Posted on 01/04/2014 11:00:14 AM PST by Salvation
Questions and Answers on the Trinity
25. How many Persons are there in God?
In God there are three divine Persons--the Father, the Son, and the Holy Ghost.
(a) Unaided by divine revelation, the human mind could not know the existence of the Blessed Trinity because it is a supernatural mystery.3 Even after God has revealed the existence of the Blessed Trinity, we cannot understand it fully. When we believe, on the word of God, that there are three Persons in one God, we do not believe that three Persons are one Person, or that three gods are one God; this would be a contradiction.
26. Is the Father God?
The Father is God and the first Person of the Blessed Trinity.
(a) The first Person of the Blessed Trinity is called the Father because from all eternity He begets the second Person, His only-begotten Son.
(b) God the Father is called the first Person not because He is greater or older than the other two Persons, but because He is unbegotten.
27. Is the Son God?
The Son is God and the second Person of the Blessed Trinity.
(a) The second Person of the Blessed Trinity is called the Son because from all eternity, He is the only begotten of the Father. Proceeding from the Father, the Son is called the Divine Word or the Wisdom of the Father.
28. Is the Holy Ghost God?
The Holy Ghost is God and the third Person of the Blessed Trinity.
(a) The third Person of the Blessed Trinity is called the Holy Ghost because from all eternity He is breathed forth, as it were, by the Father and the Son. Proceeding from the Father and the Son, He is called the Gift or Love of the Father and the Son.
(b) The word "Ghost" applied to the third Person means "Spirit."
29. What do we mean by the Blessed Trinity?
By the Blessed Trinity we mean one and the same God in three divine Persons.
30. Are the three divine Persons really distinct from one another?
The three divine Persons are really distinct from one another.
(a) Although the Father, the Son, and the Holy Ghost are distinct Persons, they are not distinct in nature. The nature of the Father is entirely the nature of the Son; and the nature of the Father and the Son is entirely the nature of the Holy Ghost.
31. Are the three divine Persons perfectly equal to one another?
The three divine Persons are perfectly equal to one another, because all are one and the same God.
(a) No one of the three Persons precedes the others in time or in power, but all are equally eternal and all-powerful because they have the same divine nature.
32. How are the three divine Persons, though really distinct from one another, one and the same God?
The three divine Persons, though really distinct from one another, are one and the same God because all have one and the same divine nature.
(a) Because the three divine Persons have one and the same divine nature, they have the same perfections and the same external works are produced by them. But in order that we may better know the three divine Persons, certain perfections and works are attributed to each Person; for example, omnipotence and the works of omnipotence, such as creation, to the Father; wisdom and the works of wisdom, such as enlightenment, to the Son, love and the works of love, such as sanctification, to the Holy Ghost.
33. Can we fully understand how the three divine Persons, though really distinct from one another, are one and the same God?
We cannot fully understand how the three divine Persons, though really distinct from one another, are one and the same God because this is a supernatural mystery.
34. What is a supernatural mystery?
A supernatural mystery is a truth which we cannot fully understand, but which we firmly believe because we have God's word for it.
(a) In addition to those truths which can be attained by man's natural reason, there are certain mysteries hidden in God which we cannot know without divine revelation, but which we must believe because God has revealed them. Divine mysteries by their very nature are far above the power of human understanding and even when revealed and accepted on faith they remain obscure during our life on earth. To understand these things fully, a finite mind would have to comprehend the infinite.
(b) In heaven there will be a fuller understanding of these mysteries, but never an infinite comprehension of them.
It is reasonable to believe supernatural mysteries revealed by God because He can neither deceive nor be deceived. In our everyday life we believe many things on the word of human beings even though at times they deceive or are deceived.
The Baltimore Catechism, no. 3, Lesson 3.
Trinity Ping!
19h Go, therefore,* and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit,
20i teaching them to observe all that I have commanded you.* And behold, I am with you always, until the end of the age.”
Amen to the most impossible concept to understand.
Thank you Salvation...
It is a fact that anyone denying the Trinity is not a Christian...
Looks simple enough 1x1x1=1
Good way to put it. Thanks for that.
Footnotes:
* [28:18] All power…me: the Greek word here translated power is the same as that found in the LXX translation of Dn 7:13–14 where one “like a son of man” is given power and an everlasting kingdom by God. The risen Jesus here claims universal power, i.e., in heaven and on earth.
* [28:19] Therefore: since universal power belongs to the risen Jesus (Mt 28:18), he gives the eleven a mission that is universal. They are to make disciples of all nations. While all nations is understood by some scholars as referring only to all Gentiles, it is probable that it included the Jews as well. Baptizing them: baptism is the means of entrance into the community of the risen one, the Church. In the name of the Father…holy Spirit: this is perhaps the clearest expression in the New Testament of trinitarian belief. It may have been the baptismal formula of Matthew’s church, but primarily it designates the effect of baptism, the union of the one baptized with the Father, Son, and holy Spirit.
* [28:20] All that I have commanded you: the moral teaching found in this gospel, preeminently that of the Sermon on the Mount (Mt 5–7). The commandments of Jesus are the standard of Christian conduct, not the Mosaic law as such, even though some of the Mosaic commandments have now been invested with the authority of Jesus. Behold, I am with you always: the promise of Jesus’ real though invisible presence echoes the name Emmanuel given to him in the infancy narrative; see note on Mt 1:23. End of the age: see notes on Mt 13:39 and Mt 24:3.
In what year was the Trinity accepted as doctrine in the Roman Catholic Church?
In the article some references to the Old Testament too.
The Trinity is the term employed to signify the central doctrine of the Christian religion — the truth that in the unity of the Godhead there are Three Persons, the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit, these Three Persons being truly distinct one from another.
Thus, in the words of the Athanasian Creed: "the Father is God, the Son is God, and the Holy Spirit is God, and yet there are not three Gods but one God." In this Trinity of Persons the Son is begotten of the Father by an eternal generation, and the Holy Spirit proceeds by an eternal procession from the Father and the Son. Yet, notwithstanding this difference as to origin, the Persons are co-eternal and co-equal: all alike are uncreated and omnipotent. This, the Church teaches, is the revelation regarding God's nature which Jesus Christ, the Son of God, came upon earth to deliver to the world: and which she proposes to man as the foundation of her whole dogmatic system.
In Scripture there is as yet no single term by which the Three Divine Persons are denoted together. The word trias (of which the Latin trinitas is a translation) is first found in Theophilus of Antioch about A.D. 180. He speaks of "the Trinity of God [the Father], His Word and His Wisdom (To Autolycus II.15). The term may, of course, have been in use before his time. Afterwards it appears in its Latin form of trinitas in Tertullian (On Pudicity 21). In the next century the word is in general use. It is found in many passages of Origen ("In Ps. xvii", 15). The first creed in which it appears is that of Origen's pupil, Gregory Thaumaturgus. In his Ekthesis tes pisteos composed between 260 and 270, he writes: .....continue reading at the link above.
Agreeing with the thesis (to wit, the truth of the Triune Godhead, as revealed in Scripture) of this post could in some situations actually get us all killed by al-Qaeda and friends in Syria today.
Muslims view the belief in the Trinity as polytheism — a throat-slitting/beheading offense, naturally.
So much for “tolerance.”
That is why I am so glad that so many in the current Administration and Congress are speaking out so vociferously against the wholesale persecution of Christians BY MUSLIMS (this needs to be articulated) in the Middle East at this time! /sarc
P.S. I am a Protestant, but the Doctrine of the Trinity is one area in which Catholic and Protestant theology converge.
The trinity is mentioned in the Didache.
Try this — 50 AD — while the Apostles were still alive.
http://www.catholic.com/video/what-is-the-didache
In Bishop Romney's religion they are separate gods, and Mitt Romney himself will become a God as well.
Jehovah's Witnesses and the Trinity
[My attempt to explain the "break" in the Trinity]
I beg your pardon,
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-religion/3108323/posts?page=3#3
And the footnotes below that with other Scripture references.
More biblical ignorance put out by the Catholic religion...The funny part is that it is supposed to be true because some guy put on a crown and a fancy robe and claimed it is true...And the sheeple said, amen...
Rev 1:17 And when I saw him, I fell at his feet as dead. And he laid his right hand upon me, saying unto me, Fear not; I am the first and the last:
So which person is John speaking to here??? The Father, or Jesus???
There are 3 persons; the Father, the Son and the Holy Spirit...There are 3 Lords, the Father, the Son and the Holy Spirit...Yet there is one Lord...
And there is one person; God...
1Ti 3:16 And without controversy great is the mystery of godliness: God was manifest in the flesh, justified in the Spirit, seen of angels, preached unto the Gentiles, believed on in the world, received up into glory.
All the same person, with different forms... 3 persons=1 person...
Gen_1:1 In the beginning God created the heaven and the earth.
Eph 3:9 And to make all men see what is the fellowship of the mystery, which from the beginning of the world hath been hid in God, who created all things by Jesus Christ:
Jesus was the Creator, yet God was the Creator...1 person...
Php 2:6 Who, being in the form of God, thought it not robbery to be equal with God:
In the FORM of God, not the nature of God...
Col 1:15 Who is the image of the invisible God, the firstborn of every creature:
Col 1:16 For by him were all things created, that are in heaven, and that are in earth, visible and invisible,
whether they be thrones, or dominions, or principalities, or powers: all things were created by him, and for him:
Col 1:17 And he is before all things, and by him all things consist.
Col 1:18 And he is the head of the body, the church: who is the beginning, the firstborn from the dead; that in all things he might have the preeminence.
This says that the Earth and everything in it was created by and for Jesus...
Who is the creator, the person of the Father or the person of Jesus??? Your religion says it was the Father...The scriptures say it was the Father AND the Son and the HOly Spirit...But yet it was created by the person of God...
When we believe, on the word of God, that there are three Persons in one God, we do not believe that three Persons are one Person, or that three gods are one God; this would be a contradiction.
The lack of spiritual understanding and belief does not constitute a contradiction...
Not ALL protestants, see post #16. If you stick around here long enough you will see some "interesting" points of view.
**In the FORM of God, not the nature of God...**
This is so wrong. Jesus had two natures, a divine nature and a human nature, fully God and fully man.
Why are you and your religion right but the bibles so wrong???
No point of view at all...The bible doesn't afford us a point of view...It's Bible...
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