"I and the Father are one"

[josh987654321]

I highly doubt Jesus didnt/doesnt know the time of the end, He even gave clues as to what signs would appear and indicate the beginning of the end. So I believe He does know. IMO What he stated that “only the Father knows” was more of His way of telling the apostles, “none of your business.”

Both explanations make sense I believe, I don’t know whether he did or didn’t know, as you and others have pointed out he certainly knew alot of details about it though, but the main point I believe he was getting accross was this parrable here -
Faithful and Unfaithful Servants:

Luke 12:35-48

35 Be ready and keep your lamps burning 36 just like those servants who wait up for their master to return from a wedding feast. As soon as he comes and knocks, they open the door for him. 37 Servants are fortunate if their master finds them awake and ready when he comes! I promise you that he will get ready and have his servants sit down so he can serve them. 38 Those servants are really fortunate if their master finds them ready, even though he comes late at night or early in the morning. 39 You would surely not let a thief break into your home, if you knew when the thief was coming. 40 So always be ready! You don’t know when the Son of Man will come.

41 Peter asked Jesus, “Did you say this just for us or for everyone?”

42 The Lord answered:

Who are faithful and wise servants? Who are the ones the master will put in charge of giving the other servants their food supplies at the proper time? 43 Servants are fortunate if their master comes and finds them doing their job. 44 A servant who is always faithful will surely be put in charge of everything the master owns.

45 But suppose one of the servants thinks that the master won’t return until late. Suppose that servant starts beating all the other servants and eats and drinks and gets drunk. 46 If that happens, the master will come on a day and at a time when the servant least expects him. That servant will then be punished and thrown out with the servants who cannot be trusted.

47 If servants are not ready or willing to do what their master wants them to do, they will be beaten hard. 48 But servants who don’t know what their master wants them to do will not be beaten so hard for doing wrong. If God has been generous with you, he will expect you to serve him well. But if he has been more than generous, he will expect you to serve him even better.

Thank you for all your replies thus far.

Thank you for reading
Josh

 

[AlTheCollegeGal]

The Scriptures make it plain that Jesus had a complete human nature and a complete Divine Nature.

Jesus, as Son of Man, had to acquire the human knowledge and experience of a man through his real human nature. At the same time the Father was Revealing to Him all the things concerning His destiny as King, Prophet, and Priest, His mission as the Savior of mankind. The Father also revealed to His human nature His Divine Personhood and His Divine Nature and His Relationship with the Father and the Holy Spirit. But the Father did not reveal to Christ’s human nature everything. One of the things He did not reveal was the exact time of the end of the world, the time when Jesus would come to judge the world.

So Jesus was One Person, the Second Person of the Trinity. To make this and everything else absolutely clear Jesus Himself told the Apostles he would send the Advocate ( the Holy Spirit ) Who would teach them all they needed to know concerning the things necessary for salvation and what they needed to know about Himself, the Father, and the Holy Spirit. The Holy Spirit would Reveal all through the Church which Jesus had established - and it would teach all things needful and good without error. This Revelation is what is known as Tradition in the Catholic Church.

Linus2nd

I think this is a great post! I also highly recommend this article because it phrases everything very clearly: catholic.com/magazine/articles/jesus-is-god

 

[Bob_Crowley]

Getting back to the original OP, the plain fact of the matter is that none of us understands the Trinity. We accept it by faith.

Christ was God in the sense of being God the Son, God in the flesh. But He clearly demonstrated His human nature on a number of occasions - he was hot, tired and dusty (lady at the well). He was “surprised” at their lack of faith; He was amazed at the Centurion’s faith; He wept at the news of Lazareth’s death.

But then He displayed His divine nature equally well - He walked on water, He heated the sick, the lame, the deaf and the blind almost at will; He told a storm to be quiet (apparently in a way similar to the way you might tell a dog to shut up); He rose from the dead; He claimed He sent the prophets; He foretold the destruction of the Temple, and for a man who was crucified as a criminal in a remote Roman backwater, He had the audacity to say “Heaven and Earth may pass away, but My words will never die away.” Yet they weren’t even written down at the time.

Yet despite all that He admitted He did not know the date of HIs own second coming - only the Father knew that. And I think that’s precisely what He meant.

So I think the best way to think of the Trinity in this particular instance is to relate to the famiy - The Jones family has a father, wife and son. They all share the rights and responsibilities of being in the Jones family. But there are differences.

But as a family they are so closely knit, that to deal with any one of them is to deal with all of them.

The Jones Son has given a warning to the neighbourhood that there’s going to be an accounting from all of them. He’s going to be heavily involved Himself. He’s heard that from His Father, with no mistake. But He doesn’t know the date. His Father has reserved that to Himself.

What is assured is that it’s going to happen. You can bet your life on it.

 

[jochoa]

So I think the best way to think of the Trinity in this particular instance is to relate to the famiy - The Jones family has a father, wife and son. They all share the rights and responsibilities of being in the Jones family. But there are differences.

I really enjoy the analogy of the Holy Trinity to a family! When I consider God, as the person who created everything, creating a family from himself, I can more easily perceive God, as three distinct persons, and His Bride, as the Church. Here are some reasons:

-Although a father can generally know and expect every thought, emotion, and act of his bride, the mother, to be loving towards the family, a father does not specifically know every act of the mother for greater enjoyment of life in their relationship. Therefore, God, as the ALL-knowing father, must sacrifice ALL-knowledge in order to enter a spousal relationship. Hence, the only-begotten Son, who does not know EVERYthing, whom all things were created for.
-Being the person who created everything, He will have to create His Bride, a person who is equal in morality and capability.
-In order to kindly and everlastingly create His Bride, He must physically reveal the growth from complete ignorance in loving ways to complete perfection in loving ways. Therefore, God, as the person who created everything, must sacrifice ALL-knowledge and all-wisdom in order to demonstrate the process of becoming all-wise to His Bride. Hence, the Holy Spirit of Jesus Christ, who proceeds from the Father and the Son, and “God made him who had no sin to be sin for us, so that in him we might become the righteousness of God,”

Therefore, when creating a family solely from the self, God must be three distinct persons, Him who was, is, and is to come, to create an everlasting Spouse.

Thanks for your time and consideration and for sharing the nice analogy! I would enjoy hearing your critiques of my understanding if you have a chance.

 

[Bob_Crowley]

I really enjoy the analogy of the Holy Trinity to a family! When I consider God, as the person who created everything, creating a family from himself, I can more easily perceive God, as three distinct persons, and His Bride, as the Church. Here are some reasons:

-Although a father can generally know and expect every thought, emotion, and act of his bride, the mother, to be loving towards the family, a father does not specifically know every act of the mother for greater enjoyment of life in their relationship. Therefore, God, as the ALL-knowing father, must sacrifice ALL-knowledge in order to enter a spousal relationship. Hence, the only-begotten Son, who does not know EVERYthing, whom all things were created for.
-Being the person who created everything, He will have to create His Bride, a person who is equal in morality and capability.
-In order to kindly and everlastingly create His Bride, He must physically reveal the growth from complete ignorance in loving ways to complete perfection in loving ways. Therefore, God, as the person who created everything, must sacrifice ALL-knowledge and all-wisdom in order to demonstrate the process of becoming all-wise to His Bride. Hence, the Holy Spirit of Jesus Christ, who proceeds from the Father and the Son, and “God made him who had no sin to be sin for us, so that in him we might become the righteousness of God,”

Therefore, when creating a family solely from the self, God must be three distinct persons, Him who was, is, and is to come, to create an everlasting Spouse.

Thanks for your time and consideration and for sharing the nice analogy! I would enjoy hearing your critiques of my understanding if you have a chance.

I’m afraid I tend to baulk at analysing the Trinity, other than using human based analogy. The fact we have families is a reflection of God’s trinitarianism, since we are made in His image. That is, the human family is meant to reflect in some small way part of the Trinity.

We’re also Trinitarian even within ourselves of course - body, mind and soul. I had the peculiar experience of my own father turning up in my room the night he died. He didn’t have a body, since it was lying dead some kilometres away, but he certainly had a soul and he obviously had a mind, since he was talking and conversing with me, and clearly able to think.

But he was no longer completely human. He couldn’t have picked up something to throw at me even if he wanted to, since he no longer had any physical presence.

Therefore we are not complete unless we have all three components. Once again, if we are made in the image of God, then this says something about God too. He’s not complete, BY HIS OWN CHOICE, without the Trinity.

I suppose it’s a bit like a mirror. God wants to see His own love reflected back to Him, and to do this, He needs what might be called a carbon copy of Himself. Except that it’s a three way mirror. When the Father sees the Son, He sees His own love reflected back to Himself, and can therefore say “In Him I am well pleased”.

 

[jochoa]

The fact we have families is a reflection of God’s trinitarianism, since we are made in His image.

We’re also Trinitarian even within ourselves of course - body, mind and soul.

Thank you for further discussion! I appreciate you sharing your story about the encounter with your father’s spirit. I especially enjoyed your thoughts of the Trinitarian family and self.

I also enjoy considering the trinity within the self. Where you perceive the trinity of body, mind, and soul, I perceive the trinity of the body, mind, and will. In my studies, I recognized that we currently have these three distinct entities within us:
A mind that thinks; a body that feels; and a will that acts. I recognized that many times our mind thought differently than our body felt, our will acted differently than our mind thought, or our body felt differently than our will acted. Therefore, I recognized that some times we could align all three entities to think, feel, and act with oneness. Then I realized that we could sometimes align our trinity of being with the Trinity of Jesus Christ’s being. Therefore, if we can one day always align our trinity of being with the Trinity of Jesus Christ’s being, we might become a Holy Trinity. At this point, I was amazed at the Wisdom of the Catholic Church, when She declares, CCC#460 ""For the Son of God became man so that we might become God.“80”

Thanks for your time and consideration! I look forward to hearing more of your thoughts!

 

[catholictiger]

Someone asked me on another thread, how Jesus and God could be one, when Jesus said Matthew 24:36 “But about that day or hour no one knows, not even the angels in heaven, nor the Son, but only the Father.”

It was put -

How can one God both know something and not know the same thing? Father and Son are different. If they are different, and there is only one God…

How would you answer this?

Thank you in advanced
Josh.

St. Augustine actually has a canonical rule about how to interpret passages just like this.

Anytime the scriptures talk about the Son being less than the father, it is forma servi, any time scripture talks about the son being equal to the father it is talking about forma dei.

to explain this further, you can say that when you use the forma servo rule it is referring to the Son of God in his human nature. Jesus’ human nature is less than the father, by it’s very nature. Jesus’ divine nature being homoosious with the father, really one in being with the father or consubstantial, is equal with the father being that they share the same substance. (I think this is correct trinitarian language can be confusing at times). Another way to put it the Son is divine just as the Father is divine just as the Spirit is Divine.

So when I and the Father are one, it is talking about the divine nature of Jesus. When it says something like only the father knows the hour, making the son less than the father is talking about his human nature.

To clarify further. What the father knows so does the son and the spirit know. All three persons of the God head are omniscient not just the Father. The only distinctions (which are not really distinctions because there can be no distinctions in God) that can be made are by relation. So if you say that the Father is omniscient but not the son and the Spirit you are destroying the simplicity of God. All three persons of the trinity must know everything, so The son who is divine, who is omnipresent, omniscient, etc. just as the father and the spirit is all those things. It logically follows that the son DOES know the hour. It is only in the son’s incarnation that he takes on a human nature and therefore become less than the father. His equality to the father as a divine son never changes so even though he assumes a human nature his divine nature doesn’t lose his equality to God.

I hope this made sense. I know I probably went more deep than I had to.

 

[catholictiger]

I really enjoy the analogy of the Holy Trinity to a family! When I consider God, as the person who created everything, creating a family from himself, I can more easily perceive God, as three distinct persons, and His Bride, as the Church. Here are some reasons:

Thanks for your time and consideration and for sharing the nice analogy! I would enjoy hearing your critiques of my understanding if you have a chance.

this is a good analogy but not the best

problems

1. in a family the Father and Mother are not the same substance but rather like substance. In the divine Godhead they are of the same substance not like substance.
2. The family is not simple, you can break down the three persons into one person, you can also just on the one person itself break down them even further, a person is made up of body parts, organs, cells, proteins, carbons, etc. God on the other hand is simple he has no distinctions he can’t be broken down further.
3. The mother is not a good analogy of the spirit, the spirit in relation to the other two persons of the trinity proceeds from the father and the son, the mother doesn’t proceed from the father and the son.

-Although a father can generally know and expect every thought, emotion, and act of his bride, the mother, to be loving towards the family, a father does not specifically know every act of the mother for greater enjoyment of life in their relationship. Therefore, God, as the ALL-knowing father, must sacrifice ALL-knowledge in order to enter a spousal relationship. Hence, the only-begotten Son, who does not know EVERYthing, whom all things were created for.

probably with this analogy

the Son does know everything because God is omniscience, and if the father is omniscience so must the son be omniscient and the spirit as well. It should be noted as well that when we talk about omniscience we aren’t referring to a quality or attribute of God rather we are applying this attribute or quality to his substance. For example when we talk about God as one, God isn’t the accident one rather he is oneness. I would suggest that God simply is God, and when we say God is good, God is great, God is omniscient, it is from our perspective that God is these things, while in reality God simply is. That is why when we say God is good, we are talking about goodness in relation to his substance not accidents, which cannot be about God. (sorry I’m going into so much depth but I have a point)

-Being the person who created everything, He will have to create His Bride, a person who is equal in morality and capability.

problem with this analogy, when the father creates so does the son and the spirit. Also only the spirit and the son are equal to father the bride is not equal to any person of the trinity.

-In order to kindly and everlastingly create His Bride, He must physically reveal the growth from complete ignorance in loving ways to complete perfection in loving ways. Therefore, God, as the person who created everything, must sacrifice ALL-knowledge and all-wisdom in order to demonstrate the process of becoming all-wise to His Bride. Hence, the Holy Spirit of Jesus Christ, who proceeds from the Father and the Son, and “God made him who had no sin to be sin for us, so that in him we might become the righteousness of God,”

problems with this analogy. God is not a person, God is God. The father is a person, the son in a person the spirit is a person. God doesn’t create as a person God creates as God.

Also to say the Holy Spirit of Jesus Christ is wrong to, the Holy Spirit processes from the Father to the Son, it is not the Spirit of Jesus Christ, rather it is the Spirit of God. (I think)

Therefore, when creating a family solely from the self, God must be three distinct persons, Him who was, is, and is to come, to create an everlasting Spouse.

the family creating form within itself doesn’t necessitate that there must be a trinity.

It is also not necessary that God must be three distinct persons. It is only through revelation that we know there are three persons of the trinity.

I’m sorry to tear into your analogy so much, but please understand that any analogy of the trinity will ALWAYS fall short we can NEVER fully explain who God is.

 

[catholictiger]

Thank you for further discussion! I appreciate you sharing your story about the encounter with your father’s spirit. I especially enjoyed your thoughts of the Trinitarian family and self.

I also enjoy considering the trinity within the self. Where you perceive the trinity of body, mind, and soul, I perceive the trinity of the body, mind, and will. In my studies, I recognized that we currently have these three distinct entities within us:
A mind that thinks; a body that feels; and a will that acts. I recognized that many times our mind thought differently than our body felt, our will acted differently than our mind thought, or our body felt differently than our will acted. Therefore, I recognized that some times we could align all three entities to think, feel, and act with oneness. Then I realized that we could sometimes align our trinity of being with the Trinity of Jesus Christ’s being. Therefore, if we can one day always align our trinity of being with the Trinity of Jesus Christ’s being, we might become a Holy Trinity. At this point, I was amazed at the Wisdom of the Catholic Church, when She declares, CCC#460 ""For the Son of God became man so that we might become God.“80”

Thanks for your time and consideration! I look forward to hearing more of your thoughts!

This analogy still falls short
here are some problems

1. there is no order in this, In the trinity there is an order the Father creates the Son and the Spirit proceeds from the father and the son.
2. The body is not simplistic see previous post.
3. When one person of the trinity acts all three act. When the Father Creates so does the Spirit and the Son, to say that the Father thinks and the son and the spirit don’t is destroying simplicity. The body doesn’t think our will doesn’t think. Our mind doesn’t have a will, our mind doesn’t act like a body.

Again it falls short.

I’ll give you my best analogy and at the same time criticize it to make a point.

The trinity is like love.

The father is the one who loves
The Son is the one who is loved
the Sprit is the love that flows between the son and the spirit.

This explains many things that we believe about the trinity.

1. there is an order to this, the father is the first in the order of love, followed by the Son and the spirit
2. There is a oneness of the three actions. They all have to do with love.
3. It in a sense talks about relations. the Father loves the son because his relation to the son. The spirit relates to the procession

It’s main problem

There is something that the Father does that the son and the spirit don’t do. The Son loves just as much as the father loves. I would say that God is love itself, and if there is something that the son lacks about love than you destroy the simplicity of God.

Again analogies will always fall short of explaining the trinity this is the simple fact of theology. We can never fully understand or comprehend God, all of our analogies will ALWAYS fall short. I would suggest to you all that when you explain the trinity always make this point.

 

[HeteroDoxical]

Someone asked me on another thread, how Jesus and God could be one, when Jesus said Matthew 24:36 “But about that day or hour no one knows, not even the angels in heaven, nor the Son, but only the Father.”

It was put -

How can one God both know something and not know the same thing? Father and Son are different. If they are different, and there is only one God…

How would you answer this?

Thank you in advanced
Josh.

I would say, God has a bigger perspective than we have, past present future for every subatomic particle… His perspective I can’t understand.

He wrote the NT with three persons of Divinity named separately. I assume he did it for my benefit. So I think of it that way.

However, I can’t deny their togetherness, since they existed before creation when there was nothing. If there is nothing, then nothing can be separate as there is nothing to separate.

See, we use anthropomorphisms to describe aspects of God.

When you try to take an anthropomorphism and make it a strict definition like it came from an IKEA put together your furniture catalog, you get issues. Like John Calvin, he created some of dem dar izzues!

 

[josh987654321]

St. Augustine actually has a canonical rule about how to interpret passages just like this.

Anytime the scriptures talk about the Son being less than the father, it is forma servi, any time scripture talks about the son being equal to the father it is talking about forma dei.

to explain this further, you can say that when you use the forma servo rule it is referring to the Son of God in his human nature. Jesus’ human nature is less than the father, by it’s very nature. Jesus’ divine nature being homoosious with the father, really one in being with the father or consubstantial, is equal with the father being that they share the same substance. (I think this is correct trinitarian language can be confusing at times). Another way to put it the Son is divine just as the Father is divine just as the Spirit is Divine.

So when I and the Father are one, it is talking about the divine nature of Jesus. When it says something like only the father knows the hour, making the son less than the father is talking about his human nature.

To clarify further. What the father knows so does the son and the spirit know. All three persons of the God head are omniscient not just the Father. The only distinctions (which are not really distinctions because there can be no distinctions in God) that can be made are by relation. So if you say that the Father is omniscient but not the son and the Spirit you are destroying the simplicity of God. All three persons of the trinity must know everything, so The son who is divine, who is omnipresent, omniscient, etc. just as the father and the spirit is all those things. It logically follows that the son DOES know the hour. It is only in the son’s incarnation that he takes on a human nature and therefore become less than the father. His equality to the father as a divine son never changes so even though he assumes a human nature his divine nature doesn’t lose his equality to God.

I hope this made sense. I know I probably went more deep than I had to.

& #28 & #29

Thank you catholictiger.

 

[jochoa]

this is a good analogy but not the best

Thanks for considering the concept and sharing your critiques! I would like to clarify some of the points I shared because some of the problems you perceive are misunderstandings.

problems

1. in a family the Father and Mother are not the same substance but rather like substance. In the divine Godhead they are of the same substance not like substance.

In the concept I presented, the mother is not one of the persons of God, the person who created everything. The concept also remains consistent with the knowledge of the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit to each be the same substance.

1. …God on the other hand is simple he has no distinctions he can’t be broken down further.

I definitely agree with this grace, however, with the knowledge of Catholicism, we can consider the distinctions between the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit, who are each God.

1. The mother is not a good analogy of the spirit, the spirit in relation to the other two persons of the trinity proceeds from the father and the son, the mother doesn’t proceed from the father and the son.

Please reconsider the concept because I am not declaring the mother is the Holy Spirit of God. I am declaring that the Holy Spirit is the person who created everything, who sacrifices all-knowledge and all-wisdom, in order to demonstrate to his created bride how to become all-knowing/all-wise (equal in capability and morality with the person who created everything).

the Son does know everything because God is omniscience,…

How do you reconcile Matthew 24:36 then? I recognize that All-Wisdom is a form All-Knowledge. Therefore, one can know everything without knowing EVERYthing.

problem with this analogy, when the father creates so does the son and the spirit.

In the concept, I recognize the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit are each the person who created everything, therefore, when the father creates so does the son and the spirit.

Also only the spirit and the son are equal to father the bride is not equal to any person of the trinity.

In the concept, I am declaring that the bride is a creation, therefore she cannot be fully equal to the Creator, but she can be perfect as her heavenly Father is perfect.

problems with this analogy. God is not a person, God is God.

Once again, I definitely agree with this grace, however, I find it acceptable to dig deeper because Catholicism knows Jesus is a person, who is God, therefore I can know in some sense, God is a person.

It is also not necessary that God must be three distinct persons.

Definitely, God is three distinct persons by his choice.

I’m sorry to tear into your analogy so much…

No apologies necessary. Thank you very much for your thorough consideration! I really enjoy refining my understandings of the Holy Trinity, and the process of refinement requires critical eyes. I look forward to reading more of your critiques!

 

[jochoa]

This analogy still falls short

Thanks for sharing your critiques! I definitely agree with many of the points you made. In sharing the trinitarian-self concept, I was not intending for it to be a complete analogy of the Holy Trinity.

We can never fully understand or comprehend God, all of our analogies will ALWAYS fall short. I would suggest to you all that when you explain the trinity always make this point.

Although I agree that our analogies will fall short, I encourage you to reconsider your position on our capability to understand God because it contradicts the knowledge of Catholicism: From Vatican I, “God, the beginning and end of all things, can be known with certainty from created reality by the light of human reason.”

I also really enjoy pondering God as Love because consideration also reveals the Holy Trinity and His Church to me.
Since God is Love, there are three distinct persons that are always love.
First, there is the person who is always love.
Second, there is the person who although is always love, is perceived as not always love.
Third, there is the person who becomes always love.

Within the Godhead, the third person is the distinct person who is always love, but takes on not always love nature to demonstrate how to become always love.
Within God, the third person can be one of His creations who becomes always love.

Thanks for your time and consideration! I look forward to reading more of your understandings!