I Believe in One God

[Marybeloved]

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.

Thanks . That makes a lot of sense. We only know that the Holy Spirit is neither the Father, nor the Son, nor was begotten. I swear today I feel like I’ve gone back to that place before I got a grasp of what we say when we say “Trinity”. I guess God while revealing himself, still did not tell us all!

 

[Cavaradossi]

Thanks . That makes a lot of sense. We only know that the Holy Spirit is neither the Father, nor the Son, nor was begotten. I swear today I feel like I’ve gone back to that place before I got a grasp of what we say when we say “Trinity”. I guess God while revealing himself, still did not tell us all!

God will never cease to surprise us, I’m sure.

 

[RebeccaJ]

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?

Jesus lives in an uninterrupted prayerful communication with God, which is the foundation of his existence. Without this, he would not be the one he is. But is this communication equally essential to the Father whom he addresses, in the sense that the Father, too, would be someone else if he were not address in this way? Or does the prayer pass him by without penetrating him? The answer is that it is just as essential to the Father to say “Son” as it is essential to the Son to say “Father”. Without this address, the Father, too, would not be the same. Jesus does not merely touch him from the outside; he belongs to the divinity of God, as Son. Before the world was made, God is already the love of Father and Son. He can become our Father and the criterion of all fatherhood precisely because he himself is Father from eternity. In Jesus’ prayer, the inner life of God becomes visible to us: we see how God himself is. Faith in the triune God is nothing other than the exposition of what takes place in Jesus’ prayer. In his prayer, the Trinity is revealed.

The next question is, “Why a Trinity? We have grasped that God is two – after what you have said this makes perfect sense. But where does this third Person suddenly come from?”

I will devote a meditation specifically to this question; here, I simply wish to indicate where the answer lies. It is impossible for a mere “two-foldness” to exist. Either the contraposition, that is, the fact that there are two, will endure, so that no genuine unity comes about; or else the two will melt into each other, so that they are no longer genuinely two. Let me try to put this in less abstract terms. The Father and the Son do not become one in such a way that they dissolve into each other. They remain distinct form each other, since love has its basis in a “vis-a-vis” that is not abolished. If each remains his own self, and they do not abrogate each other’s existence, then their unity cannot exist in each one by himself: rather, their unity must be in the fruitfulness in which each one gives himself and in which each one is himself. They are one in virtue of the fact that their love is fruitful, that it goes beyond them. In the third Person in whom they give themselves to each other, in the Gift, they are themselves, and they are one. --Joseph Cardinal Ratzinger

 

[Wisely]

Thanks . That makes a lot of sense. We only know that the Holy Spirit is neither the Father, nor the Son, nor was begotten. I swear today I feel like I’ve gone back to that place before I got a grasp of what we say when we say “Trinity”. I guess God while revealing himself, still did not tell us all!

If I may add: I read somewhere (I don’t remember where lol) that we know little of the Holy Spirit because it’s the Holy Spirit’s “job” or “mission” not to reveal Himself not get Himself revealed but to reveal the other Persons of the Trinity.

Another thing: There’s another way to express the Trinity other that “Father, Son and Holy Spirit”.
Paraphrasing what St.Irenaes once said: “One God (Father) Who is always with His Word (Son) and Wisdom (Holy Spirit)” I think this one is less confusing about the Spirit.

I hope this helps to your understanting.

 

[Pythons]

Out of curiosity, for those of you who confess the Nicene Creed, who or what do you understand the “One God” mentioned in the Creed to be?

God is ONE Substance therefore the Father, Son & Holy Spirit Eternally co-equally possesses this ONE Substance…
…The Father isn’t God because He’s the Father.
…The Father is God because He possesses the ONE Substance which IS God.
…Same as the Son & Holy Spirit.

 

[Cavaradossi]

God is ONE Substance therefore the Father, Son & Holy Spirit Eternally co-equally possesses this ONE Substance…
…The Father isn’t God because He’s the Father.
…The Father is God because He possesses the ONE Substance which IS God.
…Same as the Son & Holy Spirit.

But surely the Father is not divine because of anything. Is that not a consequence of the great Cappodocian Fathers’ insistence that the Father is uncaused?

 

[rinnie]

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.

Yes, I should have not used the word natures. I could not seem to come up with the correct word to explain that God has many ways of communicating with us. And nature is the only word that would come to my mind as describing the Father, Son and Holy Spirit.

It is difficult to find the exact words to descirbe how God is indeed ONE in the Father Son and Holy Spirit.

All that we know for sure is that the Trinity always was and always will be.Simply because God always was and always will be. It is hard to explain how Jesus is fully Man and fully God, how the Holy Spirit is fully Spirit fully God. How to explain God is one and three.

St Thomas explains it well. God is the Father who know himself so fully and completely from all eternity that the image of himself is completely and fully equal to himself.

Maybe thats the word I was looking for images. God reveals himself to us in the image of the Father Son and Holy Spirit.

Or to say the Father is the Eternal Word who Became flesh and made his dwelling place among us the Holy Spirit.

I always looked at it in my mind this way, In the beginning God found his way of communicating with us through the word, then he took on our Human Nature and communicated with us through the Son, and now communicates with us though our soul by his Holy Spirit.

That is probally the easiest way I can explain the Trinity being revealed to us in 3 Images, probally the word that would have been better, but ONE in being.

St Patrick describes it as 3 leaves on a shamrock, all 3 leaves equal but also of One Plant.

That would probally be a good way of seeing it also.

 

[mercytruth]

I have read the recommended writings of St. Athansius, St.Cyril and St. Gregory. I still do not understand.

For starters, probably because they do not address Gen. 19:24 since they lived 100-200 years later than the earlier church fathers cited below. There are two sacred names recorded in this scripture. One on earth with Lot and his wife, and the other in heaven. The one on earth was visible, the other is invisible. This visible sacred name appeared to Moses and spoke to him face to face. (Exodus 33:11). This person is identified by the apostle Paul as the pre-incarnate Christ (2 Corinth. chapters 3 and 4).

Numbers 12:8 says that Moses saw the ‘form’ or ‘similitude’ of the LORD.

This is what the Talmud says about this encounter of Moses with the ‘similitude’ of the LORD.

For R. Samuel b. Nahmani said in the name of R. Jonathan: As a reward of three [pious acts] Moses was privileged to obtain three [favours]. In reward of ‘And Moses hid his face’, he obtained the brightness of his face. In reward of ‘For he was afraid’, he obtained the privilege that They were afraid to come nigh him. In reward of ‘To look upon God’, he obtained The similitude of the Lord doth he behold.

halakhah.com/berakoth/berakoth_7.html

Justin Martyr addresses Gen.19:24 in chapters 127-129 of his Dialogue with Trypho.

Ireaneaus addresses Gen.19:24 in his Against Heresies, Book III, chapter 6.

Tertullian addresses Gen.19:24 in Part III, Against Praexus

St.Cyprian addresses Gen. 19:24 in the Treatises of Cyprian
Testimony 33.

It is because of these early church fathers and other scriptures, that I do not understand the way the Trinity is being explained today.

God’s peace to all.

 

[Pythons]

But surely the Father is not divine because of anything. Is that not a consequence of the great Cappodocian Fathers’ insistence that the Father is uncaused?

The Trinity is uncaused - it simply Eternally exists…
…The E.C.F.'s were not the cause of the Trinity they simply participated in helping reveal the existing Doctrine.

 

[Cavaradossi]

The Trinity is uncaused - it simply Eternally exists…
…The E.C.F.'s were not the cause of the Trinity they simply participated in helping reveal the existing Doctrine.

So you believe that the Son and the Holy Spirit are uncaused?

 

[Marybeloved]

So you believe that the Son and the Holy Spirit are uncaused?

I also have problems with the word “cause” in reference to the Blessed Trinity because to many minds, it implies: to be brought from nothing/created. I admit to being very biased in favor of the Latin terms “principle” or “source” because it does not have the notion that either the Son, Holy Spirit or Divinity have a beginning or were brought into being from nothing. The truth is God is not caused in the Western understanding of the word.

 

[Cavaradossi]

I also have problems with the word “cause” in reference to the Blessed Trinity because to many minds, it implies: to be brought from nothing/created. I admit to being very biased in favor of the Latin terms “principle” or “source” because it does not have the notion that either the Son, Holy Spirit or Divinity have a beginning or were brought into being from nothing. The truth is God is not caused in the Western understanding of the word.

Without principle still works for the intention of my question, I suppose.

 

[mercytruth]

Whether one uses the term, ‘cause’ or ‘principle’, or ‘origin’ is very dependent on how the early church fathers before Nicea interpreted Proverbs 8:22-31.

These verses were almost universally accepted as a reference to the beginning of the only-begotten Son of God.

Proverbs 8:22-31 begins, **“The Lord possessed/created (Hebrew/Septuagint) me as/in the beginning of His way…” **

Then continues with certain other expressions, such as ‘founded’, ‘formed’, ‘brought forth’, ‘begat’.

At the very least, God the Father **brought forth **His only-begotten Son in the beginning.

We then have to sort out the difference between **the only-unbegotten God **,
the Father as described by several early church fathers, and John 1:18 which can be translated as the ‘only-begotten God’.

Thus, we have terms such as cause, origin, principle, so forth. More importantly, does this infer that God the Father is greater than the only-begotten God, the Son? I think, yes.

 

[rinnie]

I think what really gets people confused about the Trinity is the words Father and Son. When you think about Father and Son you have a harder time relating them as One then you do Father and Spirit.

Here is why I believe this is so.

When you relate to yourself as Father or Mother and you think of your Spirit you think of your soul. You can place those 2 together as ONE but separate. Like when we die, our body leaves us but our soul moves on. Not that this is how the Trinity works but we can relate the 2 as being ONE but yet separate from one another. But yet not being able to exist without being a part of one another.

Now comes the Son, we as Humans see the SON as Father and Son. 2 different complete beings. But we are taught the Father and Son are One in being. Thats kind of hard to grasp when you are thinking on a human level. The Father Son and H.S are means of thinking in a divine level. Thats why its hard to understand.

If the Son was callled maybe a brain or different word, maybe it would have been easier to understand.

Like the Brain, the Voice and the Body. We can see how these 3 are separate organs but part of one body. Without the brain the voice cannot be, without the voice we cannot speak, etc.

But is someone would say the brain the voiice and the body are all separate but one, we could see this. Not that this is the Trinity, but it gives the idea how 3 can be made up of ONE Being.

Just like you can use your arms apart from your legs, they are still One in being with your body. But while you can use your arms apart from your legs, you cannot use your arms apart from your brain. That are still One.

Like the Son and the Father and H.S. are one and always have been even before all creation. Look at the book of Genesis. God said Let US create man in OUR image. That there is proof that the Son always was Like God, Always was.

Then it is said God created Man in the Image of Himself. He created man Human, there you go. The Son is the word that becomes flesh.

 

[rinnie]

Whether one uses the term, ‘cause’ or ‘principle’, or ‘origin’ is very dependent on how the early church fathers before Nicea interpreted Proverbs 8:22-31.

These verses were almost universally accepted as a reference to the beginning of the only-begotten Son of God.

Proverbs 8:22-31 begins, **“The Lord possessed/created (Hebrew/Septuagint) me as/in the beginning of His way…” **

Then continues with certain other expressions, such as ‘founded’, ‘formed’, ‘brought forth’, ‘begat’.

At the very least, God the Father **brought forth **His only-begotten Son in the beginning.

We then have to sort out the difference between **the only-unbegotten God **,
the Father as described by several early church fathers, and John 1:18 which can be translated as the ‘only-begotten God’.

Thus, we have terms such as cause, origin, principle, so forth. More importantly, does this infer that God the Father is greater than the only-begotten God, the Son? I think, yes.

How can God the Father be greater then Son the Son when they are all completely equal and made up of One God?

 

[rinnie]

Out of curiosity, for those of you who confess the Nicene Creed, who or what do you understand the “One God” mentioned in the Creed to be?

May I add to believe in One God One in being with the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit, also takes faith.

And as we all know sometimes although you cannot fully explain something, or make others understand completely, faith is like that. Faith is alot like God it just is.

We can understand God on a human level because we are only human, we cannot understand him completely on a divine level because we are not divine.

Like Love is divine, you cannot truly show Love to someone. You can buy them things, say you love them, but only you and God truly know if its truly Love. Faith is like that.

There are many things we must take on faith. Just like God, we can’t see him, not in a human form today, we can feel him, his Spirit within us at times, but we cannot show people what we feel completely. They cannot see it with their eyes. Not physically.

Many Mystery’s of our Faith are just that. Mystery’s. They can all and will all be revealed someday but not until God reveals them.

Like the Eucharist, it is indeed the living bread from heaven, the true Body and Blood of Christ, it is a Mystery how this can be, but it is still the truth. It all comes from Grace to believe in truth.

When you have enough faith and trust in God you do not have to understand completely everything he does and says, you just believe like a child. When you believe like a Child, means you need no proof, you just believe. You never question it. That is what faith is like.

 

[mercytruth]

How can God the Father be greater then Son the Son when they are all completely equal and made up of One God?

It is a conundrum, but several of early church fathers did not have a problem with considering the Father greater than the Son. One analogy that is given is that the Father is like the sun, and the Son like a ray of the sun (assuming of course there is only one ray).

God’s peace to you.

 

[Pythons]

So you believe that the Son and the Holy Spirit are uncaused?

The Father Eternally Generates the Son so I would have to ask you if your question is literal or literalistic…
…There has never been a time God the Son or God the Holy Spirit didn’t exist.

 

[RebeccaJ]

It is a conundrum, but several of early church fathers did not have a problem with considering the Father greater than the Son. One analogy that is given is that the Father is like the sun, and the Son like a ray of the sun (assuming of course there is only one ray).

God’s peace to you.

The basis of the Triune God is, GOD IS. God is One. This is clearly stated in the OT. None of the ECF deny the truth of One God.

The Father reveals the Son, in the Incarnation, and the Son reveals the Father, in the events of His life and in His prayers.

The Father and the Son reveal the Holy Spirit.

If you begin with One God, it isn’t possible to say one Person of the Holy Trinity is greater than the other.

As to the Father being the Sun and Jesus being a ray. It is a metaphor, and like all metaphors, they can be used to explain the Holy Trinity, but they will always fall short.

The Trinity is like the three stages of water.
The Trinity is like a clover leaf.

All convey what is believed about God, but all fall short.

We are human, not God, and therefore our understanding of God is limited and always will be.

 

[Cavaradossi]

The Father Eternally Generates the Son so I would have to ask you if your question is literal or literalistic…
…There has never been a time God the Son or God the Holy Spirit didn’t exist.

Something can be eternal yet caused.