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This is the forum to discuss the spectrum of views within Christianity on God's foreknowledge and election such as Calvinism, Arminianism, Molinism, Open Theism, Process Theism, Restrictivism, and Inclusivism, Christian Universalism and what these all are about anyway. Who is saved and when is/was their salvation certain? How does God exercise His sovereignty and how powerful is He? Is God timeless and immutable? Does a triune God help better understand God's love for mankind?

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Question about the Trinity

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  • #31
    Here are a couple of links that might help:

    http://www.reasonablefaith.org/a-for...of-the-trinity (a philosophical treatment)

    http://www.reasonablefaith.org/defenders-2-podcast/s5 (8 45-min. Podcasts discussing the doctrine of the Trinity from a historical perspective of its development)

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    • #32
      Originally posted by hedrick View Post
      In a posting just above you defined God as one being with three persons.
      God is one being. But the one being is had in modes of essence and person. The model difference in being means the divine persons all have the same essence, but are diverse persons according to mode of being.

      It seems very odd to turn to the Incarnation and equate being with person.
      The same principle applies. Christ is one being according to essence, which is modally diverse from His person as the Word.

      You’re now saying that the Logos is a being, after having denied it a couple of posts before.
      I dont think so.

      I don't think you want to say that Christ has one being, meaning the being of the Trinity, because making Christ the incarnation of the Trinity as a whole is Patripassian.
      I have said Christ has only one being. Now you accuse me of not wanting to say what I have said.

      I actually think that this whole approach of dealing with theology in terms of metaphysics is a dead end. I don't think you can say anything non-trivial about God or Christ without ending up in self-contradiction, heresy, or both. With all due respect to Aquinas, who clearly did the best job one could hope to do.
      You only think so because your terms are confused.

      JM

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      • #33
        I think it's three beings. It's kind of stupid to say otherwise.

        Comment


        • #34
          Originally posted by Obsidian View Post
          I think it's three beings. It's kind of stupid to say otherwise.
          That's polytheism, Patrick.

          Comment


          • #35
            Originally posted by Obsidian View Post
            I think it's three beings. It's kind of stupid to say otherwise.
            Part of the mystery of God is sometimes we are not meant to fully understand what is going on in God. This is one such occasion. There is only one being in the Trinity, even though there are three persons.

            JM

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            • #36
              Originally posted by JohnMartin View Post
              God is one being. But the one being is had in modes of essence and person. The model difference in being means the divine persons all have the same essence, but are diverse persons according to mode of being.

              The same principle applies. Christ is one being according to essence, which is modally diverse from His person as the Word.
              Is Christ's one essence the same as the Trinity's one essence?

              I thought I understood what you meant by modally diverse in the Trinity, since the three persons differ in their mode of being. But I thought Christ's person was simply the person of the Word. How could he be modally diverse from the Word. It sounds like there are 4 modally diverse things. Are you using modally diverse in two different ways?

              Google does not find "modally diverse" in any theological context. is this standard terminology?

              My vague impression from looking at the Summa was that Aquinas would say that one being of the Trinity and one being of Christ use "being" in two different senses. However in fact in Part 3 Q 17 Art 2, he says that Christ is one personal being, which (in his theology) makes sense. His statement elsewhere that the Trinity is only one being also makes sense given his theology. The question is how they relate. He goes on to say that in the Trinity, there is no distinction between the being of the Person and the being of the Nature, hence in the Trinity there is only one being, whether of person or of nature. But if the being of Christ is the being of the Word, and there's only one being in the Trinity, this seems to imply that the being of Christ is the same as the being of the Trinity. His statement that there's no difference between being of person and being of nature in the Trinity seems to remove the possibility that different sense of "being" are being used.

              It's not obviously heretical to say that the one being of Christ is the same as the one being of the Trinity, but it's
              now what I would have expected.

              I'm sure there are details of his terminology I don't understand, but he is using precisely the same terminology i both cases.
              Last edited by hedrick; 06-02-2016, 08:25 PM.

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              • #37
                Originally posted by JohnMartin View Post
                Part of the mystery of God is sometimes we are not meant to fully understand what is going on in God. This is one such occasion. There is only one being in the Trinity, even though there are three persons.

                JM
                It is surely the case that we don't understand God completely. However the Trinity is a concept created by the Church to describe God. If the terminology isn't well defined it's not very useful. There may well be things that we can't describe, but a description that can't be understood is a problem in a more serious way than a God that can't be understood.

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                • #38
                  Originally posted by Obsidian View Post
                  I think it's three beings. It's kind of stupid to say otherwise.
                  The whole Western approach to the Trinity goes in the other direction.

                  Comment


                  • #39
                    Originally posted by hedrick View Post
                    Is Christ's one essence the same as the Trinity's one essence?
                    Yes, both Christ and the Trinity have the same divine essence.

                    I thought I understood what you meant by modally diverse in the Trinity, since the three persons differ in their mode of being. But I thought Christ's person was simply the person of the Word.
                    Correct. Christ's person is that of the Word. The Word is the second person of the Trinity.

                    How could he be modally diverse from the Word.
                    Christ's divine essence is modally diverse from the being of Christ's person. How? I don't know how. It's a mystery.

                    It sounds like there are 4 modally diverse things. Are you using modally diverse in two different ways?
                    The Trinity has a divine essence with three divine persons. The essence and the persons are all modally diverse. So there are four modes of being in God. Christ is the Word mad flesh. This means Christ has both a divine nature, (which is the same being as the divine nature), and human nature, comprised of body and soul, whereby the being of Christs human nature is that of the hypostasis of the Word.

                    Google does not find "modally diverse" in any theological context. is this standard terminology?
                    Its found in the polemic of Basil the Great Against Eunomius. The title of the book is "Against Eunomius".

                    My vague impression from looking at the Summa was that Aquinas would say that one being of the Trinity and one being of Christ use "being" in two different senses.
                    The senses are given above.

                    However in fact in Part 3 Q 17 Art 2, he says that Christ is one personal being, which (in his theology) makes sense. His statement elsewhere that the Trinity is only one being also makes sense given his theology. The question is how they relate. He goes on to say that in the Trinity, there is no distinction between the being of the Person and the being of the Nature, hence in the Trinity there is only one being, whether of person or of nature. But if the being of Christ is the being of the Word, and there's only one being in the Trinity, this seems to imply that the being of Christ is the same as the being of the Trinity. His statement that there's no difference between being of person and being of nature in the Trinity seems to remove the possibility that different sense of "being" are being used.
                    St Thomas can say there is only one being in God, but that doesn't contradict what Basil said about the modes of being in God. The diverse modes assume a single being in God. Both Aquinas and Basil agree there is only one being in God.

                    It's not obviously heretical to say that the one being of Christ is the same as the one being of the Trinity, but it's now what I would have expected.
                    It's heretical to say there are two beings in Christ, like Nestorius did. There are two natures in Christ, with only one divine being, which is modally diverse according to essence and person.

                    I'm sure there are details of his terminology I don't understand, but he is using precisely the same terminology i both cases.
                    Try to understand what a mode of being is and then read Aquinas. Basil lived about 1000 years before Aquinas so the language of each theologian may well differ to some extent. Both Basil and Aquinas are Orthodox on the doctrines of Christ and the Trinity. If there is some diversity in their expression, then we can grant them the benefit of the doubt and assume they were speaking about the same reality, without any great errors.

                    It is well known that Basil developed his theology of the Trinity in an apologetic atmosphere against Eunomius. Such a theological development involved Basil changing his position on some points as his Trinitarian theology developed. Even so, his body of work is overall quite solid and was included as a normative guide (along with the works of Gregory of Nyssa and Gregory of Naziansus) when formulating the creed of Constantinople.

                    JM

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                    • #40
                      Originally posted by hedrick View Post
                      It is surely the case that we don't understand God completely. However the Trinity is a concept created by the Church to describe God. If the terminology isn't well defined it's not very useful. There may well be things that we can't describe, but a description that can't be understood is a problem in a more serious way than a God that can't be understood.
                      You have not demonstrated that the terminology was not well defined.

                      JM

                      Comment


                      • #41
                        Originally posted by Chrawnus
                        That's polytheism, Patrick.
                        The practical problem with polytheism, and I think the reason why it is condemned in the Bible, is that the gods disagree with each other. That is to be expected given that they are merely ideas created by a multitude of loosely allied demons, twisted even further into various contradictions by human imagination. In Christianity the members of the Trinity act as one.

                        I don't see the Bible emphasizing the metaphysical concepts that "Christians" so often obsess over.
                        Last edited by Obsidian; 06-03-2016, 01:23 AM.

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                        • #42
                          Originally posted by Obsidian View Post
                          The practical problem with polytheism, and I think the reason why it is condemned in the Bible, is that the gods disagree with each other. That is to be expected given that they are merely ideas created by a multitude of loosely allied demons, twisted even further into various contradictions by human imagination. In Christianity the members of the Trinity act as one.

                          I don't see the Bible emphasizing the metaphysical concepts that "Christians" so often obsess over.
                          If you're saying what it seems to me that you're saying you should probably change your faith designation to Christian (unorthodox). If you believe that the Trinity is three separate beings acting in perfect unity with each other, rather than three Persons in one Being you're about as far outside of Christian orthodoxy as you can get.

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                          • #43
                            Show me where in the Bible it says that God is one "being."

                            Comment


                            • #44
                              Originally posted by Obsidian View Post
                              Show me where in the Bible it says that God is one "being."

                              "You are my witnesses," declares the LORD, "and my servant whom I have chosen, so that you may know and believe me and understand that I am he. Before me no god was formed, nor will there be one after me" (Isaiah 43:10).

                              Isaiah 44:6 "This is what the LORD says-- Israel's King and Redeemer, the LORD Almighty: I am the first and I am the last; apart from me there is no God. 7 Who then is like me? Let him proclaim it. Let him declare and lay out before me what has happened since I established my ancient people, and what is yet to come-- yes, let him foretell what will come. 8 Do not tremble, do not be afraid. Did I not proclaim this and foretell it long ago? You are my witnesses. Is there any God besides me? No, there is no other Rock; I know not one."

                              So if Jesus is God and he is another being, he would be another God. There is no other God. Therefore God is one being, revealed in three persons.

                              Comment


                              • #45
                                Originally posted by Sparko
                                So if Jesus is God and he is another being, he would be another God.
                                I think that this part of your argument is sort of begging the question, about the importance of the term "being," and about the particulars of what it means to be separate gods.

                                Admittedly, saying "I am [Jesus]" (assuming that the "he" in Isaiah 43 is referring to the Servant) does express a great deal of unity. However, Trinitarians typically reject the formulation that the Father is the same as the Son. (Also, I guess it could be argued that it is the Word speaking in Isaiah 43, rather than the Father.) In practical terms, if God is one being, then what does that even mean? If there are three persons then I would take that to mean three centers of consciousness, which sounds to me like three beings.

                                Don't the Hindus claim that all their thousands of gods are somehow actually one being?

                                Comment

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