M
mercytruth
Guest
FrKimel,
I really appreciate this thorough explanation from Fr John Behr. Some future questions may be in order.
Thank you.
- Status
I really appreciate this thorough explanation from Fr John Behr. Some future questions may be in order.
Thank you.
C
Cavaradossi
Guest
I was waiting for somebody to give that answer. It is interesting to me to see how people understand the very first clause of the Niceno-Constantinopolitan Creed differently. Forget the filioque, this difference in understanding I find to be more interesting
N
nevadairenaeus
Guest
I agree that the creed itself is speaking of the Father as the one God. That must always the starting point for all Christian belief. Christ is God precisely because he is begotten of God the Father, God from God as the creed states. That’s what the council of Nicaea meant to clarify - if we confess one God, the Father Almighty, [as both catholics and Arians did] then what is Jesus in relation to that one God? Also God? A demigod of some sort or an exalted angelic being? The Son and the Holy Spirit are God because of their relationship to the Father. Because the Father is never without his Word and Wisdom, they are co-eternal with Him, we can also speak of the Trinity as the one God. The Father is the ultimate source and unity of the Trinity.
I like how Irenaeus, in the second century long before Nicaea, put it in his Demonstration of the Apostolic Preaching:
“This then is the order of the rule of our faith, and the foundation of the building, and the stability of our conversation: God, the Father, not made, not material, invisible; one God, the creator of all things: this is the first point of our faith. The second point is: The Word of God, Son of God, Christ Jesus our Lord … And the third point is: The Holy Spirit”
and
“So then the Father is Lord and the Son is Lord, and the Father is God and the Son is God; for that which is begotten of God is God.”
All true profession of Christian belief must begin with the Father, as all the creeds do.
I like how Irenaeus, in the second century long before Nicaea, put it in his Demonstration of the Apostolic Preaching:
“This then is the order of the rule of our faith, and the foundation of the building, and the stability of our conversation: God, the Father, not made, not material, invisible; one God, the creator of all things: this is the first point of our faith. The second point is: The Word of God, Son of God, Christ Jesus our Lord … And the third point is: The Holy Spirit”
and
“So then the Father is Lord and the Son is Lord, and the Father is God and the Son is God; for that which is begotten of God is God.”
All true profession of Christian belief must begin with the Father, as all the creeds do.
N
nevadairenaeus
Guest
As since I’m Catholic *, I should probably quote from the Catechism as well:
*By this confession, the Church recognizes the Father as "the source and origin of the whole divinity.”
God is one but not solitary." “Father,” “Son,” “Holy Spirit” are not simply names designating modalities of the divine being, for they are really distinct from one another: “He is not the Father who is the Son, nor is the Son he who is the Father, nor is the Holy Spirit he who is the Father or the Son.” They are distinct from one another in their relations of origin: “It is the Father who generates, the Son who is begotten, and the Holy Spirit who proceeds.” The divine Unity is Triune.**
*By this confession, the Church recognizes the Father as "the source and origin of the whole divinity.”
God is one but not solitary." “Father,” “Son,” “Holy Spirit” are not simply names designating modalities of the divine being, for they are really distinct from one another: “He is not the Father who is the Son, nor is the Son he who is the Father, nor is the Holy Spirit he who is the Father or the Son.” They are distinct from one another in their relations of origin: “It is the Father who generates, the Son who is begotten, and the Holy Spirit who proceeds.” The divine Unity is Triune.**
M
Marybeloved
Guest
Hey, didn’t I kind of hint at it when I tried to explain to you Grandfather’s post? I said that the essence that the Son and Spirit have is the Father’s essence- Isn’t that kind of along those lines? Ok, enuf trying to seek kudoz where I haven’t earned them
! It is a very interesting understanding presented, though.Blessings! Christ is risen!
C
Cavaradossi
Guest
Truly, he is risen!Hey, didn’t I kind of hint at it when I tried to explain to you Grandfather’s post? I said that the essence that the Son and Spirit have is the Father’s essence- Isn’t that kind of along those lines? Ok, enuf trying to seek kudoz where I haven’t earned them
Blessings! Christ is risen!
M
mercytruth
Guest
FrKimel,
I do not know if you are able to answer these questions, but if you are, it would be much appreciated.
I was under the impression that the three persons of the Trinity are equal. If this is true, I do not understand how the Son of God is visible, and God the Father is not. I do not understand how the Son of God became sin for us, while God the Father is holy and can not be tainted with sin. I do not understand how the Son of God was tempted with sin, but God the Father can not be tempted with sin. I do not understand how the Son of God sufferered death for us, but God the Father only is immortal and can not die.
I do understand that the Son of God is our high priest according to the order of Melchizedech, who is ever making intercession before God the Father for us.
God’s peace.
T
timotheos
Guest
I do not understand it (the mystery of the triune God). Hence I confess, “I believe in One God …”
F
FrKimel
Guest
I don’t understand either.
All of our reflection on the Trinitarian mystery begins with Jesus Christ, whom we confess to be true God and true Man. You might want to read St Athanasius, On the Incarnation, and St Cyril of Alexandria, On the Unity of Christ.
G
grandfather
Guest
I am not familiar with autotheos.
The key for me is understanding the difference between person and nature. The Trinity is three persons with one nature. God is infinite. The three divine persons are infinite in nature.
Your nature is what you are, not who you are. Your nature determines what you do.
Jesus has God nature and human nature. He is one person with two natures.
God is three persons with one nature.
Sorry if I am repeating myself. This is difficult.
Jesus Christ is Jesus Christ. That is who he is. The Father is not the Son. But the Father and Son share identical natures.
This is difficult for us, because we are made male and female. Two different beings come together and make a unique person. All of us share human nature, but we are different by nature, some tall or short, black or white, highly intelligent or dull, curly haired or bald, musically gifted or tone deaf. We all have characteristics that are different, or even lacking in others, because we are finite. This can not be so if your nature is infinite.
We say that He is infinite in all His perfections. He is truth. He is love. He is justice. He is life.
In all these He is infinite. It is helpful to our understanding to think about things one at a time, separately. We can not segregate God’s perfections. God is love and life at the same time. They can not exist without one another. So in any of His perfections we find all the others.
Since God is infinite in them and we are finite then we can never completely know God. There is always something more, or new to discover. Jesus says He knows the Father and the Father knows Him.
The three persons must have or contain all the divine perfections or qualities to be infinite (God).
There are two most fundamental activities that are proper to all spiritual beings, God, angels and men. They are knowing and loving. Before the Creator created anything, God eternally exists. Everything else has a beginning.
For all eternity God exists and does those two things. He knows and loves. He knows and loves Himself, who He is, not what He is.
The Father knows the Son. The Son knows the Father. The Father, Son and Holy Ghost are who God is. The perfections is what God is, His nature.
If any of the persons of the Holy Trinity had some quality the other lacked there would not be three infinite persons.
I do not know the thought about God the Father being the only cause. I know you could not say that He is the first cause. First presumes time. In time we have a before and after. In God eternal there can be no before or after.
So the Father does not love the Son and then the Son returns love to the Father. That is a before and after. They give themselves to themselves simultaneously. Theologians say there is no potency in God, that God is pure act. The Father does not give Himself to the Son over time, a little then a little more. He gives Himself entirely all at once holding nothing back.
The reason we are made acceptable to God is Jesus gives Himself to the Father with us. He ascended to heaven bodily, with His human nature, taking us with Him as an offering to the Father who accepts it. But having accepted or received it He now has it also.
But with us, we say, God loved us first.
So Jesus says He is the alpha and omega, the first and last, the beginning and the end. He is also everything in between. He is God, before all, after all, and above all.
If the three persons are infinite in nature, then logic says they must be identical in nature, or they are not all three God, because God is infinite being. If one lacked something the other had, then the former would not be God, because infiniity can not lack anything.
God can not change. Change presumes time, before and after. Also if God changed and added some quality He did not have before, then He was not infinite before.
All of this holds together except for one thing, mercy. We are the objects of divine mercy. We do not exist eternally. God became merciful. God changed. We can not say God had the potential for mercy. God has no potency. He is pure act, eternal act.
He changes us who are in time, but in order to do so He must change Himself. Mystery!
God has mercy on us, because He pities us. He pities us, because we are helpless. So He redeems us. In our helplessness God helps us. Helplessness and power are opposites. God is all powerful. We are helpless. Our helplessness had the power to change omnipotence. Mystery!
M
mercytruth
Guest
FrKimel,I don’t understand either.
All of our reflection on the Trinitarian mystery begins with Jesus Christ, whom we confess to be true God and true Man. You might want to read St Athanasius, On the Incarnation, and St Cyril of Alexandria, On the Unity of Christ.
Thank you!
M
mercytruth
Guest
Grandfather,
What precedes the action of loving? Is it not the desire to love? Can we be sure that God did not desire to love prior to being Father to his only-begotten Son?
What precedes the action of loving? Is it not the desire to love? Can we be sure that God did not desire to love prior to being Father to his only-begotten Son?
R
rinnie
Guest
We believe in three person in one God, We are baptised in the NAME of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit. We do not say we are baptised in the NAMES because the Father the Son and the Holy Spirit together are ONE HOLY TRINITY. There is only One God.
We are taught that we worship one God in the Trinity and the Trinity in unity The Father is a distinct person, the Son is a distinct person and the Holy Spirit have one diinity equal glory and co-eternal majesty.
Our Mass summarizes our belief in what God told us about himself. In the mysteries of his Godhead.
The revelation of the Trinity begins when Jesus told us the he is Gods Son. In revealing God as Father and himself as Gods Son also made know to us the Holy Spirit.
The CCC teaches that the Holy Spirit is sent ot us both by the Father in the name of the Son and by the Son in person once he had returned to the Father. The comming of the Holy Spirit completes the revelation of the Trinity.
We are taught there is One God and there are three person in the One God or Trinity.
The 3 divine persons do not share the one divinity among thenselves but each of them is God whole and entire. Yet each divine person is really distinct from one another. Hence we say that God has One divine nature and 3 divine persons.
meltzerboy
New member
The three Persons of the Trinity, as I understand it, are distinct but not separate. What does distinct actually mean then? Does it mean distinct in function rather than distinct in being?
R
rinnie
Guest
The Son of God was made visible because he revealed himself as Christ.
I do not see where you are getting the Son became sin for us
The Son never became Sin the Son was sinless to pay for our sins. If Christ was not sinless he could not have paid for our sins.I do not see where the Son was every tempted to sin. This goes against Scipture. Sure the devil tried to tempt Christ but he was never tempted. He never was tempted to sin.
The reason the Son suffered death for us is because he was God who became Man and by comming human as the Son he took away death on the cross.
There were 2 trees in the garden of eden. The tree of divine life and the tree of good and evil. It was Gods plan for us to remain with him and live forever. Remember with Adam and Eve there was no death.
But once that ate evil entered them. and it is evil that men enters into destruction.
Christ tells us he is the spirit of truth. John 16:13
What happend to the tree of Life now?
Simple Calvary. and given to men once again through Christ.
M
mercytruth
Guest
I assume the Trinitarian doctrine is perceived, and taught as three persons who are distinct in function, and not in being.
This is problematic for me to understand. I do think that the particular Judaic Orthodox understanding of the greater sacred name, and the lesser sacred name is truer to the Tanakh, and to the understanding of NT.
M
mercytruth
Guest
The Son of God was made visible because he revealed himself as Christ.
I do not see where you are getting the Son became sin for us
I do not see where the Son was every tempted to sin. This goes against Scipture. Sure the devil tried to tempt Christ but he was never tempted. He never was tempted to sin.
The reason the Son suffered death for us is because he was God who became Man and by comming human as the Son he took away death on the cross.
There were 2 trees in the garden of eden. The tree of divine life and the tree of good and evil. It was Gods plan for us to remain with him and live forever. Remember with Adam and Eve there was no death.
But once that ate evil entered them. and it is evil that men enters into destruction.
Christ tells us he is the spirit of truth. John 16:13
What happend to the tree of Life now?
Simple Calvary. and given to men once again through Christ.
Code:
**SIN BEARER**"God made him to be sin for us who knew no sin, that we might be made the righteousness of God in him"
"Surely he has born our griefs, and carried our sorrows"
"It pleased the LORD to bruise him, He has put him to grief, when thou shall make his soul an offering for sin."
"THE LORD HAS LAID ON HIM THE INIQUITY OF US ALL"
Code:
**TEMPTED BY SIN**"We have a high priest who is able to empathize with our infirmities, for he was tempted in all respects as we, yet without sin."
Code:
** THE DEATH OF CHRIST JESUS**"My God, My God, why have you forsaken me?"
"God having raised him up, loosed him from the sorrows of sheol"
"Thou will not leave my soul in sheol, neither will you allow your holy one to see corruption"
Jesus Christ is our savior from sin, and from the penalty of sin, which is death to our souls.
I thank God for the salvation that we have in Jesus.
God’s peace.
W
Wisely
Guest
I believe in One God the Father.
The font of Deity is located in the Father’s person, then the divine nature of the Son and the
Spirit will of necessity be a derived divinity.
God the Father is the cause of the Deity of the Son and the Spirit.
Only the Father is autotheos (“God in his own right”), therefore the Son and the Spirit are God (divine) because They are from God as the Nicene Creed says.
Anyone may feel free to correct me if I’m wrong.
The font of Deity is located in the Father’s person, then the divine nature of the Son and the
Spirit will of necessity be a derived divinity.
God the Father is the cause of the Deity of the Son and the Spirit.
Only the Father is autotheos (“God in his own right”), therefore the Son and the Spirit are God (divine) because They are from God as the Nicene Creed says.
Anyone may feel free to correct me if I’m wrong.
F
FrKimel
Guest
Yes, we can be sure precisely of this. There is nothing prior to the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. And suggestions of anything divine prior to or underneath the three Divine Persons were rejected by the Church Fathers (check out the heresies of modalism and Sabellianism). Why were they rejected? Because they either explicitly or implicitly deny that God has definitively, perfectly, and irrevocably revealed himself in the biblical story, precisely as the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit. There is no other God behind the these three divine “actors”: each is the one God; together they are the one God. How this is possible was the burden of several centuries of profound theological reflection by the Church Fathers.
If you can begin to understand why Love does not precede the Trinitarian Pesons and their mutual relationships, then you will be well on your way to understanding what the doctrine of the Trinity is all about. The affirmation that God is Love is completely dependent upon God being the Father who eternally begets his Son and breathes out his Holy Spirit. God does not need a world in order to love; he is Love in his inner Trinitarian being.
The two short books by Sts Athanasius and Cyril recommended earlier would be a good place for you to begin your studies. Also see St Gregory of Naziansus’ five theological orations: On God and Christ. A good historical introduction to the doctrine is Boris Bobrinskoy, The Mystery of the Trinity: Trinitarian Experience and Vision in the Biblical and Patristic Tradition.
This is not an easy subject; but in one sense it is the easiest subject of all for Christians. Before there was a “doctrine” of the Trinity, there was the apostolic experience of the Trinity: Christians prayed and worshipped the Father through and with Jesus Christ the eternal Son in the power of the Holy Spirit. It is this liturgical/ascetical/evangelical structure that grounds all our reflection on God. We are, after all, baptized into the Name of the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. The doctrine of the Trinity gets developed, and dogmatized, as a way to protect the Trinitarian structure of the praying Church.
M
mercytruth
Guest
FrKimel,
My statement is a conjecture, not a firm belief. What is my conjecture based on?
G-d does not love us as a Father until we are baptized in water and in the Spirit. This is when we become the begotten children of God. This is when He becomes our Father. Until then, G-d desires that all would come to repentance. Until then, G-d makes his sun to shine on the evil and the good.
My statement is a conjecture, not a firm belief. Why? The apostle Paul in speaking of the resurrection of our Lord Jesus Christ from the dead in Acts 13, quotes Psalm 2:7** “Thou art my Son, this day I have begotten thee”.**
Now, why would St.Paul quote Psalm 2:7 as a resurrection verse if he did not want to imply that our Lord Jesus Christ was begotten soul and body from sheol and the grave.by God his Father?
It would seem that God the Father begat his Son from the dead in time and space, in order to give His Son the nations as an inheritance (as Psalm 2 explains). It was not as if G-d did not love His Son, while His Son was in Sheol and the grave, but that He became Father to His Son by blessing him with the nations as an inheritance. Nations who someday would also become the children of God the Father.
The early baptismal liturgy included this blessing on the baptized, “Thou art my son, this day have I begotten thee”. Psalm 2:7 is the same announcement that was spoken to John the Baptist when he was baptizing Jesus Christ. (according to the earlier manuscripts of Luke’s gospel and can be found in the Jerusalem Bible).
It is also quoted as such by several of the early church fathers. This is a presage of the resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead, and of our resurrection to life in baptism and our bodily resurrection to come in our Lord Jesus Christ.
So, as far as the Son of God being eternally begotten I would not disagree. The eternal self-existing G-d is unchanging, and whether I understand this to mean as the unchanging loving Father to the Son, or, as the unchanging loving G-d who is revealing this holy and perfect love through stages of suffering, first to His Son, then to His saints, and then to all of creation in order ‘that G-d might to be all in all’, I am not certain.
Who knows the heart of any man?
- Status