Trinity not Eternal

[Korah]

The idea that Christ is a created being or that the Spirit is too is wrong.
The problem comes from a false assumption in the OP about God. That He needs a "higher standard". He doesn't. There is none "above" Him. He swears by Himself. He takes an oath by Himself (Heb.).

As I mentioned at the start of my first post, I introduced this new OP because no one had commented upon my idea responding to the OP in "Does Yahweh have a CONSCIENCE?" There have still been no posts on that thread since July 5th. Your objection applies to that OP. I'm just trying to help.
I knew that I would be misunderstood. I don't mean that the Being(s) of the Trinity are not eternal, co-eternal. I mean that the names defined for the Trinity suggest that the original Being(s) at some point became henceforth understandable as Trinity, whereas such was not originally the case. The concept "Trinity" goes back to that point and not farther. The concept of the new status is what I say in not "eternal".
Don't blame me for the misunderstandings intrinsic to the concept of the Trinity. I don't claim to understand it; no one does. I just hope to have contributed to increasing what understanding we limited humans can have of the Trinity.

 

[BrendanMark]

6.15 . . . As far as time is concerned, no one is so senseless as to claim that the Maker of the ages holds a second place; no interval could possibly divide the natural union of Father and Son.
St Basil the Great – On the Holy Spirit [SVS, 1980, p. 30]

You seem to constantly apply temporal and human attributes onto the eternal and infinite mystery and Godhead. Not really a good course to orthodox understanding and faith, IMHO.

 

[Korah]

St Gregory the Theologian - who basically defined Trinitarian theology, at least for the East - and all orthodox theology derived from his work

Back to this point in your Post #12. I asked for proof that Nazianzus was above all others in defining the Trinity. I'm not saying you're wrong, just saying that I had not heard that. My reference sources hark back to Sts. Athanasius, Basil, Gregory of Nyssa, and Gregory of Nazianzus jointly.
[Edited to say: I've found in Wikipedia now that Nazianzen is known as the Trinitarian Theologian, so drop my request for backup, unless you think Wiki is not absolute proof. {Edited further: Now I find that each Wikipedia article gives pride of place to the Trinity to the person under review. So we're back to the three Cappadocians plus St. Athanasius.}]
The reason I am surprised is that I have never heard of these concepts of the Trinity that Beeley got from Gregory of Nazianzus. If your quotes really are all that important, how come I've never heard of the monarchical concept of the Trinity? I would think that any monarchical emphasis would be dated now, perhaps itself explaining why current theology texts would not present it. And the "cause" concept would do as badly for not justifying equality and co-eternality.
Again, I'm not saying you're wrong, I just am set aback that such arguments are considered to be so very strong. Maybe I'm just dumb--I don't "get" it.
Korah
Edited to add:
Now I'm even more distressed. The Wikipedia article presents G. not with the Trinity relations BM gives us from Beeley, but for his "Pneumatology". This is that the Holy Spirit proceeds from the Father and Son, but not like the Son from generation. This goes even farther afield from equality. Here we see not just the Son lower by generation, but the Holy Spirit is even lower by proceeding from both the apparently superior Beings. (And incidentally agreeing with the Western Filioque and not with the Eastern denial of it as heresy.)
Again, not that I'm saying you or Wikipedia or G. or Beeley are wrong, just that I find it paradoxical to claim that any or all of these are necessarily more orthodox than my presentation.
By the way, I can easily understand where G. of Nazianzen would get (as I see it) off track so far, he learned a lot from Origen. Origen wrote a century before Nicaea, and Origen presented the Father as superior to the Son and the Son as superior to the Spirit.

 

[BrendanMark]

The in-depth study of the Cappadocians in the West is, in fact, relatively recent - although long known in Orthodox circles where St Gregory has the title The Theologian, alongside only St John and, to a lesser extent, St Simeon the New Theologian.

Beeley's work was published in 2008. The earliest source material I have translated dates from 2001 (then 2002, 2006, 2007). I cannot afford the Migne editions of the Patrologia Graeca. It was Paul Tillich in the West who said St Gregory "created the definitive formulae for the doctrine of the trinity", but I have seen it affirmed in many other Trinitarian studies I have and read. I'm currently reading Lewis Ayers' Nicaea and its Legacy - An Approach to Fourth-Century Trinitarian Theology [Oxford, 2004], but am only up to his analysis of St Basil the Great.

That St Gregory is in something of a disagreement with Augustine concerning procession of the spirit is fundamental to understanding the difference between East and West and the filioque. We in the West have long been largely ignorant of the theology of the Cappadocians and others. In Saint Athanasius of Alexandria - Original Research and New Perspectives [ORI, 2005], Protopresbyter Geroge Dion Dragas speculates that had John Henry Newman knew of Orthodox theology he wouldn't have turned to the Catholic Church.

In addition to being the root of divine unity, the monarchy of the Father also gives rise to the distinct identities of the three persons of the Trinity. . . . it is the Father’s role as the eternal source of the Son and the Spirit, and consequently their respective generations from the Father, which causes all three to be distinct from each other. Hence Gregory gives the well-known definition that the three persons are “relations” (σχέσει&#963 or “modes of existence” towards one another (το πως έχειν προς [άλληλα], 29.16). What distinguishes the Son and the Spirit from one another (and from the Father) is therefore their unique modes of generation (begetting versus procession) (31.8-9), in contrast with the Augustinian tradition, which locates the difference in the Spirit’s dual procession from the Father and Son.
Beeley, Christopher A. – Gregory of Nazianzus on the Trinity and the Knowledge of God [Oxford Studies in Historical Theology, 2008, p.208]

The monarchy of the Father—his unique identity as the “only source” and “sole principle” of the Trinity—lies at the heart of Gregory’s major doctrinal statements, and it proves to be the fundamental element of his theological system.
. . .
The unity or oneness of the Trinity, in other words, is constituted by the Father’s begetting of the Son and sending forth of the Spirit. In generating the Son and the Spirit, the Father fully conveys his Divinity to them, so that all three together are one God. Gregory frequently stipulates that there is one God because the Son and the Spirit “refer back” to the Father as a single cause (άνάγεσθαι είς εν αιτιο&#957 and the origin of everything that they are and do (20.7). So when the Scriptures speak of the Son or the Spirit possessing divine qualities or being generate or sent by the Father, they are referring ultimately to the Son’s and the Spirit’s eternal source in the Father. In the fourth Theological Oration, for example, he argues that Jesus’ statement that the Father is greater than him (Jn 14.28) refers not so much to the Son’s economic inferiority as the incarnate Lord, but to the Father’s superiority to the Son as the eternal source of his existence (30.7).
Beeley, Christopher A. – Gregory of Nazianzus on the Trinity and the Knowledge of God [Oxford Studies in Historical Theology, 2008, p.206]

 

[Korah]

Thanks for the bibliographical notes. So I'm not so dumb, just out of date? My semi-seminary studies were in the 1990's, you're fully into the 21st Century.

 

[BrendanMark]

I hadn't encountered many of these ideas and works myself until recently. But I thought St Gregory (and Professor Beeley) was relevant to the questions here, so I decided to post to provide some food for thought.

 

[Standing Up]

As I mentioned at the start of my first post, I introduced this new OP because no one had commented upon my idea responding to the OP in "Does Yahweh have a CONSCIENCE?" There have still been no posts on that thread since July 5th. Your objection applies to that OP. I'm just trying to help.
I knew that I would be misunderstood. I don't mean that the Being(s) of the Trinity are not eternal, co-eternal. I mean that the names defined for the Trinity suggest that the original Being(s) at some point became henceforth understandable as Trinity, whereas such was not originally the case. The concept "Trinity" goes back to that point and not farther. The concept of the new status is what I say in not "eternal".
Don't blame me for the misunderstandings intrinsic to the concept of the Trinity. I don't claim to understand it; no one does. I just hope to have contributed to increasing what understanding we limited humans can have of the Trinity.

In the beginning, let us create man ...

Later Moses asks for His name, translated LORD.

 

[Tonks]

My presentation is clearly superior to that of Gregory of Nazianzus. His makes the Father much superior to the Son and the Holy Spirit, hardly to be called Co-eternal. He "preserves" equality in words but not in reality.

He's been dead for a long, long time...and has had essentially the entire cadre of Christian theologians to look and and assess his remarks. The idea that your opinions are "clearly superior" is a bit laughable.

 

[Korah]

He's been dead for a long, long time...and has had essentially the entire cadre of Christian theologians to look and and assess his remarks. The idea that your opinions are "clearly superior" is a bit laughable.

I changed that in Post #13 to "more rationally elegant". My concept simultaneously provides equality and co-eternality. But I admit that Nazianzen may be right that they're not really so equal or so co-eternal.

 

[Korah]

I changed that in Post #13 to "more rationally elegant". My concept simultaneously provides equality and co-eternality. But I admit that Nazianzen may be right that they're not really so equal or so co-eternal.

However, I should add that St. Gregory of Nazianzus's trinitarian theology follows the Bible more closely than mine does. I can interpret the Bible my way, but the Bible more directly leads to his way. But for that matter, the Bible more clearly leads to Origen's theology, which can't be reconciled to the Trinity as defined a century later.

 

[SummaScriptura]

Korah... look out, the ground might open up!

 

[Korah]

Korah... look out, the ground might open up!

All the "good" Bible names were taken already, but yes, I'm a rebel like Korah.
Korah's the kind of guy I might have been in a prior life. Moses was too "high and mighty".

 

[CaliforniaJosiah]

Trinity not Eternal


That the Trinity was not eternal I presented in my Post #21 in the thread, "Does Yahweh have a CONSCIENCE?" No one tried to refute me, and that stands as the last post in that thread July 5th.
Hear me out and you will see that I am not suggesting that God is not eternal. Here is the argument:
Does God need a conscience? Does He need a Devil's Advocate? Whether God needs reproof and correction is not the point, just whether the theoretical problem is there. And yes, theoretically it is there. We see people all the time questioning God's justice/mercy and appealing to a higher standard of rightness or goodness. Many suggest that there must be a higher standard of goodness than the judgmental god of the Old Testament.
God would certainly be aware of this problem, of at least a theoretical need for a second opinion. Thus whatever God originally was, He could get away from the problem by providing out of His own Substance a corrective factor. Out of the original 100% of God, God could have designated, say 40%, as henceforth to continue to be God, but to be known as God the Son. The balance would be God the Father.
Which leaves a further problem. What about the theoretical possibility that the two sides of God could disagree about some dealing with contingent beings? We are led immediately to hypothesize a third element of God to decide between the two. We call this the Holy Spirit. (We might say this would be something like 30% of God's original Substance, coming let's say 20% from God the Father and 10% from God the Son, leaving God the Father at 40%.)
That God is a Trinity is a better understanding of what God would Himself choose to be, so this is also an argument for the superiority of Christianity over any other religion.
Korah

Lost me, my friend.

What does "conscience" have to do with the Trinity?

What do percentages have to do with the Trinity?

Are you saying that for a certain number of years, there was only the Father? Then, at some date, another "person" of the Trinity came to be? Then, at some date, another? Perhaps a fourth is coming? If so, I don't think that has ever been an understanding of the Trinity. The dogma says that Father, Son and Holy Spirit are ALL eternal and have ALWAYS been the Trinity. Are you affirming that? (If so, we agree).






.

 

[CaliforniaJosiah]

Technically, Post #4 is wrong, because it says God took of Himself and made the Holy Spirit, and then with the Holy Spirit generated God the Son. That would disagree with the Nicene Creed that has the Holy Spirit proceed from the Father and the Son. (Post #4 is apparently wlajoie74 interjecting his own speculations, maybe thinking of the Holy Spirit as "Mother".)
But yes, my way or Post #4 way either way could create a stir.
But that's not my intention. I'm simply suggesting an understanding that would allow all three persons of the Trinity to be Co-Eternal and yet justifiably allow one to be called the Son and one the Father. Wouldn't the Father be earlier in time? No, not if the Son is just as much the original God-Substance as God the Father. The words "Father" and "Son" would be just nominal? Or maybe real. Say that 10% of God came up with the original idea to split God, Say that particular 10% wound up becoming the 40% that eventually became the part that became God the Father.
Or God the Father might be called "the Father" because it is the "larger" part of the Infinite God. (Being paradoxical here--I'm not claiming that I understand God myself.)

1. "Father" and "Son" are titles, they don't have anything to do with the physics of time.

2. I don't think the Trinity has ever understood that 33% of the Trinity is the Father, etc. Much less that 40% is the Father, etc. Only that God is 3 yet one (or 3 in 1 if you like that better).



.

 

[Korah]

Lost me, my friend.
What does "conscience" have to do with the Trinity?
What do percentages have to do with the Trinity?
Are you saying that for a certain number of years, there was only the Father? Then, at some date, another "person" of the Trinity came to be? Then, at some date, another? Perhaps a fourth is coming? If so, I don't think that has ever been an understanding of the Trinity. The dogma says that Father, Son and Holy Spirit are ALL eternal and have ALWAYS been the Trinity. Are you affirming that? (If so, we agree).

.

Percentages have nothing to do with the Trinity, it's just my human way of speaking. If the analogy doesn't help, forget it.
Conscience is explained in the OP, that this thread is derivative from "Does Yahweh have a CONSCIENCE", in which the idea got shot down by those who accept "Might equals Right". There have still been no posts in that thread since July 5th, you might take a look at it. My concept is that God obviated the need for a conscience as such by providing for a second (and third) opinion in the Holy Trinity. I argue that this makes Christianity superior to other religions.
I'm saying that the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit always existed. Identified as separately the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit, I suggest not.
Notice that I admit that other concepts of the Trinity or the Christian God
are easier to support from the Bible. I just claim that mine is "more rationally elegant", more in line with the high claims made for the equality of the three persons, and that "begotten" and "proceeds" do not presuppose that the Son and Holy Spirit are inferior to the Father by being later in time or merely derivative.
Korah

 

[SummaScriptura]

The problem with rationalism is that in the end it depends upon a lump of mud, our humanity. At the end of the day, we should conclude "God is wholly other", and our best efforts to understand what he is, are actually our efforts to understand what he is like.

Jesus is the eternally Begotten God.

God does not make progress or learn things, and does not change over time. From everlasting to everlasting He is Who He is.

 

[Korah]

The problem with rationalism is that in the end it depends upon a lump of mud, our humanity. At the end of the day, we should conclude "God is wholly other", and our best efforts to understand what he is, are actually our efforts to understand what he is like.
Jesus is the eternally Begotten God.
God does not make progress or learn things, and does not change over time. From everlasting to everlasting He is Who He is.

Yes, from our perspective God is simply the unchanging He Who Is.
Yet from our human understanding we would except that billions of years ago God might not have been unchanging. What was the case possibly before He became unchanging. We don't know. Yet you claim you know God that well?
And I can no longer take your Post #31 as good-humored.

 

[SummaScriptura]

I'll answer your question after you answer one, did God actually say, 'You shall not eat of any tree in the garden'?

 

[Korah]

I'll answer your question after you answer one, did God actually say, 'You shall not eat of any tree in the garden'?

So you're saying that I'm evil, but you're not? Because you're more irrational than I am?

 

[SummaScriptura]

Lol