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.
My ilk? LOL! And what exactly is my ilk?
"Something maybe a little different than what happens when (2) Catholics disagree on doctrinal issues (and we know that they do) ... we keep studying and praying to God for guidance."
The Catholics I know also pray for guidance when they struggle with their beliefs. they are no different than anyone else in this regard.
"The problem is in our imperfect hearing/understanding of God's truths."
Then you admit your beliefs are not without flaw. That's good and it also illustrates the parable of the log and the splinter.
"Fortunately most of us have a lifetime to get to where God's leading us."
I would count that as an eternity. :-)
I would agree, the terminology comes from, at least written down, Tertullian around 200 AD. But the word "Bible" is not there either, so it isn't a big deal to me!
Regards
Hosea 4:1 Hear the word of the LORD, ye children of Israel: for the LORD hath a controversy with the inhabitants of the land, because there is no truth, nor mercy, nor knowledge of God in the land.
No where does it even suggest you follow vain philosophers or other sinners. No where. In fact the OPPOSITE is stressed in the Bible: Col.2:8 [8] Beware lest any man spoil you through philosophy and vain deceit, after the tradition of men, after the rudiments of the world, and not after Christ. No, I won't let you or any other Deceitful, sinner rob me of eternity through false teachings. The Bible is my litmus test. Perhaps your should be the same. Then you would see the errors of what you state.
Sinless was supposed to be Sinful, as per my later post, that you of course read.ALL are sinners and why I wouldn't trust them with what I believe. According to the Bible we are ALL sinners. If they are "sinless" guess they don't need a Savior, now do they? LOL!!!
You and I are both sinners, as is everyone else. Of course we need a Savior! I follow the guidance of the Pope, who is a sinner. I don't know what denomination you are, if any, so I would assume that you follow your own guidance, but you are a sinner too, so there is no great difference in that respect. The Pope has spent nearly his entire life in devotion to Christ, and studying Scripture, Canon Law, theology, philosophy, etc... I trust that he is a better shepard for Christ than I am, he isn't perfect, but he's far better than I. The means in which we worship God does not necessarily matter as much as the end, Christ himself. We worship the same Lord, in varying ways, some solely based on Scripture, some with Scripture, works, and tradition - all based on Scripture.
No where does it even suggest you follow vain philosophers or other sinners. No where. In fact the OPPOSITE is stressed in the Bible: Col.2:8 [8] Beware lest any man spoil you through philosophy and vain deceit, after the tradition of men, after the rudiments of the world, and not after Christ. No, I won't let you or any other Deceitful, sinner rob me of eternity through false teachings. The Bible is my litmus test. Perhaps your should be the same. Then you would see the errors of what you state.
But you yourself are a sinner. How do you know that you wont be led astray yourself by your own interpretations of Scripture that may not be right? People can easily deceive themselves, even the most studious. The pathway to hell is paved with good intentions.
As for following Christ with the guidance of another, we would go back to the Petrine Doctrine. It is simply a matter of Faith. My Christ is the same as your Christ, and I believe the Catholic Church is actively guided by the Holy Spirit, and that the gates of hell shall not prevail against it. The more I read my Bible, the more I appreciate my Church, and how I worship Christ through it.
You don't worry about how I worship Christ, and I won't worry about you. I'll see ya in Heaven.
There is knowledge surfacing that even in OT it was recognized in the OT Godhead which will settle those distinctions between Elohim and Jahovah!
I am sure more will be mention as the news get out about these ancient manuscripts!
Before the Lord return no stone will be left unturn!
I agree the in the whole heartly that the Gosple of John testifies of the Godhead of Jesus Christ in plain language and resembles nothing that version of the Trinity Concept!
John 5 is explicit about two distinct personages!
John 5
17 ¶ But Jesus answered them, My Father worketh hitherto, and I work.
18 Therefore the Jews sought the more to kill him, because he not only had broken the sabbath, but said also that God was his Father, making himself equal with God.
19 Then answered Jesus and said unto them, Verily, verily, I say unto you, The Son can do nothing of himself, but what he seeth the Father do: for what things soever he doeth, these also doeth the Son likewise.
20 For the Father loveth the Son, and sheweth him all things that himself doeth: and he will shew him greater works than these, that ye may marvel.
21 For as the Father raiseth up the dead, and quickeneth them; even so the Son quickeneth whom he will.
22 For the Father judgeth no man, but hath committed all judgment unto the Son:
23 That all men should honour the Son, even as they honour the Father. He that honoureth not the Son honoureth not the Father which hath sent him.
****
John 8
38 I speak that which I have seen with my Father: and ye do that which ye have seen with your father.
39 They answered and said unto him, Abraham is our father. Jesus saith unto them, If ye were Abraham’s children, ye would do the works of Abraham.
40 But now ye seek to kill me, a man that hath told you the truth, which I have heard of God: this did not Abraham.
41 Ye do the deeds of your father. Then said they to him, We be not born of fornication; we have one Father, even God.
42 Jesus said unto them, If God were your Father, ye would love me: for I proceeded forth and came from God; neither came I of myself, but he sent me.
John 12
44 ¶ Jesus cried and said, He that believeth on me, believeth not on me, but on him that sent me.
45 And he that seeth me seeth him that sent me.
46 I am come a light into the world, that whosoever believeth on me should not abide in darkness.
47 And if any man hear my words, and believe not, I judge him not: for I came not to judge the world, but to save the world.
48 He that rejecteth me, and receiveth not my words, hath one that judgeth him: the word that I have spoken, the same shall judge him in the last day.
49 For I have not spoken of myself; but the Father which sent me, he gave me a commandment, what I should say, and what I should speak.
50 And I know that his commandment is life everlasting: whatsoever I speak therefore, even as the Father said unto me, so I speak.
John 20
16 Jesus saith unto her, Mary. She turned herself, and saith unto him, Rabboni; which is to say, Master.
17 Jesus saith unto her, Touch me not; for I am not yet ascended to my Father: but go to my brethren, and say unto them, I ascend unto my Father, and your Father; and to my God, and your God.
18 Mary Magdalene came and told the disciples that she had seen the Lord, and that he had spoken these things unto her.
Truly I wish not to continue this for me the Bible testify that there are 3 distinct seperate personages in the Godhead!
I recognized our differences that each have their belief of the 3 members which you call Trinity!
Sure! Like that verse in Ephesians, I think, where Paul dictates the entire Canon of the Bible which all Protestants use to buttress Sola Scripura. Yeah...Right! That's the ticket!
The reason it didn't take you hundreds of years to figure it out is because the Church had already defined it for non-Catholics.
It didn't take the Church hundreds of years to figure it out either. They already knew it, but had to set down definitions to combat heresies, such as the Arian heresy.
Friend, this is a paraphrase of the saying of a great saint on the Theological virtue of Faith. Instead, you insist on understanding or you WON'T believe. Sorry, FRiend, that ain't how it works.
Right behind the section describing the Canon, the Immaculate Conception and the detailed description of the Trinity.
And where did that Bible come from? Did it write itself? Did Jesus instruct His disciples to write down the events during His lifetime?
1814. Faith is the theological virtue by which we believe in God and believe all that he has said and revealed to us, and that Holy Church proposes for our belief, because he is truth itself. By faith "man freely commits his entire self to God." For this reason the believer seeks to know and do God's will. "The righteous shall live by faith." Living faith "work[s] through charity."
I think you are mistaken. I believe in my Savior. I trust Him and I trust his Word. However, I don't have "faith" in the Pope.
Jesus left the first Pope (or Prime Minister, if you will) when He called Peter the rock and "upon this rock I will build MY Church." I didn't make that up; Jesus said it. Look it up! He used the same principle in Isaiah 22:22 to create the one who "holds the keys."
I know Popes are sinners, brother. I am a sinner too and so were all of the Apostles and all Catholics. However, that is how Christ modeled HIS Church, His Mystical Body, and He left a chain of authority to sort out disputes (see Acts for abundant examples!!).
I don't believe everything the Pope says either. If he said the sky was pink today, I wouldn't believe it. However, when he speaks on matters of Faith and Morals, you bet I believe it. Christ told me to; He left a Prime Minister as the arbiter of disputes inspired by the Holy Spirit.
Dear friend, take a closer look at this passage and those printed before and after it, to place it in its proper context.
In 2 Tim. 3:15 - Paul appeals to the sacred writings of Scripture referring to the Old Testament Scriptures with which Timothy was raised (not the New Testament which was not even compiled at the time of Paul's teaching). This verse also proves that one can come to faith in Jesus Christ without the New Testament.
In 2 Tim. 3:16 - this verse says that Scripture is "profitable" for every good work, but not exclusive. The word "profitable" is "ophelimos" in Greek. "Ophelimos" only means useful, which underscores that Scripture is not mandatory or exclusive. You unbiblically argue that profitable means exclusive.
In 2 Tim. 3:16 - further, the verse "all Scripture" uses the words "pasa graphe" which actually means every (not all) Scripture. This means every passage of Scripture is useful. Thus, the erroneous reading of "pasa graphe" would mean every single passage of Scripture is exclusive. This would mean Christians could not only use "sola Matthew," or "sola Mark," but could rely on one single verse from a Gospel as the exclusive authority of God's word. This, of course, is not true and even you would agree. Also, "pasa graphe" cannot mean "all of Scripture" because there was no New Testament canon to which Paul could have been referring, unless you argue that the New Testament is not being included by Paul.
In 2 Tim. 3:16 - also, these inspired Old Testament Scriptures Paul is referring to included the deuterocanonical books which the Protestants removed from the Bible 1,500 years later.
In 2 Tim. 3:17 - Paul's reference to the "man of God" who may be complete refers to a clergyman, not a layman. It is an instruction to a bishop of the Church. So, although Protestants use it to prove their case, the passage is not even relevant to most of the faithful.
In 2 Tim. 3:17 - further, Paul's use of the word "complete" for every good work is "artios" which simply means the clergy is "suitable" or "fit." Also, artios does not describe the Scriptures, it describes the clergyman. So, you cannot use this verse to argue the Scriptures are complete.
If you are going to quote Scripture, place it within its proper perspective, including all of the verses.
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