Why is "God" interchangeable for "God the Father", but not for the Son or the Holy Spirit?

[MH84]

I meant they only believed in God as Father: they didn’t recognize any sense of “Sonship” in God, since He was before all else.

Okay, but why does that mean only God the Father was called “God” by the Apostles? How does thinking that God was their Father mean that only God the Father should be called God, but not the eternal Son and Holy Spirit? If the apostles knew that Jesus was the God of Abraham, Issac and Jacob as well as the Father, why did they think it appropriate to only call the Father, “God”?

 

[SD_Catholic]

Thanks for your words. I don’t think my brain will explode, theres still heaps of room in my skull if you know what I mean.

I want to address the quote. If the writer’s didnt think it was an issue, why did they not ever clarify what they meant by “God”. When Peter told the people that “God has made Jesus both Lord and Christ”, and that “God annointed Jesus with the Holy Spirit”; why didnt they ever clarify that Jesus and the Holy Spirit were also God? Also, when they were talking about “God” why didnt they ever say they were talking about “God the Father”, not the Son or the Holy Spirit?

The main point I want to raise is, why did they think that the Father was to be called God while the other Persons were not? And why did they think the Father deserved precedence when using the title of God?

I’m not saying that’s for sure why they didn’t clarify it, but that’s just a point. If they didn’t think it would be an issue they in return wouldn’t see it necessary to clarify it.

And the ECFs seemed to understand it so perhaps one of them asked. The writer responded, " oh yeah for sure Jesus is God too, I thought you knew that already."… and the ECF said, “yeah yeah I knew that, it’s just this guy I know and his buddy were wondering…”

SD

 

[japhy]

Okay, but why does that mean only God the Father was called “God” by the Apostles? How does thinking that God was their Father mean that only God the Father should be called God, but not the eternal Son and Holy Spirit? If the apostles knew that Jesus was the God of Abraham, Issac and Jacob as well as the Father, why did they think it appropriate to only call the Father, “God”?

I guess it depends on context. St. Thomas called Jesus “my Lord and my God” – I don’t think he was simply exclaiming “Jesus and Yahweh!” but rather confessing Jesus to be Lord and God. Sometimes it “makes more sense” to refer to the Father as God, in juxtaposition to Jesus or the Holy Spirit. Saying God sent God, or saying God endowed someone with God makes very little sense.

 

[Noreb]

Well I would like to think I have some of that too, but evidently not enough to undestand what your hidden agenda is. . Before I go jumping to conclusions how about you clear it up a little.

SD

Hi:
Does it have to be a hidden agenda?
If one analyzes what the Bible say without drawing conclusions ahead of time; because one belongs to this religion or that one;then one may get the real message of the Bible.
LET THE BIBLE SPEAKS FOR ITSELF; after all Jesus and his Apostles said that it is the TRUE

 

[SD_Catholic]

Hi:
Does it have to be a hidden agenda?
If one analyzes what the Bible say without drawing conclusions ahead of time; because one belongs to this religion or that one;then one may get the real message of the Bible.
LET THE BIBLE SPEAKS FOR ITSELF; after all Jesus and his Apostles said that it is the TRUE

Nope… doesn’t have to be hidden… in fact much easier if you just come right out and say it:thumbsup: Fortunately I belong to the Catholic Church (you know the one Jesus established), so I don’t have to rely on my personal interpretation to figure out what the Bible is saying. I think it’s easy to see what happens when we let the Bible “speak for itself”. By the way what does the Bible tell you when it speaks for itself, because I bet the next person that reads the same thing will get a different idea and the next and the next. Hopefully you are getting to a point otherwise a moderator is going to bust our chops.

SD

 

[mackbrislawn]

Excellent question and to the point.

The idea is that the Father is the source of all essence, including the essence of divinity, that is, the Son and the Holy Spirit receive their divinity from the Father. Only the Father is God by virtue of Himself. The Son, on the other hand, is generated from the Father, and the HS issues from the relationship, the love, between the Father and the Son.

 

[catholic1seeks]

From the Catechism —

238 Many religions invoke God as “Father”. the deity is often considered the “father of gods and of men”. In Israel, God is called “Father” inasmuch as he is Creator of the world.59 Even more, God is Father because of the covenant and the gift of the law to Israel, “his first-born son”.60 God is also called the Father of the king of Israel. Most especially he is “the Father of the poor”, of the orphaned and the widowed, who are under his loving protection.61

239 By calling God “Father”, the language of faith indicates two main things: that God is the first origin of everything and transcendent authority; and that he is at the same time goodness and loving care for all his children. God’s parental tenderness can also be expressed by the image of motherhood,62 which emphasizes God’s immanence, the intimacy between Creator and creature. the language of faith thus draws on the human experience of parents, who are in a way the first representatives of God for man. But this experience also tells us that human parents are fallible and can disfigure the face of fatherhood and motherhood. We ought therefore to recall that God transcends the human distinction between the sexes. He is neither man nor woman: he is God. He also transcends human fatherhood and motherhood, although he is their origin and standard:63 no one is father as God is Father.

240 Jesus revealed that God is Father in an unheard-of sense: he is Father not only in being Creator; he is eternally Father by his relationship to his only Son who, reciprocally, is Son only in relation to his Father: "No one knows the Son except the Father, and no one knows the Father except the Son and any one to whom the Son chooses to reveal him."64

241 **For this reason the apostles confess Jesus to be the Word: “In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God”; **as “the image of the invisible God”; as the “radiance of the glory of God and the very stamp of his nature”.65

242 Following this apostolic tradition, the Church confessed at the first ecumenical council at Nicaea (325) that the Son is “consubstantial” with the Father, that is, one only God with him.66 The second ecumenical council, held at Constantinople in 381, kept this expression in its formulation of the Nicene Creed and confessed “the only-begotten Son of God, eternally begotten of the Father, light from light, true God from true God, begotten not made, consubstantial with the Father”.67​

vatican.va/archive/ENG0015/__P17.HTM

 

[MarcoPG]

I would like to add this:

As a start, here is the wiki article on Subordinationism en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Subordinationism

And also, it would be good for you to read about the doctrine of the monarchy of the Father.

articulifidei.blogspot.co.at/2011/01/monarchy-god-father-or-essencegodhead.html

solzemli.wordpress.com/2010/06/05/the-trinity-scripture-and-the-greek-fathers-by-fr-john-behr/

WIthout the Father who is the First cause and source, you would logicallly not have the Son or the Spirit, even in the Eternity. But the Father begets the Son, and is source of the Spirit. that means even if it is One God, and all the Persons have the same nature, might, love and all the attributes of God, there is a logical “subordination” to the Father, so to speak, because God is Three but One Will. BUT BEWARE: It the same as the heresy of Arius. When I use this idea of Fahter source of all, also of the other Persons, it is to describe the dynamism of the Trinity, not to undermine anything in the other 2 Persons