• ernest meyer
    100
    In most Western Christian churches, the 'Trinity' is comprised of three eternal figures: Father, Son, and Hoily Ghost. The so-called 'Sabellian fallacy appears to me to resolve a major philosophical problem, that humankind did not exist before the 6th day of Creation.

    The Philosophical Paradox of an 'Eternal Trinity

    During the time before the Creation of Man per se, how could Jesus exist if there were no men? And how could the Holy Spirit exist without any people with whom to form an individual connection? Some Western churches do not accept the existence of a Trinty, but none go as far as 'Modalism,' which refers to the three figures in the Trinity not all existing simultaneously. The Eastern church takes a slightly different view. The 2nd Nicene Council of 7, now renamed the Council of Constantinople, did staste the trinity exists, as a refutation of Arianism, as already decided by the First Nicene Council. However, it did not specify the Trinity as 'eternal; in its version of the Nicene creed, which is the accepted origin of the creed in the Eastern Orthodox church. But later counsels did. So in traditional Eastern Orthodox theology, the Trinity is now comprised of three equally eternal figures:

    Eastern Orthodox Christians believe in a single God who is both three and one (triune); the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit, "one in essence and undivided". The Holy Trinity is three "unconfused" and distinct divine persons (hypostases), who share one divine essence (ousia); uncreated, immaterial and eternal. The Father is the eternal source of the Godhead, from whom the Son is begotten eternally and also from whom the Holy Spirit proceeds eternally. The essence of God being that which is beyond human comprehension and cannot be defined or approached by human understanding.https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eastern_Orthodox_theology

    However, at least according to conventional ideas of time, the Son and Holy Spirit could not have logically existed before the Creation of Man. Are the traditional Western and Eastern creeds, that the Trinity is eternal, therefore a philosophical fallacy?

    Heretical Sabellianism as a Resolution to the Temporal Paradox

    There is an alternate view in Eastern Gnosticism, which accepts what is now called 'the Sabellian fallacy.' As Eastern Gnosticism is accepted in the Eastern Orthodox church, it states the following, although all orthodox theologians, including the Eastern ones, throw up their hands in horror at the suggestion and reiterate the conventional creed without feeling any need to explain the temporal issues with it:

    The Greek Orthodox teach that God is not of a substance that is comprehensible since God the Father has no origin and is eternal and infinite. Thus it is improper to speak of things as "physical" and "metaphysical"; rather it is correct to speak of things as "created" and "uncreated." God the Father is the origin and source of the Trinity of Whom the Son is begotten and the Spirit proceeding, all Three being Uncreated.https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sabellianism

    Whereas the Sabellian view is heretical by Eastern Orthodox views, in it the Holy Spirit and Son were 'products of the uncreation,' and therefore would have come into existence sometime after the Sixth Day, thus resolving the temporal paradox. So is the Sabellian 'fallacy,' as it named on the Wikipedia in links to Sabellianism, REALLY a 'fallacy,' or is it actually a philosophical (yet heretical) resolution of the 'equally eternal' Trinity'?
    1. Is an 'eternal' Trinity a philosophical fallacy? (3 votes)
        yes
        33%
        no
        67%
    2. Is the Sabellian Fallacy actually a Sabellian Heresy? (3 votes)
        Yes
        33%
        No
        67%
  • Outlander
    1.8k
    We wouldn't know. If God wants to be three people, or one, or several thousand, that's wonderful. Meanwhile we're all still just ignorant people destined to die and furthermore have no idea what the heck we're really supposed to do or believe anyhow. I'm sure we'll be forgiven if we follow the golden rule, defend the positive virtues that derive what we know to be positive experiences, and stand against and defeat the negative virtues that derive what we know to be negative experiences, regardless of where fate places us.
  • T Clark
    13k
    Is an 'eternal' Trinity a philosophical fallacy?ernest meyer

    I'm not a Christian, or even a theist, of any sort, so I don't have an opinion on anything you've written. Even so, I wanted to complement you on an interesting and well expressed opening post.
  • Count Timothy von Icarus
    1.9k
    God is infinite. God is also omniscient, meaning God posseses perfect knowledge of all things to come. "Perfect" knowledge denote that nothing is left out, and so there would be no difference between the experience of something, and the knowledge of it before it happened. In this sense, God stands outside time, experiencing all things at once.

    What is the difference between God perfectly knowing and experiencing man before man is created, and after? The physical act of creation? However, if we use ourselves as a reference (we are created in the image of God), we know that there is no direct action of the material world. There is only experience. And God's experience defies linearity.

    I don't see a paradox. God stands outside time. All things always were and have been if we take omniscience as an attribute of God.
  • ernest meyer
    100
    The paradox is not to do with God. It is to do with the Holy Spirit and Christ existing before Man did.

    Perhaps someone could explain why so many people have a problem understanding the quesiton. It is a very frequent response.
  • Count Timothy von Icarus
    1.9k


    I believe I understand the paradox in that sense. It seems to presuppose some sort of observer, other than God, who stands inside the limits of time and linearity who can see a before and after the material creation of man. But such an observer wouldn't exist, and I think it's not actually possible to talk about meaning and the existence of concepts/forms sans any observer.

    From the hylomorphic perspective, the form of man could be eternal, having always existed as an aspect internal to God, but the occasion of individual men given that form would be a created event that happens withing linear time. I believe this would resolve the paradox too.

    The question for hylomorphism is always "where do the forms come from" and if you already allow the existence of God who exists outside the created realm, that sounds like the best answer.
  • Deleted User
    0
    Why does everything non-biblical have to be a heresy or heretical? I prefer to see the trinity as Father, Mother, Child. Why do I need to defend that? Aren't I free to believe whatever I want to believe?
  • tim wood
    8.7k
    It's called suspension of disbelief, the necessary attitude to take in considering a work of fiction. (Science - non-fiction - obviously has its own, different, imperatives for comprehension and understanding). The reader does his part by suspending his natural inclination to disbelieve the narrative and the writer does his best not to break that suspension by stretching and abusing his reader's cooperativeness to breaking.

    And to the modern eye and ear at least, the Bible and western religion do that all the time. Its advocates and proponents plead reality, but at the same time deny science and its tests of and for reality, deny even the possibility of that access or those tests.

    Your question goes to the inner consistency of a story, a fiction. And if you're asking, which you clearly are, then the fiction has failed as fiction. Except that with those, the failure is yours as a reader. How dare you question!
  • Deleted User
    0
    Well I once did a Bible study on the miracle of the breaking of the bread. When Jesus multiplies bread to feed 5000 people.
    I told them that this was a symbolic story, that such a thing is not physically possible. The husband of an American couple visiting had a PTSD-response and the deacon had to intervene. Saying it's both literal and metaphorical.

    Needless to say it's good that I left church for all parties involved.

    The stories in Islam about Jesus are different. They're all stories. Memory is inaccurate and so is history.

    Science also has been disproved many times and it probably will continue to be in the future. It's the way to move forward. Just evolve as evolution itself keeps evolving.
  • tim wood
    8.7k
    The husband of an American couple visiting had a PTSD-response and the deacon had to intervene.TaySan

    And just there you encounter the madness that underlies fundamentalism, and it is ugly. And history tells us also extremely dangerous. And which implies the nearness of the possibility of madness for us all. A clue to madness, though, is its inherent unreasonableness. I find that a good reality check at times and in fraught moments - is reasonableness present? If it isn't, then I have zero responsibility, certainly none to stay and fight, for who wishes to fight with a madman.
  • Count Timothy von Icarus
    1.9k

    Christianity has always been about doctrine. I feel like a lot of its problems come from taking the Bible, which is essentially a humanist text written by people of different cultures over a millenia, and subject it to logical analysis to find concrete axioms.

    Jesus didn't come to provide a systematic system of thought and doctrine. He offered parables, not Platonic dialogues or Aristotelian analysis. So people seeking that level of doctrine have to invent it.

    The Trinity can represent many things. Father, Mother, Child; Past, Present, Future; components of the psyche, etc.
  • Deleted User
    0
    well you don't. have you ever seen how daoists move? it's non-fighting
    Don't do what you hate and makes you miserable.
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