Trouble with bible passages about Trinity

[Me123]

Although I really try to be a orthodox Catholic, who sees the logical evidence and necessarity of all dogmas, today I got some trouble with John 10:29, 14:24 and 14:28 (the Father is greater than the Son). Isn’t there a contradiction to the Holy Trinity?
I know that this has been held in belief since the ime of the Apostles, but though, it quite complicated, isn’t it.
(I know that other Scriptural evidence for the Holy Trinity is existing and very convicing, but that isn’t my point. It’s just some trouble with these three passages. Usually, I don’t have problems with this fundamental doctrine.)
Cheers,
Ulrich

 

[FCEGM]

Although I really try to be a orthodox Catholic, who sees the logical evidence and necessarity of all dogmas, today I got some trouble with John 10:29, 14:24 and 14:28 (the Father is greater than the Son). Isn’t there a contradiction to the Holy Trinity?
I know that this has been held in belief since the ime of the Apostles, but though, it quite complicated, isn’t it.
(I know that other Scriptural evidence for the Holy Trinity is existing and very convicing, but that isn’t my point. It’s just some trouble with these three passages. Usually, I don’t have problems with this fundamental doctrine.)
Cheers,
Ulrich

Hi, Ulrich, and welcome to CAF

This, from an article in This Rock magazine addressing the difficulties Jehovah’s Witnesses have with the Most Holy Trinity, speaks to your concerns:

Is Christ Inferior?

The Witnesses argue that the Son is inferior in nature to the Father from verses such as these: “The Son cannot do a single thing of his own initiative, but only what he beholds the Father doing” (John 5:19). “I have not come of my own initiative, but he that sent me is real, and you do not know him. I know him because I am a representative from him, and that one sent me forth” (John 7:28-29). “I am going my way to the Father, because the Father is greater than I am” (John 14:28).

What can be said about these verses? First, they may be referring to Christ’s human nature, as distinguished from his divine nature. His human nature, being created, is clearly subordinate to the Father’s divine nature.

Second, they may also refer to Christ’s person insofar as the person of the Son is generated or begotten by the person of the Father. This doesn’t mean he is unequal in his divine nature and therefore not divine. It means there is a certain logical relationship between the two persons of the Father and the Son (who are both equally divine) in which it may be said, rightly, that “the Father is greater than I”—greater in the order of the three divine persons, not greater in the order of nature or being.

Third, they may refer to the Son’s role in the economy of redemption. He came to fulfill the Father’s will in redeeming us and to reveal the Father to us, thus serving the Father. Hence, the Father holds a position in some sense superior to his. Thus the Son might be said to be inferior to the Father in the role he plays, but not in his essential nature.

Are there verses that argue against the Witnesses’ position? Sure. One example is John 5:1-18, where Jesus cures a man on the Sabbath. The Jews became angry because Jesus “worked” on the Sabbath, and in response Jesus said, “‘My Father has kept working until now, and I keep working.’ On this account indeed, the Jews began seeking all the more to kill him, because not only was he breaking the Sabbath but he was also calling God his own Father, making himself equal to God” (verses 17-18). Only God can be equal to himself, and this passage therefore shows that Jesus is God.

The Witnesses also ignore the import of Matthew 28:19: “Go therefore and make disciples of people of all the nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the holy spirit.” Another translator’s slip here? Note the singular “name.” If the Father, Son, and “holy spirit” were three different entities—God, exalted creature, and impersonal force—then they’d have three names, not one name. The fact that the singular is used implies a unity of being.

What is that one name that the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit share? If there is a single, revealed name for all three Persons, that name may be Yahweh. There can be no question that God is referred to in the Old Testament as Yahweh (understood by the JWs as “Jehovah”), and this name applies to the Son as well. For example, Jesus speaking in John 8:24 says, “Therefore I said to you, You will die in your sins. For if you do not believe that I am [he], you will die in your sins.” Notice that the NWT has added “he” in brackets to obscure the fact that the Greek words here are the words for “I Am.” (“He” is not present.) An identical situation occurs at John 8:28.

As any Bible student knows, “I Am” corresponds to Jehovah or Yahweh (cf. Ex. 3:14:“God said to Moses . . . ‘Say to the people of Israel, ‘I Am has sent me to you,’” RSV).

catholic.com/library/God_of_the_Jehovah_Witnesses.asp

This radio presentation on the Most Holy Trinity might also be helpful:

catholic.com/radio/event.php?calendar=1&category=&event=4655&date=2007-06-11

 

[Catholic_Dude]

Although I really try to be a orthodox Catholic, who sees the logical evidence and necessarity of all dogmas, today I got some trouble with John 10:29, 14:24 and 14:28 (the Father is greater than the Son). Isn’t there a contradiction to the Holy Trinity?
I know that this has been held in belief since the ime of the Apostles, but though, it quite complicated, isn’t it.
(I know that other Scriptural evidence for the Holy Trinity is existing and very convicing, but that isn’t my point. It’s just some trouble with these three passages. Usually, I don’t have problems with this fundamental doctrine.)
Cheers,
Ulrich

Take this example from Eph 5:
22Wives, submit to your husbands as to the Lord. 23For the husband is the head of the wife as Christ is the head of the church, his body, of which he is the Savior. 24Now as the church submits to Christ, so also wives should submit to their husbands in everything.
The husband is ‘greater’ in ‘office’ of house leadership, but that is not teaching a male is ‘worth more’ than a female or that women are inferior to men. By NATURE all humans, male and female are equal, but in terms of calling/office, one can (and is) higher than the other.

When Jesus spoke as being ‘lesser’ than the Father, Jesus was speaking in terms of the servant ‘office’ He assumed when He became man (Phil 2:5-8). This in no way denies Jesus’ Divine Nature is somehow inferior to the Father’s Divine Nature, in fact that’s impossible because they share the same Divine Nature.

If JW’s are the problem, here is more helpful info:
catholicnick.blogspot.com/2009/06/basic-jw-apologetics.html

 

[brb3]

Christ has returned to Heaven … to sit at the Right Hand of the Father. The position of highest honor. Not to be considered in any way inferior or secondary.

Basil said " If any one truly receive the Son, he will find that He brings with Him on one hand His Father, on the other the Holy Spirit. For neither can He be severed from the Father, Who is ever of and in the Father; nor again disunited from His own Spirit, Who operates all things by means of It … For we must not conceive separation or division in any way; as if either the Son could be supposed without the Father, or the Spirit disunited from the Son. But there is discovered between them some ineffable and incomprehensible, both union and distinction."

As the Trinity is indivisible Family… the Church is God’s Adopted family. “God became Man … so that man might become god” … so said St. Athanasius. We are ‘small’ gods … to the degree we obey & glorify the Father and Son … via the H.S.

 

[CentralFLJames]

Here are some of my own private thoughts but I am sure that there are Catholic theologians who have given this topic much more thorough thought.

God in His 3 Divine Persons is Eternal. In heaven there is no “time” per say but just a beatific vision in “one eternal now”. Before Jesus was given a human body the hypostatic union was not manifest and Jesus was One in The Trinity. I think it is safe to project the speculation that when Christ was born by the Immaculate Conception to become “flesh” the Hypostatic Union was manifest. That gave Jesus an earthly and material presence in time and space and instantiated or revealed His Divine-Human nature. That is essentially a willful subordination of His own Divine Nature to an estate of humanity. This necessitates that Jesus have a self willed and self-regulated restraint of certain facilities of his divine and higher ordered nature to permit Him to authentically and genuinely be “human” concurrent with being Divine.

In other words through the Hypostatic Union Christ limits his conscious knowledge to the trust of The Father to reveal through human intellect what is “sufficient” for him to perform His mission. This also sets the example for men to trust in God to illumine their minds with divine faith “sufficient” to do The Father’s Will and at times when it is needed. In essence God protects Jesus as a “father” protects his “son” so Jesus’ divinity can not be manifest in ways that might otherwise render Him insincere in his humanity. For example the moral obligation to warn a person of the sins that they are contemplating before they are committed (known only by God The Father). By the father moderating what the Son should know in His humanity The Father preempts the occasion for Jesus to compromise His humanity and become insincere in His human humility. It also might preclude Him from certain human moral dilemmas in withholding Divine privilege truths that he is not consciously aware of (e.g. to not reveal a soul’s final fate to a beloved disciple in the detailed particulars to their future).

This is a complex area of thought and I hope I have not added to any confusion.

My theory and way of reasoning here is to conclude here that the Son must in the “order of persons” be 2nd in order to accommodate a genuine human nature. If there was not an order of persons then Jesus in the flesh would be less than human and more of a divine illusion or facade that would become disingenuous both to God and to all humans that Jesus related to as a human being AND as God/Divine. Clearly this is an impossibility sice it would be a violation of what we do know about God’s nature. In essence God elects to humble himself of His own free will and subordinate Himself through the 2nd person Jesus in a mystical way that makes it all “Real” for every context in heaven and on earth. Jesus is the bridge between the material world of time-and-space and spiritual world of Eternity.

By the way, I think I cam derive that there must also likely be an inner-working of the Trinity where the Son in his Humanity relates to the Father purely through His finite HUMAN Soul (viz the Hypostatic Union) coincident with his unlimited divine nature in a kind of dual con-substantial relationship with His own Divine Sonship in the 2nd person. It’s complex and will always be a mystery to us and makes me dizzy thinking of it.

At the bottom I have faith that God makes it all work and any apparent contradictions here are only because of a limitation in our human intellect but are not defects in truth.

James

 

[Me123]

Thank you for your responses,
CA and CAF are really good.
JW aren’t the problem, some Muslim sheikh speaking about trinity was it.
But know that’s already much better comprehensible.
Thank you!