Posted on 04/26/2005 9:00:20 AM PDT by TheTruthess
"It makes us aware that God is plural and, therefore, from the first, affirms the eternal nature of the being who would one day restrict his God nature and also take the form of a servant, and be "made in all things like unto his brethren."
Oh, brother, this guy is definitely a heretic.
Now, God restricts His nature? The divinity didn't change as a result of the Incarnation! Are we to say that the Holy Spirit and the Father now changed as a result of the Incarnation? One of the persons of the divinity took on the form of man, took on our nature, but He (Jesus) never put aside His divinity! Jesus Christ was God AND Man! He had/has TWO natures. How can one say the nature of God changed? That is a contradiction of terms.
Regards
Your right,
I should have read the whole article instead of skimming through it.
"Your right, I should have read the whole article instead of skimming through it."
I usually do the same thing, but the above called out to me. Another point this guy states to prove he doesn't know much about the Trinity is...
"...there are three distinguishable beings in one God. Each possess the God nature and besides this one God with three beings there is none other."
There are three PERSONS - not three beings! We are polytheists now? God is one being, one essence, the divine nature - who happens to consist of three distinct persons. God said "I am who am", not "I are who are", or "We are who are".
Yikes!
Regards
Rather than be so quick to label heretics, read more carefully. He stated that God is plural. God the father, God the Son, and God the Spirit. The Son restricted his nature to become flesh. Yes, he was both God and man as I know the author would also attest. But if scripture tells us something, it's better to listen than to start spouting false labels.
Hebrews 2:7 Thou madest him a little lower than the angels; thou crownedst him with glory and honour, and didst set him over the works of thy hands: 8 Thou hast put all things in subjection under his feet. For in that he put all in subjection under him, he left nothing that is not put under him. But now we see not yet all things put under him. 9 But we see Jesus, who was made a little lower than the angels for the suffering of death, crowned with glory and honour; that he by the grace of God should taste death for every man.
Jesus is God. Jesus was made 'lower than the angels'. Therefore God restricts his nature. It's really not that hard to understand when you take the time to follow reasoning.
Again. Check the reasoning. 'God in three persons' is the phrasing I usually use, but based on the english language (of which I speak a little) being and person can be used interchangably.
From Webster:
Being - To exist in actuality; to have life or reality; to occupy a specified position.
Person - An individual of specified character.
Let me assure you any difference is merely syntactical in the author's case.
"The Son restricted his nature to become flesh."
God does not reduce His nature. The nature of the Godhead remains unchanged! Your explanation would have me believe that when Jesus became a man, the Holy Spirit and the Father lose power because the nature of God is now restricted! Remember, Jesus is only One of the Three Persons of the Trinity that utilize the Divine Nature.
It would be better to say that Jesus did not display His divinity fully while He was Jesus of Nazareth. His full divinity was "hidden" from the Apostles and Jews. Because the Person of Jesus Christ is wrapped in mystery, we must be careful on our definitions.
Jesus being a little lower than angels merely means that He took on the nature of a man. Being that God is impassible, that is the only way Jesus could suffer and die, by taking on our nature. This is what the author of Hebrews refers to - that the Logos, the pre-existing Second Person of the Trinity took on the nature of man, IN ADDITION to His nature already as God. Both subsist in the person we call Jesus Christ. As Christians, we must be careful on such explanations, as they lead to un-Biblical ideas. We must believe that God became Jesus, fully God and fully man.
Regards
"There are three PERSONS - not three beings!"
I stand by this explanation. Looking up in the dictionary is not going to help in this particular case. Why? When refering to anything BUT God, this would be true. Everything that exists has a nature. The WHAT. It is also the source of action. All creatures that can rationalize (or had the potential to - children or mentally ill) are Persons. The WHO. Normally, these co-exist, and we can legitimately call a person a being. No one exists who has two natures - until Jesus came along. Now, we have a person with two distinct natures, or sources of action. Thus, the dictionary will not help much here, as we have an exception to the rule.
To say that God is three beings is to say that God is three persons with three separate natures, as we normally associate persons and natures together, one person having one nature separate from another person. Again, it is a mystery, but it would serve others who are learning about Christianity to use accepted terms, such as three persons in one God, so as not to confuse others.
Regards
In this sentence you used God and the Godhead interchangably. If this is to be the accepted starting premise, then I will agree. But if Jesus as God is separate from the other 'persons' (yes, I agree much better than 'beings') of the Godhead, then I stand by my original reasoning. It is not the 'nature of God' that is resricted as much as it is Jesus as God the Son through obedience to the Father restricting himself.
We must believe that God became Jesus, fully God and fully man.
On this we agree.
Gerald L Schroeder, "The Science of God".
"But if Jesus as God is separate from the other 'persons' (yes, I agree much better than 'beings') of the Godhead, then I stand by my original reasoning."
Be careful. Again, this can be complicated. The Three Persons of the Trinity are NOT separate in any way. They are distinct merely in their relationship to each other. They do not share the divine nature, they each possess it totally and completely. To separate the Three Persons is to tread on polytheism again.
"It is not the 'nature of God' that is resricted as much as it is Jesus as God the Son through obedience to the Father restricting himself."
Yes, this is different than saying the divinity of God is restricted, yes? The nature of God remains unchanged. Yet, the Logos took on a second nature so that He could suffer and save us. Perhaps you are beginning to see why the Church went through several hundred years before they defined the limits of who and what God is (or perhaps, it is easier to say what God is not, according to Augustine).
Why the quibbling over what God is? This revelation of who God is is an act of love similiar in its depth to Calvary. We should become aware of who God is, not only because we love Him and this is a deeply personal revelation that was not necessary, but it also gives us hints of how we are made in God's image (especially realized in marriage) and what we will enter when we move on to heaven to "share in the divine nature" as Peter wrote in Scripture.
Take care
Three personages:
1. God the Father
2. Jesus Christ
3. Holy Spirit
How you can interpret these three as one other than a metaphorical one is beyond me. They are separate.
"How you can interpret these three as one other than a metaphorical one is beyond me. They are separate."
This doctrine of the Trinity took many years to fully develop to what we have now. The Church Fathers carefully developed this doctrine to weed out what the faithful DOES NOT believe. When terminology was initially given, heresy would pop up that took the faith in a direction that the Apostles had not taught. For example, the idea of three hypostases (persons) removed the taint of Sabellianism (the idea that God manifested Himself differently through history, in essence, saying that there was no distinction between Jesus and the Father and the Spirit). However, this brought up the threat of Tritheism, which claims that God is three separate persons. Deut 6:4 is being threatened, thus, the careful wording by the Fathers. And so, the Fathers had to define to what extent God consisted of three hypostases (persons).
We can thank the Cappodocian Fathers for our definitions that we have today that preserve "the tradition of the Scriptures", as St. George of Nyssa recalled. Specifically on the question of distinctions among the Three, he identified causality as the only real point of distinction, stating that one was the cause, namely, the Father, and that the Son and the Spirit were derived from Him, but eternally. In this one cause was the guarantee of the unity of the Three. By saying this, we can rest assured that there are not three Persons who act separately from each other. When one acts, all three act. There are three persons, but they have one will, one nature. They act together. It is a fine line, but it keeps us away from Tritheism
Here is what the Catechism says on the subject:
254 The divine persons are really distinct from one another. "God is one but not solitary. [Father], [Son], [Holy Spirit] are not simply names designating modalities of the divine being, for they are really distinct from one another: "He is not the Father who is the Son, nor is the Son he who is the Father, nor is the Holy Spirit he who is the Father or the Son." They are distinct from one another in their relations of origin: "It is the Father who generates, the Son who is begotten, and the Holy Spirit who proceeds." The divine Unity is Triune.
256 St. Gregory of Nazianzus, also called "the Theologian", entrusts this summary of Trinitarian faith to the catechumens of Constantinople:
"Above all guard for me this great deposit of faith for which I live and fight, which I want to take with me as a companion, and which makes me bear all evils and despise all pleasures: I mean the profession of faith in the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit. I entrust it to you today. By it I am soon going to plunge you into water and raise you up from it. I give it to you as the companion and patron of your whole life. I give you but one divinity and power, existing one in three, and containing the three in a distinct way. Divinity without disparity of substance or nature, without superior degree that raises up or inferior degree that casts down. . . the infinite co-naturality of three infinites. Each person considered in himself is entirely God. . . the three considered together. . . I have not even begun to think of unity when the Trinity bathes me in its splendour. I have not even begun to think of the Trinity when unity grasps me".
St. Basil said that what was common to the Three and what was distinctive among them lay beyond speech and comprehension and therefore beyond either analysis or conceptualization. The distinction between the generation of the Son and that of the Spirit remained an "unknown mode", according to Didymus. These Fathers were determined to "guard tradition we have received from the fathers, as ever sure and immovable, and seek from the Lord a means of defending our faith" (George of Nyssa).
I think we will have to admit that the mystery of the Godhead cannot be fully understood in this lifetime. These theological definitions attempt to explain using human words an essence and subject that we can never fully penetrate. However, it is important that we have an understanding of who God is based on His revelation to the Apostles.
Regards
I don't know where you're getting your information from but it's definately not the Bible. No would guess that you are augmenting scripture with some doctrine of man on the issue of the Trinity. Since the Bible does not reveal that much information concerning the trinity there is no way that we can completely know everything about it. I only use the Bible as a source and everything I have studied in it leaves some real unanswered questions.
Deuteronomy 29:29 The secret things belong unto the LORD our God: but those things which are revealed belong unto us and to our children for ever, that we may do all the words of this law.
Just as I thought.
"I don't know where you're getting your information from but it's definately not the Bible."
Two comments.
First, the formula of the doctrine of the Trinity is in the Bible, when read entirely and within the Apostolic Tradition handed down to the Bishops. Note the citation from Gregory of Nyssa that I mention "tradition of the Scriptures, etc."
Second, where exactly does the Bible say that my information about God must be explicitly stated in the Bible ONLY? I agree that it cannot contradict, but I believe we can agree that everything we are meant to believe is not always explicitly spelled out. Example: What are the Table of Contents of the Scripture? The Bible is NOT a catechism.
Regards
"...you are augmenting scripture with some doctrine of man on the issue of the Trinity"
Hmm. Sola Scriptura and Sola Fide. Where exactly can I find those in the Bible? Are these doctrines of man?
Regards
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