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Techno2000
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A New Age Favorite
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Gabriel_of_12
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Correction; When God is Father in presence, the Father, Son and Holy Spirit is One God in Trinity Essence undivided, without confusion or separation. The Father does not proceed, The Father eternally begets the Son, because the Father lives and breathes life eternal with the Holy spirit proceeding who gives the breath of life, who proceeds from the Father and Son.
The Father is greater than the Son, because the Father is present tense existing eternally, the Son’s presence is secondary because the presence of the Son took on flesh in space and time for the salvation of man. If you can imagine God the Father breathing life in eternity, God the Father eternally begets the Son. In all this God the Holy Spirit proceeds eternally in and with and from the Son, who makes this divine revelation known to our humanity.
When the Second person of the Trinity is present, the Word of God reveals the Father is in the Son and the Son is in the Father.
Without the Holy Spirit, one can confuse the Essence of God which does not come down to us, with the presence of God. For it is God in Trinity presence, who teaches us not man.
An attribute of God is gained wisdom human knowledge of the divine presence. An attribute of God is not God in Trinity Essence.
Before the incarnation of God is revealed in the fullness of Times. God revealed His presence in cool of the day with Adam, in the burning bush with Moses, in the whisper of the wind with the prophet, in the Shekinah cloud by day and fire by night. In all of these instances the Father (voice), the Son (Word), and the Holy Spirit (breath of God) are all veiled yet the presence of each person in the Trinity is made known.
When the voice is heard, the Father’s presence is made known, when the Word which the Father begets in the Son is heard and made known by the Holy Spirit proceeding in presence to the hearts of those who have ears to hear and eyes to see what God makes known to our humanity.
Do not confuse biblical symbols for example a dove, or biblical typology to be litteral God.
Peace be with you
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Vico
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Especially in the west where non-dual Vedanta, qualified non-dual Vedanta, and difference and non difference Vedanta have been adopted by some. In contrast Vedanta dualism of Madhva is close to the Christian:
“Dualism believes that God is a personal being who creates the universe and the world of souls. The creation is real and the created beings and things are different from and dependent on God. The bondage of the soul is due to its forgetfulness of God, and liberation is communion with God.” - from Hinduism by Swami Adiswarananda.
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Servant19
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Hi Vico, I think you’ve misunderstood my question. There is nothing in the above post I disagree with but it doesn’t answer the question.
Can you please elaborate further therefore on what an absolute attribute is and what is a relative attribute?
Thank you
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Vico
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Absolute: Divine qualities considered to be independent of any relationships between God and created objects or beings. (Example: intelligence, love, and life in God)Hi Vico, I think you’ve misunderstood my question. There is nothing in the above post I disagree with but it doesn’t answer the question.
Can you please elaborate further therefore on what an absolute attribute is and what is a relative attribute?
Thank you
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Relative: Divine qualities considered to be involving relationships between God and created objects or beings. (Examples: goodness - natural, moral, relative, omnipotence, providence)
Another way to group divine attributes is:
- metaphysical predicates: omnipotence, omnipresence, eternity, omniscience, and unity 2. moral attributes: justice and goodness.
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MartinJordan
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Of course, nowhere in Scripture do we find God calling himself the “Trinity.” This is a human, philosophic word that the Church finds most suitable to state in a word the central point of the Christian understanding of what is said in the New Testament about God.
We are invited to contemplate, so to speak, the Heart of God, his deepest reality which is his being One in the Trinity, a supreme and profound communication of love and life. The whole of sacred Scripture speaks to us of him. Indeed, it is he who speaks to us of himself in the Scriptures and reveals himself as Creator of the universe and Lord of history.
Christianity begins not with “What do I think God ought to be called,” but with “How does God speak of Himself?” He speaks to us in words and deeds. The name we use is intended to identify, make intelligible, the reality that the name indicates. Among the ancients, to “name” a thing often meant to "posses it.
“What is God’s name?” (Exodus 34) The answer is given in the Old Testament that He is “merciful and gracious, slow to anger, and abounding in steadfast love and faithfulness.” These words are “human words” in the Holy Spirit, but they tell us “the truth about God.” This truth is after all what we want to know above else, the truth about God. These words tell us “the Name of the Ineffable One. This Name is Mercy, Grace Faithfulness.” The names used in the Old Testament and the name used in the New Testament do not describe different “gods” but, ever more clearly and incisively, the same God. They are continuations, developments, if you will, of the same revelation.
The “logic” in the understanding of God is the increasing comprehension of what it means to say that God is love. That name is the word used by John in his Gospel to speak of Him. We seek “the Face of the Invisible One, (words used in the Old Testament) to tell us the Name of the Ineffable One. This Name is Mercy, Grace, Faithfulness.” Each of these words, on examination, brings out a different aspect of what Love means. Hence, they indicate what God is - Pope Emeritus Benedict XVI
We are invited to contemplate, so to speak, the Heart of God, his deepest reality which is his being One in the Trinity, a supreme and profound communication of love and life. The whole of sacred Scripture speaks to us of him. Indeed, it is he who speaks to us of himself in the Scriptures and reveals himself as Creator of the universe and Lord of history.
Christianity begins not with “What do I think God ought to be called,” but with “How does God speak of Himself?” He speaks to us in words and deeds. The name we use is intended to identify, make intelligible, the reality that the name indicates. Among the ancients, to “name” a thing often meant to "posses it.
“What is God’s name?” (Exodus 34) The answer is given in the Old Testament that He is “merciful and gracious, slow to anger, and abounding in steadfast love and faithfulness.” These words are “human words” in the Holy Spirit, but they tell us “the truth about God.” This truth is after all what we want to know above else, the truth about God. These words tell us “the Name of the Ineffable One. This Name is Mercy, Grace Faithfulness.” The names used in the Old Testament and the name used in the New Testament do not describe different “gods” but, ever more clearly and incisively, the same God. They are continuations, developments, if you will, of the same revelation.
The “logic” in the understanding of God is the increasing comprehension of what it means to say that God is love. That name is the word used by John in his Gospel to speak of Him. We seek “the Face of the Invisible One, (words used in the Old Testament) to tell us the Name of the Ineffable One. This Name is Mercy, Grace, Faithfulness.” Each of these words, on examination, brings out a different aspect of what Love means. Hence, they indicate what God is - Pope Emeritus Benedict XVI
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Servant19
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Servant19
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hasantas
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What I understand: Father beget Son eternally and Holy Spirit proceed from Father and Son and both are united eternal in essence. That seems regardable for you but for me not.
There is no any obvious statements or evidence about Trinity in Torah and Bible and Qur’an say that is not true.
Trinity was emerged and established in Rome which was generally pagans.
“When God is Father in presence, the Father, Son and Holy Spirit is One God in Trinity”
So you talk about three persons and three gods which is polytheism but not one God. You do not say God has three names but you say God is three persons. Because you assume Son and Holy Spirit to have eternal attributes.
Father beget Son eternally is not clear. Did God create Son? If God beget then there should be a time to do that. If you talk about something which is begotten that cannot be eternal God.
Is Son only for to be incarnated? So Son do not do anything but became man and sacrificed! An interesting god.
If Son is eternal and god then how could it be incarnated? The eternal and divine essence do not transform. God is in existence as eternally and God do not settle in time and matter.
Reflection and manifestation of God to Moses is similar a reflection on the mirror. That mirror image is not the essence itself but it is the manifestation and reflection.
Voice of God come from all direction because it is beyond of matter. Voice of Son and Holy Spirit was not.
Holy Spirit appeared like a dove and it is written in Bible. That mean God also became dove but not only man! You say do not confuse Biblical symbols. That is very good. If God to be a dove is a symbol and metaphor so to be man is also metaphor(Indeed that is no any obvious verse which say God became man. But word became man. Yes God said Be!(word of God) and it happened(Jesus was created).
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Techno2000
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The Trinity was not “established” its alway been there…And God said, Let us make man in our image, after **our **likeness: Genesis 1:26
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Vico
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No, not “have”. The dogma of faith is that the Divine Attributes are really identical among themselves and with the Divine Essence.
The Catholic Church did declare about twenty-five dogmas on this.
You may be familiar with essence and accidents from metaphysics. There are no accidents in God; God is absolutely simple. This absolute simplicity is called a divine attribute and is essence.
Fundamentals of Catholic Dogma, Ludwig Ott, p. 28:
The attributes or properties of God are perfections, which, according to our analogical mode of thinking, proceed from the metaphysical substance of God and belong to it. Hence, we only know being of the absolutely simple Divine Substance" in part" (I Cor. 13, 9), i.e., in a multiplicity of inadequate concepts by which we know individual perfections of God truly but inadequately.
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Servant19
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If therefore, these attributes are identical with His essence, then since the attributes are such as intellect, love etc. (as you listed above) it makes Gods essence comprehensible.
This is a contradiction to what the Church teaches about the essence being incomprehensible.
How does that happen?
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Vico
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Not comprehensible, which means completely. There is some degree of knowing.
“God’s Nature is incomprehensible to men” is a dogma of faith. We use our way of thinking to describe.
St. Thomas Aquinas wrote in Summa Theologica Q12 A7:
But God, whose being is infinite, as was shown above (Article 7) is infinitely knowable. Now no created intellect can know God infinitely. For the created intellect knows the Divine essence more or less perfectly in proportion as it receives a greater or lesser light of glory. Since therefore the created light of glory received into any created intellect cannot be infinite, it is clearly impossible for any created intellect to know God in an infinite degree. Hence it is impossible that it should comprehend God.
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SyroMalankara
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the Holy Spirit proceeds from the Father through the Son. The Father begets, the Son is begotten and the Spirit proceeds. What seems regardable or not is irrelevant.
When you say ‘obvious’, you must mean ‘explicit’; however there are numerous references and indirect allusions. The Qur’an is obviously mistaken because the writer thinks the Trinity is 3 gods composed of father, Mary as mother and jesus. This only proves the Qur’an is not from God and is simply in error.
St. Justin Martyr, St. Ignathios of Antioch, and St. Theophilos of Antioch were using the term before 100AD.
if you mention three persons in one family does that make 3 families? Your flaw is mistaking ‘personhood’ for isolation or solitariness.
why? Was there a time before God is mercy or justice? Trinity is who God is, there is no time without, just as God is not without any attributes, nor does God need time.
The Son is involved in all creation, all redemption. You mistake the Son’s incarnation by rejecting His redemption and eternal Kingdom.
God can and did for the Salvation of the human race. We do not believe the Divine essence transformed.
The Father’s image/reflection is brought forth from Him eternally, we understand the Father’s icon to be the Son who is begotten. Our understanding is that God is relational.
When you saw Voice of God, we include the Son and Spirit in this.
There’s a difference between appearance of a dove and incarnation. I already told you that you will have to dispel 2000 years of Tradition and Church teaching of which the Holy Bible is one written portion. Quoting or stating your personal interpretation of the Bible will not sway Catholic or Orthodox Christians, or even most protestants. When we see that your interpretation contradicts what our Fathers handed down to us, along with the Bible, we know you are wrong
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Servant19
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So when we say God is All-Powerful, Catholics believe that this refers to God’s essence?
When we say All-Merciful, Catholics believe that this refers to God’s essence?
Etc. etc.??
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Vico
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Due to absolute simplicity, it must be so. The Council of Florence explained. in the Decretum pro Jacobitis (1441 A.D.):
“(in God) all is one. where an opposition of relation cloes not exist.”
The dogma is, from Fundamentals of Catholic Dogma, by Ludwig Ott, p. 28 : The Divine Attributes are really identical among themselves and with the Divine Essence.
Also, see, Summa Theologica, Q13 A4:
Reply to Objection 3. The perfect unity of God requires that what are manifold and divided in others should exist in Him simply and unitedly. Thus it comes about that He is one in reality, and yet multiple in idea, because our intellect apprehends Him in a manifold manner, as things represent Him.
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MartinJordan
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Servant19
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This, dear Vico, now becomes pantheism.
I have knowledge in me. I have love in me, as do you. By this theology, one must conclude, therefore, that God’s essence is manifested in creation. This is pantheism.
To maintain simplicity, Baha’i theology asserts that God’s essence is BEYOND all humanly expressed attributes. We assign the attributes of All-Loving, All-Powerful, All-Merciful, etc so as not to assign any IMPERFECTIONS onto His essence, but the essence cannot be expressed on this finite level of existence in creation.
The human painter is BEYOND the expressions found on his painting. The human painter is not the beauty, order and textures and colours found in His painting, he is far far far more than those expressions. One cannot find the neural pathways in the painting, one cannot find the optic nerve in the painting, nor can the paint on the painting fathom what an optic nerve could possibly be.
This is a manifest contradiction in applying the concept of “simplicity” to God.
What we see in Creation is an emanation of Gods active attributes, not His essential attributes.
"God in His Essence is unknowable, inaccessible to man: we can only say that He exists, but we cannot know anything else about Him, not even what `to exist’ means for Him.
And yet, we are used to ascribe to Him names and attributes: Creator, All-Knowing, Provider, or Word, Will, Love, and so on. The meaning of this ascription of names and attributes is explained in the Bahá’í texts in two ways:
- The names and attributes we ascribe to God refer to what we understand of them in the world of creation.
Abdu'l-Bahá says:Their [the attribute’s] existence is proved and necessitated by the appearance of phenomena’:[7] we see that the universe follows a harmonious and ordered way, and we say that God is its Ordainer; we see creatures, and we say that God is their Creator. But our understanding of these attributes is only what we have under-stood, in the plane of the world of creation, of these spiritual truths, which are far beyond our minds. This is what Western philosophers call via eminentiae. - The names and attributes we ascribe to God `are only in order to deny imperfections, rather than to assert the perfections that the human mind can conceive’.[8] For example, we say that He is the Almighty, meaning that He is not powerless, as His creatures are. This is what Western philosophy calls via negationis or remotionis."
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TonyBS
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Servants question, but the last passage of this quote, is all that we are saying to you, but using all the Holy Books of God.So what are the developments he’s talking about?
MJ
What is God’s name?" (Exodus 34) The answer is given in the Old Testament that He is “merciful and gracious, slow to anger, and abounding in steadfast love and faithfulness.” These words are “human words” in the Holy Spirit, but they tell us “the truth about God.” This truth is after all what we want to know above else, the truth about God. These words tell us “the Name of the Ineffable One. This Name is Mercy, Grace Faithfulness.” The names used in the Old Testament and the name used in the New Testament do not describe different “gods” but, ever more clearly and incisively, the same God**. They are continuations, developments, if you will, of the same revelation.**
Regards Tony
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MartinJordan
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They are. Not there are.
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