Is it correct to say

[Francis]

http://www.vatican.va/archive/ccc_css/archive/catechism/p1s2c1p2.htm

The dogma of the Holy Trinity

253 The Trinity is One. We do not confess three Gods, but one God in three persons, the “consubstantial Trinity”.83 The divine persons do not share the one divinity among themselves but each of them is God whole and entire: "The Father is that which the Son is, the Son that which the Father is, the Father and the Son that which the Holy Spirit is, i.e. by nature one God."84 In the words of the Fourth Lateran Council (1215), "Each of the persons is that supreme reality, viz., the divine substance, essence or nature."85

254 The divine persons are really distinct from one another. "God is one but not solitary."86 “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."87 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."88 The divine Unity is Triune.

255 The divine persons are relative to one another. Because it does not divide the divine unity, the real distinction of the persons from one another resides solely in the relationships which relate them to one another: "In the relational names of the persons the Father is related to the Son, the Son to the Father, and the Holy Spirit to both. While they are called three persons in view of their relations, we believe in one nature or substance."89 Indeed "everything (in them) is one where there is no opposition of relationship."90 "Because of that unity the Father is wholly in the Son and wholly in the Holy Spirit; the Son is wholly in the Father and wholly in the Holy Spirit; the Holy Spirit is wholly in the Father and wholly in the Son."91

 

[vincentleo]

You should be careful, what you are saying here sounds like a good description of the heresy of modalism: that the Three Persons are not distinct persons but just different sides or faces of the same One God. While I think you probably do not mean to imply otherwise, the dogma of the Trinity states that the Three Persons are truly distinct, not merely different faces, sides, or masks.

The pyramid example I think tries to put the mystery too much into humanly understandable terms, whereas a certain measure of acknowledged mystery helps us avoid errors.

 

[Francis]

1 John 5:6 This is the one who came by water and blood, Jesus Christ, not with the water only but with the water and the blood. And the Spirit is the one that testifies, for the Spirit is the truth. 7 There are three that testify: 8 the Spirit and the water and the blood, and these three agree. 9 If we receive human testimony, the testimony of God is greater; for this is the testimony of God that he has testified to his Son. 10 Those who believe in the Son of God have the testimony in their hearts. Those who do not believe in God have made him a liar by not believing in the testimony that God has given concerning his Son.

 

[Benadam]

I agree that the Son of God always existed;

well, not really. Since you must deny that the Son of God as Jesus was no longer an eternal being.
That Jesus didn’t exist before the Incarnation. So, When the Second Person of the Trinity became man the eternal nature of God was lost when He entered time and human history. Since you insist that Jesus didn’t exist before the Incarnation. So much Christology really depends on the concepts that emerge from a Christ event that includes the eternal nature of Jesus. That eternity entered time and history is the foundation of many thing you believe I would think.

Rev 13
8 And all that dwell upon the earth adored him, whose names are not written in the book of life of the Lamb, which was slain from the beginning of the world.

 

[KevinK]

This is what I mean by hackneyed responses that have no content.

 

[RedFan]

If the Logos has a “role” it must be a “thing”. Is the Logos identical to the pre-incarnate Jesus and is so where did “it” go after the incarnation; or did it turn into the incarnation?

Yes, the Logos is identical to the pre-incarnate Son of God (but calling it “Jesus” might be a stretch,since JESUS is the name of a flesh and blood person). “It” went to Palestine when “it” took on flesh. The Son didn’t “turn into” the incarnation upon taking on flesh, any more than you “turned into” a shirt when you donned one this morning.

 

[teresa63]

I agree with you regarding the theological “appropriations” of the three Persons of the Blessed Trinity.

 

[Benadam]

“but emptied himself,

taking the form of a slave,

being born in human likeness.”

There could be no such emptying if that kind of divisibility were impossible. Why call a glass of water indivisible?

You should look into Hans Urs Von Balthasar and supra-kenosis. It is not that new but relatively new trinitarian theology. Not only is divine emptying possible without division but emptying is divine unity

Balthasar holds that in the very Triune relations themselves there is a “supra-kenosis,” a supra-emptying. The Father in creating the Son makes himself “destitute” of all that he is, and in so doing takes on the modality of suffering-for-the-sake-of-the-other. As he puts it “The unfolding of the Trinity is an eternal self-destitution of the persons toward each other. God as absolute love contains all modalities of love even the modality of suffering-separation and self-destitution motivated and anchored in the love exchange of the Trinitarian persons in the one God.”

 

[Edward_H]

God exists outside of time…there is no “before”.

Augustine said in essence…the thought that God has about Himself…is His “Word”. In the mind when we think of something we conjure up a concept or image or word about it. What we “create” in our heads is an imperfect, superficial image/word about that thing.

But when God conjures up a thought…things are created! So the thought that God has about Himself is so perfect it’s a perfect Person, Jesus Christ, Logos.

And the love that God has for His Son, the Word, is also perfect…no shortcoming or thinness to this infinite love.

The love that the Father has for the Son (and the Son for the Father) is also so perfect, it too is a Person, the Holy Spirit.

Thought = Intellect
Love = Will

Now it’s more clear why we were “created in the image of God”.

These two capacities are what separate us from animals.