I Believe in One God

[Marybeloved]

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?

There’s absolutely no distinction in being (That would be three Gods) but only in persons. Clearly our formulations are at best descriptions of what we accept on faith- We cannot possible get what it means to be truly distinct yet indivisibly one!

But I’ve always wondered about the Jewish understanding, Meltzerboy. Is God one person, one being, one spirit?- Or do you not even attempt to talk about it at all seeing as it’s about God’s self-existence beyond our creaturely knowledge? Obviously you don’t believe in the Christian Trinity and obviously you are the indisputable original pure monotheists. But I’m just curious as to how Jews, if at all, talk about God’s nature/existence, if you don’t mind attempting an explanation for the benefit of a non-Jew. .

 

[FrKimel]

Mercytruth, at this point I think I need to withdraw from the conversation. You are presenting a view of God that contradicts the dogmatic teaching of the Catholic Church, (as well as the dogmatic teaching of the Orthodox Church). It’s probably best for Catholics to continue the conversation with you.

 

[mercytruth]

I want to express my appreciation for FrKimel’s contribution to this subject, and everyone else’s also. My difficulty in understanding remains, but I choose not to discuss this subject with anyone at this time. Please make any comments if you think it will be of help.

God’s peace.

 

[RebeccaJ]

I want to express my appreciation for FrKimel’s contribution to this subject, and everyone else’s also. My difficulty in understanding remains, but I choose not to discuss this subject with anyone at this time. Please make any comments if you think it will be of help.

God’s peace.

I recommend an excellent book “The God Of Jesus Christ: Meditations On The Triune God” by Joseph Cardinal Ratzinger (Ignatius Press). It covers very well some of what you are conjecturing and I think would change your perspective significantly.

 

[Marybeloved]

I want to express my appreciation for FrKimel’s contribution to this subject, and everyone else’s also. My difficulty in understanding remains, but I choose not to discuss this subject with anyone at this time. Please make any comments if you think it will be of help.

God’s peace.

Mercytruth. Father is right, the Trinity is understood in specific ways in the Church (And is in its core as he explained earlier- Love). I know it’s hard to understand the concept- It cannot, properly speaking be understood. but we can and do have specific ways of speaking about God that are intelligible to us, though not comprehensive of God.

I posted on a thread back in September last year about it and tried to explain it to another in the way in which I personally came to have a comfortable grasp of it after struggling with it myself. I’ve been told by some that they were helped by my explanations, not promising anything, but it’s worth a shot. Here it is: forums.catholic-questions.org/showthrea…Trinity&page=2 posts #16-18
It is a Latin approach, suitable for some minds more than others.

I hope they help.

Peace of Christ be with you!

 

[grandfather]

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?

This is a great discussion. We can not have all the answers.

Since God is infinite, that means He lacks nothing. If He there is nothing He lacks, there is nothing He can desire.

Jesus says at the Last Supper a strange thing, at least it seems strange to me. He says, “With desire I have desired to eat the Pasch with you”.

He says He is the bridegroom. The Church is His bride. Bridegrooms and brides desire to be united to one another, made one.

Pope Benedict wrote about the desire of love.

There is always mystery. Our understanding is finite, limited. We can understand to a point.

The mystery is how can a being who is infinite and therefore lacking nothing have desire?

All parables or analogies break down at some point. But in the parable of the prodigal son we see the father longing for the return of his son gone astray. Does God long for us to be with Him? That means He lacks something He needs to be fulfilled. How can God lack anything?

 

[meltzerboy]

There’s absolutely no distinction in being (That would be three Gods) but only in persons. Clearly our formulations are at best descriptions of what we accept on faith- We cannot possible get what it means to be truly distinct yet indivisibly one!

But I’ve always wondered about the Jewish understanding, Meltzerboy. Is God one person, one being, one spirit?- Or do you not even attempt to talk about it at all seeing as it’s about God’s self-existence beyond our creaturely knowledge? Obviously you don’t believe in the Christian Trinity and obviously you are the indisputable original pure monotheists. But I’m just curious as to how Jews, if at all, talk about God’s nature/existence, if you don’t mind attempting an explanation for the benefit of a non-Jew. .

I cannot possibly speak for all Jews, or even any other Jewish person, when discussing the nature of G-d according to (my understanding of) Jewish thought. The topic is not off limits, however, and there is probably more consensus on this point within the various branches of Judaism than there is on many others. G-d is thought to be uniquely One, not merely one of a kind, one of a pair, one of a series, etc. And this unique One G-d is also separate from all His creation, including natural and physical law, while, at the same time, personally sustaining it through His omnibenevolent love, mercy, justice, order, omnipotence, omniscience, and omnipresence. G-d is not and cannot be corporeal; by His very nature He supersedes the restraints imposed by matter and space as well as time, living in an eternal present, and not subject to the developmental changes that all other life undergoes, including birth, growth, decline, suffering, and death. That, I think, is the gist of the Jewish conception of G-d.

 

[meltzerboy]

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.

“G-d does not need a world in order to love; He is Love in his inner Trinitarian being.” Although Judaism may not exactly agree, I like this idea.

 

[Marybeloved]

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?

Mercytruth, God has always been Father to the only-begotten Son from all eternity- “Father to the Son” is who he is in himself- Forever! God transcends time and space. There’s no “sequence” of events in time with him, so that one thing begins to happen, then is followed by another etc. Time itself, like the universe, is a creation of God and has zero to do with God’s existence from eternity.

When you think of God’s nature, forget time- forget any notion of a beginning or an ending, just as you forget any notion of a “place” or physical location when you think of God. These are all created dimensions in which God acts, but to which he is prior and transcendent (is beyond it).

Even though we may say that God begot the Son- It is not something that happened at some point. Why? Because God himself does not “happen” at any point. He IS always- from eternity. The Son is the Word or self-knowledge/self-knowing of God. But can we say that there was ever a point in which God did not really know himself and then at some point he knew himself? No. As long as God was (which is always), he knew himself. And does he ever “stop” or “finish” knowing himself perfectly? No. As long as God is, he always knows himself. So this begetting of the Son is eternal, like God is eternal. It has no beginning, it has no end. The begetting is forever. That’s why we speak in the present in our formulations. That:* The Father begets the Son*. Because He is always from eternity to eternity begetting the Son.

In the West (your tradition) we say that the Holy Spirit is God’s self-loving. (Once you know anything, you either love or hate it and God being the absolute good, once truly known, must be loved absolutely, even by himself to the fullest extent in which he is known). But God knows himself to the fullest, absolute extents and so must likewise love himself to the fullest, absolute extent. Loving means giving. (That’s why perfect worship usually involves some form of sacrifice which is a special gifting to God). But what can you give to God to love him as he deserves to be loved in his goodness? What gift other than God himself? Only the self-gift of God suffices as equal love for the one loved, because the one loved is God. So the Father knowing himself in the Son (Who is exactly the “image” containing everything that the Father is) loves him by giving himself to the Son completely. This self-Gift to the Son is God The Holy Spirit. And the Son also loves the Father with the same love, by returning it to him (As it’s the only love possible by which the Son can love the Father), so he “gives him back” the same Spirit or returns to the Father the same love with which the Father has first loved him- Returning Love for Love. Similarly, as before, God did not ever “start” or “finish” self-giving/loving the Son, nor did the Son at some point ever “start” or “finish” returning that exact love that he receives. So the procession of the Holy Ghost is eternal as The Father and Son are eternal.

So you have The Primary “agent”, who is The Father who loves the Son (The eternal beloved) in the Holy Spirit from all eternity, And the Son who loves his Father with the same gift (Holy Spirit) with which the Father has loved him from all eternity. And all three contain fully the substance or being of the Father- Why? Because, For The Father’s self-knowledge to be true and perfect, it must contain perfectly, everything that The father is-in an absolute sense; Or the Father would be lacking in full and perfect self-knowledge. For the self-giving of the Father to the Son (Spirit) to be true and perfect, then it must “give” everything the Father is in an absolute sense or the love is lacking and so imperfect to give to a Divine person. So we say that each is fully and Absolutely God; co-equal and co-eternal and distinct from each other. Each is an agent, an “I”, that is doing something distinct from the other two.

But we say that they are not only are they each fully God, but that the three are exactly NOT three Gods, but One God. :shrug:Why? Because God does not “get finished” or spent, He’s limitless. The substance of the Father that is in the Son and Spirit (by which we call each God) remains the same one that is God The father- It does not “leave” the Father and to go to Son and Spirit. The Father has a gift that he can give completely away to another, without it ceasing to remain his completely and without duplicating it (it is the exact same gift that is his own substance, and the substance of the Son and of the Holy Spirit- one thing only)- it’s limitless. So it’s like if you were able to have a strange magical gift that you could completely and unconditionally give to another without stopping to possess it yourself just as completely and absolutely as you have given it away to the other.

That’s why we say that nothing is prior, that the three are each God, distinct from each other and yet only One God.

Please remember that, we can only “describe” the truths about God intelligibly, but never comprehend them. Even God’s eternity is incomprehensible, his oneness, his love etc.

 

[rinnie]

Maybe a easier way of looking at it is this way.

In the O.T. the relationship between God and Israel was always that of the bride and the bridegroom. That is how the Prophet Hosea hear of God speak of Israel. Hoses 2:19

Now as Christ spoke to the Pharisees they knew what he was saying, he was God. He was the Lord which Israel was waiting for. He stepped right into the God of the O.T. claiming all the rights and privilages.

John the Baptist himself told us. John 3:29 he said he was the bridegrooms friend.

Now the God of the O.T. simply took a human nature in Bethlehem without ever being a human person. He was now God Human and divine, Quite simple.

Now he also spoke of HIS Holy Spirit. He said in John 7:39 Christ speaks of HIS Spirit which his believers have not been YET been given because Jesus had not been glorified yet. This Spirit would be given to them later.

He tod them that he would first have to pass into glory before the Holy Spirit would come.

That makes it pretty simple to see that God is the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. ONE GOD but different natures you could say.

All 3 natures make up One God, A human nature, a Divine nature, and a Spiritual Nature. That is how God can simply communicate with us.

In Christ he walked on earth in his human nature, he told his apostles he would take on a new body.

It would not be physcial like he took from Mary That Body is now glorified at the right hand of the Father. Nor would it be a moral body like a social club that derives its unity fro the unity of men.

He said it would be like a new social Body that would be bound to him by his heavenly Spirit which he would send on leaving this earth. He spoke of his new body sometimes as a Kingdom. Joahn 15:5

Mark 4:28

Because this body is not physical like man, or moral like a club, it is heavenly and spiritual because of the Spirit which made it one. it is called the Mystical Body. The Church.

If you really look at it the Trinity if truly ONE GOD and simply the different ways he chooses to communicate with us. He now communicates with us through his Spirit which is his Mystical Body the Church.

As Christ said before Abraham I AM. Always was always will be.

 

[rinnie]

There is an old legend it is said that Satan appeared to a Saint and said, I am the Christ. The Saint confounded him by asking him, Where are the marks of nails?

That there might be no doubt of the sacrificial purpose of his comming he gave them not only the memorial of his death the night of the last supper, asking it to be perpetuated as long as time endured, but he also bore on his Person as Jesus Christ, the same yesterday, today and Forever the Memorial of his Redemption!!

 

[Marybeloved]

Hi Rinnie, just a few things, if you don’t mind.

That makes it pretty simple to see that God is the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. ONE GOD but different natures you could say.

Actually, it is a matter of fundamental Christian faith that God is exactly One nature in three distinct Persons. It may seem trivial, but words have great import and great potential to mislead- Especially when it comes to the Blessed Trinity. The Church’s explicit faith in the Creeds of the Church is that God is One essence/nature/being in 3 distinct Persons. To speak of three natures is actually to speak of 3 Gods. The difference is this: nature is what you are (A human being, a combination of a human body and a rational Soul), But Person is who you are (Rinnie, A Subject). What God is, is exactly one thing (Divinity)- Who he is, is Three distinct Persons- Three Divine Persons in One Nature. This has been so Forever and is absolutely independent of creation. It’s God’s inner nature- who he is in himself, beyond any relationship he has with any creature at all.

All 3 natures make up One God, A human nature, a Divine nature, and a Spiritual Nature. That is how God can simply communicate with us.

I think here you are no longer talking about the Blessed Trinity (God as he is in himself from all eternity) but rather the Hypostatic Union/incarnation of God. Only One person of the Trinity (God the Son) entered the temporal, created world and took on a human nature from Mary (But not a human person). So that in Jesus, there is One Divine Person- God the Son/God the Word, possessing at once two different natures:
One:- The Divine nature that the Son has from Eternity with the Father and the Holy Spirit.
The Other:- A complete human nature that he took from Mary with an infused Human Soul.

This exists in Jesus without any inter-mingling, co-mingling, or mixing of the two natures in any way whatsoever. It just means that Jesus is One Divine Person who has two ways of existing and acting. I always say this (I got it from Philip St. Romain)- Jesus has two ways of speaking about himself- He can say “I” the way you say “I ate this, did this, I like this etc”- But with him, he can say "I" and mean the Divine being, and he can say "I" and mean the human nature- Each time he will be speaking the absolute truth even though he may say very different and contradicting things

Eg.
He can say I know all things (It will be 100% true- God knows everything)
He can say* I don’t know this/that* (It will be 100% true- His Human nature has limited knowledge)

Both times though, it is God who is speaking, because the “I” in both refers to a Divine Person, not a human person as there exists no Human person in him (Remember, he took Human nature but not a human person- There is only One person with two natures in Christ). Hence why Christians can say shocking things like: God died, God was born, Jesus is God etc

But All this in no way refers to God the Father or God the Holy Spirit- Only God the Son has taken on human nature. God the Father and God the Holy Spirit have **never **been born, eaten, suffered, died, resurrected, ascended- Ever. Only God the Son. So it may not be completely accurate to say that Three natures are God and include there the Hypo-static union etc.

 

[meltzerboy]

Hi Rinnie, just a few things, if you don’t mind. Actually, it is a matter of fundamental Christian faith that God is exactly One nature in three distinct Persons. It may seem trivial, but words have great import and great potential to mislead- Especially when it comes to the Blessed Trinity. The Church’s explicit faith in the Creeds of the Church is that God is One essence/nature/being in 3 distinct Persons. To speak of three natures is actually to speak of 3 Gods. The difference is this: nature is what you are (A human being, a combination of a human body and a rational Soul), But Person is who you are (Rinnie, A Subject). What God is, is exactly one thing (Divinity)- Who he is, is Three distinct Persons- Three Divine Persons in One Nature. This has been so Forever and is absolutely independent of creation. It’s God’s inner nature- who he is in himself, beyond any relationship he has with any creature at all.
I think here you are no longer talking about the Blessed Trinity (God as he is in himself from all eternity) but rather the Hypostatic Union/incarnation of God. Only One person of the Trinity (God the Son) entered the temporal, created world and took on a human nature from Mary (But not a human person). So that in Jesus, there is One Divine Person- God the Son/God the Word, possessing at once two different natures:
One:- The Divine nature that the Son has from Eternity with the Father and the Holy Spirit.
The Other:- A complete human nature that he took from Mary with an infused Human Soul.

This exists in Jesus without any inter-mingling, co-mingling, or mixing of the two natures in any way whatsoever. It just means that Jesus is One Divine Person who has two ways of existing and acting. I always say this (I got it from Philip St. Romain)- Jesus has two ways of speaking about himself- He can say “I” the way you say “I ate this, did this, I like this etc”- But with him, he can say "I" and mean the Divine being, and he can say "I" and mean the human nature- Each time he will be speaking the absolute truth even though he may say very different and contradicting things

Eg.
He can say I know all things (It will be 100% true- God knows everything)
He can say* I* don’t know this/that (It will be 100% true- His Human nature has limited knowledge)

Both times though, it is God who is speaking, because the “I” in both refers to a Divine Person, not a human person as there exists no Human person in him (Remember, he took Human nature but not a human person- There is only One person with two natures in Christ). Hence why Christians can say shocking things like: God died, God was born, Jesus is God etc

But All this in no way refers to God the Father or God the Holy Spirit- Only God the Son has taken on human nature. God the Father and God the Holy Spirit have never been born, eaten, suffered, died, resurrected, ascended- Ever. Only God the Son. So it may not be completely accurate to say that Three natures are God and include there the Hypo-static union etc.

This sounds like an excellent description of the Trinity. However, how was this all sorted out? Was it determined by the Church Fathers on the basis of how Jesus spoke about Himself in the New Testament and what the Apostles said about Him, and was this also combined with elements of how G-d the Father, as well as the Prophets, spoke in the Hebrew Bible? I know there were several heresies which were determined by the Church to be misrepresentations of the nature of G-d, so who ultimately decided, and on what basis, how the Trinitarian G-d’s mysterious nature should be described, if not fully understood?

 

[RebeccaJ]

This sounds like an excellent description of the Trinity. However, how was this all sorted out? Was it determined by the Church Fathers on the basis of how Jesus spoke about Himself in the New Testament and what the Apostles said about Him, and was this also combined with elements of how G-d the Father, as well as the Prophets, spoke in the Hebrew Bible? I know there were several heresies which were determined by the Church to be misrepresentations of the nature of G-d, so who ultimately decided, and on what basis, how the Trinitarian G-d’s mysterious nature should be described, if not fully understood?

Just a small interruption to recommend Justin Martyr’s “Dialogue With Trypho”.

The understanding he presents is the same understanding today. St. Justin takes Trypho (a Jew) step by step from the OT forward to Jesus Christ.

My favorite description (more towards the end) is when he describes Jesus in nature to the Father as a flame kindled from flame. Distinct but of the same fire.

ccel.org/ccel/schaff/anf01.viii.iv.html

“when I asserted that this power was begotten from the Father, by His power and will, but not by abscission, as if the essence of the Father were divided; as all other things partitioned and divided are not the same after as before they were divided: and, for the sake of example, I took the case of fires kindled from a fire, which we see to be distinct from it, and yet that from which many can be kindled is by no means made less, but remains the same.”

 

[thejewishman]

god is jewish and always will be

 

[Marybeloved]

This sounds like an excellent description of the Trinity. However, how was this all sorted out? Was it determined by the Church Fathers on the basis of how Jesus spoke about Himself in the New Testament and what the Apostles said about Him, and was this also combined with elements of how G-d the Father, as well as the Prophets, spoke in the Hebrew Bible? I know there were several heresies which were determined by the Church to be misrepresentations of the nature of G-d, so who ultimately decided, and on what basis, how the Trinitarian G-d’s mysterious nature should be described, if not fully understood?

Well, obviously, the Church did! :shrug:But they didn’t just decide. This was the faith as handed down from Our Apostles which the Apostles got from Christ and taught it to the Apostolic Fathers (The first generation of the Fathers of the Church who had personally known and received the faith from and been taught by the Apostles).

For me, it seems that the Church knew the truths about the Trinity by considering all the sources of the faith that she had received from Our Blessed Apostles and rejecting anything that contradicted any of the Truths, and then found the descriptions that described those Truths in ways that expressed them all together without contradicting any in particular.

For example:
-God is One- That is fundamental. It was taught by Our Lord as truth and he taught that the truths of Judaism and the Old Covenant were true! So no description permitting a contradiction of this truth can be permitted.
-Then they had to ask, How could Christ be God (Which he and the Apostles taught that he was) - To know this they had to look at his words and the words of the Apostles and the Early Fathers: Clearly three were referred to as God- Father, Son and Holy Spirit- And they had personal qualities too (Each, in a basic sense, was an agent), but How? In all this they were guided by the Holy Spirit to the proper formulations that we find in the creed. Formulations that say essentially, that God is one being, three distinct persons. That One Divine person took on flesh and became one of us and suffered for us so that we could be sons of God in the Son of God, that the Holy Spirit descended and lives in the Church.

They basically found the way to describe all the fundamental truths they received without contradicting any.

 

[Marybeloved]

Since it is agreed that we believe in One God, the Father Almighty, maker of Heaven and Earth, clearly then the One God properly refers to the Father, not even the Divine nature perse. Our faith tells us that The Father is the source of the deity, not the other way around. He’s the principle of the Son and Holy Spirit.

But then I’ve found myself wondering: Why did Our Lord give him the name “Father”? We know that he is Father of the Son, just as the Son is Son of the Father- But why is he named with reference to the Son alone and not the Holy Spirit when he is the principle of both? By his name that Christ gave us in his Revelation, we know who he is in himself: Father of the Son. Yet we know he is not Father of the Holy Spirit. So why have his proper name be “God the Father”? Rather than a name that signifies both relations he has with the Son and the Holy Spirit? What does this mean?

I’ve tried to Google this to see if I can find a quotation from a father that discusses it. The best I’ve come up with is a quotation from St. Augustine but it does not even really address this at all. It just explains the relations between the Father and the Son. I can’t seem to find anyone, even contemporary writers who address this question of why the Father is named Father considering the relation he has with God the Holy spirit is not one of paternity: So why this title at all when referring to him as himself?

 

[Cavaradossi]

Since it is agreed that we believe in One God, the Father Almighty, maker of Heaven and Earth, clearly then the One God properly refers to the Father, not even the Divine nature perse. Our faith tells us that The Father is the source of the deity, not the other way around. He’s the principle of the Son and Holy Spirit.

But then I’ve found myself wondering: Why did Our Lord give him the name “Father”? We know that he is Father of the Son, just as the Son is Son of the Father- But why is he named with reference to the Son alone and not the Holy Spirit when he is the principle of both? By his name that Christ gave us in his Revelation, we know who he is in himself: Father of the Son. Yet we know he is not Father of the Holy Spirit. So why have his proper name be “God the Father”? Rather than a name that signifies both relations he has with the Son and the Holy Spirit? What does this mean?

I’ve tried to Google this to see if I can find a quotation from a father that discusses it. The best I’ve come up with is a quotation from St. Augustine but it does not even really address this at all. It just explains the relations between the Father and the Son. I can’t seem to find anyone, even contemporary writers who address this question of why the Father is named Father considering the relation he has with God the Holy spirit is not one of paternity: So why this title at all when referring to him as himself?

While he is obviously not a church father, Vladimir Lossky kind of touched on a related line of questioning. Why is the Holy Spirit known by two names which are proper to all persons of the Trinity? Are not the Father and Son both holy and spirit? What does the name of the Holy Spirit tell us about his relationship with the Father? With the Son? What about the term proceeds, chosen by the Cappodocian fathers to describe the eternal relationship of the Spirit to the Father? Why is it so non-specific compared to the term begotten, which has a more clear meaning? Lossky naturally associates the Spirit therefore with apophaticism, saying that the Spirit is a great mystery to us, who has few cataphatic descriptions except for those ascribed to God. Even the term proceeds is defined apophatically as being a manner of origination not like begetting. It is a good line of questions with no clear answers I’m afraid.

 

[Marybeloved]

Lossky naturally associates the Spirit therefore with apophaticism, saying that the Spirit is a great mystery to us, who has few cataphatic descriptions except for those ascribed to God. Even the term proceeds is defined apophatically as being a manner of origination not like begetting

Cavaradossi,

Do you mind explaining those two sentences in bold in a more simple way? I know guys like to speak of these terms:apophatic and cataphatic, especially with regards to the Trinity, but honestly I have a hard time understanding them (probably because I haven’t studied them ).

It is a good line of questions with no clear answers I’m afraid.

It seems so. I even went to the Summa Theologica thinking, surely st. Thomas Aquinas must have touched on it with his fondness for this type of thing- But nothing! , He discusses the name of God the Father without ever considering this question.

I don’t know, Seems to me like very important questions. Since Christ named the Father, Son and Holy Spirit (And those questions you gave before are quite good too!) I would think that a real inquiry into why he chose these specific names in the Blessed Trinity would tell us a whole lot. I honestly I’m very, very surprised that the fathers (And it seems almost every one else!) did not pursue this when they were talking about the Trinity.

 

[Cavaradossi]

Cavaradossi,

Do you mind explaining those two sentences in bold in a more simple way? I know guys like to speak of these terms:apophatic and cataphatic, especially with regards to the Trinity, but honestly I have a hard time understanding them (probably because I haven’t studied them ).

Sorry, let me see if I can’t explain that better. Lossky is basically saying that the things we know about the person of the Holy Spirit mainly come from negative statements (apophatic). We know more about who the Holy Spirit is not than who the Holy Spirit is, because unlike the names Father and Son, which tell us something positively (cataphatically) about who those two persons are, the name Holy Spirit really only leaves us knowing who the Holy Spirit is not (he is not the Son or the Father). The same goes for procession. Begetting tells us positively what the origin of the Son is like (like the begetting of a son). Proceeding doesn’t tell us much, just that the Holy Spirit originates from the Father. In fact, procession is only defined negatively, because it really only tells us that the origin of the Holy Spirit is not by begetting.