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mlchance
Guest
We could make a list of non-biblical words: Trinity, Muslim, Islam, Texas, cartoons, haberdashery, podiatrist, et cetera.
– Mark L. Chance.
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– Mark L. Chance.
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Chris_LaRock
Guest
The word ‘Trinity’ doesn’t appear in the Bible, but it is certainly taught in the Bible.
The words ‘pornography’ and ‘masturbation’ don’t appear in the bible, but we know they are sins.
The words ‘pornography’ and ‘masturbation’ don’t appear in the bible, but we know they are sins.
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hamba2han
Guest
Considering it’s immense significance to Christian belief, for the word ‘Trinity’ to not appear even once in the Bible would be akin to the word ‘chicken’ not appearing even once in a book detailing the history of KFC.
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Daniel_Marsh
Guest
look into triple point of water.
Well God is the creator and is spirit, why does he have to be limited to physics? He is not a creature. He is not physical.
God is omnipresent, how can he be everywhere at once? Because he is not a creature, limited to physics. He is spirit.
Well God is the creator and is spirit, why does he have to be limited to physics? He is not a creature. He is not physical.
God is omnipresent, how can he be everywhere at once? Because he is not a creature, limited to physics. He is spirit.
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Chris_LaRock
Guest
The teaching of the trinity is in the bible, but the word ‘trinity’ itself was coined later to describe the teaching. Many other words being used by Christians are not in the bible but are not any less true.
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st_bernard
Guest
Gratia et pax vobiscum,
The Triad-Godhead or what is more familiar in Judeo-Christian parlance as the Trinity is not overly difficult to understand. Is anyone here familiar with Middle-Platonist and Neo-Platonist metaphysics?
Gratias.
The Triad-Godhead or what is more familiar in Judeo-Christian parlance as the Trinity is not overly difficult to understand. Is anyone here familiar with Middle-Platonist and Neo-Platonist metaphysics?
Gratias.
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exoflare
Guest
How fallacious. You could use the word “poultry” and it would still be the same because people would still know what you were talking about. Similarly in this case, the teaching was already there… just because a different word was used to describe it later on, you’re getting all bent out of shape.
We all know you didn’t put any meaningful thought into this argument in the first place… you’re only here to blindly attack and hope you somehow hit a target. You really aren’t going to lose anything if you just concede this point… REALLY.
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Chris_LaRock
Guest
A Jehovah’s Witness associate of mine tried to say that since the Trinity doctrine is so hard to explain, it must not be true. This assumes that God’s nature is limited to man’s ability or capacity to understand it.
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exoflare
Guest
Yeah, too many people make the silly assumption that “unimaginable” is the same as “inconceivable”.
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mlchance
Guest
More to the point, notice the not-so-subtle arrogance at work. What’s the basic objection voiced to the Trinity really boil down to? “I can’t understand it; therefore, it can’t be true.”
Try to apply to this other matters. For me, it’d be like saying, “I don’t understand calculus; therefore, calculus is nonsense.”
What the objector is really saying is, “I’m so terribly impressed with my own intelligence that there simply can’t be anything I can’t understand.” IOW, it’s pride from top to bottom, an absolute inversion of the attitude needed for any honest pursuit of knowledge.
As a Baptist minister acquaintance of mine once said, “I don’t understand all that I know.”
– Mark L. Chance.
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Chris_LaRock
Guest
JWs don’t like to think that God’s nature could be something beyond human comprehension. They like to put God in a box and limit Him so man can understand Him fully. The NWT renders the word ‘mystery’ as ‘sacred secret’ in many places.
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exoflare
Guest
Exactly
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Chris_LaRock
Guest
The JW I meet with was so impressed by his own book smarts, that he tried to convert me to being a JW based on intellectualism.
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wahey
Guest
a use full way i was told to look at it was
im salome
im jeanettas daughter
im susannas friend
im tobys sister
im different things but imstill salome
hope this helps
god is three seperate things like i am up there but he still one like i am up there
im salome
im jeanettas daughter
im susannas friend
im tobys sister
im different things but imstill salome
hope this helps
god is three seperate things like i am up there but he still one like i am up there
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KindredSoul
Guest
I hope that this helps some, Alexius. At first it will sound like an argument already made, but it just goes into a little more detail. I do not know if this is completely in line with the Church’s Teaching, and this isn’t an official explanation. It could be flawed…but it makes a lot of sense to me. It’s simple in a sense, but complicated too, so read with care.Why is it that God must be three persons? It doesn’t seem to make sense to believe in something that is not logical. For instance:
God the Father + God the Son + God the Spirit = God the ?
-and-
(1) God the Father + (1) God the Son + (1) God the Spirit = (1) God?
It bothers me - I haven’t lost the Faith, but this issue is nudging at me. Can’t God be Father, Son, and Holy Spirit and yet be strictly one God in one “person?” Thanks!
Prayers and petitions,
Alexius
1. Father: God is an intelligent Being, One that is omniscient, perfect, and the very epitome of perfect Love. He must be self-aware for as long as He exists and is omniscient, which has eternally been true…He must, then, have a concept of Himself.
2. Son: That concept of Himself, held by Him by default and for as long as He exists (eternally), is so powerful, being the very image and concept/principle of God Himself, that even the very concept of God, when/as held by Him (as it must be) possesses life. Concept/principle bears much in common with the meaning of the Greek word “Logos” as it is used in the Gospel of John - and thus we can see that Christ is the very concept of God, which is living by nature of the unimaginable power and life within God’s self-concept, and must exist automatically as long as God exists.
Furthermore, since this is the very concept of God, one can say that in a sense, the Logos (concept/principle) of God is God, in a different sense than the Father (hence being distinct), but identical to Him (since He in His omniscience must have a perfect concept of Himself) and inseparable from Him (for the moment the Father ceases to exist, so does the concept which is His own; and the moment the concept ceases to exist, God ceases to possess it and thus to be omniscient). In this sense, God (the Father) and the concept of God (the Son) are One but distinct (the Son is the concept of the Father, not the other way around). To think of the Son is to think of the Father, which is how we can say the Son is fully God.
3. The Holy Spirit: Furthermore, since God is perfect and is at the same time the epitome of perfect Love, He must love whatever is perfect. Since the Concept of God is perfect, then God by nature loves that living Concept. To not love that which is perfect is to question its perfection (at lease in relation to oneself or one’s own ideals), and of course God wouldn’t question the perfection of His own self-concept…so therefore He loves the Son, who returns that love so that the Perfect Epitome of Love may be complete. Since this Love is so perfect on both sides, and is so powerful and complete as only a Love divine on both sides can be, it too possesses life: The Holy Spirit, I believe, proceeds eternally in this way. This too is an eternal situation for as long as the Father is omniscient and is Love.
Since the Father is the very epitome of Love, and the Holy Spirit is the epitome of Love, then the Holy Spirit must be One with the Father in the same way as the Logos - identical (and thus to think of the Holy Spirit is to think of either/both of the other Two, hence He can be called fully God), but distinct (as He “proceeds”, not the other way around). Just as the Logos is completely dependent on the Father’s existence, the Holy Spirit cannot exist without the other two, so it is only distinct, not independent, of them.
Ultimately, it’s not like a math problem, but more like a relationship, one that results just from the very existence of God who is both Omniscient and the Epitome of Love.
I hope that this is a fitting, if at times complicated, suggestion as to how the Trinity can be Three Distinct “Persons” but One Divine God. It helps me, and I hope it helps you, Alexius!
(P.S. Someone please tell me if there’s anything heretical for a Catholic to think of it this way…I don’t want to do that at all)
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pro_universal
Guest
If there is a difference, the doctrine is contradictory on that basis alone. It wouldn’t be possible for a being to be “all God in nature” yet have a “distinct personhood” without that personhood adding something. If it doesn’t, then there is no real distinction between the persons…but that’s not what the trinity says. If personhood does add something to the nature which makes the distinction real, then each person is both God and not God (the not God part being whatever personhood adds.)
If they aren’t already distinct, then you can’t discern relations. So talking about the relations between the persons presumes that the persons are already different, and cannot logically be the only distinction between them.
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pro_universal
Guest
Basically, your entire post is 1. a mischaracterization of what I said and 2. A personal attack, like the ones in your last two posts.
If you have any statements that go to the substance of the issue (ie, that are pertinent to the OP’s question), I’ll be happy to discuss.
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Montalban
Guest
You’ve hit upon the same error Origen made in the very early church.
Orthodox get around this problem by differentiating between who He is and what He does which we term “Essence” and “Energy”
We continue to distinguish in God between who God is, and what He does. God is the Creator, whether He does anything or not. God creates. Thus God the creator is unchanging, whether He ever made the world or not.
Origen was one of the first to touch upon this mistake of not distinguishing the two. In Book 1.2.10 of “On First Principles”
ccel.org/fathers2/ANF-04/anf04-45.htm#P6279_1122053 by making no distinction between God the creator and the act of creating he comes to the logical conclusion that creation must have always been.
He illustrates the point such …
“God cannot be called omnipotent unless there exist those over whom He may exercise His power”
(Ibid.)
For Origen, “the world was impossible without God, and God was impossible without the world.”
Florovsky, Creation and Redemption, Vol. III, The Collected Works of George Florovsky quoted at
energeticprocession.com/archives/2005/02/two_key_aspects.html
“Historically, the Roman Catholic theology never made the distinction between God’s Essence (what He is) and His Uncreated Energies (by what means He acts). St. Gregory Palamas tried to explain this distinction through a comparison between God and the Sun. The sun has its rays, God has His Energies (among them, Grace and Light). By His Energies, God created, sustains and governs the universe. By His Energies, He will transform the creation and deify it, that is, He will fill the new creation with His Energies as water fills a sponge.”
orthodoxinfo.com/inquirers/orth_cath_diff.aspx
And Jesus was begotten before time… which is why we say “In the beginning there was the Word”. So there never was a ‘time’ without Jesus.
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Montalban
Guest
You’ve certainly earned a lot of brownie-points defending them all the time, and attacking Christianity.
As noted when you have 1x1x1=1 each ‘1’ is distinct, but the same as the other ‘1’s’.
For you, perhaps. I’m glad you admit this shortcoming.
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pro_universal
Guest
Hey look, there’s nothing left!
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