Is each person of Trinity necessary?

[PetraG]

Your question is kind of like asking if protons, neutrons and electrons are necessary. There was a time that people had no idea they existed, but once they became known it was realized that they not only always existed but had always been what made up every atom that make up all matter. (Not a great analogy, because there are other subatomic particles and protons, neutrons and electrons have a far less intimate relationship than the Persons of the Trinity, but I think you get what I mean.)

 

[STT]

You’re limiting your thinking to human knowledge. For humans yes, which is why our idea of ourselves is indequate. Our idea of ourselves is like what we are but not quite what we are. For one thing, our idea of ourselves does not have a body and soul of its own, so our idea of ourselves is inherently inadequate.

It is impossible for anything to be inadequate in God. So the error here is assuming our limitations apply to God. They do not.

You are trying to personify the idea of God which this doesn’t make any sense to me.

Your error that there is no need for the Holy Spirit. It is precisely because the Father is Love and the Son is Love, that they must necessarily love one another, each being the object of the other’s love. Because it is impossible that the Father and the So not love each other, there must necessarily be that Bond, if you will, between the Father and the Son. That Bond, if you will, must be perfect and infinite as befitting the Divine Nature, otherwise, such love would be inadequate, and there is nothing inadequate in God. This Perfect, Infinite Loving/Bond must also therefore be God. This Person we call the Holy Spirit. Because God is Love and the the Son is Love, the Holy Spirit must necessarily exist.

You are again trying to personify Bond between two persons.

 

[PetraG]

You are trying to personify the idea of God which this doesn’t make any sense to me.

Getting some little grasp of the nature of God works the other way around. The nature of God was revealed, first incompletely but then more explicitly during the Incarnation, then people try to make sense of it the best we can. If you are saying that the nature of God is beyond any analogy in human relationship, nature or any created thing, however, that is correct. We must always keep that in mind. There are really bad analogies and there are better ones, but nothing quite gets there. Our minds are too small and our experience of God too limited.

Having said that, Our Lord described the Father and the Spirit to us in personal terms, not in technical terms. He described his relationship with the Father and the Spirit as an indescribably personal relationship: by that, I mean something more personal than exists on the human plane apart from grace (the action of the life of God).

 

[porthos11]

porthos11:

You’re limiting your thinking to human knowledge. For humans yes, which is why our idea of ourselves is indequate. Our idea of ourselves is like what we are but not quite what we are. For one thing, our idea of ourselves does not have a body and soul of its own, so our idea of ourselves is inherently inadequate.

It is impossible for anything to be inadequate in God. So the error here is assuming our limitations apply to God. They do not.

You are trying to personify the idea of God which this doesn’t make any sense to me.

Your error that there is no need for the Holy Spirit. It is precisely because the Father is Love and the Son is Love, that they must necessarily love one another, each being the object of the other’s love. Because it is impossible that the Father and the So not love each other, there must necessarily be that Bond, if you will, between the Father and the Son. That Bond, if you will, must be perfect and infinite as befitting the Divine Nature, otherwise, such love would be inadequate, and there is nothing inadequate in God. This Perfect, Infinite Loving/Bond must also therefore be God. This Person we call the Holy Spirit. Because God is Love and the the Son is Love, the Holy Spirit must necessarily exist.

You are again trying to personify Bond between two persons.

There is no personification other than that God has revealed himself as Personal.

The conclusions I’ve demonstrated that the Image/Logos and the Bond must necessarily be God is not me personifying them. Or even proving that they are Persons. I’m simply proving that they are necessarily God.

But because God is Personal, not some mere “force”, I must logically draw the conclusion that the Logos of the Father, and the Bond between Father and Son are also Persons. I cannot claim something to be God while denying his Personhood. It is impossible to be God without being a Person. And yet at the same time, the Logos must be necessarily distinct from the Father, and the Spirit must necessarily be distinct from the Father and the Son, and yet we must also admit that there are not three infinites but one infinite, not three almighties but only one Almighty, not three Lords but only one Lord, and not three Gods but only one God. And yet the Father is not the Son is not the Holy Spirit.

We do not confound the persons, nor divide the essence. I will keep repeating that Athanasian mantra. It may not make sense to you. It barely makes sense to us because the Trinity is a Mystery. We explain it the best we could, but if you’re trying to make sense of the Almighty with your puny human brain, forget it. The most we can hope for is that we planted seeds in you to look into it further and perhaps dispose you to receive the gift of faith. On the other hand, we believe it because God has revealed it to be so. This is not something we can invent.

 

[mrsdizzyd]

This thread is not a good faith thread. OP is just looking for an argument, not for a better understanding of the Holy Trinity.

Based on this thread and all the others, I think the OP is asking in good faith. I think the OP is seeking to understand.

The problem is that the OP cannot really comprehend that the immaterial cannot be bound by the material. The OP has a block there.

 

[Wesrock]

Wesrock:

We’re dealing with one God who is three persons, where what is meant by person is something much different than what we mean by the word in common use. What you think we’re talking about by Trinity is not what is meant by the Church. There is a paternity and a filiation, which are references to the same essence but relationally really distinct, for paternity is not filiation or vice versa, and both proceed from a real intelligible act of the Intellect. Likewise with spiration, though of the will.

Do we have a law/principle which states that two things/beings which have exactly the same properties are identical? How three persons of Trinity could be different if they are all God and have the same properties?

This is why we have one God and not three gods, one being and not three beings. There is only one essence, not three distinct essences. We just say that there are distinct real relations, not distinct real essences. A procession understood by way of intellect and a procession understood by way of the will. The procession as an intelligible action of the Intellect generates a relation of paternity and filiation, and the procession as an intelligible action of the Will is a spiration. Paternity is not filiation, and neither is relationally identical to the spiration. These are real distinct relations, but not distinct essences.

Aquinas: Thus it is manifest that relation really existing in God is really the same as His essence and only differs in its mode of intelligibility

Aquinas treats these objections here: http://www.newadvent.org/summa/1028

 

[Wesrock]

This thread is not a good faith thread. OP is just looking for an argument, not for a better understanding of the Holy Trinity.

Eh, in this thread, at least, I think it is sufficiently and carefully nuanced that I feel like we’re making some progress, whether or not he’ll ever agree. It’s not something one easily wraps one’s mind around, even if open to it.

 

[Canvas]

I apologize if OP was asking in good faith.

And I agree that the Divine Nature of God is NOT something any of us can truly comprehend. We can have Creeds and catechesis but truly understanding are two different things.

 

[Wesrock]

Part of why this is different than a human or angelic intelligible act of the intellect or intelligible act of the will is because God is metaphysically simple. His Intellect is his nature, not an operation of it, for example. The processions are therefore not just resulting in something perfectly identical to the essence, but are proceeding from the essence/nature/substance itself, not just an operation of it as would be the case with a human or angel.

 

[Gorgias]

How three persons of Trinity could be different if they are all God and have the same properties?

God doesn’t have ‘properties’, per se. If so, He’d be composite, not simple.

 

[porthos11]

Part of why this is different than a human or angelic intelligible act of the intellect or intelligible act of the will is because God is metaphysically simple. His Intellect is his nature, not an operation of it, for example. The processions are therefore not just resulting in something perfectly identical to the essence, but are proceeding from the essence/nature/substance itself, not just an operation of it as would be the case with a human or angel.

Excellently said.

 

[Dovekin]

God is always more unlike than like the analogy. IOW, they all fail.

When we talk about God’s intellect, it is an anlogy to our intellect that has to be qualified by how unlike our Intellect God’s simple intellect is.

 

[Wesrock]

An term with analogous meanings can still be literal and not metaphorical.

 

[STT]

There is no personification other than that God has revealed himself as Personal.

The conclusions I’ve demonstrated that the Image/Logos and the Bond must necessarily be God is not me personifying them. Or even proving that they are Persons. I’m simply proving that they are necessarily God.

Ok, does Son also have knowledge of Himself? Who is this knowledge. How about Holy Spirit?

But because God is Personal, not some mere “force”, I must logically draw the conclusion that the Logos of the Father, and the Bond between Father and Son are also Persons. I cannot claim something to be God while denying his Personhood. It is impossible to be God without being a Person. And yet at the same time, the Logos must be necessarily distinct from the Father, and the Spirit must necessarily be distinct from the Father and the Son, and yet we must also admit that there are not three infinites but one infinite, not three almighties but only one Almighty, not three Lords but only one Lord, and not three Gods but only one God. And yet the Father is not the Son is not the Holy Spirit.

I think it is impossible that something to be God without being a being. What is your definition of person by the way? Being?

 

[STT]

This is why we have one God and not three gods, one being and not three beings. There is only one essence, not three distinct essences. We just say that there are distinct real relations, not distinct real essences. A procession understood by way of intellect and a procession understood by way of the will. The procession as an intelligible action of the Intellect generates a relation of paternity and filiation, and the procession as an intelligible action of the Will is a spiration. Paternity is not filiation, and neither is relationally identical to the spiration. These are real distinct relations, but not distinct essences.

Aquinas: Thus it is manifest that relation really existing in God is really the same as His essence and only differs in its mode of intelligibility

Aquinas treats these objections here: http://www.newadvent.org/summa/1028

I am not talking about being but person. Person is a something otherwise how it could be God?

 

[STT]

God doesn’t have ‘properties’, per se. If so, He’d be composite , not simple .

Eh, how about attributes instead of properties?

 

[Gorgias]

Gorgias:

God doesn’t have ‘properties’, per se. If so, He’d be composite , not simple .

Eh, how about attributes instead of properties?

No… and yes.

Calling them ‘attributes’ simply as another way of thinking about properties doesn’t work, since it still makes God ‘composite’, so no.

However, if by attributes you merely mean ways of understanding God’s nature, then yes. These aren’t external to God, nor are they parts of God: they’re just a way of understanding His nature, because He is these things, rather than saying He has these things.

Subtle – yet critical! – distinction…

 

[porthos11]

porthos11:

There is no personification other than that God has revealed himself as Personal.

The conclusions I’ve demonstrated that the Image/Logos and the Bond must necessarily be God is not me personifying them. Or even proving that they are Persons. I’m simply proving that they are necessarily God.

Ok, does Son also have knowledge of Himself? Who is this knowledge. How about Holy Spirit?

But because God is Personal, not some mere “force”, I must logically draw the conclusion that the Logos of the Father, and the Bond between Father and Son are also Persons. I cannot claim something to be God while denying his Personhood. It is impossible to be God without being a Person. And yet at the same time, the Logos must be necessarily distinct from the Father, and the Spirit must necessarily be distinct from the Father and the Son, and yet we must also admit that there are not three infinites but one infinite, not three almighties but only one Almighty, not three Lords but only one Lord, and not three Gods but only one God. And yet the Father is not the Son is not the Holy Spirit.

I think it is impossible that something to be God without being a being. What is your definition of person by the way? Being?

Now you’ve got to be kidding. Is that really what you think a Person is?

A rock is a being. Please think a bit for yourself. A rock is a being but not a person. You are a being and a person.

What do you think?

 

[STT]

No… and yes.

Calling them ‘attributes’ simply as another way of thinking about properties doesn’t work, since it still makes God ‘composite’, so no .

However, if by attributes you merely mean ways of understanding God’s nature, then yes . These aren’t external to God, nor are they parts of God: they’re just a way of understanding His nature, because He is these things, rather than saying He has these things.

Subtle – yet critical! – distinction…

I see and I agree with you.

 

[STT]

I call rock as thing and myself as a being. Person is what make a being how it is, which this is the result of genetic and life experiences. I think that definition of person is different when it comes to Trinity so I was wondering what is the definition of that.

You also left my other question without answer: Does Son also have knowledge of Himself? Who is this knowledge? How about Holy Spirit?