The Triune Man

[Doveaman]

Greetings to both you and yours.

My apologies for commenting on the discourse between both of you, if you find it rude.

No need to apologize. All useful opinions are welcomed.

It seems to me, Doveaman, that ViaCrucis did understand the questions. If the above quote is the question.

Perhaps he did.

It seems as if ViaCrucis is saying that if the "only visible form God has is the Incarnate flesh of the Second person of the Trinity". Then the only form we will see in heaven is that of Jesus Christ (because the other two do not have form that we can see).

This assumes that the only visible form of God is the incarnate form of Christ.
I do not agree with this assumption because Moses saw God in His preincarnate state:

Exo 33: 19 And the Lord said, “I will cause all My goodness to pass in front of you…20 you cannot see My face, for no man shall see Me and live…22 I will put you in a cleft in the rock and cover you with My hand until I have passed by. 23 Then I will remove My hand and you will see My back; but My face shall not be seen.”

Moses saw God’s back in God's preincarnate state.

The back of God in His preincarnate state, which Moses saw, may not have been in the form of a human back, but it was certainly a visible form which Moses saw.

The verses above also indicate that God in His preincarnate state has a visible face that can be seen, so that any man who sees it would die.

 

[Paleouss]

Greetings

The fact that the author compares God’s Spirit with man’s spirit indicates that human communication is not merely physical, but is spiritual at its source.

Actually, I think the fact that the author compares..

1. What man knows of himself or is knowable about himself, introspectively, is known through his own spirit in him.

And

2. only the Spirit of God can know God

...indicates that what can be known about God can only be known spiritually. To go further would seem to require multiple jumps of logic.

I debated on whether to speak to all of your other points (because I disagree that they show what you are saying). But decided to limit this post for time sake.

I will simply point out that one problem that I see with this analysis is the distinction within the Bible of worshiping "in the spirit" (John 4:24). The Bible seems to make a distinction between being “in the spirit” and being “in the flesh” (Rom 8:8). Those that worship or commune “in the flesh”, cannot please God. It seems a simple logical progression to say that if we are “in the flesh”, communicating, we are therefore not “in the spirit” communicating. Since God can be pleased only by being in the spirit.

1. One can be in the spirit, communing/communicating
2. Or one can be in the flesh communing/communicating
3. If one is "in the flesh", and therefore not "in the spirit", one cannot please God.

With this in mind, to then say that we commune, or communicate, through our spirit when communication is in the flesh…seems to muddy the waters.

Clearly, the spirit of man is the principal of life and communion with God. We have a good sample of verses to assert this. But saying the spirit of man is the principal of communion or communication from man to man...we don't have any verses for that. Not explicit anyway. It is also not clear to me that there is a simple logical reduction of the verses you gave as the answer either....and there is the dangerous rub for me.

Great conversation

Peace and love to you brother

 

[Doveaman]

Greetings

Actually, I think the fact that the author compares..

1. What man knows of himself or is knowable about himself, introspectively, is known through his own spirit in him.

And

2. only the Spirit of God can know God

...indicates that what can be known about God can only be known spiritually. To go further would seem to require multiple jumps of logic.

I agree that what is known about God can only be known spiritually through God's Spirit.
I also agree that what is known about man can only be known spiritually through man's spirit.

I debated on whether to speak to all of your other points (because I disagree that they show what you are saying). But decided to limit this post for time sake.

I will simply point out that one problem that I see with this analysis is the distinction within the Bible of worshiping "in the spirit" (John 4:24). The Bible seems to make a distinction between being “in the spirit” and being “in the flesh” (Rom 8:8). Those that worship or commune “in the flesh”, cannot please God. It seems a simple logical progression to say that if we are “in the flesh”, communicating, we are therefore not “in the spirit” communicating. Since God can be pleased only by being in the spirit.

I think we may be confusing communication with God and communication with man.

My point is that we live in a body of flesh, but we communicate through the intellectual power of our spirit.

Jam 2: 26 For...the body without the spirit is dead

Our spirit not only enables us to know ourselves, but it also enables us to know each other and to communicate with each other through the intellectual power of our spirit.

The same is true of God.

Rom 8: 16 The Spirit Himself bears witness with our spirit that we are children of God

God, through His Spirit, communicates with us through our spirit.
And we, through our spirit, communicate with God through His Spirit.

1. One can be in the spirit, communing/communicating
2. Or one can be in the flesh communing/communicating
3. If one is "in the flesh", and therefore not "in the spirit", one cannot please God.

I agree.

But one can be in the spirit communicating with God through His divine Spirit, and one can be in the flesh communicating with man through our human spirit, so that both communications are spiritual at their source.

With this in mind, to then say that we commune, or communicate, through our spirit when communication is in the flesh…seems to muddy the waters.

I think it may be the communication between you and me that is muddy.

Clearly, the spirit of man is the principal of life and communion with God. We have a good sample of verses to assert this.

The spirit of man is also the principal of life and communion with man.

But saying the spirit of man is the principal of communion or communication from man to man...we don't have any verses for that. Not explicit anyway.

If the body without the spirit is dead (Jam 2:26), then we can assert that the body cannot commune or communicate without the spirit, so that the spirit of man is the principal of communion or communication from man to man.

It is also not clear to me that there is a simple logical reduction of the verses you gave as the answer either....and there is the dangerous rub for me.

We can agree to disagree.

 

[WhoIsLikeGod?]

Joh 1: 1 In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God.

In the beginning God’s Word was expressed, and God’s Word was expressed by God, and God’s Word was the expression of God.

3 Through Him all things were made, and without Him nothing was made that has been made.

All things were made through the word of God’s Son.

The will of the Father is expressed through the word of the Son, and the word of the Son is fulfilled through the work of the Holy Spirit, so that the will of the Father and the work of the Holy Spirit is accomplished through the word of the Son.

1 Cor 12: 12 Just as the body, though one, has many members, but all its members form one body, so it is with Christ.

Just as God, though one being, consists of three members, but all the three members form one being, so it is with God.

Rom 12: 4 For just as each of us has one body with many members, and these members do not all have the same function, 5 so in Christ we, though many, form one body, and each member belongs to one another.

For just as God is one being consisting of three members, and these three members do not all have the same function, so as God, these three members form one being, and each member belongs to one another.

The Father, Son, and Holy Spirit are the three members of the one divine being called God, but all the three members do not have the same function.

The Father functions as God’s mind expressing God’s will, the Son functions as God’s mouth speaking God’s word, and the Holy Spirit functions as God’s hand doing God’s work.

God’s will is expressed through the mind of the Father, God’s word is expressed through the mouth of the Son, and God’s work is expressed through the hand of the Holy Spirit.

Gen 1: 26 Then God said, “Let Us make man in Our image, according to Our likeness

Man is created in God’s image and likeness to express himself similarly to how God functions.

Man expresses himself through the will of his mind, through the word of his mouth, and through the work of his hand, just as God expresses Himself through the will of the Father, through the word of the Son, and through the work of the Holy Spirit.

The word of the mouth and the work of the hand follows the will of the mind as an innate, inherent response within Man, a response that is without question or hesitation.

Likewise, the word of the Son and the work of the Holy Spirit follows the will of the Father as an innate, inherent response within God, a response that is without question or hesitation.

And just as the will of the mind, the word of the mouth, and the work of the hand exist and function in unison as one human being called Man, even so the will of the Father, the word of the Son, and the work of the Holy Spirit exist and function in unison as one divine being called God.

Man, therefore, is created in God's triune image and likeness in regards to Man's functional expressions which are similar to God's.

The saying "three in one" is actually a paradox. It's actually 1/3 + 1/3 + 1/3 = 1. Saying "three in one" is like saying "brown in yellow."

They say that Yeshua is "fully God" and "fully man." Actually, He is 1/2 God (from the Father) and 1/2 man (from Mary). But since the Father is hypothetically 1/3 God, Yeshua would only be 1/6 God. That would make Him only 2/3 of a person... What is the other 1/3 of Him? Yeshua said that "the Father is greater than I," so perhaps the Father is 65/99 God and Yeshua is 65/198 God, making the other 1/66 of God the Holy Spirit. At least Yeshua is closer to being a whole person (65/198 + 1/2 = 82.83%). Still, about 17.17% unaccounted for. If the Father were any greater than 65/99, the Trinity would be greater than 1. And furthermore, why does the Holy Spirit only get to be 1/66 God? I mean, that's all there was room for, after all.

Another question begs to be asked: is the Holy Spirit one, or can He manifest himself in more than one place at the same time? And if so, does that make Him a Trinity of Trinities? Or an Infinity-ity of Trinities?

 

[Paleouss]

The saying "three in one" is actually a paradox.

Yes. A paradox is something that is seemingly absurd or self-contradictory, "one God in three persons". The use of the word "perichoresis" is an attempt to explain the concept of the Father in the Son (John 17:21), the Son in the Father (John 17:21, 14:10-11; Col 1:19), the Father in the Spirit, the Spirit in the Father (John 5:26) and the Spirit in the Son (John 5:26). As Augustine put it, “Each are in each, and all in each, and each in all, all are one.

All this seems to mean, to me, is that like words, math cannot capture the full essence of God and the nature of Jesus Christ. So any rudimentary attempt to capture the essence of God in a short formula just appears to be a paradox if you properly express what the Christian Trinity means.

For example, to properly express the nature of the Son of God in a rudimentary math formula that communicates what the Christian means would be written 1+1=1. Which is clearly a paradox. But what is meant is, fully God and fully man = Son of God.

keep seeking God's truth as if it were hidden treasure.

 

[The Liturgist]

The saying "three in one" is actually a paradox. It's actually 1/3 + 1/3 + 1/3 = 1. Saying "three in one" is like saying "brown in yellow."

No, this is incorrect, since the Holy Trinity is undivided. Three persons united from eternity in perfect love: the unoriginate Father, the only begotten and uncreated Son, and the Holy Spirit, our comforter and paraclete, who proceeds from the Father. Glory to the Holy, Undivided and Life Giving Trinity!

They say that Yeshua is "fully God" and "fully man." Actually, He is 1/2 God (from the Father) and 1/2 man (from Mary). But since the Father is hypothetically 1/3 God, Yeshua would only be 1/6 God. That would make Him only 2/3 of a person...

That’s incorrect. Christ is fully God and fully man, putting on our human nature and uniting it with His divinity in one person and one hypostasis without change, confusion, separation or division. Furthermore, the Trinity is not compounded; God cannot be divided into parts. Each person of the Trinity posesses the fullness of the Godhead. Christ also possesses the fullness of our humanity; in this manner He was able to, through His passion on the Cross, recreate us in His image and glorify us, so that we might, like Him, become sinless and enjoy everlasting life. To quote St. Athanasius “God became man so that man might become god” - not as an extra member of the Trinity or as God with a capital G, but rather, becoming by grace what Christ is by nature - immortal and sinless, participating in the uncreated energies of God.

For example, to properly express the nature of the Son of God in a rudimentary math formula that communicates what the Christian means would be written 1+1=1. Which is clearly a paradox. But what is meant is, fully God and fully man = Son of God.

That implies a difference between Jesus Christ and God, which is a variant on Arianism, which was the official religion of the Roman Empire beginning with Emperor Constantius, the son of St. Constantine, whose faith was perverted to that of the heretic Arius through the efforts of the apostate bishop Eusebius of Nicomedia, who is also believed to have been responsible for the false allegation against St. Athanasius that resulted in him being banished to Trier in Germany for two years, at the opposite end of the Empire from his episcopal see of Alexandria (where the Orthodox Church founded by St. Mark continues to thrive to this day, among both the Alexandrian Greeks and the Copts, and recently granted autocephaly to the Ethiopian Tewahedo Orthodox Church and the Eritrean Tewahedo Orthodox Church, which have the greatest number of members of Jewish descent, followed by the Syriac Orthodox Church, the various jurisdictions of the Mar Thoma Christians in Kerala, who are partially descended from the Kochin Jews, including some endogamous communities, and from the gentiles of Malankara, the Gospel being spread there by St. Thomas, with the oldest surviving cathedral in the world being that erected on the site where an enraged Hindu Maharaja threw a spear at St. Thomas thus granting him the crown of martyrdom that would be worn by all of the Eleven Faithful Disciples except St. John the Beloved, and also by St. Matthias and St. Paul and many members of the Seventy.


By the way, if this post is meant as an attack on the doctrine of the Trinity, you should be advised that such a post would be against the rules in all Christian-only areas of CF.com. See the CF Statement of Faith (which includes the Nicene Creed and certain other common-sense elements, such as a prohibition on posts that deny that St. Paul was a Holy Apostle of Christ our True God.

 

[The Liturgist]

All this seems to mean, to me, is that like words, math cannot capture the full essence of God and the nature of Jesus Christ.

The early church fathers on several occaasions expressly rejected the idea of counting numerically the persons of the Trinity. And they absolutely rejected the idea that each divine person is one third of the Trinity. Rather, the doctrine of the Early Church, as differentiated from that of various sects like the Arians, Sabellians, Apollinarians, Valentinians, Eutychians, Tritheists, Pneumatomachs, and Nestorians, is that each person of the Holy Trinity is fully God, and furthermore, our Lord, God and Savior Jesus Christ is fully God and fully Man, having put on our humanity through His miraculous conception in the womb of the Theotokos, the Blessed Virgin Mary, is our humanity united with the divine essence in one Person and one Hypostasis, without change, confunsion, separation or division. Nestorius tried to introduce a division between the human Jesus and the divine Logos since he did not fully accept the doctrine of the Incarnation as contained in the Nicene Creed and taught by St. Athanasius, the Cappadocians, St. John Chrysostom, St. Ambrose of Milan, and the other fourth century Fathers.

 

[Paleouss]

That implies a difference between Jesus Christ and God

Greetings Liturgist. I hope your weekend was a blessed one.

Although the portion you quoted was only under me addressing the other person's one quote about the Trinity. I had actually moved on to another one of his quotes that stated that Jesus Christ was 1/2 God and 1/2 man (although I did not formally use his quote before commenting).

So my rudimentary math equation I used, which I grant that using a math equation is suspect to begin with, was 1+1=1. This was a reference to the question, is Jesus Christ half God and half man? To this I tried to answer, no, Jesus Christ is fully God and fully man. So if you did write a formula in response to this question, then it would be something like 1 (meaning fully God) + 1 (meaning fully man) = Jesus Christ.

I do realize my use of "Son of God" was confusing.

Peace to you brother.

 

[The Liturgist]

Greetings Liturgist. I hope your weekend was a blessed one.

Although the portion you quoted was only under me addressing the other person's one quote about the Trinity. I had actually moved on to another one of his quotes that stated that Jesus Christ was 1/2 God and 1/2 man (although I did not formally use his quote before commenting).

So my rudimentary math equation I used, which I grant that using a math equation is suspect to begin with, was 1+1=1. This was a reference to the question, is Jesus Christ half God and half man? To this I tried to answer, no, Jesus Christ is fully God and fully man. So if you did write a formula in response to this question, then it would be something like 1 (meaning fully God) + 1 (meaning fully man) = Jesus Christ.

I do realize my use of "Son of God" was confusing.

Peace to you brother.

The remaining problem with your equation is that it suggests that after the human nature was put on by the second person of the Trinity, the only begotten Son and Word of God, Jesus Christ, it could be separated or divided from the His divinity, but this is the error known as Nestorianism, which violates the Christological principle of Communicatio Idiomatum and undermines the doctrine of the Incarnation.

It is best not to try and use math at all with regards to the Trinity since the Trinity is undivided and the humanity and deity of Christ our True God are likewise undivided.

 

[Doveaman]

The early church fathers on several occaasions expressly rejected the idea of counting numerically the persons of the Trinity.

Act 2: 32 This Jesus God has raised up, of which we are all witnesses. 33 Therefore being exalted to the right hand of God, and having received from the Father the promise of the Holy Spirit, He poured out this which you now see and hear.

There are three distinct persons mention in the verses above - God/Father, Son/Jesus, and Holy Spirit.

Mar 16: 19 After the Lord had spoken to them, He was received up into heaven, and sat down at the right hand of God.

There are two distinct persons mention in the verse above - Lord/Jesus sitting at the right hand of God/Father in heaven.

Is God, therefore, one person or is He three persons?
When we see God in heaven, will we see one person or will we see three persons?
Will we see the Father and Son in heaven sitting side by side of each other?

 

[The Liturgist]

Act 2: 32 This Jesus God has raised up, of which we are all witnesses. 33 Therefore being exalted to the right hand of God, and having received from the Father the promise of the Holy Spirit, He poured out this which you now see and hear.

There are three distinct persons mention in the verses above - God/Father, Son/Jesus, and Holy Spirit.

No Orthodox Christian denies that. However, the idea that each person is one third of God is a grave theological error, the inverse of tritheism. Each person is fully God.

Mar 16: 19 After the Lord had spoken to them, He was received up into heaven, and sat down at the right hand of God.

There are two distinct persons mention in the verse above - Lord/Jesus sitting at the right hand of God/Father in heaven.

Is God, therefore, one person or is He three persons?
When we see God in heaven, will we see one person or will we see three persons?
Will we see the Father and Son in heaven sitting side by side of each other?

We worship one God who abides in three persons, but each person is fully God, and the Holy Trinity is undivided, indivisible and uncompounded.