Posted on 06/14/2006 8:05:55 AM PDT by NYer
We believe in the Blessed Trinity because we believe in Jesus, Who revealed the Trinity. God had prepared the Jews not only to welcome the Messiah, but to recognize through revelation what philosophers like Aristotle achieved through reason: that there is a God and there can only be one God.
Moses said to the Jews, “Acknowledge today and take to heart that the Lord is God in heaven above and on the earth beneath; there is no other but to believe in God Who is the only God.” When the Messiah finally came, He revealed a huge mystery that went far beyond what the Jews were expecting: that the one God in Whom they believe is not solitary, but a unity, a communion of three persons, Father, Son and Holy Spirit, and that the Messiah is the Son.
He told them explicitly that the Father and He are one (Jn 10:30). He told them that He and the Father would send the Holy Spirit (Jn 14:26, Jn 15:26). And when He sent them out to baptize in the name of God, He didn’t give them instructions to baptize in the “names” of the Father, Son and Holy Spirit — as if they were three different gods — but in the “name,” for they are fundamentally a union of three persons. This is what the term Trinity means. It was devised by the early Church apologist Tertullian around the year 200 from the Latin words “unitas” and “trinus,” literally “unity” and “three.” It signifies that there is a unity of three persons in one God.
Since the beginning of the Church, theologians have spent their lives trying to penetrate this mystery and explain it to others. St. Patrick used the image of a three-leaf clover. St. Augustine used the image of the mind, with memory, reason and will. More recent minds have used the image of H20, which can exist as ice, water, or steam. But none of these analogies — though interesting and somewhat helpful — do justice to the reality of the mystery of how three persons can exist in the one God.
When St. Augustine was in the middle of his voluminous and classic study of the Blessed Trinity, he took a walk along the beach in northern Africa to try to clear his head and pray. He saw a young girl repeatedly filling a scallop shell with sea water and emptying it into a hole she had dug in the sand. “What are you doing?” Augustine tenderly asked. “I'm trying to empty the sea into this hole,” the child replied. “How do you think that with a little shell,” Augustine retorted, “you can possibly empty this immense ocean into a tiny hole?” The little girl countered, “And how do you, with your small head, think you can comprehend the immensity of God?” As soon as the girl said this, she disappeared, convincing Augustine that she had been an angel sent to teach him an important lesson: No matter how gifted God had made him, he would never be able to comprehend fully the mystery of the Trinity.
This, of course, does not mean we cannot understand anything. If we want to get to the heart of the mystery of the Trinity, we can turn to the most theological of the Apostles, who meditated deeply on all that Jesus had revealed and, inspired by the Holy Spirit, said simply and synthetically, “God is love” (1 Jn 4:16). For God to be love, He has to love someone. None of us can love in a vacuum; there must always be an object of our love. Who is the object of God’s love? It cannot be man, or the created world, or the universe, because all of these existed in time and God is eternal and therefore existed before time.
It’s also impossible to say that God merely loved Himself in a solitary way, because this would not really be love but a form of egotism and narcissism. For God to be love, there needed to be an eternal relationship of love, with one who loves, one who is loved, and the love that unites them. This is what exists in the Blessed Trinity: The Father loved His image, the Son, so much that their mutual and eternal love “spirated” or “generated” the Holy Spirit. They exist in a communion of love. The three persons of the Blessed Trinity are united in absolutely everything except, as the early Church councils said, their “relations of origin,” what it means to be Father, what it means to be Son of the Father, and what it means to proceed from the Father and the Son.
These theological insights about the blessed Trinity may seem theoretical, but they become highly practical when we reflect on the fact that we have been made in the image and likeness of God and called to communion with God. To be in the image and likeness of God means to be created in the image and likeness of a communion of persons in love. Our belief in the Trinity — the central teaching of the Catholic faith — has given the Church the deepest understanding available to human beings of the nature of man, the meaning of human life, and what it means to love.
No, we believe Jesus Christ is Father, Son and Holy Spirit. The one God from eternity.
I think it's somewhat ironic that someone can read a few Jack Chick comic books and somehow become "inspired" by the Holy Spirit so that they themselves can interpret scripture -- all while claiming that theologians for the past 2000 years have interpreted scripture incorrectly.
If Catholic Marian beliefs are so offensive, why didn't Luther or Calvin denounce them (they in fact agreed with them).
Hey Bugg. IIRC, the last time you were posting on a "Trinity" thread you were in the midst of a bit of a tempest in a teapot. Maybe there's a good reason why it has taken a detour. :-)
LOL That occurred to me as well. It's almost tempting to try to recreate that tempest on this thread. Almost.
Pay attention now - "I HAVE NO...." is present tense. Riddle solved.
You don't understand the argument.
Forget about the two weeks, I was speaking colloquially. Let's say it was a year. My argument still makes sense.
Why would a woman preparing to engage in a normal sex-filled marriage act astonished when told she was going to conceive a child? Her response makes no sense. The angel did not tell her "you are pregnant now." That could elicit a "how can this be?"
But telling someone ready to enter a marriage that they are going to become pregnant is not exactly supposed to be a mystery.
SD
Not difficult to believe at all.
Catholicism does not contend that Mary didn't require a Savior, just that her Salvation preceeded ours.
Yes she was saved (salvation) before I was saved. But I already am saved (salvation) even before I die.
Finally, were Adam and Eve conceived free from sin (i.e. in an immaculate state)?
This is language I do not recognize (am not familiar with). By concieved to you mean created? Were they created free from sin?...The answer is yes....then came the fall and from that time on, we were all born into sin....even Mary (because she is not God incarnate) But none of these questions have anything to do with whether or not either of us have faith in Jesus Christ, or whether or not we will be granted Grace and therefore salvation. In our basic beliefs in the trintiy, we are one, we are the body of Christ IMHO.
Whose goofy translation is this?
KJV:34Then said Mary unto the angel, How shall this be, seeing I know not a man?
Young's Literal Translation: And Mary said unto the messenger, `How shall this be, seeing a husband I do not know?'
Amplified Version34And Mary said to the angel, How can this be, since I have no [intimacy with any man as a] husband?
SD
Ah, I see. It's a matter of interpretation.
So then you believe Adam and Eve were gods?
SD
Why do you ask that? Did I say that? They were created - free of sin...they were the first created humans on earth. Were Adam and Eve conceived in a womb, were they born from a womb?
Mary was. She was the product of an honest to goodness sexual encounter...just like you and me.
What kind of methodology is this? The Knights of Columbus listed as a denomination? LOL! The KOC is a fraternal order within the Church!
Most of the rites listed are still under the authority of the Pope.
And what the heck is this? Catholic-French Parishes Catholic-German parishes? A desperate attempt it seems to break up the Church into denominations.
Why use Marcus Grodi's method? Why not quote a Protestant, like David Barrett, who quoted that figure in the World Christian Encyclopedia 1981 edition?
CONSERVATIVE, MAINLINE, AND LIBERAL WINGS" IN PROTESTANT CHRISTIANITY
According to David Barrett et al, editors of the "World Christian Encyclopedia: A comparative survey of churches and religions - AD 30 to 2200," there are 34,000 separate Christian groups in the world today. "Over half of them are independent churches that are not interested in linking with the big denominations."
OK, now we're getting somewhere. So you believe it is possible for a human being to exist without original sin and without personal sin and yet these people are not gods?
So why get so bent out of shape when we claim Mary is conceived without original sin? Why accuse us of making her into a diety?
Do you get the point yet? "Sinless human" does not equal "diety." It didn't for Adam and Eve and it doesn't for Mary.
Were Adam and Eve conceived in a womb, were they born from a womb? Mary was. She was the product of an honest to goodness sexual encounter...just like you and me.
Do you think something in the sex act itself makes babies sinful?
I thought Catholics were the sexually repressed ones.
SD
Not really. Given that having a child would be the normal, expected result of a marriage, Miryam would have been somewhat befuddled at an angel showing up to announce it either way.
Moreover, the context of Israel's dealings with YHVH give the answer: If you look at the history of messengers of God showing up to announce births, they tend to appear to women incapable of having children normally. In the cases of Sarah and Hannah, for example, they were barren until the Lord opened their wombs. In the case of Miryam, she was still a virgin, some time off from her wedding night, and so she took the angel's message to mean that there would be a miraculous element to the birth and/or that the conception would occur immediately.
The only possible avenue I can see you trying to take is to conjure some supposed "virginal marriage" out of the wind. The Jews, however, had no such concept; even the Lord Himself defined marriage thusly:
And said, For this cause shall a man leave father and mother, and shall cleave to his wife: and they twain shall be one flesh? Wherefore they are no more twain, but one flesh. What therefore God hath joined together, let not man put asunder.In other words, the marriage of Miryam and Joseph would have been considered a "sham marriage" if they'd never consumated it by "becoming one flesh." Moreover, even the RCC recognizes this problem to an extent by recognizing the "lesser status" of an unconsumated marriage:
(Matthew 19:5-6, ref. Gen. 2:24)
The Code of Canon Law, Canon 1061 -- §1 A valid marriage between baptized persons is said to be merely ratified if it is not consummated. It is said to be ratified and consummated if the spouses have in a human manner engaged together in a conjugal act in itself apt for the generation of offspring. To this act, marriage is by its nature ordered and by it the spouses become one flesh.In conclusion, the supposed perpetual virginity of Mary is a classic example of imposing Greek Platonism (the same Platonism which gave rise to Gnosticism) on the Scriptures' original Jewish cultural context. If you truly want to understand what the Jewish Messiah taught, as well as the jewish Apostles, who quoted from Jewish Scriptures for their authority, stop thinking like a Platonist and start thinking like a Jew.
SD
Not if the angel was announcing a special purpose for the child, which he was.
And anyway, her befuddlement wouldn't be over how she was to conceive. Even normal betrothed girls knew where babis came from.
In other words, the marriage of Miryam and Joseph would have been considered a "sham marriage" if they'd never consumated it by "becoming one flesh."
The Lord can do what He wants. According to the "rules," Jesus is a bit of a bastard, as others have alleged. Let's not get too carried away in trying to deny Mary her due.
SD
No, I'm saying that Adam and Eve do not equate with Mary. You've taken a leap with saying that Adam and Eve were created without sin and that Mary was BORN without sin.
Adam and Eve were, at one time sinless - - at that time they were with God, he dwelt with them, walked beside them (not as Christ[God incarnate] but as God). Then Adam and Eve sinned and were separated from him.
Since that time we have all been separate from him, until he comes to dwell in us. So are you saying because the Christ dwelt within Mary's womb she was without original sin?
You don't get it yet, and I can't explain it, it seems.
Protestant Baptist are one denomination IMO, Methodist are one, Presbyterian another. I don't think that by breaking them down further into synods and local church's you accomplish your task of making them separate denominations anymore than the Knights of Columbus is listed as a denomination....you are agreeing with my point precisely.
I have attended almost all of these so-called divisions within Christianity. There is less division and more unity than quoting some statistic about 33,0000 will tell you. This just causes division.
I think catholics are Christian, as are baptists, anabaptists, lutherans, evangelicals - - simply because we love God/Jesus/Holy Spirit as one. We profess the doctrine of trinity. We don't all agree with each little point of understanding and I think God is okay with that (or else we would all attend one massive organization presided over by a dictator and hiding what we truly believe).
God recognizes small groups of believers meeting together to partake of the Lord's supper and worshipping Him. The believers in Acts met in homes, in small tight-knit groups, full of love, compassions, unity....that is our model of Church.
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