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Counterpoint
Guest
No comment.Then it is a “threesome”.
Based on one’s perspective, the dialectical process can be viewed as a kenotic process.
“And it is in dying that we are born to eternal life.” - The Prayer of St. Francis
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Counterpoint
Guest
I have already addressed this objection in my thread entitled “The Theology of the Eternally Begotten.”
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Counterpoint
Guest
The thesis is “birth,” the antithesis is “death,” and the synthesis is “rebirth.” And these three - birth, death, and rebirth - are one.
“Stay thirsty my friend.” - a quote from the most interesting man in the world
“Stay thirsty my friend.” - a quote from the most interesting man in the world
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Gabriel_of_12
Guest
No man can define the blessed Trinity. The Church only reveals what Jesus Christ has revealed to our humanity.
God created man in His image and likeness.
Because God has revealed is presence to our humanity in three ways by His Essence.
This theological and philosophical pretenses involve what is the presence of God and what is the Essence of God.
No man see’s God’s True Essence fully and lives.
It is reasonable to believe according to both scripture and man being created in the image and likeness of God. That God the Father is revealed in His Voice who is being, God’s presence not Essence is revealed in His breath (Holy Spirit) that gives life to man since the beginning, and God has made His presence known by His living Word who is also an eternal personal presence stemming from (begotten) the True Essence of God.
God is known by His voice which comes from the Father, God is known by His life He can only give by God the Holy Spirit, God is known by His Word.
The Voice, the breath ,the Word of God are all distinct from one another in revelation to our humanity. Yet all three living persons are One God in Essence, divinity and eternal being.
Because God is God, every attribute of God is living and existing eternally and reveals His presence to our humanity as Father=Voice, Holy Spirit=Breath (in creation) and His Word = Which became flesh God incarnate in revelation.
Calling to mind that each of these living persons reveal God’s presence to our humanity. Yet in the Voice, the Breath and the Word, God’s One True Essence is hidden in each revelations of persons.
Why the Trinity? Because God who is Love wants to commune His Love to our humanity and to all of creation with His presence.
As far as God’s Essence is concerned, no one has seen or knows including the created Angels except the Only begotten Son who is God Incarnate because Jesus revealed Himself as God who comes from God.
This is the problem with Islam, they are holding with Catholic’s to the unseen and unapproachable Essence of God. But Islam denies God the Father who speaks, God the Holy Spirit who breathes life and God with His Voice and breath sends His Word to fulfill His Will to redeem humanity back to His presence in Love.
God’s Essence has never come down to us, only God’s presence is revealed in and through the blessed Trinity.
Those who deny the Trinity revelation, are never able to reach God’s True Essence, for which they slave for, but never will attain God’s True Essence, in fact Angels and demons fear to tread here.
To come into God’s True Essence where the whole Trinity is being, all three distinct persons from one another without division and without confusion being One God existing in Eternity, without space and time, yet God revealed His presence in Trinity into creation and time.
For all things visible came through and from God which is invisible in the Voice, Breath and Word all three being distinct from one another, but the Trinity is never divided in ONE GOD and no other.
When man reveals his heart and mind, man images the Trinity, by sending his word, from his voice and breath, all three distinct from one another, yet all three come from one essence of man and all three reveal the one man’s essence from His heart and mind, who is only one and the same living person, that is you.
Creation cannot reach God’s Essence. God reveals His presence to creation, in the Father (Voice), and the Son (Word) and His Holy Spirit (breath of life) because creation comes from the one God who reveals His presence and makes His presence known in the persons of the Trinity.
Faith is our hope, reason begins the path of faith for our hope.
The Blessed Trinity is a mystery, yet God does not leave us orphans, God makes His presence known to those, who do not blind themselves by rejecting His (revealed Trinity) presence from our flesh that holds to only a carnal mind of understanding and self pride, which denies the invisible Spiritual realities from which the visible creation came from.
Peace be with you
I hope this gives you a different perspective that never conflicts with what has already been said by Catholics here.
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jochoa
Guest
Ok. My intention is to share that God freely chooses to love, to be the Holy Trinity. God has no need to love nor need to be Triune, is not forced to love nor be Triune, and is not actualized by love or Trinity because God is completely actual and free to do whatever.
Now I do recognize that in order for humans to become fully knowledgeable of God, we need God to reveal himself to us, which actually is a trinitarian process.
Saint Augustine also shared, “… this doctrine, that the Father, and the Son, and the Holy Spirit intimate a divine unity of one and the same substance in an indivisible equality.”
Therefore, the presented understanding of Love is incomplete because God, who is Love, is unable to be separated, and each distinct person is of the same substance. “Substance” and “not-Substance” are different substances by nature of antithesis.
You should also consider Apostle Paul’s previous Script: Romans 1:19 “Because that which may be known of God is manifest in them; for God has showed it unto them.”
When combined the Scripts share: “through reason of divinely revealed knowledge can the Mystery of The Holy Trinity be known.”
Thanks for the continued discussion! I really enjoy trying to understand your perspectives, especially because they lead me to study the Knowledge of Catholicism deeper!
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tonyrey
Guest
Then you agree.Then it is a “threesome”.
Based on one’s perspective, the dialectical process can be viewed as a kenotic process.
An empty entity remains an entity. Receptivity implies a receiver…
Our souls are not annihilated but exalted…
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GaryTaylor
Guest
:nope: Not even plausible, sorry.
"What have you that you did not receive?” (1 Cor. 4:7)
But by the grace of God I am what I am” (1 Cor. 15:10).
arminian.com/the-canons-of-the-council-of-orange-529-ad.html
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Bahman
Guest
Could you please provide an argument that why everything could be comprehended by reasoning/logic? In the theory of knowledge, only statements verifiable either logically or empirically would be cognitively meaningful. The world is at it is and pure logic unfortunately doesn’t cut completely the meat unless it is mixed with experience and observation. Could you give me one reason why laws of nature are like the one that they are and they are not different from what they are? Please read Rationalism for more information.
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Gabriel_of_12
Guest
There is nothing new under the Sun my friend. Your logic repeats what is already revealed from the divine wisdom of God who revealed it to our humanity.
For God said, (paraphrasing) Let all living things reproduce after it’s own seed, including man.
Thus, before birth, which came first the chicken or the egg? Death was not introduced into creation. The violation of God’s divine creation laws, by Adam’s “O happy fault” introduced divine justice according to God’s Word and creation covenant.
Creation came into existence from and through the persons of the blessed Trinity, Who balanced all of creation according to God’s Word and divine laws that order them. We know God’s Word never returns void to God, but fulfills every Letter.
In short the birth, death and rebirth are ordered according to God’s Word not man’s thought. Birth is ordered by the creation laws, death is a violation of the creation laws, and rebirth brings to fulfillment the justice of the violation of God’s Word and covenant.
In each birth, death and rebirth are sustained and fulfilled in and from each person of the blessed Trinity. We know this, because Jesus the Word incarnate entered our humanity in all of the above.
Who but God alone can raise the dead by just His Word. When Jesus pronounced, “Lazarus come out”. The Father sends HIs Word, the Word fulfills the will of the Father, when the Trinity is revealing God’s presence in each person undivided, the Holy Spirit proceeding from the Father and the Son eternally in the Voice and the Word raises the dead and gives new life. Confirming our faith that God the Holy Spirit is the Lord the giver of Life who has spoken through the prophets.
Birth, death and rebirth reveal they come from the blessed Trinity and not by man. Break each one down from beginning to fulfillment and the Trinity is revealed, God is all and in all amen.
Peace be with you
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Tom_Baum
Guest
And your “Theology of the Eternally Begotten” is an absolute crock since it pretty much states that God was One and then became more than One and the most basic “definition” of God is that God always was, is and will be, at least the God of the bible, Yahweh, I AM WHO AM.
Seeing as the Second and Third Persons of the Trinity, in your “Theology of the Eternally Begotten”, seem to be additions to the One rather than as always being there, than God was a One but is now a changling to a Trinity in your “Theology of the Eternally Begotten”, therefore is not God but is some sort of hybrid God.
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GaryTaylor
Guest
Trinity is a conversation not finished above, the problem in my mind is deviation from apostolic teachings of Scripture in favor of what has no continuity, the issue was left at the “begotten son”. I think we still need to start off on the same premise of like understanding to resolve this dilemma. The rule of interpretation is
“the Son is equal to the Father as God, He is less than the Father as the Son of man in the form of servant, who will hand over His Kingdom to the Father, and Himself be subject to the Father (1 Corinthians 15:24-28) when He brings all the faithful to the contemplation of the Three Divine Persons of the most Holy Trinity, thus completes and lays aside His office as mediator.” Augustine De Trinitate
Is that your conclusion to this story? We will need to resolve this first I do believe.
As to “why the Trinity” because its God the Fathers essence revealed. I think before we head to the unproven theory part of science roll-out, we need to agree what scripture is indeed saying.
The conversation of begotten is supported by verse such as “The Father is greater than I”
Then in truth according to the proposed understanding the Son of man would be even less than Himself if possible since it was He who emptied Himself, taking the form of a servant (Phil 2:7)
Did he take the form of servant, that He lost the form of God in which He is one with the Father (John 10:30)? Of course not.
The real question then seems to be can God be less than Himself or more than Himself? Or was God humbling Himself in His love for man that He takes the form of the Son of man, he established another link between His infinity and mans finite state to bring man back into His communion by “mediating”.
“the Son is equal to the Father as God, He is less than the Father as the Son of man in the form of servant, who will hand over His Kingdom to the Father, and Himself be subject to the Father (1 Corinthians 15:24-28) when He brings all the faithful to the contemplation of the Three Divine Persons of the most Holy Trinity, thus completes and lays aside His office as mediator.” Augustine De Trinitate
Is that your conclusion to this story? We will need to resolve this first I do believe.
As to “why the Trinity” because its God the Fathers essence revealed. I think before we head to the unproven theory part of science roll-out, we need to agree what scripture is indeed saying.
The conversation of begotten is supported by verse such as “The Father is greater than I”
Then in truth according to the proposed understanding the Son of man would be even less than Himself if possible since it was He who emptied Himself, taking the form of a servant (Phil 2:7)
Did he take the form of servant, that He lost the form of God in which He is one with the Father (John 10:30)? Of course not.
The real question then seems to be can God be less than Himself or more than Himself? Or was God humbling Himself in His love for man that He takes the form of the Son of man, he established another link between His infinity and mans finite state to bring man back into His communion by “mediating”.
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Gabriel_of_12
Guest
It’s easy for one to get side tracked posting on the “why the Trinity” thread and posting on the “theology of the begotten” thread. Both threads seem to be addressing the procession of the Blessed Trinity.
In relation to your suggested question, is the subject dealing with the eternal begetting of the Father outside of time and space or the revealed begotten Son in time and space? In both cases the Father never proceeds from no one.
And how does the procession of the Trinity answer the question “why the Trinity”, and as you suggested during the begetting or procession of the Trinity can "God be less than Himself or more than Himself?
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orang
Guest
When God clothed Himself in allowing The Son to make the rescue it was to be included , the same nature which was in need of a rescue and could not rescue itself.
In a cold stable and on the run within virtue Queen Poverty the rescue begins. In the Divine act of charity including humble the rescue between God and the creature. The Son expressed the creator… including quote, to know me is to know The Father. So to my understandings the Son is not less then The Father in being of the two natures…( from what I understand reading in the Saints and doctors of the church.
In a cold stable and on the run within virtue Queen Poverty the rescue begins. In the Divine act of charity including humble the rescue between God and the creature. The Son expressed the creator… including quote, to know me is to know The Father. So to my understandings the Son is not less then The Father in being of the two natures…( from what I understand reading in the Saints and doctors of the church.
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Counterpoint
Guest
You’re still evading the issue. The issue is whether or not the divine intention to create could have been otherwise. Or, more to the point, the issue is whether God has compatibiliist free will or libertarian free will. (Those are only two logical possibilities.)
What exactly is your point?
There is something that you are not grasping here about the dialectical antithesis between “being” and "not being,’ namely, that (pure) “being” (that is what
God is said to be in Thomistic metaphysics…pure “being”), upon analysis, is indistinguishable from “not being.”
Also, if the lover and the beloved are “distinct” persons, then they must be, in some sense, “separate” persons. IOW, to make some kind of distinction is to make some kind separation. (I am not you; you are not me. We are distinct persons, separate persons. Right?)
The “dialectic” and the “logos” are interchangeable terms. The logos was revealed through philosophy. In fact, Christianity (indirectly) co-opted the concept and applied it to Christ.
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Counterpoint
Guest
It seems you are making a distinction between the immanent Trinity (what you’re calling “essence”), and the economic Trinity (what you’re calling “presence”).
The bottom line is that the doctrine of the Trinity was not revealed (at least not directly). It took several centuries for the Church to formulate the doctrine - a formulation that was based on philosophical reflection.
Your response here addresses the question 'Why the creation?," not “Why the Trinity?”
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Counterpoint
Guest
I’m not necessarily agreeing or disagreeing.Then you agree.
I would be more inclined to describe the kenotic self (the “emptying of the self”) as a “selfless self.”An empty entity remains an entity. Receptivity implies a receiver…
We must be willing to die in order to live. That’s how it works.
“I am crucified with Christ: nevertheless I live; yet not I, but Christ liveth in me.” Galatians 2:20
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Counterpoint
Guest
I’m the one who is asking the question here. And the question is: “Why the Trinity?” (If you want to discuss the anthropic principle, then I suggest you start your own thread.)
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Counterpoint
Guest
God’s self-actualization is a dialectical process. What has traditionally been called the “creation” is merely a epiphenomenon of that process.
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Counterpoint
Guest
Eternally begotten means eternally procreated.
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Gabriel_of_12
Guest
We have to be careful here how we use definitions of terms. What we are dealing with is a divine revealed doctrine that does not change. Although new terms and new words are invented by man, so long as their definition does not move away from the doctrine, when expressed from the new terms. This is the Orthodox’s confusion with the filioque in conjunction with the language barrier from Greek to Latin translated into what is defined as substance, person and nature.
It appears you are trying to define the (incomprehensible) Essence of God hidden in the Trinity of persons, which the Church professes from the Nicene Creed ,when the Son is consubstantial with the Father. What is consubstantial points to the divinity, the true being of God’s Essence, which neither the Church nor man could ever comprehend fully this side of heaven.
I beg to differ with you greatly. here. Recorded history proves that, the Trinity was always believed in since Jesus Christ revealed the Trinity in fact the scripture reveal Jesus commissioning His apostles to baptize in the name (singular) of the Father, Son and the Holy Spirit.
The reason the Trinity becomes a doctrine ,which means binding on all Christian believers, is because the revealed apostolic faith in the Trinity came under attack by heretics and false heresies, that tried to change what Jesus revealed and taught to the original apostles.
The Church never invents any doctrine. The Church defends what God has revealed to our humanity in the form of a doctrine exercised with the divine keys Jesus gave the Church to bind and loose with. You are greatly mistaken.
Although, the Church has taken terminology which you relate to philosophical undertakings. such as Trinity. She never interprets the philosophical undertakings to directly defend, clarify or define a revealed doctrine, with those philosophical concepts. The term “Trinity” is applied with a clear definition that leaves all philosophical understandings, and applies reason and faith to the Church’s definition of the Term leaving philosophical thought in the dust.
**The term Trinity and Transubstantiation apply here. In summarizing; The Church describes Spiritual realities in Spiritual terms, with human words, to reflect what God reveals. She never has taken a philosophical thought to define a doctrine. **
No, you are mistaken. “Why the Trinity” reveals why God can be Emmanuel =God with us. Without the Trinity there is no space or time and creation could not be sustained or reproduce after it’s own seed. For the blessed Trinity the procession of persons created all of these and sustains creation because God lives, breathes life and moves.
If God is eternal being outside of time and space unapproachable Essence. Trinity eternally existing makes known the presence of God via the persons of the Trinity in space and time. This equation points to “why the Trinity”. Because no man can see God and live. Trinity makes God’s presence known to us.
In short “Why the Trinity”? Love is the short the answer. The Trinity is the avenue by which God’s presence is known in all of creation. God’s Essence, which you may be seeking and the Muslims seek is not attainable this side of death.
We need the Trinity so that God’s Essence does not consume us like a fire, when God makes His presence known. His Essence is veiled (consubstantially) in the persons of the Trinity.
Tell me have you ever seen Love physically? We are parted love and experience love, but Love although exists is an invisible attribute of God’s Essence. By the Trinity of persons Love has come to us.
I believe introducing philosophical concepts can never reach fully a defined apostolic doctrine, it falls short every time.
Where we can discuss philosophical concepts of the Trinity when it is within the confines of theology, which I have only introduced from my postings. Should a philosophy define the doctrine of the blessed Trinity, it remains a philosophical concept, the early Church Father writings give testimony to this, neither of their writings or concepts are made doctrine, although many of them do not disagree with the doctrine of the Trinity, they only confirm what the Catholic Church has always believed since apostolic times.
I find your topic very interesting and happy to contribute.
Peace be with you
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