Every single term we use to describe God is defective in some way or other because creatures can never fully understand their Creator. Words are just signposts which point in the right direction but also reveal our lack of knowledge because we are attempting to define (impose limits) on the Undefinable: in the words of Rudolf Otto the “mysterium tremendum et fascinans”.
It wasn’t your post I quoted, it was that by poster chaplainmom, and this statement in particular:
Yes, and this is the problem when trying to explain God in positive/correct terms. Often we need to draw a correct understanding, even if ultimately inexpressible, by eliminating the wrong terms. In other words, we come to an orthodox understanding of God by eliminating from consideration what God is not.
Because there are only three personal notions (constituting persons): paternity, filiation, and procession.
Is it impossible for filation or procession to have also occurred in a fourth person, just one not yet revealed to us?
From a Christian standpoint? Yes, it’s impossible. We believe that Divine Revelation ended with the death of the last apostle. Therefore, we would have to posit that Jesus ‘lied’ when He identified God as a trinity, and that additional (but never-to-be-revealed) ‘Revelation’ exists.
The Trinity is based upon the revelation at the baptism of Jesus Christ in the Jordan when the Holy Spirit descended upon him like a dove, and the heavens open and the Father’s voice was heard: “You are my beloved Son; with you I am well pleased” (Mk 1:11) Also, Matthew 16 has Jesus’s statement to Simon Peter on identity, which is one of many:
He didn’t lie anymore than Moses and all of the prophets in the “Old Testament” “lied” when insisting that God is one. It’s a development, not a contradiction.
We’ve been here before, Pumpkin…
A “relationship with (one’s) self” is not a distinct person, though. So, stop using four fingers to count to three!Just as man is a father, he is also a husband, and a son, and he has a real relationship with with himself: the quadrality is modeled.
If God was 72 persons you would still ask this question. Just the number would change. Now if God was only one person would you still ask it? The knowledge that God is 3 persons comes from divine Revelation. Therefore, it was not conceived by man and therefore can not be fully understood by him. Thus, the answer to your question can not be known to us unless God reveals it to us. Nor is your question necessarily correct in its premise that God must be 3 persons. Perhaps, he could be a different number if he had wanted to. Perhaps, God could be as many persons as he wants.
By relationship with oneself, I meant to allude to arguments about the spirit being God too.A “relationship with (one’s) self” is not a distinct person, though. So, stop using four fingers to count to three!
God is not the “Husband” (of Mary nor anyone else)
– St Joseph is the Husband of Mary. :twocents: (Even though Christ is Bridegroom and the Church his Bride)
God is not the “Husband” (of Mary nor anyone else)
I’ve never considered nuns to be “married to God” either, no matter how warm&fuzzy it might sound to some.
tee
Yes, Mary is the spouse of the Holy Spirit. God himself revealed that he is the spouse of Israel when he calls the land “Married” (see Isaiah). Jesus is the bridegroom of the church. But Husband is not a person, it is a role or duty. There are still only 3 persons.
Mary is not divine.
Incorrect. Dei Verbum says:
Divine revelation did not end. It’s just that there will be no more until Jesus returns.
This is also incorrect. Jesus at no point says that God is a trinity. He does not say that there are only three persons in the Godhead. A Bible quote often used claiming that Jesus said God is strictly a Trinity is Matthew 28:19, "“Go therefore and make disciples of all the nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit,” But he is only mentioning those persons who God has deemed to reveal at that time. It’s just like in the Old Testament where God the Father is not lying when he tells people like Moses that he (the Father) was the one true god, and leaving out those persons who had yet to be revealed.
That in no way precludes there being more persons who have yet to be revealed.
See my previous post. More public revelation is to come, just not before Jesus returns. Also who is to say that the truth about the fourth, fifth, tenth persons of God must be publicly revealed? It’s possible that God may deem we are never to truly understand his nature and never reveal the full extent of the Godhead.
There reason that there are only three divine persons is that it has been defined as a dogma of faith in the Catholic Church. This was established in ancient times.
Translation: The Catholic Church is right on this matter because the Catholic Church says it is right on this matter.
The Church says God has revealed himself in three persons, yet at the same time calls God working in multiple persons as a divine mystery. It’s difficult to be both fully knowledgeable on a subject while simultaneously lacking in the most basic knowledge on the very same subject. The only reason the Church says that God is three persons is because that is how many persons have been revealed at this time. There is nothing in our understanding of how the Godhead operates which can’t allow for as-yet-unrevealed persons.