duality not trinity?

No, "oneness" believes in a God who is not Triune. That's quite different from what we've been discussing.


Well, it was you who introduced the idea that it does.


That's why I said that I was giving you an illustration rather than a tight definition. I was showing you only that one can also allow for three. You of course decided to treat it as a definition even though I told you that it wasn't being offered that way. Persona is the right way to express it, but you say that you don't know what that means, along with not knowing what nature means, what individual means, and what persona means. I can only do so much, given that situation.


We don't do that at all.


I don't think that they do.[/qutoe] i acurately described trinity here and all you offer as a rebutal is "is not." Next you say I misrepresent trinity, when i don't and all you offer for proof is "is not.". "we don't do that" = "is not". I got a right to say what you say means to me, you want to deny me that right yet keep the right for yourself to state what you say means. You can't say up is down, or 3 are one, and





All right. But it also teaches that Jesus is God and that the Holy Spirit is God. What do you do with that information? Ignore it?

I'd say that we need to base our beliefs on the whole of the Bible's witness rather than selecting certain verses and acting as though others that speak to the same concept don't exist.


And I am sure that you intended to reach that conclusion from the beginning. But I at least was able to point out where you misrepresented Trinitarianism. I would be satisfied if you continue to reject Trinitarianism but do not misrepresent what it stands for. Is there any chance of that coming out of our exchange?

You've just explained that we're talking about a "kind" of being. An individual would be a single entity that is one instance of that kind of being.

That's right. It doesn't mean a single person in the sense that you are a single person and I am another person. You asked what "person" means to us (or to the writers of the Nicene Creed) when it is appears in a theological sense and in particular with regard to the Trinity. I explained that it doesn't mean an individual person in the sense that we most often use that word in English, but instead a "persona" (from the Greek).

I really think that your confusion stems from your habit of using these terms interchangeably although they stand for different concepts. No matter how many times I explain that the one doesn't mean the other, you come back doing the same thing. For instance, in both of your last two posts, you wrote "person/nature." That would mean that they mean the same thing. But I have never put it that way, ever written that, and, in fact, I carefully explained each of them separately. So...

When we say "God," we do not mean "the Father."

When we say "nature," we do not mean "person."

When we say "person" we do not mean "individual."

And no matter how many times you respond by saying that "What you are saying, then, is that X is Y...." when I've explained that X is not Y, I am not the one who doesn't 'get it.'

I will admit that I must be a terrible teacher to have explained all this over and over again and in different ways but still can't make you understand what we are talking about. But on the meaning of the Trinity, there is really not at all the uncertainty that you want to think there is.

I'd say it's an aspect of the being. When the word "kind" came into our discussion was--as I remember off the top of my head--when you asked for a definition of "nature."


No. God is an (individual) entity. The Father is merely one of the three persons of that entity.

I
Well, I'm flattered to be considered that clever. However, I'm doing nothing more than trying to explain a very difficult concept to you who have somehow gotten it wrong and, in addition, told me that you are not clear as to what most of the terms that we Trinitarians use all the time mean. "Nature," "Person," "Triune," etc. are standard "jargon" for us, and my use of them is nothing remarkable, even if it seems so to you. It is very important, if you want to know what Trinitarians believe, to be able to distinguish between ideas that are SIMILAR but not the same. For example, we say that God is one, but that he is in three persona. We also take care to not suggest that the "three-ness" is just three different names for the same God...or, for that matter, three different appeances. Persona actually means more than that, as you are now becoming more comfortable with.


I believe that if you recover that particular post, you will see that I was responding to your request for a definition of "nature," not "person."

BUT the bigger question is this--

Why would I be trying to trick you? I believe in the Trinity. I have tried every way I can think of to explain it to you, because you asked. I didn't grab you by the virtual collar and try to convert you to my way of belief about this. My only intention was to have you understand it correctly, whether or not you believe it.

What possible reason would there be for me to trick you about what we believe? I'd only be lying to myself, if that were what was happening. And I have nothing to gain from you. I'm not trying to trick you into joining my church, giving me your money, saying that you were wrong and apologize...nothing of that sort. I have no reason to trick you with sly words that are meant to conceal the actual belief we call the Trinity. And not only that, but any other Trinitarian can easily come onto this thread and point out that what I've said to you is, indeed, a deception--if your suspicions were true. I couldn't, in other words, conceal the "truth" about the Trinity (if I were intent upon deceiving you), even if I wanted to.