son, because after all, he is more than a “product” of the Father and the Son’s love, he himself is a Person and wholly God, SO then it occurs to me that it all goes back to the idea of begetting, begotten and proceeding, but who can fathom these seemingly time-related words as an infinite reality. So I said to myself, you are beginning to chase your mind’s tail. For next you will be saying what is the love between the Holy Spirit and the Son called, and likewise between the Holy Spirit and the Father? And if the idea of begetting, begotten and proceeding will not allow it to go that way in terms of producing another Person, we must still recognize that the Holy Spirit really does love both the Father and the Son, since he is in every way God, but for reasons unknown this does not, at least to my knowledge, result is another Person, or the Father or the Son (because of that mysterious concept of begetting, begotten and proceeding, I think). Now I almost have myself confused, so I am sure I lost you, but it seems to me that trying to pursue the idea of reconciling the Trinity would take some time, in fact, and infinite amount of time, which itself is an absurd idea, I think, for infinity resides outside of time.
So, I think for now I’ll just remember the formulae, there is but one God in three Divine Persons, Father, Son and Holy Spirit, each of whom are fully God.1 A being that only has one nature is simpler than a being who has two.
God has only one nature.
There’s a small problem with that argument… we don’t believe God has more than one nature.
I think that a person is defined as one who can know (has intellect) and love (has will). The only ones that fit this description are God, angels, demons, and humans. It may be that humans, angels, and demons have a one-to-one correspondence between natures and persons because our knowing and loving is not infinite as God’s is. If knowing and loving are infinite then they manifest as three persons for one nature as in God’s case. I think that would be correct.
I think you are right and I agree with what you said, I just did a bad job of explaining it
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I think you are on to something here. It may be that there aren’t three discrete persons in the Trinity but when we think about the person of infinite loving, we think of the Father. When we think of the infinitely beloved, we think of the Son, etc. So the three persons exist but we call them by different names because of our limited understanding of what each Person does and how they relate to the other Persons, kind of like how we say that God is omnipotent, omniscient, and omnibenevolent even though in reality all of these qualities are interchangeable with infinite being. We, as humans, can only be said to have one person because we have limited knowing and loving.So I said to myself, you are beginning to chase your mind’s tail. For next you will be saying what is the love between the Holy Spirit and the Son called, and likewise between the Holy Spirit and the Father? And if the idea of begetting, begotten and proceeding will not allow it to go that way in terms of producing another Person, we must still recognize that the Holy Spirit really does love both the Father and the Son, since he is in every way God, but for reasons unknown this does not, at least to my knowledge, result is another Person, or the Father or the Son (because of that mysterious concept of begetting, begotten and proceeding, I think). Now I almost have myself confused, so I am sure I lost you, but it seems to me that trying to pursue the idea of reconciling the Trinity would take some time, in fact, and infinite amount of time, which itself is an absurd idea, I think, for infinity resides outside of time.
I don’t think there’s anything wrong with this. The Catechism probably is just being as concise as possible. I think the packaging between Father and Son and Father, Son, and Holy Spirit is needed because it highlights these essential relationships in an infinitely knowing and loving essential being. I think you have some interesting insights though.
Thanks for your kind words. I usually draw criticism for the way I tend to phrase my thinking, which is not deliberate, but is just the way I think. If I had some self-proclaimed profound idea on the Trinity and the Church said, “James, you’re way out in left field,” I would yield to the Church’s decision, not that I wouldn’t question how I got to my idea in an effort to understand where I went wrong. I pray I would not get into an argument if I still thought I was right, because that is a very definite weakness of mine. I think I am part Jack Russell terrier, so that when I think I am being treated unfairly, I can become quite stubborn. It’s a wonderful cross to carry, and the occasion for much needed humiliation.I think you are right and I agree with what you said, I just did a bad job of explaining it
I think you are on to something here. It may be that there aren’t three discrete persons in the Trinity but when we think about the person of infinite loving, we think of the Father. When we think of the infinitely beloved, we think of the Son, etc. So the three persons exist but we call them by different names because of our limited understanding of what each Person does and how they relate to the other Persons, kind of like how we say that God is omnipotent, omniscient, and omnibenevolent even though in reality all of these qualities are interchangeable with infinite being. We, as humans, can only be said to have one person because we have limited knowing and loving.
I don’t think there’s anything wrong with this. The Catechism probably is just being as concise as possible. I think the packaging between Father and Son and Father, Son, and Holy Spirit is needed because it highlights these essential relationships in an infinitely knowing and loving essential being. I think you have some interesting insights though.
)Easily fixed
You and me both.Thanks for your kind words. I usually draw criticism for the way I tend to phrase my thinking, which is not deliberate, but is just the way I think. If I had some self-proclaimed profound idea on the Trinity and the Church said, “James, you’re way out in left field,” I would yield to the Church’s decision, not that I wouldn’t question how I got to my idea in an effort to understand where I went wrong. I pray I would not get into an argument if I still thought I was right, because that is a very definite weakness of mine. I think I am part Jack Russell terrier, so that when I think I am being treated unfairly, I can become quite stubborn. It’s a wonderful cross to carry, and the occasion for much needed humiliation.
I think part of the problem is that we understand what’s in our mind but it’s difficult to convey the concept to others in a way that is not ambiguous and prone to misunderstanding. I have the same issue. A guess it’s just a limitation of human thinking I guess. Supposedly angels don’t have this problem.I don’t think that simplicity refers to how easy something is to understand. Rather it has to do with limitations. A complex being has more limitations placed on it than a simple being. A being with one nature and one person has limited knowing and loving. God’s knowing and loving is unlimited and hence requires three Persons.
You are eqivocating on the word “simple.” Utter simplicity refers to the fact that God isn’t made up of any parts. You use “simple” as “easy to understand.” Richard Dawkins also uses this fallacy:
No, I use simple as “not made up of parts”, “having no distinctions.”
Your interpretation of Dawkin’s argument is wrong here, but even it were correct, my argument is completely different.
If that’s true, then God cannot exist, because appaerntly to have unlimited knowledge requires that God cannot be simple.
There’s no reason there would be four persons in the nature of God. It would involve knowing or loving Himself twice over which would not produce a person that is not already in the Trinity. Besides, how does one’s knowledge of himself become twice infinity?