• Corvus
    4.1k
    As I mentioned Aquinas makes a distinction between persons of the Trinity and essence. You need to familiarize yourself with the concepts of person and essence before you can attack it.MoK

    I was not attacking, but asking about it. Could we not discuss the points based on the natural logic and reasoning? Why Aquinas? We are not going to accept his doctrines if they are based on A <> A and A^~A, are we?
  • MoK
    861
    I was not attacking, but asking about it. Could we not discuss the points based on the natural logic and reasoning? Why Aquinas? We are not going to accept his doctrines if they are based on A <> A and A^~A, are we?Corvus
    As I mentioned Aquinas distinguish between persons and essence.
  • Corvus
    4.1k
    As I mentioned Aquinas distinguish between persons and essence.MoK

    Do you agree with him?
  • MoK
    861
    Do you agree with him?Corvus
    I cannot find a flaw in his argument. Could you? I am not saying that I agree with his metaphysics though but that is a different topic.
  • Corvus
    4.1k
    I cannot find a flaw in his argument. Could you? I am not saying that I agree with his metaphysics though but that is a different topic.MoK

    I do find serious flaws in the claim, when it says, just because MoK has the same essence as John i.e. being human, MoK and John is one. I would point out, MoK is Mok, and John is John. They are two, not one.
  • DifferentiatingEgg
    185
    Right, the image there is how I see it, and as I've had it explained since God is unknowable Jesus wouldn't have comprehended that he is God, even if he was observed as the son of God by mortals... God never left Jesus cause Jesus is God.

    Jesus represented a mortal avatar of gods grace more or less.
  • MoK
    861
    I do find serious flaws in the claim, when it says, just because MoK has the same essence as John i.e. being human, MoK and John is one. I would point out, MoK is Mok, and John is John. They are two, not one.Corvus
    MoK and John have the same essence by this I mean they both are made of matter. They however have different properties so they are different.
  • Count Timothy von Icarus
    3.2k


    :up:

    This goes back almost 1,000 years earlier too, and was the orthodox position prior to schism between the Orthodox and Catholic churches (both still affirm it).

    The idea that God the Father alone is uncreated and that the Son and Spirit are creatures or emanations was rejected. This shows up most notably in the Arian Heresy (there were other subordinationist heresies too though). The idea that there is just one God and that God merely appears in different modes, essentially different masks, were the various modalist heresies. The Nestorian Heresy is somewhat related too, but that deals with the Incarnations' natures.

    This becomes definitive with the Council of Nicaea (325), but it is an issue in earlier councils and defended and fleshed out in later ones.

    I will offer an explanatory example, although I will caution that it is not perfect. In the semiotic relation as conceived by St. Augustine (and which still underpins semiotics to this day) there are three things going on in any sign (and presumably in anything that means anything to anyone at all).

    We have the knower, what is known, and the means by which knowing takes place (i.e., the "sign" vehicle or word/logos, although not all signs are linguistic obviously). In C.S. Peirce this is object/sign vehicle/interpretant. St. Augustine does a ton with these triads in De Trinitate, particularly how they show up in the human mind and experience. One can even see a sort of implicit mapping of:

    Father - ground of being, what is known
    Son/Logos - the means by which the ground is known, the mediator
    Holy Spirit - that which knows, or "the knowledge" (this hypostatic abstraction in "Thirdness" shows up in Peirce too).

    A key idea in semiotics, at least classically, is that the sign is irreducibly triadic. You cannot decompose it; if you do you will no longer be considering a sign. Each part is only what it is in virtue of being part of the whole.

    Is this a good analogy for God as classically conceived? Perhaps not if we aren't very careful, but there are useful similarities. The sign is all three components; there is just one substance here. Each part is what it is in virtue of being a sign. Likewise, each person (hypostasis) of the Trinity, Father, Son, or Holy Spirit, is God essentially, and the Trinity is not decomposable into discrete "parts of God." Nevertheless, we can speak of each person individually, and their differences, just as we can speak of each part of the sign and its relations, while still affirming that they are one thing, and that each is defined in terms of being one thing. This is as opposed to three separable things making up a whole that is the sum of its parts. (This is also how St. Thomas sees cause and effect BTW, a cause is a cause in virtue of having effects, but it is ontologically prior as in Avicenna).

    In his commentary on Boethius's De Trinitate, St. Thomas introduces an act of the intellect called separation. Separation lets us consider things apart that are never actually apart, for instance a man without flesh and bones, things without their per se accidents, etc. Theology is concerned with things without motion and which are separable and abstract (for the substance of God lacks both matter and motion).

    The difference crops up in the fact that each hypostasis is said to be "fully God" or to possess the "fullness of God." How to understand this? Well, each shares in an undivided (and undividable, because infinite) omnipotence, etc. God is said to have one will. St. Thomas follows St. John of Damascus here: "operation of the will is consequent upon [the entity's] nature" and God has one nature. God's will and intellect are the same as God's essence, and not divided.

    "But," you might ask, "what about 'not my will but yours (Luke 22:42)?" Well, the Incarnation, the fullness of the Son/Logos dwelling in flesh, involves two natures (human and divine), and so two wills. This is spiritually important because it points to the deification of man through this mediation, Christ as the "firstborn among many brothers and sisters," (Romans 8:29) who shall be "conformed to the image of his Son" and "glorified." As St. Athanasius puts it: "God became man that man might become God" (St. Thomas affirms this with his: "The only-begotten Son of God, wanting to make us sharers in his divinity, assumed our nature, so that he, made man, might make men gods."

    The monotheletist heresy, anathematized at the Third Council of Constantinople, rejects the "two wills." Anyhow, interesting tidbit, this is represented in the making of the Sign of the Cross. It is done with three fingers for the three hypostases, and two (ring finger and pinky) tucked in for the two natures in Christ. You will often see old art with Saints holding up their hands in this manner. There is also a different hand signal for priests blessings, thumb to ringfinger.
  • Shawn
    13.3k
    Jesus was not abandoned by God; but by YHWH. Get it right. YHWH abandoned Jesus.

    Just setting the record straight.
  • MoK
    861

    Thank you very much for your post. It refreshed my memory of things I read a long time ago, almost ten years ago, if not longer. I read your post once but I need to read it more to reflect properly and give a proper response.
  • MoK
    861

    Isn't YHWH a name of God?
  • Shawn
    13.3k


    Yeah, but isn't Allah a name of God, also?

    Either way, Hebrews never recognized Jesus as the king of Jews, and never would. For which he was crucified.
  • MoK
    861

    Ok, I see.
  • Corvus
    4.1k
    MoK and John have the same essence by this I mean they both are made of matter. They however have different properties so they are different.MoK

    So we can conclude that Jesus and God is not one.

    From the discussions so far, it seems to be safe to conclude that,
    1) Jesus was not God. He doesn't appear to be omniscient, omnipotent and omnipresent. If he was, then he could not be in the situation he was, and would not have said what the OP noted.
    2) Jesus was not one with God. Therefore Trinity doctrine is unsound and invalid.
  • Gregory
    4.8k
    Trinity doctrine is unsound and invalid.Corvus

    I've been reading Aquinas's treatise on the Trinity today and it resonates with how my mind interacts with itself. It seems the left hemisphere is Father, right is Son, and center "eye" is that which is spirated (love). I easily can be confused about who i am *by* this of course, or *inspite* of this.
  • Corvus
    4.1k
    I've been reading Aquinas's treatise on the Trinity today and it resonates with how my mind interacts with itself. It seems the left hemisphere is Father, right is Son, and center "eye" is that which is spirated (love). I easily can be confused about who i am *by* this of course, or *inspite* of this.Gregory

    Maybe the doctrine transcends human language and logic? If it resonates with you, then I would guess that your consciousness operates in different domain.
  • Fire Ologist
    766
    From the discussions so far, it seems to be safe to conclude that,
    1) Jesus was not God. He doesn't appear to be omniscient, omnipotent and omnipresent. If he was, then he could not be in the situation he was, and would not have said what the OP noted.
    2) Jesus was not one with God. Therefore Trinity doctrine is unsound and invalid.
    Corvus

    It is a mystery to us how we are able to KNOW anything. Despite that we seek to summarize everything in a tight, simple bit of KNOWLEDGE, that we can put into pithy arguments.

    Now you do so with "Trinity doctrine".

    Any arguments summarizing anything we know are formed in mysterious ways. Yet it continues to be easy to allow ourselves to draw such concrete conclusion about OTHER things, such as what "Trinity" is (be it valid or sound, or conceivable, or not), while remaining utterly inconclusive about what it means to KNOW anything.

    One step at a time.

    Of course the Trinity is invalid to any linear, logical scrutiny - logic only sees one thing at a time.
  • Corvus
    4.1k
    Any arguments summarizing anything we know are formed in mysterious ways. Yet it continues to be easy to allow ourselves to draw such concrete conclusion about OTHER things, such as what "Trinity" is (be it valid or sound, or conceivable, or not), while remaining utterly inconclusive about what it means to KNOW anything.Fire Ologist

    Knowledge comes from the empirical observation and internal reasoning. The laws of thought tells us what is truth and falsity on the contents of our perceptions.
  • MoK
    861
    So we can conclude that Jesus and God is not one.Corvus
    No, as I mentioned, the persons of the Trinity are different from God's essence. I already cited an article on the topic if you are interested in reading more, as I cannot summarize the discussion on this topic shortly. @Count Timothy von Icarus summarized and discussed the idea in a relatively short post here.
  • Corvus
    4.1k
    No, as I mentioned, the persons of the Trinity are different from God's essence.MoK
    Do you agree Jesus doesn't have God's essence from the OP's implication?

    I already cited an article on the topic if you are interested in reading more, as I cannot summarize the discussion on this topic shortly.MoK
    If you are looking at the issue from general logic, then you could. You don't want to dip into the water of theology, because there is no general logic in there. If you want to bring in the traditional theology into the discussion, then we need to discuss in the domain of faith then, which transcends general logic, needn't we?
  • MoK
    861
    Do you agree Jesus doesn't have God's essence from the OP's implication?Corvus
    If those words were the last words that Jesus said then yes, Jesus and God are not one.

    If you are looking at the issue from general logic, then you could.Corvus
    No, I cannot. The concept of Christian God has been the subject of discussion by several important scholars for about 1000 years. It is not possible to summarize their works in a short post. I already cited Aquinas's article on the subject of the Trinity. Did you read it? I also suggested you read the post of @Count Timothy von Icarus. Did you read it?
  • Corvus
    4.1k
    If those words were the last words that Jesus said then yes, Jesus and God are not one.MoK

    No, I cannot. The concept of Christian God has been the subject of discussion by several important scholars for about 1000 years. It is not possible to summarize their works in a short post. I already cited Aquinas's article on the subject of the Trinity. Did you read it? I also suggested you read the post of Count Timothy von Icarus. Did you read it?MoK

    Well, MoK, if you agreed that Jesus and God is not one, then you must be in agreement that Trinity is an invalid doctrine. That gives us a logical consequence and entailment, that Aquinas is also invalid. Why would you keep reading and dragging it further?
  • MoK
    861

    I agree partly. If those words were said by Jesus before His death then Jesus and God are not one. Whether the doctrine of the Trinity is logically coherent is another topic though but let's put this aside and say that we agree.
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