That is what I am claiming.The trinitarian makes no claim for logical impossibility in God.
You didn’t explain why being infinite resolve the problem in my argument, we cannot unite three selves.Only that you are wrong in leaping to the conclusion that one nature being totally possessed by one person applies to all possible beings instead of just finite beings.
I didn’t say so. That I understand it quite well.As person and nature are not equivalent terms, there is no claim that three equals one or one equals three.
Are you claiming that one can resolve a logical impossibility in unconditional reality. Why anyone should bother to understand God if it is so?By infinite, we refer to unconditioned reality or unconditioned existence. We are familiar with existence being in this mode or that mode, such that what something is different from the fact that it is. We are familiar with conditioned reality. What we refer to as God is simply existence. He is that He is.
So you disagree with my model: Any being has a self and experiences (or knows in case of God). Can you tell me what is missing with the model?Even for the mystics who prefer not even to say that much, saying that as an incomprehensible being there is nothing comprehensible to say about what He is, the point is that He an ontological reality/existence transcending our concepts of existing, being, etc…
Consider the story of St. Augustine and the sea shell:Are you claiming that one can resolve a logical impossibility in unconditional reality. Why anyone should bother to understand God if it is so?
St. Augustine spent over 30 years working on his treatise about the Holy Trinity, “De Trinitate” in which he set out to give explanation for the mystery of the Trinity.
One day, he was walking by the seashore one day contemplating and trying to understand the mystery of the Holy Trinity when he saw a small boy running back and forth from the water to a spot on the seashore. The boy was using a sea shell to carry the water from the ocean and place it into a small hole in the sand.
St. Augustine approached the boy and asked him, “My boy, what are doing?”
“I am trying to bring all the sea into this hole,” the boy replied with a sweet smile.
“But that is impossible, my dear child, the hole cannot contain all that water” said Augustine.
The boy paused in his attempts and stood up, looked Augustine in the eyes, and simply replied, “It is no more impossible than what you are trying to do – comprehend the immensity of the mystery of the Holy Trinity with your small intelligence.”
We cannot fully comprehend the incomprehensible. In the 3rd episode of the “Catholicism” series, Bishop Robert Barron tells another great story from the American philosopher William James regarding his dog that gives another analogy:Taken aback by the boy’s reply, Augustine gazed across the immensity of the sea. When he came to his senses and looked back to further question the boy, he had vanished.
"…The American philosopher William James told the story about his library and his dog.
James said that his dog would come into his master’s study at the end of the day. He’d look around and see everything: the books on the shelves, the papers on the desk, the globe in the corner.
It occurred to James that though the dog saw everything, he understood almost none of it; and if his master had tried to explain it to him, “Oh, those books are collections of pages, on which are symbols of words that in turn signify ideas… That globe, that’s a symbolic representation of the planet that we both live on that’s hurdling through space…” well, the dog would have looked at him with perfect incomprehension.
It then occurred to William James: so are we vis-à-vis that great intelligence that orders and governs the universe. Though we see everything, we understand very little of it; and given the limited capacity of our minds, God could not even in principle begin to explain it to us…"
The “other” is missing from your model.. . . Any being has a self and experiences (or knows in case of God). Can you tell me what is missing with the model?
…
Don’t look down your nose at Polycarp1’s link. It leads to vital info from Frank Sheed’s book “Theology and Sanity”, specifically the part explaining the Blessed Trinity. The doctrine can’t be explained in a few sentences or paragraphs: a foundation has to be laid before you can go into the deeper stuff. Theology is no different from any other “…logy”.I would be nice of you if you engage to a discussion rather than posting a link. Please make your point if you have any considering what has been discussed. Otherwise I get lost.
Thanks for sharing the stories.Consider the story of St. Augustine and the sea shell:
We cannot fully comprehend the incomprehensible. In the 3rd episode of the “Catholicism” series, Bishop Robert Barron tells another great story from the American philosopher William James regarding his dog that gives another analogy:
Other are other being. I don’t think that they are part of a being.The “other” is missing from your model.
person = self - experience - other.
To be truly ourselves, we give ourselves over to and for the good of the other.
In loving one another, the goal of our journey in life, we are united and thereby constitute the body Christ.
God is the Source of everything and consequently can be understood as being within and encompassing each self, every experience and that which is other to us as individuals.
We are an image of His transcendent Triune nature.
Ok.…
Don’t look down your nose at Polycarp1’s link. It leads to vital info from Frank Sheed’s book “Theology and Sanity”, specifically the part explaining the Blessed Trinity. The doctrine can’t be explained in a few sentences or paragraphs: a foundation has to be laid before you can go into the deeper stuff. Theology is no different from any other “…logy”.
There’s no easy (lazy?) way to get a worthwhile grasp of it.
Ok, so lets see what is the difference.Don’t forget that there’s a difference between “person” as applied to ourselves, and “Person” as applied to the 3 Persons in the Godhead.
That is kinda of bothering me since basically Son and Holy Spirit are generated and breathed meaning that they didn’t exist. Moreover Self-Knowledge is not something which we call as a person. On top of that how God/Father had not have the self knowledge at the beginning. How He could be God?Basically:
The Father is spirit “only”, eternal, the uncaused Cause.
The Son is the Father’s Self-Knowledge, generated in eternity.
The Holy Spirit is the total, Self-giving Love from Father to Son, and from Son to Father, breathed or spirated in eternity.
Aren’t these attributes of God?God is
Be-ing: the Father.
Know-ing: the Son.
Lov-ing: the Holy Spirit.
Thank you for the links.God’s essence is utterly simple, and totally free of any limitations imposed by matter.
An easier to read version of T & S might be:
www.katapi.org.uk/TandS/Contents.html
OR
www.ecatholic2000.com/sheed/untitled-42.shtml
In either case, it’s easy to find the section on God.