I'm leaving Catholicism

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Perhaps the issue is your trying to use your finite mind to try and “logically” explain that which we as humans right here and right now cannot.

I would start with Ex Nihilio…out of nothing…

The “spirit” of God is mentioned right up front…

2 And the earth was void and empty, and darkness was upon the face of the deep; and the spirit of God moved over the waters.

Then Christs words

"I and the Father are one.”

38 But if I do, though you will not believe me, believe the works: that you may know and believe that the Father is in me, and I in the Father.

3 Jesus replied, “Anyone who loves me will obey my teaching. My Father will love them, and we will come to them and make our home with them. 24 Anyone who does not love me will not obey my teaching. These words you hear are not my own; they belong to the Father who sent me.

25 “All this I have spoken while still with you. 26 But the Advocate, the Holy Spirit, whom the Father will send in my name, will teach you all things and will remind you of everything I have said to you. 27 Peace I leave with you; my peace I give you. I do not give to you as the world gives. Do not let your hearts be troubled and do not be afraid.

I do know where you’re coming from, and can only speak from my experiences, but for myself it was finally submitting to God and relenting.

Accepting the fact that we just do not, and will not have all the answers given to us while on this plane of existence.

29 Jesus saith to him: Because thou hast seen me, Thomas, thou hast believed: blessed are they that have not seen, and have believed.
 
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To paraphrase G.K. Chesterton, I prefer a God whom I cannot fully comprehend to a god that I can. It seems like classical philosophers, e.g. St. Thomas Aquinas accepted that he did not understand everything about God, whereas more modern philosophers, e.g. Kant, set the limit for their belief on what they know.
 
Yes, and I should’ve included the resurrection in my post. Because by it God also physically demonstrates both the reality of eternal life and its promise to us-further proof of His goodness and love for humankind: the capstone of His revelation, really.
 
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I’d suggest visiting this blog site and engaging with some of the contributors. It is very much a philosophical group of people:

God

A Digital Areopagus // Reason. Faith. Dialogue.
strangenotions.com
 
TheDefaultMan said:
To say that they differ as persons but not in essence doesn’t make sense given Divine Simplicity (because God’s Personhood must be synonymous with his Existence and all of his other attributes).
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It appears to me that you are elevating your personal presuppositions of what God should be above how God actually revealed himself to us in the work of the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit, and as recorded in scripture. You might want to re-evaluate your decision in that light.
 
If the Persons are not distinct, there can be no True/authentic (personal) love that brings unity among them
 
yes and no

Yes in that I think reason should come first before accepting any Divine Revelations as true. If you’re not motivated by reason, you could’ve just as easily been a Muslim, a Jew, etc.

No in that I completely understand that God is incomprehensible. Just because his essence is incomprehensible, that doesn’t mean that we can just ignore possible contradictions in our views of God.
 
VonDerTann said:
–Huh?
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I used a lot of philosophy jargon common in Catholic philosophy, sorry.
VonDerTann said:
What I respectfully believe you’re doing is what many atheists have done: Finding all sorts of deep, esoteric arguments for why something doesn’t make sense to you (even though most people have no idea what you’re talking about)
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I am literally using the exact same type of reasoning that was employed by those same thinkers that you mentioned. Aquinas didn’t say things like “I’ll just assume this is true.” He understood the need to recognize the necessity for logic. If something is logically contradictory, it cannot be believed. Period. Aquinas and Aristotle would agree with me. The fact that Aquinas tried to show that the Trinity wasn’t contradictory instead of appealing to ignorance proves my point. He understood the importance of logic.
 
TheDefaultMan said:
If something is logically contradictory, it cannot be believed. Period.
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Like say…coming back to life after being dead? Again - I don’t know how you can believe in the resurrection, and say the Trinity is a bridge too far.
 
TheDefaultMan said:
If something is logically contradictory, it cannot be believed.
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This statement is contradictory, in that belief doesn’t require logical proof.

Besided that, every logical argument requires a given, at least one premise that can not be proven and is accepted as is.
 
TULIPed said:
Like say…coming back to life after being dead? Again - I don’t know how you can believe in the resurrection, and say the Trinity is a bridge too far.
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Apologies but, to clarify, I don’t believe in the resurrection.
 
ontheway1 said:
This statement is contradictory, in that belief doesn’t require logical proof.
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When I said “cannot be believed” I meant could not be believed/held to rationally
ontheway1 said:
Besided that, every logical argument requires a given, at least one premise that can not be proven and is accepted as is.
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That’s true, but those bedrock premises (aka first principles) can be derived but recognizing the impossibility of making an argument against them. This doesn’t mean that you can come up with any premises you want out of thin air while still maintaining that they are rational.
 
TheDefaultMan said:
To say that the Father has the Divine Essence is just to say that the Father is God, since the essence of a thing is what it is. Therefore, we can say that the Father = God. But once we say that for the Son and the Holy Spirit, the conclusion that logically follows is that the Father is equal to the Son and the Holy Spirit.

So I can understand the rationale behind the Trinity, but the conclusion that follows is that the
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No. What we refer to as God’s power, knowledge, and will are identical. Or another way I’ve become fond of saying is that our causal power bears a resemblance to the divine essence but is conditioned a certain way, and our knowledge bears a resemblance to the divine essence but is conditioned a certain way, and our will bears a resemblance to the divine essence but is conditioned in a certain way. There is no opposition between power, knowledge, and will that prevents them from being reducible to each other in this way.

The relations, however, are opposed to each other insofar as they cannot be reduced to each other. There is not an ontological distinction between the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. But there is a real distinction in relation only, insofar as generation is not being generated, and spirating is not the same as being spirated.
 
Wesrock said:
The relations, however, are opposed to each other insofar as they cannot be reduced to each other. There is not an ontological distinction between the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. But there is a real distinction in relation only, insofar as generation is not being generated, and spirating is not the same as being spirated.
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It doesn’t seem as though there’s a way to prevent relational real distinctions from collapsing into real ontological distinctions.

To say that it is a real distinction is to say that it’s a distinction in extra-mental reality. A distinction in extra-mental reality is a distinction in what is real/what has being, thus, it’s ontological as it deals with being.
 
TheDefaultMan said:
Apologies but, to clarify, I don’t believe in the resurrection.
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But Theism, without such revelation as the resurrection makes known, isn’t really of much use at the end of the day, is it?
 
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TheDefaultMan said:
That’s true, but those bedrock premises (aka first principles) can be derived but recognizing the impossibility of making an argument against them.
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This has to do with something from Genesis. The power to name things, or, in today’s terms, to control the narrative. Certain premises (2+2=4) are accepted by faith, or convention. Once that is done, logical arguments can be constructed.
 
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