Hello, as I've read it hear, God is of one substance, but three personalities.
❤What do you MEAN by substance? What are the characteristics of this substance?
The word "substance" here doesn't mean quite the same thing as one might often mean it in English, its use comes into English from the Latin substantia, which is itself one of the ways that the Greek word ousia was translated in the Latin West. In Latin the Greek word ousia was translated both as substantia and essentia.
Perhaps the best English word that captures the Greek ousia is "being", as the Greek word here is a noun-form of the Greek verb eimi, meaning "to be", thus ousia is "being". In this sense what is being spoken about is what God
is. And the answer to that is basically a tautology: God is God. There is nothing like God that He can be compared to, God is not comprised of some kind of "divine stuff", God is unitary--one--indivisible, ineffable, unknowable Being. That's what we mean by saying God is one substance, or essence, or being; God is one "what", God is one "is". God is one God.
What IS personality?
What is the difference in personality for each figure of the Trinity?
Not personalities, but
persons. This is another example of the difficulty of language. Originally the word being used was a Greek one, hypostasis (plural hypostases); there are three distinct hypostases: the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit. The word hypostasis is perhaps best described as a "which" as in the question "which one?" or a this, as in "this one". In other words the Hypostasis of the Father refers to the Father as the Father, this One is the Father who eternally begets the Son and from whom eternally proceeds the Holy Spirit; the Son is this One who is eternally begotten of the Father; and the Holy Spirit is this One who eternally proceeds from the Father [and the Son]. We are speaking of three discrete, real, distinct Hypostases, three distinct Someones. The word "person" is derived from the Latin persona (plural personae) which is a translation of the Greek word prosopon (plural prosopa). Early Christian theologians spoke of the three Hypostases as also three Prosopa. The potential trouble with prosopa is that it often meant in Greek language the "face" or "mask" worn by an actor. But is used here in conjunction with Hypostasis to indicate that each "face" is truly real, a distinct real Someone.
So what this means is that each of the Three is Himself God, truly, fully, completely, and wholly God; but not three Gods, but only one God. For the Being, the Essence or "Substance" is one, undivided and indivisible--so that we say, for example, that the Son is homoousios ("same Being") with the Father, meaning that the Son is the same Being as the Father. The Father is truly God, the one and only God; and it is the Son's unity with the Father that He is also God, not another God, but the same God as the Father. Likewise with the Holy Spirit.
Thus one God, three Persons.
Is the human nature and personality of Jesus-the-man separate, or the same thing as, his God-personality?
Jesus Christ is a single Person, a single Hypostasis, simultaneously God and human. The way Chalcedonian Christians (those who subscribe to the Council of Chalcedon from 451 AD) define this is that Jesus Christ is one undivided Person of two natures, both God and man, without any confusion or separation between the natures. This is what is known as the Hypostatic Union. It is therefore impossible to divide Jesus' humanity from His Divinity, there is only one Jesus Christ. This means that since Jesus Christ was born, we say God was born (this is why Mary is called Theotokos, "God-bearer" or mother of God), this is why we say that God suffered and died on the cross, because Jesus is fully and truly God. We do not say "only the humanity was born" or "only the humanity suffered", because Mary did not give birth to a nature, but to a Person; a nature did not suffer on the cross, a Person did. That Person is Jesus Christ, the eternal Son of God who became flesh as a human being.
Jesus is one Person, a Divine Person who is also human because of the Incarnation. The union of the humanity to the Divine Son did not make Him less than He was, that is the true and one God the Son, only-begotten of the Father. Likewise, He is truly human, not "super-human", but like us in all ways except without sin. There was no difference between Jesus' humanity and our own, He was a man just like any other man. That is why we mean He is fully God and fully human, without confusion and without separation.
What are the personalities of the Father and the Holy Spirit?
Thanks, cheers, ta.
The Person of the Father is the Father, it is Who He is in relation to the Son; even as the Son is who the Son is, it is Who He is in relation to the Father; even as the Holy Spirit is the Holy Spirit in relation to the Father and the Son being the Spirit who proceeds from the Father, and the Son.
These three: Father, Son, and Holy Spirit speak to the inter-personal relationship that is within the Trinity: The Father to the Son and the Spirit, the Son to the Father and to the Spirit, and the Spirit to the Father and to the Son. God relates with God. God has begotten God, God is begotten from God, God proceeds from God. And it is in this is the unity of God, God alone is God.
-CryptoLutheran
