How is this possible given that Jesus is (for the sake of argument) God? If Jesus and God are one then how is it that Jesus cannot know something God knows? I've always wondered this and have never come up with a good answer (nor seen one).
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How is it possible...
- Thread starter Grumpy Old Man
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How is this possible given that Jesus is (for the sake of argument) God? If Jesus and God are one then how is it that Jesus cannot know something God knows? I've always wondered this and have never come up with a good answer (nor seen one).
Much confusion about the trinity could be removed if we were all clear about the fact that there are many meanings of the word "is". "Is" is always a form of the verb "to be", but there are countless ways to understand how something can be something else or a part of a group as in. For instance:
Jimmy Carter is the ex-President of the United States.
George Bush is the ex-President of the United States.
Bill Clinton is the ex-President of the United States.
Jimmy Carter is not George Bush.
George Bush is not Bill Clinton.
Bill Clinton is not Jimmy Carter.
Or, for another example, let's supposed that you, I, and someone else all own copies of Moby Dick. Then your copy is Moby Dick, my copy is Moby Dick, and the other guy's copy is Moby Dick. But your copy is not my copy, and neither of our copies is the other guy's copy.
In advanced mathematics, there are many different understanding of what it means for one thing to be the same as another. Two mathematical objects can be homeomorphic, homological, isomorphic, and so forth.
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Much confusion about the trinity could be removed if we were all clear about the fact that there are many meanings of the word "is". "Is" is always a form of the verb "to be", but there are countless ways to understand how something can be something else or a part of a group as in. For instance:
Jimmy Carter is the ex-President of the United States.
George Bush is the ex-President of the United States.
Bill Clinton is the ex-President of the United States.
Jimmy Carter is not George Bush.
George Bush is not Bill Clinton.
Bill Clinton is not Jimmy Carter.
Or, for another example, let's supposed that you, I, and someone else all own copies of Moby Dick. Then your copy is Moby Dick, my copy is Moby Dick, and the other guy's copy is Moby Dick. But your copy is not my copy, and neither of our copies is the other guy's copy.
In advanced mathematics, there are many different understanding of what it means for one thing to be the same as another. Two mathematical objects can be homeomorphic, homological, isomorphic, and so forth.
I never had any trouble understanding the Trinity until I saw your picture. Now I'm confused. I always thought they were one person in three, as someone in church explained to me when I was younger. Your graphic has utterly confused me. It's saying that the Father is God, the Son is God and the Holy Spirit is God; but the Son is not the Father (Jesus claimed he and the Father are one), the Father is not the Holy Spirit, etc...
Maybe they all share a common Spirit or something? This is besides the point though. My question was how could the Father and the Son be "one" yet the Son not know something the Father knows? Look again at the verses I quoted in my OP.
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meinabox
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John 10:30 - Jesus answered them, “I and My Father are one.”
An apple (to us humans), is not an orange; they are not one.
jesus and god are both an apple...
or an orange
That image above doesn't make any sense to me, since the middle of the triangle itself states that the God is all three the father is the son and the holy spirit, therefore the son is the holy spirit too...
An apple (to us humans), is not an orange; they are not one.
jesus and god are both an apple...
or an orange
That image above doesn't make any sense to me, since the middle of the triangle itself states that the God is all three the father is the son and the holy spirit, therefore the son is the holy spirit too...
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meinabox
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“And He said, Unto you it is given to know the mysteries of the kingdom of God: but to others in parables; that seeing they might not see, and hearing they might not understand” (Luke 8:10).
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drich0150
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God is a title and not a name as in:
God the Father
God the Son
God the Holy Spirit
Their is only one triune God in three different incarnations. The first takes the traditional role of the Father, the second as a Son. (To the point our roles as Father and son have been modeled after what they established. )The Spirit of God is the personal aspect of God that intercedes for you.
Just like we have one government that runs the united States but it is divided into three parts. Or like any object found in reality has 3 dimensions to only the one object.
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OK, that's a bit clearer. So how can Jesus not know something the Father knows when Jesus says that he and the father are one?
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solarwave
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Your probably going to get conflicting answers, but I'll give my understanding anyway. I believe Jesus Christ is the finite comprehensible form of the infinite incomprehensibly Father. Jesus is infinite divine in limited human form. Jesus having a human body couldn't be omniscient, omnipotence or omnipresent. So I would say Jesus was God by the fact that His mind was synchronised with the mind of the Father.
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drich0150
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God the Son is indeed apart of the God Head, but yields to the will of God the Father. They are "one" in that they are of the same mind and accord. That means The Son's role is to yield to the authority of the Father.
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By some understandings of the words "are one", Jesus Christ and the Father are one. By other understandings of the words "are one", Jesus Christ and the Father are not one. Similarly a loving husband and wife might say that they are one flesh to indicate the type of bond that is forged between them, yet no one would have any difficulty understanding that they remain two distinct physical and mental units.
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drich0150
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Again One God three separate incarnations.
I guess if you make the leap from incarnations to separate beings I can see how one would think I was describing a polytheistic religion. However if you stay true to the definitions i originally posted (As the words pertain to the subject) the definition narrows to exclude polytheism.
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CryptoLutheran
Friendly Neighborhood Spiderman
Some subscribe to what's known as "Kenosis Theory", the word "kenosis" is Greek and means "to be empty" and is taken from a statement St. Paul uses in one of his letters to speak of Christ "emptying" Himself when He became human.
What "Kenosis Theory" states, in simplest terms, is that in the Incarnation, the Son/Logos "emptied" Himself of certain Divine privilege and power; He did not cease to be God but He willingly subjected Himself to all the weaknesses and limitations with which all human beings have. Thus, Christ could "grow in wisdom" and didn't have all knowledge. He was wholly reliant upon His Father and did nothing of Himself but of the One who sent Him.
That's it in a nutshell at least.
As far as an orthodox description of the Trinity, the graphic posted above is a classic Trinitarian "seal" used to describe the Trinity. We teach that God is one Ousia (Greek for "substance" or "nature" or "being" or "thing") and three Hypostases (singular "Hypostasis", Greek for "subsistence" or a "fundamental reality" of a thing); that is Father, Son and Holy Spirit are all one God, having the singular and absolutely one Being of God while the Hypostases of the Father, Son and Spirit are unique as belonging to their respective Father-ness/Son-ness/Spirit-ness as is applicable. To put it simpler: The Father's Father-ness is His own, and yet His Deity He shares with the Son and the Holy Spirit and are therefore one God in total, absolute and perfect unity of Being.
-CryptoLutheran
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Yeah, I've heard people describe Christianity as polytheistic. I've never thought of it that way myself and I've never really had much trouble understanding the Trinity. I always thought of it as one God in three parts that can communicate with each other.
However, one problem I did have, was that the Bible claims Jesus has always existed;
John 1
The Word Became Flesh
1 In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. 2 He was with God in the beginning. 3 Through him all things were made; without him nothing was made that has been made. 4 In him was life, and that life was the light of all mankind. 5 The light shines in the darkness, and the darkness has not overcome[a] it.
This is saying that Jesus has always existed with God. But how can this be since Jesus had to be born? Also, going back to my original question, if this Jesus has always existed with God then surely he knows everything God knows? How, then, can he claim to not know the hour of his own return?
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This makes a bit of sense I suppose. Although, if Christ emptied himself of Divine privilege, how was he able to do miracles? When Jesus was baptised and the Spirit descended on him, wouldn't that have restored his Divinity? Also, if Jesus "emptied himself" would that not have refuted his claims to Divinity? Either he was God when he walked this earth or he wasn't.
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elopez
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According to the Holy Trinity, while God is the Son Christ and Christ is God, Christ is not God the Father. What this means is that the second person of the Trinity (Christ) and the first person (the Father) differentiate only to a small extent. They differ in roles, as God the Father creates and establishes laws, the Son Christ is incarnated (God the Father is not), crucified, resurrected, and ascended.
Jesus is God in the flesh. What this means to me anyway has significance to your question. If Jesus is God and God is spirit, then causally prior to the incarnation of Christ he was spirit too, hence the 'incarnate' aspect of Christ which is to literally take on human form. Therefore Christ is both divine and human, not just one or the other. Christ did not cease to be God once incarnated but simply took on the form of man.
In Philippians 2:5-8 it says of Christ that "he emptied himself, taking the form of a bond servant, being made in the likeness of men." In order to become incarnate Christ 'emptied' himself of the divine so that he could truly experience what we humans do. If Christ truly experienced what it was like to me mortal, then he is subject to mortal limitations such as hunger, pain, temptation, and like you said, ignorance. When Christ said he did not know his return he was speaking from a human standpoint, displaying his affirmation as human and not a denial of God.
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drich0150
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We are divided into two parts. Soul and our bodies. Jesus was 100% Man Or Had Body that was Man, and He was 100% God. The Man or body part was born. But the Spirit/God Always Here. (Before His body was born.)
He can say He does not know because He is in the role of the Son. The Son chooses to yield Himself to the Father and the Father's authority. As per the Role of the Son.
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This is what I came up with from Adam Clarke Commentary: Dr. Macknight, and others, solve this difficulty in the following manner. They suppose the verb οιδεν to have the force of the Hebrew conjugation Hiphel, in which verbs are taken in a causative, declarative, or permissive sense; and that it means here, make known, or promulge, as it is to be understood in 1 Corinthians 2:2. This intimates that this secret was not to be made known, either by men or angels, no, not even by the Son of man himself; but it should be made known by the Father only, in the execution of the purposes of his justice.
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CryptoLutheran
Friendly Neighborhood Spiderman
In Trinitarian thought God is one Entity: God. The Father, Son and Holy Spirit consubstantiate as that one Entity/God. The Father is God (One), the Son is God (One), the Spirit is God (One)--One God. Not three gods or entities or beings; just one: God. The Father, Son and Spirit are each in and of themselves that one God as well as together in their unity together.
Trinitarian language attempts to be excruciating precise: words like "being", "entity", "substance" or any similar refers always to God's oneness as God; while words like "subsistance" or "person" always refer to each of the Trinity's distinctives (i.e. the Father, Son and Holy Spirit). The Greek words are "Ousia" and "Hypostasis" respectively. We also use words like "consubstantial" to refer to that unity. We speak also of things such as "perichoresis" to describe some of the mystery of the unity.
When one understands how orthodox Christians have defined terms and articulate our faith, it all becomes rather straightforward. Admittedly, however, the obstacle of learning some of that theological language can be cumbersome for some and many Christians having an improper understanding of the Trinity can lead to absolute confusion.
My recommendation ultimately would not be to talk to me or any one else on a forum such as this, but actually read historic Christian statements such as those found in the Creeds and Councils; or at the least reliable second-hand sources such as descent articles on the topic.
I like to think I can explain it fairly well, but I can be a bit verbose and that may or may not be a hindrance, and additionally I'm still just some dude on the internet. I'm not a reliable source.
-CryptoLutheran
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