Judaism and Christian Trinitarianism

[1213]

It's saying that Moses would seem like a god to Pharoah. NOT that Moses was God or a god.

Yes, I can agree with that. And I think the same is with Jesus.

 

[1213]

...
It's just an allegory.

I think you understand it correctly. And this leads to question, when Jesus does the same, why understand it differently?

 

[Rival]

I think you understand it correctly. And this leads to question, when Jesus does the same, why understand it differently?

Uh, because Jesus' followers claim he is literally a god? Because Jesus says 'Before Abraham was, I am'? These two situations are nothing like each other.

 

[TrueBeliever37]

Christians say that Jesus is God in the flesh. Jews deny this. Its really that simple.

Abraham talked with an Angel through whom God spoke.

Not all Jews denied him. The early church consisted of Jews. The apostles were Jews. He gathered the lost sheep of the house of Israel into the church before he opened it up to the Gentiles. But as a whole most of the Jews rejected him. As the scripture says he came unto his own, but his own received him not.

Most Christians think he is one of 3 persons in the Godhead. He is actually the one and only God manifest in the flesh. There is a difference.

 

[Jayhawker Soule]

Not all Jews denied him.

Therefore?

 

[TrueBeliever37]

Isn't that a non-jewish concept of Messiah?

I understand that you dont believe in the trinity which means you will not fall into the heresy category of Sabellianism. But you believing Jesus was the YHWH it is simply one of the biggest blasphemies in the eyes of the Jews since the topic is about Judaism and Christian trinity. Can you please elaborate on when this concept that Jesus, the Messiah was YHWH himself arise?

You know the other question that arises from your thesis above. Why does God have to become a man and sacrifice himself in order to be a sacrifice for man's sin? Is he not powerful enough to do it without anthropomorphising himself?

I didn't say God became a man. He took on the temporary fleshly body of a man, lived a sinless life. So that body would be the perfect sacrifice. And then sacrificed his fleshly body for the sins of man. The eternal Spirit of God didn't die, but the temporary body he took on did. He raised the body up a glorified eternal Spiritual body, ascended and took the throne to reign forever.

He didn't have to do it that way. He chose to do it that way, to show how much he loved us. He could look out across the expanse of time and knew there would never be anyone able to live a sinless life to be the perfect sacrifice. He said my hand isn't shortened that it cannot save. He saw that there was no man, and wondered that there was no intercessor: therefore his arm brought salvation unto him. aka - I will do the job myself. Isaiah 59:1-17 He came during the time of one of the most ruthless empires that has ever existed. He allowed himself to suffer a horrendous death to show his great love for us.

 

[firedragon]

I didn't say God became a man. He took on the temporary fleshly body of a man, lived a sinless life.

Okay. So the question still stands from your statement. Why does God have to take on a temporary body of a man and sacrifice himself in order to be a sacrifice for man's sin? Is he not powerful enough to do it without anthropomorphising himself?

 

[rosends]

Can we stop using the phrase "sacrificed himself" please? It calls to the mind the biblical notion of sacrifice mixed in with the more modern idea of "losing something for the sake of another idea or person" -- English has evolved and allowed muddy thinking. If Jesus died, he might have lost something, but he wasn't a sacrifice (and connecting him to a sacrificial lamb to reinforce the biblical sacrifice idea is disingenuous at best). We can just say "let himself be killed" because he was not sacrificed by any biblical definition.

 

[Jayhawker Soule]

If Jesus died, he might have lost something, but he wasn't a sacrifice (and connecting him to a sacrificial lamb to reinforce the biblical sacrifice idea is disingenuous at best).

Great point.

I've often wondered whether the sacrifice theme might have been some confused riff on the cities of refuge and the effects of the death of the high priest, as if that death served as surrogate atonement.

 

[1213]

Uh, because Jesus' followers claim he is literally a god? Because Jesus says 'Before Abraham was, I am'? These two situations are nothing like each other.

But Bible doesn’t claim Jesus is literally the one and only true God. Jesus didn’t say he is God. Saying “I am” is not the same as saying “I am God”. And Jesus said he speaks what God has commanded him to speak, which makes the situation similar to the case of Moses.

For I spoke not from myself, but the Father who sent me, he gave me a commandment, what I should say, and what I should speak. I know that his commandment is eternal life. The things therefore which I speak, even as the Father has said to me, so I speak."
John 12:49-50

Jesus therefore answered them, "My teaching is not mine, but his who sent me. If anyone desires to do his will, he will know about the teaching, whether it is from God, or if I am speaking from myself.
John 7:16-17

 

[IndigoChild5559]

Not all Jews denied him. The early church consisted of Jews. The apostles were Jews. He gathered the lost sheep of the house of Israel into the church before he opened it up to the Gentiles. But as a whole most of the Jews rejected him. As the scripture says he came unto his own, but his own received him not.

Most Christians think he is one of 3 persons in the Godhead. He is actually the one and only God manifest in the flesh. There is a difference.

Do you know how small that was cmpared to the number of Jews in the empire?

 

[Vouthon]

But this raises the question of what one can mean by "person", in such a context. Given that we are speaking of a supernatural being, able to permeate creation, rather than a physical individual localised in space ad time, what is a "person"? If one defines person in terms of distinct roles, modes of action and ways of interacting with humanity, what other attributes would one expect such a non-corporeal "person" to have, I wonder?

I have been "off-forum" for a lengthy period of time due to pressing work commitments but I came across this earlier discussion in my alerts and decided to chime in (since my name was mentioned ).

@pcarl gave a very good response in describing, in brief, the main factions in the fourth century Trinitarian debates (between Nicea in 325 and First Council of Constantinople in 381) which culminated in the so-called "Cappadocian Settlement" that further defined the meaning of the Nicene three 'hypostases' in one 'ousia'.

The most essential points to note are that: (1) the self-consciousness of each divine person (subjective, not objective) is of the divine essence and so common as one to the divine persons: there is but one centre of consciousness in God, not three (which would amount to three gods) and (2) the three Persons are truly distinct in their eternal relations of origin to each other - begetting of the Son from the Father and procession of the Spirit from both (I'm going with filioque here) - but everything else one could say about them (will, power, intellect, goodness etc.) is spoken indivisibly.

In that sense the Fourth Lateran Council (1215) tells us in its 'Confession of Faith':


Fourth Lateran Council : 1215 Council Fathers - Papal Encyclicals

"...We firmly believe and simply confess that there is only one true God, eternal and immeasurable, almighty, unchangeable, incomprehensible and ineffable, Father, Son and holy Spirit, three persons but one absolutely simple essence, substance or nature....

We believe and confess that there exists a certain Supreme Reality, incomprehensible and ineffable, which truly is the Father and the Son and the holy Spirit, the three persons together and each one of them separately. Therefore in God there is only a Trinity, not a quaternity, since each of the three persons is that reality — that is to say substance, essence or divine nature-which alone is the principle of all things, besides which no other principle can be found. This reality neither begets nor is begotten nor proceeds; the Father begets, the Son is begotten and the holy Spirit proceeds.

Thus there is a distinction of persons but a unity of nature. Although therefore the Father is one person, the Son another person and the holy Spirit another person, they are not different realities, but rather that which is the Father is the Son and the holy Spirit, altogether the same; thus according to the orthodox and catholic faith they are believed to be consubstantial.... the Father and the Son and also the holy Spirit proceeding from both are the same reality...”
​

This is because of the dogmatic proposition at the Council of Florence, that “everything is one [in God] where the difference of a relation does not prevent this”, otherwise put it as “no distinction except in relations of origin”:

“These three persons are one God not three gods, because there is one substance of the three, one essence, one nature, one Godhead, one immensity, one eternity, and everything is one where the difference of a relation does not prevent this.” (Council of Florence (1431) Session 11)
​

Basically, there were two extremist positions in the fourth century that the Church Fathers had to contend against: "monarchianism" or Sabellian modalism, which defended the 'monarchy' or unicity of God to such an extent that it denied the real and subsistent 'relations' within the divine essence that we today term 'the Persons' (but which are more technically understood as divine 'relational subsistencies' of the One Essence).

To the Modalist, God was a 'single divine person-being' who revealed Himself to His creation - through the divine economy - in three interchangeable 'modes' with differently perceived attributes. In his inner life, the modalist God is actually just a plain old 'unitarian' Being who simply appears to be Trinitarian from the human perspective - but He's really just one divine 'actor' wearing three different masks, behind which lie the true reality 'God'.

Thus, the 'persons' don't actually exist for the Modalist as an interior, innate reaity within the 'inner life' of God like Nicene Orthodoxy holds (i.e. that the One God is intrinsically a 'Triune Being' through the subsistencies of eternal relation of his essence, that we call Father, Son and Holy Spirit - which God 'is' with his full essence, both singularly whole and entire in each and together indivisibly). The Modalist God is really no different in principle from the strict unitarian monotheism of Jews and Muslims - with the proviso of His incarnating in the body of a human. Trinitarianism holds that the 'subsistent relations' are real within God: they tell us something about God's own inner life, as He is in Himself, He's not just a Unitarian Deity revealing himself in a certain 'mode'.

The opposing ground was occupied by the "subordinationists" who were frequently accused of the heresy of tritheism for emphasising the radical 'distinction between the Persons', to such an extent that the Son and Holy Spirit were rendered ontologically separate and 'subordinate' divine beings to the One, Transcendent 'Father' (alone identified as the Divine Monarchia or Monad) - the three being distinct in 'ousia' or essence. This was recognised as basically 'polytheistic', as worship cannot be offered to any 'being' save the one true creator God who exists outside time.

Catholic Christianity defined itself against both of these 'heresies', firstly, by strongly defending the oneness of Being and identity of the essence of God contra the 'subordinationists': God has only a 'single' consciousness, will, knowledge, power and essence as one perfectly unitary Being; which the Father is, the Son is and the Holy Spirit is, undivided. It likewise defined itself against the 'modalists' by avering that the distinction of relation in origin between the subsistencies of God (His distinct manners of existing in relation to Himself within Himself as Father, Son and Holy Spirit) were essential, distinct and ontological, rather than mere 'illusions' of distinct manners of existing from the perspective of humans.

(continued...)

 

[Vouthon]

Ok, so onto your question proper: what did the Patristics, the church fathers, mean by 'person'?

They certainly did not mean individual centres of self-consciousness characterised by distinct 'minds' (tritheism) - as heretical 'social Trinitarians' have claimed since the work of Moltmann, Virolav and others in the 20th century, influenced by postmodernism and modern psychology.

For the authentic Patristic dogma there is one divine intellect, being and essence which each of the Three Persons 'is' (whole, entire and undivided) but each in a truly 'distinct' subsisting manner of existing in relation to the other Persons (the Father who is unoriginate, the Son who is the begotten Image of the Father, the Holy Spirit who is the bond of love between both and the Spirit of both). One Anglican theologian, G.L. Prestige in his 1950s study God in Patristic Thought, aptly described this as: "God is one object in Himself and three objects to Himself":


G L Prestige Fathers and Heretics pp. 87-93

"As against the Sabellians, Athanasius insisted that the personal distinctions in the Godhead, which have been revealed in temporal history, are permanent and authentic features of the personality of God who has revealed them. As against Arius, he maintained that howsoever God reveals Himself, is the self-same God who is revealed. Hence comes the two sides of the Catholic doctrine.

Each Person is a genuine hypostasis. This term, owing to the derivation of Western theological language from the Latin, is commonly translated Person, but it does not mean an individual person in the ordinary sense. Its real purport is to describe that which ‘stands up to’ pressure, that which possesses a firm crust, and so an object in the concrete, something which is not a mere attribute or abstraction, but has a being of its own, and can jostle other objects without losing its identity.

Applied to God, it expresses the idea of a solid and self-supported presentation of a divine reality. All the qualities which modern speech associates with personality, however, such as consciousness and will, are attributed to Greek theology to the complementary term of the definition; they belong to divine substance, the single being of God, and to the several ‘Persons’ only by virtue of their embodiment and presentation of that unique being. The entire difference between the Persons is one not of content but of manner.

Nothing whatsoever exists to differentiate between the Father, the Son, and the Spirit except the difference of aspect with which each presents the whole reality of God. God exists Fatherwise, Sonwise, and Spiritwise; this illustrates the truth that personality can live and act only in social relationship. But He is always God; and this confirms Him as the ultimate ground of all existence and the sole object of legitimate allegiance and worship"​

And from the Dictionary of Latin and Greek theology:

“In none of these usages [by the orthodox] does the term ‘persona’ have the connotation of emotional individuality or unique consciousness that clearly belongs to the term in contemporary usage. It is quite certain that the trinitarian use of ‘persona’ does not point to three wills, three emotionally unique beings, or, as several eighteenth-century authors influenced by Cartesianism argued, three centers of consciousness; such implication would be tritheistic.

In other words, despite the variety of usages and implications we have noted, the patristic, medieval, Reformation, and Protestant scholastic definitions of the term ‘persona’ are united in their distinction from colloquial modern usage.”

(– Dictionary of Latin and Greek Theological Terms (2nd. Ed.), pp. 263-4)

​

The Eastern Orthodox theologian John Zizioulas has exerted a formative influence on the ‘social Trinitarian’ camp - which I, and many other orthodox Christians, consider to be tritheism - and been accused by the prominent Baptist theologian Stephen Holmes of “implying that each of the hypostaseis is fully personal, possessed of their own will, intellect”. In denying this allegation, Zizioulas concurred with the preceding quotes:

“In patristic thought, the person is not the center or subject of consciousness or of psychological experiences. This is apparent from the following highly significant observation: the persons of the Holy Trinity have only one will, only one “consciousness,” and—if the term may be permitted—”psychological experience.” In reality, all the things that in personalism constitute essential elements in the concept of the person are connected by the Fathers with the nature or essence of God, in other words, with what is common to the three Persons and not what is different. In other words, these are not hypostatic-personal properties that define the concept of the person, but properties relating to the essence or the nature of God.” ( The One and the Many , p. 21).​

“The Greek Fathers insisted that memory, knowledge, will and love are not individuated between the persons of God but common to them all. They understood that to confer individual psychological attributes upon the persons of God may lead to the projection of creaturely characteristics onto God.” (John Zizioulas, Lectures in Christian Dogmatics , p. 69)​

In light of all of this, some prominent theologians of the 20th century, such as the Swiss Reformed theologian Karl Barth and the Catholic Karl Rahner, pondered whether we should still (in this day and age) use the word 'persons' in relation to the Godhead, in light of the fact that the modern meaning imputes a centre of self-conciousness which the ancient Greek term lacks. As he noted in his Church Dogmatics:

"It is well to note at this early stage that what we to-day call the ‘personality’ of God belongs to the one unique essence of God which the doctrine of the Trinity does not seek to triple but rather to recognise in its simplicity . . .

‘Person’ as used in the Church doctrine of the Trinity bears no direct relation to personality. The meaning of the doctrine is not, then, that there are three personalities in God. That would be the worst and most extreme expression of tritheism…We are speaking not of three divine I’s but thrice of the one divine I."​

Most orthodox Nicene Christians are strongly of the view that we should and must retain the formula: "One ousia (essence) in three hypostases (persons)" because it is the traditional and creedal definition. It just needs to be so understood as to exclude both modalism and subordinationist tritheism.

 

[exchemist]

Ok, so onto your question proper: what did the Patristics, the church fathers, mean by 'person'?

They certainly did not mean individual centres of self-consciousness characterised by distinct 'minds' (tritheism) - as heretical 'social Trinitarians' have claimed since the work of Moltmann, Virolav and others in the 20th century, influenced by postmodernism and modern psychology.

For the authentic Patristic dogma there is one divine intellect, being and essence which each of the Three Persons 'is' (whole, entire and undivided) but each in a truly 'distinct' subsisting manner of existing in relation to the other Persons (the Father who is unoriginate, the Son who is the begotten Image of the Father, the Holy Spirit who is the bond of love between both and the Spirit of both). One Anglican theologian, G.L. Prestige in his 1950s study God in Patristic Thought, aptly described this as: "God is one object in Himself and three objects to Himself":


G L Prestige Fathers and Heretics pp. 87-93

"As against the Sabellians, Athanasius insisted that the personal distinctions in the Godhead, which have been revealed in temporal history, are permanent and authentic features of the personality of God who has revealed them. As against Arius, he maintained that howsoever God reveals Himself, is the self-same God who is revealed. Hence comes the two sides of the Catholic doctrine.

Each Person is a genuine hypostasis. This term, owing to the derivation of Western theological language from the Latin, is commonly translated Person, but it does not mean an individual person in the ordinary sense. Its real purport is to describe that which ‘stands up to’ pressure, that which possesses a firm crust, and so an object in the concrete, something which is not a mere attribute or abstraction, but has a being of its own, and can jostle other objects without losing its identity.

Applied to God, it expresses the idea of a solid and self-supported presentation of a divine reality. All the qualities which modern speech associates with personality, however, such as consciousness and will, are attributed to Greek theology to the complementary term of the definition; they belong to divine substance, the single being of God, and to the several ‘Persons’ only by virtue of their embodiment and presentation of that unique being. The entire difference between the Persons is one not of content but of manner.

Nothing whatsoever exists to differentiate between the Father, the Son, and the Spirit except the difference of aspect with which each presents the whole reality of God. God exists Fatherwise, Sonwise, and Spiritwise; this illustrates the truth that personality can live and act only in social relationship. But He is always God; and this confirms Him as the ultimate ground of all existence and the sole object of legitimate allegiance and worship"​

And from the Dictionary of Latin and Greek theology:

“In none of these usages [by the orthodox] does the term ‘persona’ have the connotation of emotional individuality or unique consciousness that clearly belongs to the term in contemporary usage. It is quite certain that the trinitarian use of ‘persona’ does not point to three wills, three emotionally unique beings, or, as several eighteenth-century authors influenced by Cartesianism argued, three centers of consciousness; such implication would be tritheistic.

In other words, despite the variety of usages and implications we have noted, the patristic, medieval, Reformation, and Protestant scholastic definitions of the term ‘persona’ are united in their distinction from colloquial modern usage.”

(– Dictionary of Latin and Greek Theological Terms (2nd. Ed.), pp. 263-4)

​

The Eastern Orthodox theologian John Zizioulas has exerted a formative influence on the ‘social Trinitarian’ camp - which I, and many other orthodox Christians, consider to be tritheism - and been accused by the prominent Baptist theologian Stephen Holmes of “implying that each of the hypostaseis is fully personal, possessed of their own will, intellect”. In denying this allegation, Zizioulas concurred with the preceding quotes:

“In patristic thought, the person is not the center or subject of consciousness or of psychological experiences. This is apparent from the following highly significant observation: the persons of the Holy Trinity have only one will, only one “consciousness,” and—if the term may be permitted—”psychological experience.” In reality, all the things that in personalism constitute essential elements in the concept of the person are connected by the Fathers with the nature or essence of God, in other words, with what is common to the three Persons and not what is different. In other words, these are not hypostatic-personal properties that define the concept of the person, but properties relating to the essence or the nature of God.” ( The One and the Many , p. 21).​

“The Greek Fathers insisted that memory, knowledge, will and love are not individuated between the persons of God but common to them all. They understood that to confer individual psychological attributes upon the persons of God may lead to the projection of creaturely characteristics onto God.” (John Zizioulas, Lectures in Christian Dogmatics , p. 69)​

In light of all of this, some prominent theologians of the 20th century, such as the Swiss Reformed theologian Karl Barth and the Catholic Karl Rahner, pondered whether we should still (in this day and age) use the word 'persons' in relation to the Godhead, in light of the fact that the modern meaning imputes a centre of self-conciousness which the ancient Greek term lacks. As he noted in his Church Dogmatics:

"It is well to note at this early stage that what we to-day call the ‘personality’ of God belongs to the one unique essence of God which the doctrine of the Trinity does not seek to triple but rather to recognise in its simplicity . . .

‘Person’ as used in the Church doctrine of the Trinity bears no direct relation to personality. The meaning of the doctrine is not, then, that there are three personalities in God. That would be the worst and most extreme expression of tritheism…We are speaking not of three divine I’s but thrice of the one divine I."​

Most orthodox Nicene Christians are strongly of the view that we should and must retain the formula: "One ousia (essence) in three hypostases (persons)" because it is the traditional and creedal definition. It just needs to be so understood as to exclude both modalism and subordinationist tritheism.

Thanks for this. I've read it once but will need to read it again.

On first reading it does strike me that the official meaning of "person" in the context of the Trinity is expressed in pretty convoluted and esoteric language. I will have another try and see if I get it, second time round.

It certainly seems, however, that the way I have rationalised the Trinity to myself all these years is in fact by means of a sort of modalist "heresy"! (I formed this idea while learning quantum mechanics at university: the idea that all information about a system is contain in the wave function, and that various characteristics of the system are derived by operating on the wave function with different mathematical operators.)

 

[Vouthon]

Thanks for this. I've read it once but will need to read it again.

On first reading it does strike me that the official meaning of "person" in the context of the Trinity is expressed in pretty convoluted and esoteric language. I will have another try and see if I get it, second time round.

It certainly seems, however, that the way I have rationalised the Trinity to myself all these years is in fact by means of a sort of modalist "heresy"! (I formed this idea while learning quantum mechanics at university: the idea that all information about a system is contain in the wave function, and that various characteristics of the system are derived by operating on the wave function with different mathematical operators.)

Modalism places the the Trinity in the mind of the individual human observer. We perceive God's attributes distinctly as Father, Son and Holy Spirit but in Himself he's really just a single Unitarian 'person' who just appears like three relations that way to us in the divine economy.

Trinitarians, by contrast, locate the reality of the Trinity in the immanence (inner life of God): He really is distinct in relation to Himself despite being one indivisible essence in Himself (there are no parts in God, each Person is the one essence not sharing a part of it like a divine committee room) and not just in the divine economy (as He reveals Himself to us in history). That's a hugely consequential difference in meaning.

Varieties of modalism, whilst certainly being formally 'heretical' for denying the real 'trinitarian' inner life of God as He relates to Himself (and thus outwith the pale of Nicene Orthodoxy), tend to be common amongst many lay Western Christians in their (assumed or attempted) rationalizations of the dogma, I find - so don't sweat it The 20th century Catholic theologian Karl Rahner once lamented that most Christians are "mere monotheists" in their assumptions, not Trinitarian monotheists as they profess.

Not all heresies are created equal, though, and I reckon it's best by far to "err" on the side of overemphasizing the indivisible oneness of God's being, than to err on the side of the distinction of persons and thereby lapse into polytheism.

In discussions with other self-confessing 'orthodox' lay Christians in the past, I have also encountered (and to my mind far more troublingly, though innocently and in good faith on their part) the opposing tendency: to conceptualise the Triune 'persons' severally as three (modern post-Cartesian) 'persons' each possesed of their own centre of self-consciousness, like three individuals sharing a divine superessence. Ughhhh......

That is, of course, 'tritheism' and takes one right out the door of Abrahamic monotheism (modalism keeps one within the rubric of monotheism but at the cost of sacrificing the specifically Christian 'riff' on that 'Supreme Reality's' inner life). So 'quasi-modalism' is somewhat less offensive (though still formally heretical) to my mind, if I'm wearing my 'bad-*** latter-day St. Athanasius' heresy-hunting hat for a moment.

St. Thomas Aquinas’s tells us in the Summa that the “the act of God’s intellect is His substance (essence)” and thus His self-consciousness as an object in Himself is common to the Persons as one 'being', rather than individuated severally.

However, the Christian revelation equally informs us - and over-above 'simple monotheism' - in a special way that this Divine Being does not exist in eternal 'solitude' but rather is 'supremely happy in Himself' with Himself.

The traditional scholastic formula (from St. Thomas Aquinas) thus contends that: "God is not three consciousnesses but One Consciousness who subsists in a threefold relation of Father, Son and Holy Spirit", to quote the great divine Robert South (1634 – 1716) in his Animadversions against the tritheistic heresy of William Sherlocke (who, inspired by Descartes, preached a "unity of shared consciousness between three infinite divine minds").

(You'll note, I use traditional Anglicans a lot, because they are some of the most soundly orthodox experts on Nicene Patristic Trinitarianism. When Anglicans are good, they are realy really good).

The easiest way of conceiving the 'Trinity' I think (without having to take a degree in ancient Greek semantics and patristic theology), is that for our purposes we can distinguish between God as He is in Himself and God as He is to Himself. In Himself, He is one object: one essence, being, intellect and will. To himself, He is three instantiations of that one essence in eternal relation to Himself (like three simultaneous, distinct 'existences' of the one Divine Consciousness, in something like an eternal superposition: which is the Father, Son and Holy Spirit - One "I" three times over, distinct in relation yet indivisibly one and the selfsame in essence).

St. Augustine of Hippo provided our western theological tradition with its classic expression of Trinitarianism, through a psychological analogy of the Trinity in which the unity of essence is compared with the rational part of the human soul, composed as it is of “the mind, and the knowledge by which it knows itself, and the love by which it loves itself.” This is why the New Testament proclaims that: "God is love" (1 John 4:8). Not that He merely has 'love' as one of His attributes (as believed by Muslims and Jews), no - the apostolic author is here making an actual ontological statement about God's inmost reality/being as revealed by Christ.

So we have 'the Father' which is God without any origin in Himself. The Father contemplates Himself and the knowledge by which He knows Himself is the eternal generation of the 'Son', the perfect Image of the Father and the exact self-same imprint of His Essential Being. The 'love' that the Father has for this contemplation of His own image (being and essence) and that the Son likewise Has for his source in the Father from whom He is 'begotten', is the Holy Spirit - the love with which God loves Himself. And so we can say for that reason that God "is" love and calls us through His Son (the 'image' of the Father) to share in this love for the Father through the Son in the the unity of the Holy Spirit, the inner life of the one God.

Thus the very first introductory paragraph of the Catechism of the Catholic Church reads:


Catechism of the Catholic Church - IntraText

God, infinitely perfect and blessed in himself, in a plan of sheer goodness freely created man to make him share in his own blessed life. For this reason, at every time and in every place, God draws close to man. He calls man to seek him, to know him, to love him with all his strength. He calls together all men, scattered and divided by sin, into the unity of his family, the Church. To accomplish this, when the fullness of time had come, God sent his Son as Redeemer and Saviour. In his Son and through him, he invites men to become, in the Holy Spirit, his adopted children and thus heirs of his blessed life.​

That 'blessed life' is His inner life that God wishes to make us share in through grace, the one we're discussing - the relations of the three 'persons' in one God.

That's basically it. Not three gods but three 'subsistencies' of the inner life of the one God. The language of 'Father and Son' is not about actual begetting in human terms (i.e. semen fertilizing an egg to create a human) as some non-Christians think. Rather, Jesus uses this as the best human analogue to this divine reality: a 'Son' is from the same genetic material as His father. In this case, the 'Son' is entirely the same 'divine substance' as the Father: the exact imprint of his Being contemplating Himself and the love that God has for Himself in this 'image' is the Holy Spirit. The three 'persons / subsistencies hypostases' of the one divine essence.

I suppose if we're going to use the analogy of quantum mechanics - subatomic particles like photons of light sometimes behave like particles, and sometimes like waves; they can exist in more than one place at the same time or (perhaps better) as dispersed probability clouds in 'superposition' until collapse of the wavefunction through measurement. The superposition—the peculiar circumstance in which subatomic particles seem to be in two or more places and/or states at once - is perhaps a decent enough 'physical' analogy to the imperceptible and inexpressible spiritual reality that is God (although imperfect as are all comparisons from His creation).

Yet God's 'wavefunction', I guess using the analogy (correct me if I'm using it wrongly!), doesn't collapse through measurement by an observor like the wavefunction of a photon - His single "I" as one being/mind/consciousness exists 'three times over' in eternal dispersed actuality (not probability, the Persons really 'are' distinct manners of subsisting of the one divine essence, of God relating to Himself).

The Anglican Patristic scholar I cited earlier, G.L. Prestige, transliterated the Greek ontology of the Patristic doctrine into more digestible 'modern' English as follows:

"By a full use of the subtlety of Greek thought and language, it was laid down that God is a single objective Being in three objects of presentation. This may be paraphrased in the expression, already employed, that He is one object in Himself and three objects to Himself.

Alternatively, the result of the extended theological process may be summed up, in language more modern than any used by a Greek Father, but in loyalty to the spirit and meaning of Greek theology, in the formula that in God there are three divine organs of God-consciousness, but one centre of divine self-consciousness. As seen and thought, He is three; as seeing and thinking, He is one. He is one eternal principle of life and light and love."​

I would note as well that the mystery of God means that the immanent Trinity (the inner life of God) is incomprehensible to human reason and that what is revealed in the divine economy (revealed history) is perfectly true so far as it goes, but it does not reveal all of God’s eternal being (His 'isness') because it is impossible for contingent beings like ourselves to comprehend the One Self-Existing necessary Being: "I AM That I Am / I AM who IS". Every analogy we use from created things is imperfect.

 

[TrueBeliever37]

Do you know how small that was cmpared to the number of Jews in the empire?

It was a remnant just as prophesied. (144,000 composed of 12,000 out of each of the 12 tribes.)

 

[TrueBeliever37]

Okay. So the question still stands from your statement. Why does God have to take on a temporary body of a man and sacrifice himself in order to be a sacrifice for man's sin? Is he not powerful enough to do it without anthropomorphising himself?

I already answered in the 2nd paragraph in post 46. An eternal Spirit doesn't have blood. He saw that no man would be able to be that perfect sacrifice. So he chose to do it himself.

Of course he could have done it any way he chose to. But he wanted to show his great love for us. So he chose to take on a body and suffer and shed his blood for us. And now he wants us to love him for what he did for us.

 

[firedragon]

I already answered in the 2nd paragraph in post 46. An eternal Spirit doesn't have blood. He saw that no man would be able to be that perfect sacrifice. So he chose to do it himself.

Of course he could have done it any way he chose to. But he wanted to show his great love for us. So he chose to take on a body and suffer and shed his blood for us. And now he wants us to love him for what he did for us.

Do you know that your statement is the epitome depicting the heresy of Sabellianism? Or are you saying you oppose the trinity?

 

[TrueBeliever37]

Do you know that your statement is the epitome depicting the heresy of Sabellianism? Or are you saying you oppose the trinity?

I don't believe in the trinity. So what in the world are you talking about?

Do you even believe in the scriptures? Or are you arguing just to argue?

 

[firedragon]

I don't believe in the trinity. So what in the world are you talking about?

Do you even believe in the scriptures? Or are you arguing just to argue?

Ah. I see that you oppose the trinity. So all you have to do is say so.

Have a great day.