St. Peter and St. Paul believed that God is the God of Jesus...how then can they have believed Jesus is God as well?

[VociMike]

This is part of the problem I have been thinking about. We claim that the Church teaches what the apotles taught, but as you say, we don’t really know (based on Scripture mainly) that the apostles thought of Jesus as their Creator. I find it difficult to believe that they believed Jesus was their Creator. What a step in faith that would have taken for the apostles, and its not recorded in the bible.

Having said that, there are times (like Ive mentioned earlier) where the Gospels and epistles seem to elude to the divine nature of Jesus, several times in John and in some of the Epistles and Revelations. Other times I find it hard to believe they thought their Master was God Himself; the Creator.

…

Why are their mixed messages in the bible? At this stage I really feel there are more verses which point to the subordination of Jesus to God, than Jesus being God.

Also, what does one do when he sees these mixed messages about Jesus? How can one be seemingly referred to as God in some parts of scripture, but in other parts seemingly less.

The problem, it seems clear to me, is that you are looking to the bible to form doctrine, and that is not the role of the bible. The bible is not a catechism. It is a fundamental Protestant error to build doctrine on the bible. What Catholics may do, rather, is to confirm doctrine through the bible. But if one doctrine is not as confirmable this way as another, this does not invalidate the doctrine.

The Catholic Church teaches clearly that Jesus is God. The Eastern Orthodox teach clearly the same. To believe that this was not taught from the beginning is to believe that the entire Church was taken over by a grave heresy (the very heresy for which the Jews had Christ killed), and taken over without the slightest evidence of such a takeover left in the historical record. And only a conspiratorialist “they destroyed all the evidence!” mentality can believe such a thing.

 

[MH84]

The problem, it seems clear to me, is that you are looking to the bible to form doctrine, and that is not the role of the bible. The bible is not a catechism. It is a fundamental Protestant error to build doctrine on the bible. What Catholics may do, rather, is to confirm doctrine through the bible. But if one doctrine is not as confirmable this way as another, this does not invalidate the doctrine.

The Catholic Church teaches clearly that Jesus is God. The Eastern Orthodox teach clearly the same. To believe that this was not taught from the beginning is to believe that the entire Church was taken over by a grave heresy (the very heresy for which the Jews had Christ killed), and taken over without the slightest evidence of such a takeover left in the historical record. And only a conspiratorialist “they destroyed all the evidence!” mentality can believe such a thing.

I envy your position VociMike. You are able to have faith in the Church even though you may not be able to see her doctrines in the Bible.

I don’t think I will ever be able to go back to that position (the one where you are in). Deep in my heart I think I want to believe all that the Church teaches, especially in the Trinity, but I can’t fully accept it. When I pick up the bible and read it, sometimes I feel at peace, but then I read one of the many verses which seem to not reflect what the Church teaches about Jesus, and I feel frustrated and confused.

The thing is, you are saying 100% that the “truth” is what the Church teaches and then work from there. But when you are at my stage of faith, I want more than that. I want to see how and why the Church is teaching the truth. I want to see in the bible clarification of this.

Analogy of my situation:
If A was now 18 and was suspecting that he was adopted, he wouldnt be content with asking his parents whether or not he was because they may be lying to him because they don’t want to hurt him (or they just dont want ot tell the truth).

But the problem for A is that now he is suspecting something is not right with what he has been told, he just has to look for the truth (whether with grea endeavour or gradually) otherwise he will feel something inside him is bugging him, and that he feels he will never no for sure if his “parents” are his real parents.

Do you get my position now?

Could you try to prove to me otherwise? For instance, how is it possible that God (Jesus) has a God, even after He is ascended into Heaven and is seated at the right hand of God?

Even Jesus being at the “right-hand of God” gives me the impression that the early believers didnt think Jesus was God Himself. When I say that Mr. A is my right-hand man, Im not saying he is equal to me, Im saying that he is my employee,servant etc.

 

[MH84]

Strictly speaking, apostles refer to the first twelve that Jesus called during His earthly life. Others are called apostles only in the broader sense of the word.

Jesus is called an “apostle” in Hebrews 3:1:
Therefore, holy brothers, who share in the heavenly calling, fix your thoughts on Jesus, the apostle and high priest whom we confess.

 

[MH84]

What do you want in life? Life without Jesus? But Jesus is the Way, the Truth and the Life. No one can come to the Father except through Him. I want to be saved and no else except Jesus promised eternal salvation for those who seek it. Believing in Jesus means believing in those whom He sent, the Apostles headed by St. Peter who, in turn, appointed successors, now the Bishops headed by the Pope, to teach all nations from generation to generation until the end of the world about Salvation in Jesus Christ. We have to trust in the Church as a trust to Christ who promised that the gates of hell shall not prevail against it.

Friend, read this verse carefully and tell me if you think that Jesus was saying He is God:

5Thomas said to him, “Lord, we don’t know where you are going, so how can we know the way?”
6Jesus answered, “I am the way and the truth and the life. No one comes to the Father except through me. 7If you really knew me, you would know[a] my Father as well. From now on, you do know him and have seen him.”

Now He could be calling Himself divine here. But He is also seemingly saying that no one can come to the Father except through Him. Why does Jesus seem to be implying that His Father is the main goal? Isn’t going to Jesus the same as going to the Father? Probably not. Jesus says He was going to the Father, for the Father was greater than Him (John 14:28).

Why don’t you try to read the Catechism of the Catholic Church side by side with the Bible and Lives of the Saints? And avoid reading protestant and mundane books.

Youve basically are trying to lure me to faith by saying that I will be condemned otherwise. Muslims (and other faiths) think that we are condemned. Think about that, its “your (natsclem’s) word” and against theirs. Also, the CCC says those outside the Church can be saved. How does reading about the lives of the saints answer my questions?

Where’s the evidence that Ive been asking for here? That’s all Ive been asking.** Please answer Scriptures with Scriptures.** Why would the word of God be lacking?

PLEASE ANSWERS MY QUESTIONS. (Don’t tell me about other things which don’t answer them. You are just creating a diversion otherwise.

I want to be able to back up the Faith (Catholic faith) up with evidence from the Bible. Shouldnt the truth that is found in Tradition be found in the Scriptures? I can’t just “believe” in my heart fully anymore, even if I wanted to. My mind won’t let this go.

Scripture: www.biblegateway.com

 

[VociMike]

I envy your position VociMike. You are able to have faith in the Church even though you may not be able to see her doctrines in the Bible.

Because without faith in the Church there is no bible. The bible has no more authority in that case than the Koran or the Book of Mormon.

I don’t think I will ever be able to go back to that position (the one where you are in). Deep in my heart I think I want to believe all that the Church teaches, especially in the Trinity, but I can’t fully accept it. When I pick up the bible and read it, sometimes I feel at peace, but then I read one of the many verses which seem to not reflect what the Church teaches about Jesus, and I feel frustrated and confused.

The thing is, you are saying 100% that the “truth” is what the Church teaches and then work from there. But when you are at my stage of faith, I want more than that. I want to see how and why the Church is teaching the truth. I want to see in the bible clarification of this.

I can appreciate you seeking more understanding. What I can’t understand is why you limit that understanding to “bible clarification”. That is not the standard of the Church, so why is it your standard?

Analogy of my situation:
If A was now 18 and was suspecting that he was adopted, he wouldnt be content with asking his parents whether or not he was because they may be lying to him because they don’t want to hurt him (or they just dont want ot tell the truth).

But the problem for A is that now he is suspecting something is not right with what he has been told, he just has to look for the truth (whether with grea endeavour or gradually) otherwise he will feel something inside him is bugging him, and that he feels he will never no for sure if his “parents” are his real parents.

Do you get my position now?

Then read more Early Church Fathers, early Councils, history, ect. And keep in mind “the dog that didn’t bark”. If a belief is never attacked by the Church as a heresy, then that belief must have been held since the beginning. To claim that in the past the Church suddenly and entirely adopted some heresy or other without leaving any historical evidence of this enormous fact is to make a claim which goes against reason. My faith in the Church is founded in part on reason, a reasonable understanding of history and of how people and organizations behave. Remember, you are not arguing some miniscule point here. You are suggesting that the Church at some point elevated a mere human prophet to Godhood itself, and that nobody in the Church made so much as a peep of protest. Think about that claim long and hard.

 

[VociMike]

Why would the word of God be lacking?

The word of God is not lacking. What is lacking is your understanding of where the entire word of God is to be found.

Can you offer a coherent explanation as to why you seemingly trust the bible more than you trust the Church that gave you the bible?

 

[MH84]

Then read more Early Church Fathers, early Councils, history, ect. And keep in mind “the dog that didn’t bark”.If a belief is never attacked by the Church as a heresy, then that belief must have been held since the beginning.

Arius, Ebionites (probably more).

To claim that in the past the Church suddenly and entirely adopted some heresy or other without leaving any historical evidence of this enormous fact is to make a claim which goes against reason.

**Who says suddently? How do you know what the apostles taught? You yourself said that you don’t know what the apostles believed about the nature of Christ. **

Remember, you are not arguing some miniscule point here.

I know. Do you think Im comfortable with this or something? No Im not.

You are suggesting that the Church at some point elevated a mere human prophet to Godhood itself, and that nobody in the Church made so much as a peep of protest. Think about that claim long and hard.

**The book of Acts records the first steps of the early church right? Where in it does it say that the converts believed Jesus was their Co-creator Incarnate? No where. They believed in Jesus, and they believed in God. Not that the two were the same. Whether they did or not is another story, but the bible doesnt say that.

Vocimike, honestly please, do you think the first Jewish converts believed that Jesus was the God of Abraham, Issac and Jacob? Please tell me.**

**Also, tell me were St. Peter, even once, calls Jesus God? St. Peter never wrote this. In fact, he said that Jesus had a God in First Peter.

These are just my own thoughts, nothing more: but didnt many pagans believed that some men were gods? In Acts some gentiles thought Paul and Barnabus were gods. How do we know, for instance, that Gentile Christianity didnt take over from the Jewish community?

Anyway, this is all beside the points I bring up in my questions. Please answer them somebody.**

 

[MH84]

The word of God is not lacking. What is lacking is your understanding of where the entire word of God is to be found.

Can you offer a coherent explanation as to why you seemingly trust the bible more than you trust the Church that gave you the bible?

The Church claims that she teaches what the Apostles taught. What they taught can be found in the bible. The bible doesnt say clearly that Jesus is God, nor that God is the Blessed Trinity. The Church does.

The Church doesnt teach the same as the apostles did. She has added information to the Apostles teachings.

 

[MH84]

Btw shouldnt you say that God gave the church the Bible?

The Church can’t do anything without God. You are forgetting that.

 

[MH84]

I can appreciate you seeking more understanding. What I can’t understand is why you limit that understanding to “bible clarification”. That is not the standard of the Church, so why is it your standard?

The Church is the servant of the scriptures.

 

[John_Hiner]

Jesus is called an “apostle” in Hebrews 3:1:
Therefore, holy brothers, who share in the heavenly calling, fix your thoughts on Jesus, the apostle and high priest whom we confess.

Laudatur Iesus Christus.

Dear MH84:

What are you reading that you call “the Bible?”

Perhaps you are being too easy on yourself and letting emotion rather than reason get the better of you. Have you considered studying Greek and reading the passages as they were written, rather than in the translations that seem to be having a “rhetorical” effect on you?

You could also read the Old Testament in the Greek which the Apostles and Christ used, testing to see if the difficulties you are having are resolved by reading the Greek of the New in light of the Greek of the Old.

“Apostle” by the way means “one sent” in Greek, and so the line quoted above is perfectly legitimate, Jesus having been sent by the Father and by the Holy Trinity as a messenger and the Savior.

You also might find it useful to read the Vulgata as St. Jerome translated it. This Latin is juridically sound and will throw light on the correct interpretation of the meaning of many passages. The interplay between this time honored Latin translation and the original Greek is very fruitful, if one is docilely trying to discern the meaning of the Scriptures.

And he said to them, “Therefore every scribe who has been trained for the kingdom of heaven is like a householder who brings out of his treasure what is new and what is old.” (Matthew (RSV) 13:52.)

English and other translations, after all, are provided as a convenience, not as a substitute for either the Scriptures or the teaching authority of the Church.

English is especially prone to draw false distinctions and to seem to force dichotomies where none are suggested in the original Greek or in the Latin. This is in part due to the vast accumulation of words which English uses to convey nuanced differences. This makes word choice in English powerful in subtlety, but dangerous when translating a less differentiated vocabulary from another language. On the other hand, English has several words like “love” and “sacrifice,” which are made to serve triple and quadruple duty when translating from Greek and Latin.

Another consideration is philosophy itself. Some of your arguments do not make sense in a broader context. For example, if one doubts the efficacy of the Holy Spirit in the Catholic Church, it makes little sense to believe in the objective truth of the Scriptures. The Scriptures were written by the Spirit for use within the Church. Taking them out of that context is arbitrary and cannot be justified as a method of seriously seeking the truth.

Human reason unaided is insufficient to assess truth, as every modern secular philosopher since Kant has concluded. Only the divinity of Christ and His testimony given from both the human and the divine perspectives provides an objective basis for the connection between human knowledge and “objective reality.” If Christ is not God, then truth is beyond mankind.

Further, if truth is beyond mankind, your mode of reasoning about what “can be true” is invalid from its roots and so amounts to a nightmare or a chimera. These are among the things from which the Savior has saved mankind. But His divinity is the root, not the conclusion of the matter.

Pax Christi nobiscum.

John Hiner

 

[MH84]

Laudatur Iesus Christus.

Dear MH84:

What are you reading that you call “the Bible?”

Perhaps you are being too easy on yourself and letting emotion rather than reason get the better of you. Have you considered studying Greek and reading the passages as they were written, rather than in the translations that seem to be having a “rhetorical” effect on you?

You could also read the Old Testament in the Greek which the Apostles and Christ used, testing to see if the difficulties you are having are resolved by reading the Greek of the New in light of the Greek of the Old.

“Apostle” by the way means “one sent” in Greek, and so the line quoted above is perfectly legitimate, Jesus having been sent by the Father and by the Holy Trinity as a messenger and the Savior.

You also might find it useful to read the Vulgata as St. Jerome translated it. This Latin is juridically sound and will throw light on the correct interpretation of the meaning of many passages. The interplay between this time honored Latin translation and the original Greek is very fruitful, if one is docilely trying to discern the meaning of the Scriptures.

And he said to them, “Therefore every scribe who has been trained for the kingdom of heaven is like a householder who brings out of his treasure what is new and what is old.” (Matthew (RSV) 13:52.)

English and other translations, after all, are provided as a convenience, not as a substitute for either the Scriptures or the teaching authority of the Church.

English is especially prone to draw false distinctions and to seem to force dichotomies where none are suggested in the original Greek or in the Latin. This is in part due to the vast accumulation of words which English uses to convey nuanced differences. This makes word choice in English powerful in subtlety, but dangerous when translating a less differentiated vocabulary from another language. On the other hand, English has several words like “love” and “sacrifice,” which are made to serve triple and quadruple duty when translating from Greek and Latin.

Another consideration is philosophy itself. Some of your arguments do not make sense in a broader context. For example, if one doubts the efficacy of the Holy Spirit in the Catholic Church, it makes little sense to believe in the objective truth of the Scriptures. The Scriptures were written by the Spirit for use within the Church. Taking them out of that context is arbitrary and cannot be justified as a method of seriously seeking the truth.

Human reason unaided is insufficient to assess truth, as every modern secular philosopher since Kant has concluded. Only the divinity of Christ and His testimony given from both the human and the divine perspectives provides an objective basis for the connection between human knowledge and “objective reality.” If Christ is not God, then truth is beyond mankind.

Further, if truth is beyond mankind, your mode of reasoning about what “can be true” is invalid from its roots and so amounts to a nightmare or a chimera. These are among the things from which the Savior has saved mankind. But His divinity is the root, not the conclusion of the matter.

Pax Christi nobiscum.

John Hiner

Sir,

You seem to be one who knows a lot. Why don’t you answer my question then instead of saying basically how ignorant I am?

How does Jesus have a God now that He is ascended and is at the right-hand of God?

 

[MH84]

Also John, answer this point I brought up please:

Even Jesus being at the “right-hand of God” gives me the impression that the early believers didnt think Jesus was God Himself. When I say that Mr. A is my right-hand man, Im not saying he is equal to me, Im saying that he is my employee,servant etc.

 

[planter654]

The Church claims that she teaches what the Apostles taught. What they taught can be found in the bible. The bible doesnt say clearly that Jesus is God, nor that God is the Blessed Trinity. The Church does.

The Church doesnt teach the same as the apostles did. She has added information to the Apostles teachings.

If anyone preaches a gospel other than the one we preach and have bared witness to… do not accept them. For they add to them their own myths causing much damage to the soul that is weak already.

God spoke to Jesus on the mount St. Peter and James, John bare witness to this. they heard God say…this is my son with whom I am well pleased.

God Bless

 

[planter654]

Laudatur Iesus Christus.

Dear MH84:

Thanks for this discussion. It is interesting and opens provocative challenges, at least to one’s mode of expression.

You wrote: “But if someone is a director of a company, the other directors are not the directors of that director.” I don’t think this is a fair comment. If the company is run by the board, and the directors are employees, each director is directed by the action of the board. If one considers the human situation in the metaphor, a dissenting board member would be bound by the majority vote of the board and not free to act contrary to its decision, even if he voted against the measure. In this sense, the director must submit to the board, even though he is a member.

“Furthermore, where does the Holy Spirit fit into this?” In the metaphor, the Holy Spirit is one of three co-equal members of the “board.”

“Is the Holy Spirit the God of Jesus?” Yes the Holy Spirit is the God of Jesus, in the sense that the Holy Spirit is God and therefore in an absolute sense anyone who regards the Holy Spirit must regard Him as God.

“This sounds good but it doesnt mean that the Son is equal to God. Can we say that the Son is the God of the Father? I doubt it. No one would say this.” I am a little taken aback, since in fact I did say, “The Son is the Father’s God,” in my previous post. The Son is the Father’s God in the sense that the Son is the Person for whom the Father does everything and to whom He gives Himself and everything He has. Of course, the Son, the Father, and the Holy Spirit are uncreated; so, when one says the Son is the Father’s God he does not mean the Son is the Father’s creator. However, the Son is the one whom the Father adores and by Whom He judges. The Son is the Father’s “ultimate value.”

This relationship of mutual submission between the Father and the Son is the model St. Paul recommends for all Christians and for marriage. “Being subject one to another, in the fear of Christ.” (Ephesians 5:21.) It is also suggested in: “love one another with brotherly affection; outdo one another in showing honor.” (Romans 12:10.)

‘Ive heard this a few times. Its true, but it is used when someone doesnt know how to explain something.” I did not mean to duck the question. It is impossible for someone living in the flesh to imagine what it would mean to give oneself without holding anything back, so that one’s entire being is the act of giving. We can project our imaginations in this direction, but we cannot imagine it perfectly. We can describe the Trinity’s love in the abstract, but it is beyond our concrete imagination, because as physical creatures, we always hold something back. It is not that this reality cannot be explained, but only that the explanation is a sort of pointing rather than a complete comprehension. (But this is true of many basic concepts.)

“How can God have a God? Jesus is a divine Person, not a human Person (although he took on a human nature).” Jesus is wholly human. It is therefore incorrect to say that He is not a “human Person.”

“After Jesus ascended into His glory, Sts. Peter and Paul still say God is the God of Jesus. Paul even says that Jesus will be eternally subject to God in 1 Corinthians 15:27-28.” If these facts are considered through the metaphor of the “board of three,” sense can be made of them. God can have a God because each Person of the Trinity submits to and serves the others; this is part of love. Jesus will be subject to God, that God, the Most Holy Trinity, may be all in all – this includes Jesus as God and as one of the Trinity.

“How can Paul say this, but still think that Jesus was his Creator?” To over-simplify, one might say that Jesus was one of three “votes” on the board who created Paul. (There are never any “dissenting votes” since the Three share a single will and are in complete communion with one another. They are one God.) Therefore, Jesus’ responsibility for creation is inseparable from that of the other Persons. When three vote unanimously, which vote makes the difference? Each is responsible and properly given credited for the action of the whole. (See, CCC 257ff.)

Understanding God as the Trinity of mutually loving and self-effacing Persons is crucial to understanding the Faith. If one thinks of “god” as a single person, one is liable to mistake “god” for a self-serving tyrant, who made creation for his own glory and self-satisfaction. Anyone who tried to imitate such a “god” would be self-seeking and condescending.

In fact, God is the Holy Trinity. Love as God lives it is self-giving, the very opposite of self-serving. This is true of God both “before” creation and in time. To imitate the Father is to imitate Christ, to give oneself entirely to the love of God (the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit), and to turn all creation to this purpose. “[Jesus] and the Father are one.” (See John 10:30.)

I hope these comments are of some help.

Pax Christi nobiscum.

John Hiner

Are we not also called to become “one”? Do we not all have the advocate or the father in us…the Holy Spirit. does not the Holy Spirit dwell in all of us?

 

[MH84]

Are we not also called to become “one”? Do we not all have the advocate or the father in us…the Holy Spirit. does not the Holy Spirit dwell in all of us?

Thanks for your insight but please don’t derail the thread. Thanks.

 

[JMJ_coder]

The Church claims that she teaches what the Apostles taught. What they taught can be found in the bible. The bible doesnt say clearly that Jesus is God, nor that God is the Blessed Trinity. The Church does.

The Church doesnt teach the same as the apostles did. She has added information to the Apostles teachings.

Not all of what the Apostles taught is in the Scriptures. There is much that was passed on orally. For example, in 2 Thessalonians 2:15 - Saint Paul tells us to adhere to all the apostolic teachings, whether in written form (Scriptures) or by word of mouth (Sacred Tradition).

Btw shouldnt you say that God gave the church the Bible?

The Church can’t do anything without God. You are forgetting that.

God did give the Scriptures to us by inspiring the writers to write down Scriptures. But, it was the Church that Scriptures came out of; it was the Church that authoritatively determined which books were canonical or not; it was the Church that faithfully preserved, copied, and handed down Scriptures through the ages.

The Church is the servant of the scriptures.

Nope. That is incorrect.

The Christian faith is not a “religion of the book”. Christianity is the religion of the “Word” of God, “not a written and mute word, but incarnate and living”.(St. Bernard, S. missus est hom. 4, 11: PL 183, 86.) If the Scriptures are not to remain a dead letter, Christ, the eternal Word of the living God, must, through the Holy Spirit, “open (our) minds to understand the Scriptures.”(Cf. ⇒ Lk 24:45)

 

[Usagi]

MH84,

I may actually have sent you a similar response on a related topic; if so, and if this does not help at all, please forgive me.

As you note, the Scriptural evidence on the relationiship between God and Jesus is mixed. There are passages that seem to claim divinity for Jesus, and others that make him subordinate to the Father.

We no longer know exactly what the very earliest Christians believed. For direct testimony, we have only their writings to go by, and their writings do not settle the issue.

That is where Sacred Tradition and the writings of the Fathers come in. Through the writings of the second and later generations of Christians, we can develop an idea of how they understood their predecessors’ beliefs, a valuable source to guide our interpretations of the Scriptures. That’s why we talk about the actual inspired Scriptures and the Sacred Tradition that surrounds them going hand in hand. The Bible is God’s Word, but it is the Church’s book. In Catholic thinking, it was never intended to be read and understood independently of the Christian community. While the Scriptures are a glorious treasure, inspired of God and valuable to us as well as to the original audiences of the various books and letters, very few of the books set out to systematically lay down every point of Christian belief and practice. The people who first received and treasured the New Testament writings already knew things about the apostles’ teachings and Christian practice that helped them put the new writings in context.

So it’s entirely possible that Peter and Paul taught the simultaneous deity and humanity of Christ, even if not in the precise terms later councils would devise, and that their listeners/readers already understood how to interpret their references to “Jesus’ God” in the light of that teaching.

On the other hand, it’s also possible that divine revelation works by more of a gradual unfolding rather than a one-time “infodump” to the first generation. In that case, while the apostles and their followers seem to have understood Jesus both as “one of us” and “something more,” they may not have been fed the exact details by Holy Spirit brain-infusion. No doubt the Jewish background of the first Christians made it hard to see Jesus as the God of Israel when he simultaneously seemed to communicate with that God and refer to Him as Father. Still, they seem to have understood that Jesus was more than a new prophet, a new High Priest, or a new Davidic monarch, even though He was also all of those things.

There does seem to be a lot of emphasis in the New Testament on Jesus having been “given” or “rewarded with” His post-ascension position as ruler of the universe, perhaps implying that He did not have that position before. (One can, at least, see where the Adoptionists got the idea.) On the other hand, later theology does leave room for those expressions of reward; Jesus wasn’t just God stuffed into a body, but a newly-created human soul just like ours, inseparably united to the Divine Son. Thus, even under the orthodox understanding of the Trinity and the Incarnation, there was in a sense someone on the throne of Heaven who had not been there previously and who had just willingly undergone a terrible ordeal in service to His Father’s will.

The Eastern Christians on the forum could explain this next bit more precisely and in detail, but my understanding is that in the East there is still a great emphasis on “the monarchy of the Father” as the source of the other two Persons (even though the entire Trinity is eternal and there was never a time “before” the Son or the Spirit came to be). So even when speaking of Christ in His Divinity, there is a sense in which the Son is inferior in origin and role to the Father. Despite their shared eternity and power as the One God, the Son is ontologically dependent upon the Father in a way that the Father is not dependent upon the Son… Even the common Western formulation (that the Father is God in Himself, the Son is God’s self-knowledge, and the Spirit is the love between the first two Persons) indicates an “order” among the three Persons, though not one related to time as we know it.

In short, the orthodox doctrines of the Trinity and the Incarnation can encompass all the Scriptural data, even that which seems on first blush to contradict them. Indeed, the entire impetus behind the precise formulation of the doctrines in council was to find a statement that embraced all that we know to be true without overemphasizing one aspect of the data at the expense of others (as the heresies were wont to do). Thus we affirm that there is but one God, and that the Father is God, and that the Son is God, and that the Holy Spirit is God; and further that Christ is both true God and true man. Anything less has to ignore some of those Scriptures we’ve been tossing back and forth.

Whether the Holy Spirit granted to Peter or Paul the exact understanding of those truths, we do not know. We do know from Scripture that those two men specifically experienced at least one case each in which direct revelation was given to them that other Christians had to be taught or persuaded of – Peter when he was told to admit the Gentiles and disregard the laws of ritual and dietary purity, and Paul when he was apparently given the entire Gospel and appointed an apostle directly by Jesus. So it’s certainly possible they understood exactly what they were trying to say, but that the Holy Spirit had to help everyone else work it out from their writings and the ongoing Tradition over time.

Usagi

 

[agangbern]

The Church is the servant of the scriptures.

Oh! In other words, the person has become a servant of a non-person.
I could remember the idea that “Men has become slaves of the computer…” Pitiful…

 

[VociMike]

The Church claims that she teaches what the Apostles taught. What they taught can be found in the bible. The bible doesnt say clearly that Jesus is God, nor that God is the Blessed Trinity. The Church does.

The Church doesnt teach the same as the apostles did. She has added information to the Apostles teachings.

And how do you know what the apostles taught? You don’t (unless you listen to the Church). You are making an unfounded assumption that everything the apostles taught is found explicitly in the bible. This is simply a Protestant error, without foundation. You continue to approach this problem with a Protestant mindset, and thus you continue to flounder.