Two questions about the trinity

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Muslims say that there is one God and one person and that it is a contradiction to say that one God is three persons.
Hi,
If that is true, from the Muslim point of Religion and God, fine. However, that is totally not what I experienced, in the gift of Mary to me, then nor now.

…Kate.
 
Dear Vico

I’m talking about the Persons & Persons are really three, not only in our way of thinking. So my main problem is: “How needless Divine Persons could not be perfect Without each other?”

Please give me a good answer for this.

All the best
There is no way for the Father, and the Son, and the Holy Spirit to be without each other. It is that simple. It is essential because Godhead is simple. So, you propose something that cannot be. How could there be perfection in what cannot be?
 
Muslims say that there is one God and one person and that it is a contradiction to say that one God is three persons.
So would Muslims say it is a contradiction for 1 Water to be three things: namely a gas, a solid, and a liquid? It’s the same thing but different in its form.
 
Dear Vico

I’m talking about the Persons & Persons are really three, not only in our way of thinking. So my main problem is: “How needless Divine Persons could not be perfect Without each other?”

Please give me a good answer for this.

All the best
It is relation referred to an opposite relation that has real distinction not referred to essence.

St. Thomas Aquinas wrote in Summa Theologica, I, Q30, A1:

But relation as referred to the essence%between% does not differ therefrom really, but only in our way of thinking; while as referred to an opposite relation, it has a real distinction by virtue of that opposition. Thus there are one essence and three persons.
 
Guys yall have spent hundreds of posts going around and around on this. It would be great to have one thread on the Trinity that’s not a Vico/javid ping pong extravaganza. 🙂
Are you asking for me to stop posting on the Trinity?
 
It is relation referred to an opposite relation that has real distinction not referred to essence.

St. Thomas Aquinas wrote in Summa Theologica, I, Q30, A1:

But relation as referred to the essence%between% does not differ therefrom really, but only in our way of thinking; while as referred to an opposite relation, it has a real distinction by virtue of that opposition. Thus there are one essence and three persons.
Dear Vico

I really do not have any problem on Relation. We talked on relation and we do not need more. Here, My problem is on persons.

You said “Without each other the Divine Persons, Father, Son, and Holy Spirit, could not be perfect.” and That means they need each other to be perfect, And I ask “How can they do need each other while they as real God are needless?”
There is no way for the Father, and the Son, and the Holy Spirit to be without each other. It is that simple. It is essential because Godhead is simple. So, you propose something that cannot be. How could there be perfection in what cannot be?
I did not get the point. What cannot be?
 
Dear Vico

I really do not have any problem on Relation. We talked on relation and we do not need more. Here, My problem is on persons.

You said “Without each other the Divine Persons, Father, Son, and Holy Spirit, could not be perfect.” and That means they need each other to be perfect, And I ask “How can they do need each other while they as real God are needless?”

I did not get the point. What cannot be?
The Three Persons (Father, Son, and Holy Spirit) cannot be without each other. The relations are essential.

Without each other the Divine Persons, Father, Son, and Holy Spirit, could not be perfect.
 
So would Muslims say it is a contradiction for 1 Water to be three things: namely a gas, a solid, and a liquid? It’s the same thing but different in its form.
Firstly, it could not exist in all three states simultaneously, but more importantly is that the Persons of the Trinity are not personas adopted, that is, they are not three separate forms taken on by a singular God.
 
Firstly, it could not exist in all three states simultaneously, but more importantly is that the Persons of the Trinity are not personas adopted, that is, they are not three separate forms taken on by a singular God.
This is beside the point really, but look up the triple point of water.

Of course, in reality water has more than three phases, which is not the only reason to reject this analogy as you point out. But all analogies fall down: that’s why you have to be clear exactly what idea they are an analogy for.
 
Firstly, it could not exist in all three states simultaneously, but more importantly is that the Persons of the Trinity are not personas adopted, that is, they are not three separate forms taken on by a singular God.
Hi,

I am not sure, this is a legal post. I am not sure if I am allowed to say these things, and if I am not please tell me, and I will exit. The only authority I have to say these things, is from The Catholic Church, they through their auspicies, ran a fleece type of test, on a two year set of happenings in my life. I am commanded to believe in all of it now, not just parts of that.

To all of you, if these things really happened and it really is God, then this is what you cannot find, error or contradictions Biblically. None of what happened to me, is not totally in harmony Biblically and if it is, then these things never happened, from God.
The major God encounters happening in late January of 2006 and ended in the fall of 2007. However, the start of all this happened in 1955 or so, I just never was knowledgeable of that, till later. You can find errors in my grammar, or spelling as this keyboard and I don’t get along perfectly, nor am I the greatest typist in the world. You can also find errors when I am tired, but if this really was God, as that Spiritual Director said, through his proof, then none of this can be in contradiction to any of the Bible, correctly translated and understood.

You are talking of God, trinitarianly. I have interfaced with God trinitarianly in the past once, and no I cannot forget that ever, I think.
Personally I still have the priveledge of interfacing with God some of the time. I only offer what I know of them from that one Trinitarian Essence Presentation to me, and my priveledged personal interfaces and interactions, on your subject, THE TRINITY. I try and teach you nothing ever, as that is forbidden of me, by God actually and in a loving wasy now. Initially it was just a command, through a statement he had made to me, throuhgh a priest one day.
(When this all happened to me, I was told not to teach, as I am so bad at it. I am so bad that God has to undo all of the things I have tried to do correctly, just to get the person back to the position they were in when they first had a problem or a question about God. Pretty Bad isn’t it? I have had proof that this is true, so that helps me monitor my self. I can and am allowed to share my experiences though, but only those, and I strive ever so hard to do only that.)

Thank-you.

After I thank you again later, and all the members here from my heart, for allowing me to come up to speed on your educations, language and not kicking out me, for having experience only, I would like to comment on the item above from my experience, as it is quite close to what I deal with. Yes the others are not adopted. One is begat. The other is sent. And the next part although I have said it much, does not seem to work.

Jesus who is begotten, always is Jesus in every way personally that I have ever encountered Him, even when He is in others imparting unimaginable amounts of love, into a person and stunning me beyone belief, almost, when that was aptly demonstrated to me one day. The first such unexpected encounter, lasted four hours, the love of Jesus in another person. At first I was so stunned, my speech failed, my thoughts failed. I could not talk for awhile. The girl in whom this resided looked at me wondering what was happening to me. She did not and does not have a clue. Yes, I have experienced God Trinitarianly and Personally and even Mary being able to block from me, what they wish to.
I finally was able to get some speech and thought processes going in three hours or so. Yet, He is totally Jesus. The same goes with The Father in personal ways. The same goes with Mary in personal ways. The SAME GOES with the HOLY SPIRIT, in personal ways. They are all personal and maybe?, set aside their GodHood, somehow when dealing with us as individual persons. I have zero ideas on how they can do that, but it is what I experience and have experienced, many many times, or more.
Back to my understanding of Three persons, and I cannot give this all to you quickly. I cannot. I am three people in one body typically. You are three people in one body, and you don’t know it normally. It is your life, and you normally do not think or become aware of your threeness with your personal father in you being in charge of the other two, or your personal mother in you being in charge of the other two. I had to learn this. It took twenty of my years or so, before I stopped. And until I understood this in myself, I could not go to the next point. “Let ‘us’ make man in ‘our’ image.”

I could not understand the us part, nor the our part, until I too knew I was three people in one body, always.

I am made like God in that way and you are made like God in that trintarian way also lacking only all of the original components of God put into my own child part, my own working part and my own parent part.
Thinking on that last part and from what I have seen, I conjecture, I guess, that individual parts of God are given to us, like the wisdom in Wisdom, whereby all of God’s wisdom is put into her, (as it is written in Proverbs 8 and confirmed in the first line of Proverbs 9.), yet still God has that same wisdom still in Him. To us we get copies or incomplete parts of the whole, but still made copies not a portion of the original.
Only the original parts of God, in being begetted, or sent, like Jesus and The Holy Spirit, only there to me, were the original parts used,ONLY!

Thank-you all and am I making any sense to you from my language set?

…Kate/C.
 
The Three Persons (Father, Son, and Holy Spirit) cannot be without each other. The relations are essential.

Without each other the Divine Persons, Father, Son, and Holy Spirit, could not be perfect.
Dear Vico

God is Self-exist so it is not true to say: He cannot be without another one.

Father is God, Son is God & Father is not Son: So they must can be without each other, if they are God.
 
Dear Vico

God is Self-exist so it is not true to say: He cannot be without another one.

Father is God, Son is God & Father is not Son: So they must can be without each other, if they are God.
False. He can only be ONE. Hence the One God. Look at these scriptures to help you see this unity a little better. These are from John 10 DRA

''That which my Father hath given me, is greater than all: and no one can snatch them out of the hand of my Father.

30 I and the Father are one.

31 The Jews then took up stones to stone him.

32 Jesus answered them: Many good works I have shewed you from my Father; for which of these works do you stone me?

33 The Jews answered him: For a good work we stone thee not, but for blasphemy; and because that thou, being a man, maketh thyself God.

34 Jesus answered them: Is it not written in your law: I said you are gods?

35 If he called them gods, to whom the word of God was spoken, and the scripture cannot be broken;

36 Do you say of him whom the Father hath sanctified and sent into the world: Thou blasphemest, because I said, I am the Son of God?

37 If I do not the works of my Father, believe me not.

38 But if I do, though you will not believe me, believe the works: that you may know and believe that the Father is in me, and I in the Father.’’

Followed by a reaffirmation of this in John 14 (NIV: Same meaning, just easier to understand than the DRA)

‘’
‘‘Philip said, “Lord, show us the Father and that will be enough for us.’’

9 Jesus answered: “Don’t you know me, Philip, even after I have been among you such a long time? Anyone who has seen me has seen the Father. How can you say, ‘Show us the Father’? 10 Don’t you believe that I am in the Father, and that the Father is in me? The words I say to you I do not speak on my own authority. Rather, it is the Father, living in me, who is doing his work. 11 Believe me when I say that I am in the Father and the Father is in me; or at least believe on the evidence of the works themselves. 12 Very truly I tell you, whoever believes in me will do the works I have been doing, and they will do even greater things than these, because I am going to the Father. 13 And I will do whatever you ask in my name, so that the Father may be glorified in the Son.’’

So here we Have Jesus Saying look: We are one. And the Father is Glorified IN the Son. Which is important. This is WHAT the Son’s purpose is. To show us (be the Light in the world) the Father. And if you remember the Son is Glorified by the Father. And Further more read Just a tad further in 14… Here He tells us WHAT IS the Holy Spirit.

''23 Jesus answered, and said to him: If any one love me, he will keep my word, and my Father will love him, and WE will come to him, and will make our abode with him.

24 He that loveth me not, keepeth not my words. And the word which you have heard, is not mine; but the Father’s who sent me.

25 These things have I spoken to you, abiding with you.
‘’
So the Holy Spirit is this ‘‘WE’’ spoken of above coming to dwell within us.
 
Firstly, it could not exist in all three states simultaneously, but more importantly is that the Persons of the Trinity are not personas adopted, that is, they are not three separate forms taken on by a singular God.
So if I take a cup of water molecules are they not one Water? And Secondly if it is in liquid form, is gas in the liquid? If I have a solid is not liquid in the ice?
 
Dear Vico

God is Self-exist so it is not true to say: He cannot be without another one.

Father is God, Son is God & Father is not Son: So they must can be without each other, if they are God.
The Father, The Son, and The Holy Spirit are the Divine Persons. Godhead is founded on the three together so they are never apart. The Trinity is not like a creature made of matter (like a human) or of non-matter (like an angel). Any identity is in the essence, and there is only one essence.

Catholic Encylpedia has an interesting comment on the topic of Person:For the constitution of a person it is required that a reality be subsistent and absolutely distinct, i.e. incommunicable. The three Divine realities are relations, each identified with the Divine Essence. A finite relation has reality only in so far as it is an accident; it has the reality of inherence. The Divine relations, however, are in the nature not by inherence but by identity. The reality they have, therefore, is not that of an accident, but that of a subsistence. They are one with ipsum esse subsistens. Again every relation, by its very nature, implies opposition and so distinction. In the finite relation this distinction is between subject and term. In the infinite relations there is no subject as distinct from the relation itself; the Paternity is the Father–and no term as distinct from the opposing relation; the Filiation is the Son. The Divine realities are therefore distinct and mutually incommunicable through this relative opposition; they are subsistent as being identified with the subsistence of the Godhead, i.e. they are persons. The use of the word persona to denote them, however, led to controversy between East and West.

Geddes, L. (1911). Person. In The Catholic Encyclopedia. New York: Robert Appleton Company.
newadvent.org/cathen/11726a.htm
 
The Father, The Son, and The Holy Spirit are the Divine Persons. Godhead is founded on the three together so they are never apart. The Trinity is not like a creature made of matter (like a human) or of non-matter (like an angel). Any identity is in the essence, and there is only one essence.

Catholic Encylpedia has an interesting comment on the topic of Person:For the constitution of a person it is required that a reality be subsistent and absolutely distinct, i.e. incommunicable. The three Divine realities are relations, each identified with the Divine Essence. A finite relation has reality only in so far as it is an accident; it has the reality of inherence. The Divine relations, however, are in the nature not by inherence but by identity. The reality they have, therefore, is not that of an accident, but that of a subsistence. They are one with ipsum esse subsistens. Again every relation, by its very nature, implies opposition and so distinction. In the finite relation this distinction is between subject and term. In the infinite relations there is no subject as distinct from the relation itself; the Paternity is the Father–and no term as distinct from the opposing relation; the Filiation is the Son. The Divine realities are therefore distinct and mutually incommunicable through this relative opposition; they are subsistent as being identified with the subsistence of the Godhead, i.e. they are persons. The use of the word persona to denote them, however, led to controversy between East and West.

Geddes, L. (1911). Person. In The Catholic Encyclopedia. New York: Robert Appleton Company.
newadvent.org/cathen/11726a.htm
Javid and Vico,
You are both right, but you don’t know it yet. Within Jesus is the Father, and within Jesus is The Holy Spirit, but not in the way you think of this.
If I had One thing, and wished to make two more things, each of which had to have the same three things in it in order to function, how would I do that, assuming I can remove some things from the One thing, without changing it’s function?
First I would have to see what the One thing is made of, to function. Once this is identified, accurately, I would have to take a part of each part of the One thing, to make the other and the other thing.
Can you work out the rest, knowing that Jesus is Begat, and The Holy Spirit is sent?
…Kate.
 
This doesn’t seem like a “Catholic” with “faith” kind of question!:eek:
 
Javid and Vico,
You are both right, but you don’t know it yet. Within Jesus is the Father, and within Jesus is The Holy Spirit, but not in the way you think of this.
If I had One thing, and wished to make two more things, each of which had to have the same three things in it in order to function, how would I do that, assuming I can remove some things from the One thing, without changing it’s function?
First I would have to see what the One thing is made of, to function. Once this is identified, accurately, I would have to take a part of each part of the One thing, to make the other and the other thing.
Can you work out the rest, knowing that Jesus is Begat, and The Holy Spirit is sent?
…Kate.
It is not in the way thought of because that is analogous for created things, not for the simplicity of Godhead.

As St. Thomas elaborated in Summa Theologica Q28, 4, there are four real relations:


  1. *]paternity (the relation of the principle of generation),
    *]filiation (the relation of the one proceeding from the principle),
    *]spiration (the relation of the principle of this procession), and
    *]procession (the relation of the person proceeding).
 
It is not in the way thought of because that is analogous for created things, not for the simplicity of Godhead.

As St. Thomas elaborated in Summa Theologica Q28, 4, there are four real relations:


  1. *]paternity (the relation of the principle of generation),
    *]filiation (the relation of the one proceeding from the principle),
    *]spiration (the relation of the principle of this procession), and
    *]procession (the relation of the person proceeding).

  1. I am sorry that both of you think that I am wrong, you and the one obove your last post, and if I am: I am also sorry that I am wrong and will instantly upon understanding, change my position to a not heretical one, if that is the case.
    I actually have no revealed knowledged on the issue of Jesus being The Only Begotten Son, that I know of. I am trying to figure that part out, from several direct incidents.
    Yet, I am no philosopher nor theolgian, thus do not share your word definitions. Can you tell me what the above means to you. That might be the simplist way for me, if you would care to, using none of your accidental esoteric language, from your background?

    To say though that creation is analagous to begetting, is something that I may understand. If I do understand that, then how is my making a daughter a creation in terms of how God seemed to have created all things. I used not my wisdom, to do that. I did not. So, if that is correct, I created nothing but merely used that which is within each of two people and really by an act caught up in many things, one of which is hormonal, (hidden from us), and one of the others is wanting children, (also an unknown as to why), one of which is love, and in all of those not one single act did I create anything such as energy distilation, or order, but just reacted rather than acted, how can procreation by me reasonalbe be called creation by me. I didn’t even get to pick boy or girl, size, health or anything. How can you call that act, analogouse to creation, by me. Creation by me. I Created nothing. I did not even create me.
    You also used the word simplicity, and used it in Godhead. How is the Godhead simple to those who God does not need to know of this yet? (I did, so I don’t count.) It is said, maybe mythologically maybe in reality, that even Saint Augustine, could not know God, implying to me even the Godhead. So how can you say that, accurately?
    Begotten, the word here being discussed, and I would certainly like to know a little more about this, implies an almost identical copy in all ways, except in person. (And it is what I saw. Each of them in power, form, color, height, was identical to the other one. They were.) I had quite the working knowledge of God, before any of this went down, later my knowledge was beyond better, but not all inclusive I feel. For instance, I of course am not allowed to teach, and I don’t know every single passage in the Bible. All I do now, is live a life that includes all God asks me to include, and all God asks me to do also. They are “family to me now. I live and interact with them as my personal family.”. Yet, this discussion on the Trinity, two questions about that, is not about me, nor my relationship with all of Them, it is about the meaning of Only Begotten Son. Was he created as you are implying I said, but never did and never could without thowing away the Church and throwing away the Bible, in order to do so,? No, I would not and could not say that.
    Begetting to me is taking only from yourself, and making another. What is not there, is would He God do it this way or that way. He did it God’s way, I say, the perfect way, other than being another person, He is identical in all ways to God, the one who Begat Him.
    …Kate.
 
Apologies if this is a repetition.
Alongside all the ‘splainin’ going on it’s good to remember that the Trinity is a mystery. Mystery does not mean something completely un-knowable, but is something not knowable in it’s fullness.
234 The mystery of the Most Holy Trinity is the central mystery of Christian faith and life. It is the mystery of God in himself. It is therefore the source of all the other mysteries of faith, the light that enlightens them. It is the most fundamental and essential teaching in the “hierarchy of the truths of faith”.56 The whole history of salvation is identical with the history of the way and the means by which the one true God, Father, Son and Holy Spirit, reveals himself to men “and reconciles and unites with himself those who turn away from sin”.57
235 This paragraph expounds briefly (I) how the mystery of the Blessed Trinity was revealed, (II) how the Church has articulated the doctrine of the faith regarding this mystery, and (III) how, by the divine missions of the Son and the Holy Spirit, God the Father fulfills the “plan of his loving goodness” of creation, redemption and sanctification.
236 The Fathers of the Church distinguish between theology (theologia) and economy (oikonomia). “Theology” refers to the mystery of God’s inmost life within the Blessed Trinity and “economy” to all the works by which God reveals himself and communicates his life. Through the oikonomia the theologia is revealed to us; but conversely, the theologia illuminates the whole oikonomia. God’s works reveal who he is in himself; the mystery of his inmost being enlightens our understanding of all his works. So it is, analogously, among human persons. A person discloses himself in his actions, and the better we know a person, the better we understand his actions.
237 The Trinity is a mystery of faith in the strict sense, one of the “mysteries that are hidden in God, which can never be known unless they are revealed by God”.58 To be sure, God has left traces of his Trinitarian being in his work of creation and in his Revelation throughout the Old Testament. But his inmost Being as Holy Trinity is a mystery that is inaccessible to reason alone or even to Israel’s faith before the Incarnation of God’s Son and the sending of the Holy Spirit.
 
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