Monarchy of the Father

[thinkandmull]

I will reread Frank Sheed on this. I think he said something different

 

[Vico]

I will reread Frank Sheed on this. I think he said something different

Frank Sheed, A Map of Life:There is but one Divine nature, one Divine mind, one Divine will. The three Persons each use the one mind to know with, the one will to love with. For there is but the one absolute Divine nature. Thus there are not three Gods, but one God. The Christian revelation cannot allow the faintest derogation from pure monotheism. The three Persons, then, are not separate. But they are distinct. The Father is God, the Son is God, the Holy Ghost is God. But the Father is not the Son, nor the Son the Holy Ghost, nor the Holy Ghost the Father.

 

[thinkandmull]

What I read was from Theology and Sanity

 

[thinkandmull]

Book IV of Contra Gentiles, also Book I (natural reason). Also in Commentary on the Sentences. Another is in the treatise on the Trinity (De rationibus fedei) in the Compendium of Theology. Another is the Disputed Questions (De potentia) – the last four of ten. Of them all I think this has the best detail, and it was written before the Summa.

What is the “Treatise on the Trinity (De rationibus fedei) in** the Compendium of Theology**”

 

[Vico]

What I read was from Theology and Sanity

Ok. From Theology and Sanity by Frank Sheed is:To complete this first stage of our inquiry, let us return to the question which, in our model dialogue above, produced so much incoherence from the believer - if each of the three persons is wholly God, why not three Gods? The reason why we cannot say three Gods becomes clear if we consider what is meant by the parallel phrase, “three men”. That would mean three distinct persons, each possessing a human nature. But note that, although their natures would be similar, each would have his own. The first man could not think with the second man’s intellect, but only with his own; the second man could not love with the third’s will, but only with his own. The phrase “three men” would mean three distinct persons, each with his own separate human nature, his own separate equipment as man; the phrase “three gods” would mean three distinct persons, each with his own separate Divine Nature, his own separate equipment as God. But in the Blessed Trinity, that is not so. The three Persons are God, not by the possession of equal and similar natures, but by the possession of one single nature; they do in fact, what our three men could not do, know with the same intellect and love with the same will. They are three Persons, but they are not three Gods; they are One God.

ignatiusinsight.com/features2011/fsheed_trinityts_may2011.asp

 

[thinkandmull]

Ok, I must have misremember what I read. So three persons merely means three consciounesses or experiences then huh?

 

[Vico]

What is the “Treatise on the Trinity (De rationibus fedei) in** the Compendium of Theology**”

De rationibus fedeimeans On the Reasons of Faith.

You can read it here under** First Treatise On Faith - The Divine Trinity**:

dhspriory.org/thomas/Compendium.htm

 

[thinkandmull]

what about post #26 ?

 

[Vico]

Ok, I must have misremember what I read. So three persons merely means three consciounesses or experiences then huh?

Using the systemic approach, the persons are the relations. This is essential.

What do you mean by center of consciousness? That the three persons inter-penetrate one another, is called perichoresis (or circuminsession).

 

[thinkandmull]

Fatherhood is not the same as the Divine Essence, because then the Son would be Fatherhood.

They interpenetrate each other but each one has their own unique experience or consciousness, right?

 

[Vico]

Fatherhood is not the same as the Divine Essence, because then the Son would be Fatherhood.

They interpenetrate each other but each one has their own unique experience or consciousness, right?

Person is essence. The persons are not independent.

I will quote again from your favored source Frank Sheed, A Map of Life:
There is but one Divine nature, one Divine mind, one Divine will. The three Persons each use the one mind to know with,…

 

[thinkandmull]

Essence means nature. The Fathers giving of Himself as the principle from no principle can’t be the essence, because then the Son would be the Father.

Why do Catholics freak out at the word “consciousness”. It has nothing to do with hippies. Its a persons experience as alive. I think that is all that distinguishes the Persons apart from origin

 

[Vico]

Essence means nature. The Fathers giving of Himself as the principle from no principle can’t be the essence, because then the Son would be the Father.

Why do Catholics freak out at the word “consciousness”. It has nothing to do with hippies. Its a persons experience as alive. I think that is all that distinguishes the Persons apart from origin

The relations themselves are the persons and this is essential. There is no independence of the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit from each other because there is one will and one nature. They are not like three independent creatures that are all of a kind. They are not like three independent spiritual creatures (angel) which each have their own unique essence.

It is more a matter of clear communications which requires a specific definition of consciousness. There are three meanings of consciousness used today:

• immediate subjective experience
• source of immediate and certain knowledge of mental states
• self-consciousness, answering “Who am I?”

Oxford Dictionary freak [intransitive, transitive] (informal) if somebody freaks or if something freaks them, they react very strongly to something that makes them suddenly feel shocked, surprised, frightened, etc.

 

[Usagi]

Why do Catholics freak out at the word “consciousness”. It has nothing to do with hippies. Its a persons experience as alive. I think that is all that distinguishes the Persons apart from origin

Just speaking for myself (one of your interlocutors in the earlier thread and the one who suggested you come here and seek the wisdom of the East on the matter), it’s not that I’m “freaking” because of the supposed hippie connotations of “consciousness.” I understand that you don’t mean it in the sense of “consciousness-raising” or “higher consciousness” or whatever, but in the sense that you or I have conscious experience.

Rather, I’m leery of applying that term to God, especially with the certainty you seem to have. God’s experience of existence is supposed to be sufficiently different from ours that I’m not sure the analogy with human consciousness even holds, much less that you can know for sure that each Person must have its own consciousness. God doesn’t experience things sequentially and doesn’t change from one state to another, so His mind is very much not like ours even before you get to the existence of three Persons. (Heck, according to one very popular explanation of the Trinity, the Father’s self-awareness – which is one of the things we call “consciousness” in humans – IS the Son.)

I think I see what you are getting at. When thinking about the Trinity from our human perspective, it does seem as though there must be some way in which the Father knows Himself as Father and the Son and Spirit as distinct entities. I’m just not sure it’s a good idea to introduce new terminology in our effort to understand better, especially when we still can’t seem to agree on what the terms mean.

Usagi

 

[thinkandmull]

Consciousness is necessary for personal relationship, right?

Anyway, I am still not getting this relationship equals essence thing. God’s relationship to the Son is one of begetter to begotten. So “begetting a Son” cannot be part of the essence that the Father gives to the Son.

 

[Richca]

Consciousness is necessary for personal relationship, right?

Anyway, I am still not getting this relationship equals essence thing. God’s relationship to the Son is one of begetter to begotten. So “begetting a Son” cannot be part of the essence that the Father gives to the Son.

It is of the very nature and essence of God that there are three persons in one divine nature. The generative power in God is in the Father as the begetter and in the Son as the begotten. It is in the Holy Spirit as neither the begetter or the begotten, for the Holy Spirit receives the divine nature through procession.

 

[Vico]

Consciousness is necessary for personal relationship, right?

Anyway, I am still not getting this relationship equals essence thing. God’s relationship to the Son is one of begetter to begotten. So “begetting a Son” cannot be part of the essence that the Father gives to the Son.

Rome recognizes only one Cause (Aition) of the Son and of the Spirit: the Father.

*Actorum Graecorum, Council of Florance, John of Montenegro states:*The essence is not (the cause) of the divine generation or spiration, but rather, the persons generate and spirate, so that it follows that the cause of the Spirit is the person, and not the essence.
The reasoning using “relations of origin”, and “relations of opposition” use different explanations. The Catholic Church uses “relations of opposition” for the *filioque *dogma of faith, and it can be understood from St. Thomas Aquinas. The Orthodox use the other reasoning “relations of origin”.

St. Thomas Aquinas wrote in Summa Theologica, Q. 39, Art. 1: In creatures relations are accidental, whereas in God they are the divine essence itself. Thence it follows that in God essence is not really distinct from person: and yet that the persons are really distinguished from each other. For person, as above stated signifies relation as subsisting in the divine nature. But relation as referred to the essence does not differ therefrom really but only in our way of thinking: while as referred to an opposite relation, it has a real distinction by virtue of that opposition. Thus there are one essence and three persons.

 

[thinkandmull]

(1)Does Aquinas say that the processions come about because of the PERSON of the Father? Yet this is necessary, so should it be from His NATURE?

(2) This status of being the One in the relation of being the “principle from no principle” can’t be part of the essence He gives to those proceeding, right?

(3) But don’t the Son and Holy Ghost have the very nature, not an identical copy, of the “principle from no principle”? This isn’t making sense to me.

(4) Instead of saying that the Son and Holy Spirit come out of nothing, don’t their Personhoods come out of the Father? From His Nature or Personhood? Does Aquinas speak on this?

 

[Vico]

(1) Does Aquinas say that the processions come about because of the PERSON of the Father? Yet this is necessary, so should it be from His NATURE?

(2) This status of being the One in the relation of being the “principle from no principle” can’t be part of the essence He gives to those proceeding, right?

(3) But don’t the Son and Holy Ghost have the very nature, not an identical copy, of the “principle from no principle”? This isn’t making sense to me.

(4) Instead of saying that the Son and Holy Spirit come out of nothing, don’t their Personhoods come out of the Father? From His Nature or Personhood? Does Aquinas speak on this?

1, 4. The Father, Son, and Holy Spirit are eternal so are not created, therefore the processions are not in time. There is a communication that occurs. In God relations are the divine essence itself, unlike in creatures. The persons are the relations subsisting in the divine nature. The person of the Father is the cause of the procession of the Holy Spirit.

2, 3. Being “principle from no principle” is unique to the Father.

St. Thomas states that (Part I, Q39, A1):
Article 1. Whether in God the essence is the same as the person?
I answer that, The truth of this question is quite clear if we consider the divine simplicity. For it was shown above (Question 3, Article 3) that the divine simplicity requires that in God essence is the same as “suppositum,” which in intellectual substances is nothing else than person. But a difficulty seems to arise from the fact that while the divine persons are multiplied, the essence nevertheless retains its unity. And because, as Boethius says (De Trin. i), “relation multiplies the Trinity of persons,” some have thought that in God essence and person differ, forasmuch as they held the relations to be “adjacent”; considering only in the relations the idea of “reference to another,” and not the relations as realities. But as it was shown above (Question 28, Article 2) in creatures relations are accidental, whereas in God they are the divine essence itself. Thence it follows that in God essence is not really distinct from person; and yet that the persons are really distinguished from each other. For person, as above stated (29, 4), signifies relation as subsisting in the divine nature. But relation as referred to the essence does not differ therefrom really, but only in our way of thinking; while as referred to an opposite relation, it has a real distinction by virtue of that opposition. Thus there are one essence and three persons.
newadvent.org/summa/1039.htm

 

[thinkandmull]

The status of principle without principle is PART OF the relation of Fatherhood. So this relation is not the same as the essence that this principle shares. See?