The Trinity

JM said:

Hey folks, the men from church I hangout with have decided to discuss the early Trinitarian controversies. Any thoughts on how to proceed? So far I listed a bunch of heresies and each person is going to pick one, study it and present it to the group.

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I think that a thorough reading of John' Gospel, not least the opening chapters and chapters 13 thru 17, plus John's First Epistle and Romans chapter 8 (chapters where Father, Son and Holy Spirit are integral to how the passages work) are a good and essential grounding for discussions of the way in which, in church history, some people have fallen short of an appreciation of the name of the Father, and of the Son and of the Holy Ghost' (Matthew 28.19).

I would also study Titus 2:13. This verse says to me that Jesus is God.
Many scholars agree.
“not two divine persons, only one, are here intended; for the word: rendered "appearing", is never used of God the Father, only of the second person; and the propositive article is not set before the word "Saviour", as it would, if two distinct persons were designed” (Commentary Critical and Explanatory on the Whole Bible; Jamieson, Fausset, and Brown)
“There is but one Greek article to "God" and "Saviour," which shows that both are predicated of one and the same Being. "Of Him who is at once the great God and our Saviour." Also (2) "appearing" (epiphaneia) is never by Paul predicated of God the Father.” (John Gill’s Exposition of the Bible)

You might try sorting the discussion along the lines of Chalcedon.

Our Lord was fully God and fully man in an indissoluble union whereby the second person of the Trinity assumed a human nature that cannot be separated, divided, mixed, or confused.

One can best understand this hypostatic union (together united in one subsistence and in one single person) by examining what it is not, thus from the process of elimination determine what it must be.

The hypostatic union is not:

1. a denial that our Lord was truly God (Ebionites, Elkasites, Arians);
2. a dissimilar or different substance (anomoios) with the Father (semi-Arianism);
3. a denial that our Lord had a genuine human soul (Apollinarians);
4. a denial of a distinct person in the Trinity (Dynamic Monarchianism);
5. God acting merely in the forms of the Son and Spirit (Modalistic Monarchianism/Sabellianism/United Pentecostal Church);
6. a mixture or change when the two natures were united (Eutychianism/Monophysitism);
7. two distinct persons (Nestorianism);
8. a denial of the true humanity of Christ (docetism);
9. a view that God the Son laid aside all or some of His divine attributes (kenoticism);
10. a view that there was a communication of the attributes between the divine and human natures (Lutheranism, with respect to the Lord's Supper); and
11. a view that our Lord existed independently as a human before God entered His body (Adoptionism).

The Chalcedonian Definition is one of the few statements that all of orthodox Christendom recognizes as the most faithful summary of the teachings of the Scriptures on the matter of the Incarnate Christ. The Chalcedonian Definition was the answer to the many heterodoxies identified above during the third century.

For many years I have struggled to understand the doctrine of the trinity. To say it is a mystery that we are not expected to comprehend simply doesn't cut it for me. Some time ago I discovered that in the original formulation of the trinity, the word in Greek which we traditionally have interpreted to mean "persons", as in "three persons in one God" is actually the same word used to designate the mask worn by actors in Greco-Roman theater. We cannot call this a "person" but we can certainly call it a "persona". This insight has put a totally new spin on the entire concept for me. We finite creatures cannot possibly hope to describe our transcendent God, but we can speak of the modes or roles or personae that assist our understanding. God as creator/father, God as spirit/sustainer, and the glimpse of God we obtain in the life and teaching of Jesus. In other words, trinity is not a description of God but is, rather, a description of the human experience of God in the language of fourth century Greek speaking Christianity. We are not limited to just these three. Any persona that promotes our understanding of and our relationship to God is completely acceptable. God could be mother as well as father. God could be Wisdom / Sophia / Word / Allah / Krishna / Manitou. God's possibilities are endless. These are merely our human images of God. God is, as always, ONE.

Needless to say, modalism is my heresy of choice.

Persona, in the sense of mask, was Latin. The real theology was in Greek. Hypostasis doesn't have quite the same nuances as persona.

The topic of Apollonarianism is a must, being that Reformed folks reject Christ's omniscience in His human nature, while Catholics affirm it.

I just found out that Catholics reject Christ's omniscience in His human nature. Rather, they believe His human nature was able to access the knowledge of His divine nature at will.

abacabb3 said:

I just found out that Catholics reject Christ's omniscience in His human nature. Rather, they believe His human nature was able to access the knowledge of His divine nature at will.

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I don't see how anyone could say that the human nature is omniscient. Kind of violates what human nature means.

However the way this works in Christ's life is going to depend upon just how the two natures interact in the person. Traditions that have a strong idea of the communication of attributes may say that the omniscience is in some sense transferred to the human nature. And because both natures are present in one person, that person has omniscience.

The Reformed tradition tends to maintain a more distinct separation of the natures than other major tradition. Some Reformed writers verge on Nestorianism at times.

Then there is the Muslim misconception of what we believe: Father, Son, and Mary!

hedrick said:

I don't see how anyone could say that the human nature is omniscient. Kind of violates what human nature means.

However the way this works in Christ's life is going to depend upon just how the two natures interact in the person. Traditions that have a strong idea of the communication of attributes may say that the omniscience is in some sense transferred to the human nature. And because both natures are present in one person, that person has omniscience.

The Reformed tradition tends to maintain a more distinct separation of the natures than other major tradition. Some Reformed writers verge on Nestorianism at times.

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Calvin appeared to argue Christ was not omniscient at all, so I was under the impression that Reformed tradition was not Apollonarianism as they did not equate to Christ perfect omniscience. In his commentary on Isaiah Calvin writes the Son was "willing ... for a time, to be deprived of understanding." R.C. Sproul specifies that the reason is that His human nature was not omniscient: "Jesus’ human nature was not omniscient, but it was infallible because He only spoke what He knew to be true."

This is standard Catholic teaching. The Catholic Encyclopedia writes: "It is quite clear that, however perfect the humansoul of Christ is, it always remains finite and limited; hence its knowledge cannot be unlimited and infinite."

I'm learning this topic myself, so I apologize for the misunderstanding. I remember Aquinas arguing that when Christ said He did not know when the Last Day would be, that He was merely condescending Himself to man and did not really mean it literally the way we would otherwise take it. However, this is not standard Catholic thinking on the matter.

abacabb3 said:

Calvin appeared to argue Christ was not omniscient at all, so I was under the impression that Reformed tradition was not Apollonarianism as they did not equate to Christ perfect omniscience. In his commentary on Isaiah Calvin writes the Son was "willing ... for a time, to be deprived of understanding." R.C. Sproul specifies that the reason is that His human nature was not omniscient: "Jesus’ human nature was not omniscient, but it was infallible because He only spoke what He knew to be true."

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The quote continues: "This relates to his human nature, for it cannot apply to his divinity." So it doesn't really say just how the two nature interact. However it seems pretty clear that Calvin didn't use the communication of attributes the same way Lutherans do, or he would have worded that section differently.

Just how the same person can know and not know the same thing at the same time is the question. In Western theology the nature tends to become sort of a pseudo-person. There’s some support for that in the wording of the 6th Council. The section on the incarnation of Aquinas’ Summa also seems to support it. If you think of the nature as having its own will and activity (as the Ecumenical Councils demand), then it starts to look like what in modern terms we’d think of as a human person. At that point the hypostasis tends to look more like what we’d call a common identity, leading to modern theology, in which Jesus is a normal human being who functions as God, or as some theologians now say, shares in God’s identity.

At that point it’s easier to understand how the human being could be ignorant. However I would say that even in ignorance Jesus is God incarnate. So God experiences Jesus ignorance through his union with the human. After all, the point of the incarnation is for God to experience human life, joining us on our side of the dividing line, so that the limitations of our nature no longer separate us from him.

Lutheran theology gets to that point by the communication of attributes.

hedrick said:

Just how the same person can know and not know the same thing at the same time is the question.

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He that rejecteth me, and receiveth not my words, hath one that judgeth him: the word that I have spoken, the same shall judge him in the last day. For I have not spoken of myself; but the Father which sent me, he gave me a commandment, what I should say, and what I should speak. And I know that his commandment is life everlasting: whatsoever I speak therefore, even as the Father said unto me, so I speak. - (John 12:48-50)


Perhaps the question isn’t so much that he (Jesus the man...God incarnate) did not know...but rather that he was told exactly what to communicate, and confined himself, in dutiful obedience, to speaking only those words which were strictly required of him to be spoken, and received...by the Father.

What then are the accruing effects, benefits, ramifications (of the Fathers purpose) in regards to ourselves, the sheep of His pasture...as we view ourselves immediately (and Christ in retrospect)...and this apparent lack of knowledge concerning the day of His return?

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moonbeam said:

He that rejecteth me, and receiveth not my words, hath one that judgeth him: the word that I have spoken, the same shall judge him in the last day. For I have not spoken of myself; but the Father which sent me, he gave me a commandment, what I should say, and what I should speak. And I know that his commandment is life everlasting: whatsoever I speak therefore, even as the Father said unto me, so I speak. - (John 12:48-50)


Perhaps the question isn’t so much that he (Jesus the man...God incarnate) did not know...but rather that he was told exactly what to communicate, and confined himself, in dutiful obedience, to speaking only those words which were strictly required of him to be spoken, and received...by the Father.

What then are the accruing effects, benefits, ramifications (of the Fathers purpose) in regards to ourselves, the sheep of His pasture...as we view ourselves immediately (and Christ in retrospect)...and this apparent lack of knowledge concerning the day of His return?

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You had me until your last paragraph. Please explain, I must understand as your line of reasoning until then astounded me!

royal priest said:

You had me until your last paragraph. Please explain, I must understand as your line of reasoning until then astounded me!

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I then understood Bob Miley's predicament as he sat on the porch of Dr. Marvin.

royal priest said:

You had me until your last paragraph. Please explain, I must understand as your line of reasoning until then astounded me!

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Jesus the man is God incarnate...the one, and the same, person.

That person knows all things and is omniscient.

The Second person of the Triune God (in becoming incarnate) has submitted Himself to the Fathers will and purpose.

He speaks only those words allotted Him...according to the Fathers overarching purpose.

Therefore...the Father must have a purpose for requiring Jesus the man (the omniscient God incarnate) to intimate a lack of knowledge on his part...but not on the Fathers.

Where I say intimate...I mean to convey the notion of Jesus retaining the factual knowledge he does possess...and in doing so, acceding to the request of another, namely submission to the Father (John 12:48-50)

What could be, or would be, the Fathers purpose in doing so?…….Something to think about.

But of that day and that hour knoweth no man, no, not the angels which are in heaven, neither the Son, but the Father. - (Mark 13:32)

But of that day and hour knoweth no man, no, not the angels of heaven, but my Father only. - (Matthew 24:36)

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moonbeam said:

Jesus the man is God incarnate...the one, and the same, person.

That person knows all things and is omniscient.

The Second person of the Triune God (in becoming incarnate) has submitted Himself to the Fathers will and purpose.

He speaks only those words allotted Him...according to the Fathers overarching purpose.

Therefore...the Father must have a purpose for requiring Jesus the man (the omniscient God incarnate) to intimate a lack of knowledge on his part...but not on the Fathers.

Where I say intimate...I mean to convey the notion of Jesus retaining the factual knowledge he does possess...and in doing so, acceding to the request of another, namely submission to the Father (John 12:48-50)

What could be, or would be, the Fathers purpose in doing so?…….Something to think about.

But of that day and that hour knoweth no man, no, not the angels which are in heaven, neither the Son, but the Father. - (Mark 13:32)

But of that day and hour knoweth no man, no, not the angels of heaven, but my Father only. - (Matthew 24:36)

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Thanks for the clarification. You ask what the Father's purpose may be. I have wondered if it could somehow be related to Paul's statement in 1 Corinthians 15:28.