OntheRock,
Maybe I'm making more out of this Trinity idea than I need to (while making, in some sense, less out of it than Trinitarians would prefer), but what I am trying to do is show what seems to me to be the case
: If God has three manifestations or avenues or offices, what
are these offices,
really, and why must there be three of them? Is this because those offices are the only three offices possible, being the outcome of something that is inherent/eternal in God as God, or is it because of something that is not inherent in God but rather is created?
quote:
Trinity's main beleif hinges on the fact that all 3 are "eternaly externaly existent". In other words all 3 have always been and always will be. They are of the same substance, yet distinct and seperate. They are all God. They stress 3 in 1 and not 1 who is 3. All 3 are of God and are God.
But, if they three are
inseparable by their very nature (which they would have to be if we are talking about monotheism) then each one is both
God and
of God. Thus, they each are personal and are not merely non-personal
things. If they were merely things, then God could not be personal, and, as a consequence of being made up of things, would be a sythetic being (a being who congealed together out of these things).
What I'm talking about here are root attributes. Omnipresence is not a root attribute, is not an attribute in itself, but only implies that something is present. Once something is present, it has the attribute of being present---of existing. Some things necessarily logically are omnipresent and not just present locally. I beleive that all of creation can be logically traced back to these root attributes (that is, to God).
Originally posted by Apologist
First of all God is three 'persons' not three 'people.'
What is the difference? If we say thatr God is three persons as opposed to three people, this does not say what the difference is.
He is revealed as such in scripture and that is why most Christians believe this doctrine.
God is revealed as three what and not three what in scripture? Was it the "person" of "God the Son" who prayed in the garden, saying "Nevertheless, not my will, but thine be done." ? Or, was this Jesus' humanity praying? (Someone had recorded it, so for whose benefit was Jesus praying this prayer?) If it was "God the Son" praying this prayer, then how does God have a will contrary to God's will? If God willed that God not experience death as a man, then how did God also will the opposite? When Jesus prayed to God the Father just before he raised Lazarus from the dead, he spoke to the God who is "in Heaven on the throne" (the Father), saying that he was so speaking only for the benefit of those who heard him speak (pray) to the Father. Yet, if God is omnipresent, then why would one "person" of God speak to another "person" of God as if that other person were in a different location from himself? This locality difference is exactly what we would end up with if we were to take the account of Jesus' baptism as literally we take the scriptures which are used to support the idea that God is a Trinity of people.
And, I say Trinity of
people, not Trinity of
persons, because that's exactly what it seems to me we get if we imply that God needs to pray to God by saying that Jesus, as God, was praying to God.
Why is the "person" of God who became incarnate called logos? And, if God is three people who are somehow a Trinity, then why did only one of them become incarnate? If God is omnipresent, and each of three people are fully God, then each person is inseperable from the other two. And, then why was Jesus praying to some location of God above the earth? Is the Father only in heaven? And, what is heaven? Is the person incarnate only within that human flesh when he became incarnate? Is it logically required that the scriptures that record these "persons" as talking to each other mean that these scriptures are revealing a plain truth about the constitution of God's being, or are they revealing the action of God in relation to fallen man? Surely, when Jesus prayed to God just before raising Lazarus, this was the case, and not that Jesus needed to talk to the invisible God from which he came.
Jesus' body was concieved by that God. And, as the scripture says, in that body dwelt the fullness of the Godhead. What is the Godhead,
really? We can call it Father, Son and Holy Spirit, but what does that mean? For all most people know, those three could as well have been called something else instead of father, son and holy spirit, say, food, water and air. But, what did Jesus mean with these words: that he was the, Truth, the Life and the Way? Those three are three, but what are they, and why are there three of them? God the Father is said to be the One who has life in himself (Jesus said do), so what is the picture of "father" refering to, and how is this "father" eternally generating the "son"?
Almost all of Jesus' life, words and actions were that of God as a man, not of God as God. God showed by this that he could be the best man possible considering the world he was born into. That is, he proved to all around him that he alone was worthy by the way he lived and by what he said and did. And, he had faith above even that of Elijah, to heal people and raise them from the dead without having to ask God to do the work. He died as a man who was concerned for other men above himself. Yet, he was God, the self-existent One who cannot deny Himself. Why is God self-existent? What is God?