Replies

One in purpose IS an over simplification to be sure given Jesus’ statements about the closeness he has with his father.
But what we do see in this prayer is a comparison of the the relationship between Jesus and the Father and that of the disciples, as in vs. 22: “..that they may be one even as we are one”,

It follows then that Jesus could say he and his Father were “one” without it necessarily referring to a trinity. [emphasis added]

First of all, yes, certainly. I tcould be construed that way and it is not necessarily construed in a Trinitarian way, as far as I can tell.

However, what I seem to notice is that non-Trinitarians seem also to have what I think of as a non-mystical set of opinions about the 'end of man.'

We think of what you might call "man-ness" taken up into God in Jesus, so that it is a God/Man sitting at the right hand of the Father. Thus in our thinking the 'end of man' is an ever closer and ever more intimate union with God. (I ask my students who are math-capable to think of asymptotic curves, always approaching some limit 'closer than any given interval' yet never reaching the limit.)

I know "mystical" is a controversial word, but I don't know another one to use.

I do not generally see such thinking among those who think of Jesus as a creature or as somehow less than God in every respect.

In my prayer and in my thinking that is the best possible understanding of the perfection of happiness that I have come across. It preserves the difference between Creator and creature while honoring the aspiration of the longing human heart.

So when I -- koff, koff -- expound (no, stop laughing!) that part of John, I talk about our being caught up in the Life of the Trinity, in the Life of God Himself -- the Spirit already in us drawing us closer and always closer to God, conforming our will to His Will ever more closely, and filling our hearts with His Love ever more fully.

So, in that exposition, it follows inevitably that we will be closer to one another, and approximate ever more exactly the oneness of God.

Something like that anyway....

One of the difficulties of explaining the trinity doctrine is that one MUST wander off into the mystical.

As the Catholic Catechism says,
“251 In order to articulate the dogma of the Trinity, the Church had to develop her own terminology with the help of certain notions of philosophical origin: “substance”, “person” or “hypostasis”, “relation” and so on. In doing this, she did not submit the faith to human wisdom, but gave a new and unprecedented meaning to these terms, which from then on would be used to signify an ineffable mystery, “infinitely beyond all that we can humanly understand”.

Yet that same Catechism says,
“The faith of all Christians rests on the Trinity.”

So we have here a dogma hat is described with words of a new and unprecedented meaning developed from certain notions of a philosophical origin that is now and forever beyond all that we can humanly understand. Moreover Christian faith is to rest upon this dogma!

That sounds like credulity since Paul defines faith as confidence that there is a reality, an underlying substance with evidence to support what is not beheld.

“God/Man”??? I thought you didn't teach Christ was a part God, part man.

“end of man’???.....where does that expression come from?