peschitta_enthusiast said:
You lack the understanding that Father, Son , Spirit are MANIFESTATIONS of God, not persons. The word "logos/word" in Aramaic is "Miltha" which means "manifestation". And John 1, if "God" here is trinity, then we have "the Word (Jesus) was WITH the trinity --> 4 persons?!?! AND, "Jesus was that trinity" ---> ah so He is all three?!?!
If "God" is not trinity but "God the Father", then you have "And the Word (Jesus) was God the Father"
"God" does not refer to the Trinity. It refers to the Father who is the source of the Trinity. (reference Nicene Creed). And your dilemma is false, since the Johannine passage declares the Word to be with God and to be God, cotemporaneously distinct and yet one. The proclamation of cotemporaneous distinction clearly eliminates the simplification you suggest. The solution is not the reduction of distinction you suggest, but rather the maintenaince of both, as the Church has declared and confessed throughout the ages. The Son is God because he is eternally begotten, and in this one identifier, we are shown that He is one with the Father, since He is of the Father, and yet he is not the Father, since the Father is unbegotten.
Note that ONLY a manifestation can be SAME and DISTINCT at once.
But manifestations do not sufficiently maintain a distinction, which is why it has been rejected as a solution to the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit being God. It becomes outrageously problematic at the Cross, when the Son dies, but it is clear that the Father and the Spirit do not participate in this. If it were but a manifestation the the Father would have died as well, even as if I should die, all of my manifestations, as a father, a husband, and a son, would be deceased. There would be no situation where I died and my mother would morn the death of her son but my wife had not suffered the loss of her husband.
Not only that, but Paul says there is one true God, "Alaha Abba" - God the Father. If Jesus is God, He is either this "God the Father", or He is a false god.
Of course Paul says that there is one true God, he was a monotheist after all. Fortunately, there are more solutions to our quandary than the two you offered. The third would be the one that the Nicene Creed offers, that the Son, while not being the Father, is one with the Father, being of the Father by eternal generation. He is not the Father, but lacks nothing, having received everything from the Father. Thus it is not the in essence that the Son is distinct, but rather in mode.
Also, Jesus said He would raise Himself in 3 days. Other verses say the Father did it. Hmm...
I would suggest that since the Son has received all things from the Father (John 5 & 8), anything He does would be derived from the Father. Thus, even should the Son raise himself up, the Father is said to have done it, because the Son acts in accordance with the Father. But note that even here, this accord of the Son's actions with the Father's will speaks to their distinction in a way that would be ridiculous within a modalist context.
Also, the "trinity baptism formula" is the NAME (singular). Now, we see this NAME in Acts used by the Apostles when they baptise - it is Yeshua.
But this proves nothing, since you are choosing to interpret the first by the second, and are educated in this prioritization by your modalist assumptions. I, not inhibited by these assumptions, am free to read the latter in accordance with the former, as is the Trinitarian way, and it is this interpretive principle that the Church has chosen through an intersection of consensus, ubiquity, and antiquity.
And there are many much more just like this indeed.
God bless,
Isaac