pro_universal's reasons for leavin the Catholic Church

[Semper_Fi_1]

Contarini:

I disagree. The concept of holy war was once a moral teaching in Christianity; it has been discarded.

The doctrine of Holy War is alive and well in Catholicism, but it is not the same as Jihad in Islam. Catholicism still has the just war doctrine.

Contarini:

The death penalty for heresy and apostasy was also once the moral teaching; it has been discarded.

This was never a doctrine of the Catholic Church, even though St. Thomas Aquinas may have agreed with it. The death penalty was usually handed out by temporal authorities, after the inquisition had judged them either guilty or not guilty of heresy. It was usually temporal law (not church law) which had people killed for heresy. I am glad we are done with the feudal system.

Contarini:

Officially blaming Jews for the murder of Jesus was once official teaching…it has been discarded.

Again, this is false, and I beg you to please cite a source for this outrageous claim.

Contarini:

The idea that the Church commands all secular authority is also gone.

This wasn’t ever a doctrine of the Catholic Church, although some English Kings took the doctrine that God instilled temporal rulers a little too far, in order to legitimize their power (this is called the “Divine Right of Kings”).

Contarini:

The Church’s program of action today is not something a medieval Catholic would recognize.

I disagree. You are mainly discussing matters of discipline, and not matters of faith, or morals. Just because Italy isn’t a theocracy anymore doesn’t mean a medieval Catholic would not recognize his church.

 

[pro_universal]

You have yet to show that the Trinity is “obviously a contradiction”. It is not a contradiction.

Giving an example of a real contradiction “Bill clinton exists and does not exist.” does not show that the Trinity is a contradiction.

I’m taking this from someone else, but I can’t remember where I saw the formulation exactly like this:

1. God is Jesus
2. God is the Father
3. God is the Holy Spirit
4. Jesus is not the Father
5. Jesus is not the Holy Spirit
6. The Father is not Jesus
7. The Father is not the Holy Spirit
8. The Holy Spirit is not Jesus
9. The Holy Spirit is not the Father
10. There is only one God.

If there’s a way to get a more textbook example of a contradiction, I’d like to see it.

 

[inJESUS]

I’m taking this from someone else, but I can’t remember where I saw the formulation exactly like this:

1. God is Jesus
2. God is the Father
3. God is the Holy Spirit
4. Jesus is not the Father
5. Jesus is not the Holy Spirit
6. The Father is not Jesus
7. The Father is not the Holy Spirit
8. The Holy Spirit is not Jesus
9. The Holy Spirit is not the Father
10. There is only one God.

If there’s a way to get a more textbook example of a contradiction, I’d like to see it.

the more i read the more am sure you were never Christian. I hear this same argument by Muslims… Anyway and to prove that the “idea” is not a contradiction, i’ll give this example:

My body is not my soul; my soul is not my mind, yet my body, soul and mind are One person, myself.

I can’t be me if i had no body, i can’t be me if i had no soul, i can’t be me if i had no mind yet the 3 are not the same. 3 things = 1 person.

poor analogy, am sure there are better ones, but it shows there is no contradiction.

 

[inJESUS]

Here is how the “prophet” of islam and Allah the “all-knowing” understood it:

They surely disbelieve who say: Lo! Allah is the third of three; when there is no Allah save the One Allah. If they desist not from so saying a painful doom will fall on those of them who disbelieve.

As all can see, Allah got it WRONG.the Quran is rebuking belief in three gods, that God is the third of three deities.the doctrine of the Trinity in no way makes God one among three, which would essentially be the same as believing in three separate gods.

Christians teach that the Father is the **First **Person of the One True Godhead, **not the third deity **of three gods.

If Allah got it wrong, why blame Muslims?

 

[MyPhilomena]

Since all Christian denominations believe in the Trinity, the only alternative is Islam.

But Islam also has a history of wars and intolerance.

Actually not true.not all religions do not believe in the Trinity. i know one in particular that does not believe in the Trinity, jws.

 

[Semper_Fi_1]

Actually not true.not all religions do not believe in the Trinity. i know one in particular that does not believe in the Trinity, jws.

He said Christian denominations. To qualify as Christian you must believe in the Holy Trinity. Other groups claiming to be Christian which do not believe in the Holy Trinity, are merely Christian in name.

 

[MyPhilomena]

as false as they are, the jw’s believe they are the only real Christians.

 

[pro_universal]

poor analogy, am sure there are better ones, but it shows there is no contradiction.

If you want to call me a liar, please tell me which numbered point of my explanation of the trinity is not true to the teaching.

Your analogy is poor, and doesn’t fit the situation (you’re naming things which are of different substances that make up a person who is by definition made up of different parts. Orthodox teaching is that God is one, without divisions.) For example, you wouldn’t claim that your body alone is your person (since you have a soul, without which you are not complete), and you wouldn’t claim that your mind alone is “one person,” since without a body, you aren’t complete.

Are you saying that God has certain parts, without which, he’s not complete? If that’s the case…then sure, the trinity can make sense. But that also means God is limited, in that he has definite parts.

But no, there aren’t any better ones. Any reasonable analogy you come up with will fail, because to be reasonable, an analogy has to be logically coherent. If it’s logically coherent, it cannot match the trinity…because the basic articles of the belief are themselves contradictory. No amount of adding to them or explaining other aspects can possibly:

-remain true to the teaching and

-make a coherent doctrine

at the same time.

 

[Mickey]

What the Father is, the Son and the Spirit are also. This is the Church’s teaching. The Son, born of the Father, and the Spirit, proceeding from Him, share the divine nature with God, being “of one essence” with Him.

Thus, as the Father is “ineffable, inconceivable, invisible, incomprehensible, ever-existing and eternally the same” (Divine Liturgy of St. John Chrysostom), so the Son and the Spirit are exactly the same. Every attribute of divinity which belongs to God the Father – life, love, wisdom, truth, blessedness, holiness, power, purity, joy – belongs equally as well to the Son and the Holy Spirit. The being, nature, essence, existence and life of God the Father, the Son and the Holy Spirit are absolutely and identically one and the same.

Read the whole article:
oca.org/OCchapter.asp?SID=2&ID=29

 

[jAlex]

But no, there aren’t any better ones. Any reasonable analogy you come up with will fail, because to be reasonable, an analogy has to be logically coherent. If it’s logically coherent, it cannot match the trinity…because the basic articles of the belief are themselves contradictory.

Au contraire … let me know when you find somebody that can come up with the perfect analogy for God…

An analogy it’s just that - an analogy. It’s purpose is to give us an ideea about things hard to explain. At the moment you find the perfect analogy you just found a definiton. And God cannot be coerced into a definition.

God belss,
Alex.

 

[jAlex]

I’m taking this from someone else, but I can’t remember where I saw the formulation exactly like this:

1. God is Jesus
2. God is the Father
3. God is the Holy Spirit
4. Jesus is not the Father
5. Jesus is not the Holy Spirit
6. The Father is not Jesus
7. The Father is not the Holy Spirit
8. The Holy Spirit is not Jesus
9. The Holy Spirit is not the Father
10. There is only one God.

If there’s a way to get a more textbook example of a contradiction, I’d like to see it.

Sherlock Holmes would say… "Elementary Mr. Watson!’

Take the first 3 points in your example:

I)

1. God is Jesus
2. God is the Father
3. God is the Holy Spirit

Matematically speaking the above would translate into:

God = is The Father = is The Son = is The Holy Spirit. And that 's exactamundo what we profess

II)

And then the rest:

1. Jesus is not the Father
2. Jesus is not the Holy Spirit
3. The Father is not Jesus
4. The Father is not the Holy Spirit
5. The Holy Spirit is not Jesus
6. The Holy Spirit is not the Father

Again, matematically speaking, if we look at an equilateral triangle (ABC), A is not B or C, B is not A or C, C is not A or B. All of these corners is what it takes to have a Triangle. You will not be able to find a triangle with only one corner .

III)
10. There is only one God.

Add up the two demonstration above :

• you have 3 corners (Trinity), equal in power (each corner has 60 degress), and that’s what it takes to be defines as a Trinagle - aka - God. Take out any of these corners and you cease to have a Trinagle - a.k.a God… That’s how we see it.

So where’s the contradiction again?

God belss you!
Alex.

 

[prayforwisdom]

I’m taking this from someone else, but I can’t remember where I saw the formulation exactly like this:

1. God is Jesus
2. God is the Father
3. God is the Holy Spirit
4. Jesus is not the Father
5. Jesus is not the Holy Spirit
6. The Father is not Jesus
7. The Father is not the Holy Spirit
8. The Holy Spirit is not Jesus
9. The Holy Spirit is not the Father
10. There is only one God.

If there’s a way to get a more textbook example of a contradiction, I’d like to see it.

First of all the way you have worded 1, 2 and 3 is not perfectly correct. It’s more correct to say

1. Jesus is God. 2. The Father is God 3. The Holy Spirit is God.

Anyway, using these 10 points only (with my corrections to your first 3 points) to explain the Trinity, **without elaborating **on what the Trinity is exactly (such as that there are three persons in one essence), does make it seem like it’s a contradiction. But once you elaborate on what the Trinity is exactly, the seeming contradiction disappears.

I think the quote from “Answering Islam” 2nd ed. by Norman L. Geisler and Abdul Saleeb that I pasted in my above post answers your claim here and shows that the Trinity it is not a contradiction but beyond reason’s ability to comprehend completely i.e. That it may be a mystery, but it is not a contradiction. That is, it may go beyond reason’s ability to comprehend completely, but it does not go against reason’s ability to apprehend consistently.

I think what makes the Trinity beyond a human mind’s ability to comprehend completely is

1. God is infinite but our minds are finite. How can the finite completely comprehend the infinite? It is expected that our finite mind cannot fully comprehend God.
2. There is nothing in the world that is a perfect analogy to God. Which is expected since God is unique, perfect, unlimited and infinite.

 

[inJESUS]

If you want to call me a liar, please tell me which numbered point of my explanation of the trinity is not true to the teaching.

Your analogy is poor, and doesn’t fit the situation (you’re naming things which are of different substances that make up a person who is by definition made up of different parts. Orthodox teaching is that God is one, without divisions.) For example, you wouldn’t claim that your body alone is your person (since you have a soul, without which you are not complete), and you wouldn’t claim that your mind alone is “one person,” since without a body, you aren’t complete.

Are you saying that God has certain parts, without which, he’s not complete? If that’s the case…then sure, the trinity can make sense. But that also means God is limited, in that he has definite parts.

But no, there aren’t any better ones. Any reasonable analogy you come up with will fail, because to be reasonable, an analogy has to be logically coherent. If it’s logically coherent, it cannot match the trinity…because the basic articles of the belief are themselves contradictory. No amount of adding to them or explaining other aspects can possibly:

-remain true to the teaching and

-make a coherent doctrine

at the same time.

i said my analogy is poor which means one must not stick to its details and all you did is analyzing my analogy. Yes there is a better analogy : 3D concept. You look at the same picture yet see 3 distinct things: however it is the same picture. You see? nothing illogical.

 

[prayforwisdom]

I would like to quote from a lecture that I found at a Coptic Orthodox web site. Try to read it all, including the quote of St. Gregory of Nazianzus at the end.

suscopts.org/messages/lectures/theologylecture5.pdf

For with You is the fountain of life; In Your light we see light.” (Ps 36:9)
Lecture V: Trinitarian Analogies

In lecture I (Theological Preliminaries) of this section, we have discussed how analogies are not
perfect and that they break down at certain points. Indeed it is written, “To whom then will you liken God?
Or what likeness will you compare to Him?” **(Is 40:18), **“To whom will you liken Me, and make Me equal
and compare Me, that we should be alike?” (Is 46:5) Nevertheless, Holy Scripture has used many analogies
about God, which in their totality complement each other and make up for any deficiencies or limitations that
a single analogy may have. St. Cyril of Alexandria once said, ‘when things concerning God are expressed in
language used of men, we ought not to think of anything base, but to remember that the wealth of divine
Glory is being mirrored in the poverty of human expression.’

Examples & Analogies:

1. The Human Being:
   Pope Shenouda said that man who is created “in the image of God” (Gen 1:26) is one of the best
   analogies for the Truth of the Holy Trinity; man is of one humanity possessing a mind and a spirit.
   Personality, mind, and spirit comprise just one human being. In the same way, the Father, the Son, and the
   Holy Spirit is One Self. No one can say that God has no Mind or Spirit. God, in His Mind and Spirit is One
   God not three gods. The Mind is also called the Logos or the Son. God created the world by His intelligent
   mind, or by His Son, or by His Logic or Wisdom – all of which mean the same. For God and His Mind are
   the same Being. An example of this is when we say, “you solved the problem with your mind.” Is it you who
   solved the problem or your mind? Both are the same being. The distinction between you and your mind does
   not mean separation. If God were without His Mind He would not be God, or if He were without His Spirit
   He would not be God either. Thus, God, of necessity has to be with His Mind and Spirit a Trinity of Unity.

1. The Fire:
   It is written, “Our God is a consuming fire” (Heb 12:29) Fire can be used as an analogy for the Holy
   Trinity for fire generates light and heat. Nevertheless, the flame, its light and its heat are one entity. From the
   moment the flame begins, from that moment light and heat also begin.

1. The Sun:
   It is written, “The Lord God is a sun…” (Ps 84:11) The sun has been used as an analogy for the Holy
   Trinity in much the same way fire was used; the sun has ray and light. You cannot separate the light from the
   ray and you cannot separate either from the sun.

1. The Spring of Water:
   It was written, “The wellspring of wisdom is a flowing brook” (Prov 18:4) The well, spring and
   stream have been used also as an analogy for the Holy Trinity: Just as the spring and the stream produced
   from a well are not separate and yet there are in fact three visible objects and three names yet they all have
   the same water.

**

 

[prayforwisdom]

→ Even though St. Gregory of Nazianzus used some of the above analogies to explain the relation between
the Father and the Son, he said:

“I have very carefully considered this matter in my own mind, and have looked at it in every point of view,
in order to find some illustration of this most important subject, but I have been unable to discover anything
on earth with which to compare The Nature of The Godhead. For even if I did happen upon some tiny
likeness it escaped me for the most part, and left me down below with my example. I picture to myself an
eye, a** fountain**, a** river**, as others have done before, to see if they first might be analogous to The Father, the
second to The Son, and the third to The Holy Spirit. For in these there is no distinction in time, nor are they
torn away from their connection with each other, though they seem to be parted by three personalities. But I
was afraid in the first place that I should present a flow in The Godhead, incapable of standing still; and
secondly that by this figure a numerical unity would be introduced. For the eye and the spring and the river
are numerically one, though in different forms. Again I thought of the sun and a ray and light. But here
again there was a fear lest people should get an idea of composition in the Uncompounded Nature, such as
there is in the sun and the things that are in the sun. And the second place lest we should give Essence to The
Father but deny Personality to the others, and make Them only Powers of God, existing in Him and not
Personal. For neither the ray nor the light is a sun, but they are only effulgence [radiance] from the sun, and
qualities of its essence. And lest we should thus, as far as the illustration goes, attribute both Being and Notbeing
to God, which is even more monstrous.”
(Adapted from the 5th Theological Oration on The Holy Spirit, Articles XXXI and XXXII)

• This lecture is adapted from a lecture by H.H. Pope Shenouda III and a lecture by H.E.M. Bishoy.

more lectures on the Trinity are available here suscopts.org/literature/orthodoxfaith.html under “Theology”

 

[inJESUS]

Sherlock Holmes would say… "Elementary Mr. Watson!’

Take the first 3 points in your example:

I)

1. God is Jesus
2. God is the Father
3. God is the Holy Spirit

Matematically speaking the above would translate into:

God = is The Father = is The Son = is The Holy Spirit. And that 's exactamundo what we profess

II)

And then the rest:

1. Jesus is not the Father
2. Jesus is not the Holy Spirit
3. The Father is not Jesus
4. The Father is not the Holy Spirit
5. The Holy Spirit is not Jesus
6. The Holy Spirit is not the Father

Again, matematically speaking, if we look at an equilateral triangle (ABC), A is not B or C, B is not A or C, C is not A or B. All of these corners is what it takes to have a Triangle. You will not be able to find a triangle with only one corner .

III)
10. There is only one God.

Add up the two demonstration above :

• you have 3 corners (Trinity), equal in power (each corner has 60 degress), and that’s what it takes to be defines as a Trinagle - aka - God. Take out any of these corners and you cease to have a Trinagle - a.k.a God… That’s how we see it.

So where’s the contradiction again?

God belss you!
Alex.

 

[inJESUS]

i LOVE these analogies :dancing:

 

[Contarini]

The doctrine of Holy War is alive and well in Catholicism, but it is not the same as Jihad in Islam. Catholicism still has the just war doctrine.

This was never a doctrine of the Catholic Church, even though St. Thomas Aquinas may have agreed with it. The death penalty was usually handed out by temporal authorities, after the inquisition had judged them either guilty or not guilty of heresy. It was usually temporal law (not church law) which had people killed for heresy. I am glad we are done with the feudal system.

Again, this is false, and I beg you to please cite a source for this outrageous claim.

This wasn’t ever a doctrine of the Catholic Church, although some English Kings took the doctrine that God instilled temporal rulers a little too far, in order to legitimize their power (this is called the “Divine Right of Kings”).

I disagree. You are mainly discussing matters of discipline, and not matters of faith, or morals. Just because Italy isn’t a theocracy anymore doesn’t mean a medieval Catholic would not recognize his church.

Sorry. Owing to my sloppy editing you mistook pro_universal’s words for mine. You will notice that the material you were responding to came after my signature. I responded to part of pro_universal’s message and ignored the rest. Since I didn’t delete it, it appeared as if it were mine.

I think some of your responses were dodges, but they’re dodges I don’t care about (I find the distinction between “official teaching” and what Catholics actually believed tiresome and self-serving; I’m much more interested in what a theologically well-informed Catholic of the Middle Ages thought was true than in whether his ideas were Official Dogma or not). I’m not interested in arguing the point either way. Pro’s claims were, as usual, exaggerated and not quite fair, so I have no interest in defending them. I think you’re both maintaining untenable positions.

And yes, as usual my stance has a bit too much of “the Dwarfs are for the Dwarfs” about it. I fear that I’ll end up imprisoned in a dark stable in my own mind. . . . may God have mercy on me, and on us all.

Edwin

 

[Contarini]

I want to take my time and research answers to your other long post, rather than relying on vague memory from books and lectures long ago.

When I say the trinity is easy to understand, I mean to say that it is easy to repeat the complete formula and that the vocabulary and grammar are quite clear.

But the Trinity isn’t reducible a formula. If by the formula you mean “one substance, three persons,” this was hammered out over centuries with all kinds of qualifications and redefinitions. The very terms “person” and “substance” took on new meanings in the course of the debates.

I don’t know how on earth you can claim that “one substance, three persons” is contradictory. You can claim that it’s sheer obfuscation, but it isn’t contradictory, because the terms of the formula were developed precisely to describe the reality with which early Christians believed themselves to be confronted. It’s not that Christians invented the formula based on terms that had a clear but contradictory meaning and then developed elaborate doctrines in order to justify the contradiction, which is what you seem to be saying.

Edwin

 

[Mickey]

I You can claim that it’s sheer obfuscation, but it isn’t contradictory, because the terms of the formula were developed precisely to describe the reality with which early Christians believed themselves to be confronted. It’s not that Christians invented the formula based on terms that had a clear but contradictory meaning and then developed elaborate doctrines in order to justify the contradiction

AMEN!