I don't understand Trinity

[Efendi]

GCC summed it up pretty well.

Welcome to our forum Efendi.

Thanks Quit Angel.

God Bless.

 

[Archaenfel]

There has been one thing brought up in this thread I would like to comment on. How does it hurt us if we don't comprehend the nature of God?


Well: it hurts us because if we don't understand the nature of God, we are prone to heresies of many kinds. There are those who claim to worship a form of Christianity who believe that Christ was never really a man. Yet Christ had to be a man in order to live a perfect life as a man, for only a being who lived as a man and was subject to all the temptations of a man and yet live a perfect life could be a suitable sacrifice for the sins of another, and yet he was God - for only the sacrifice of a divine being would be suitable for the sins of the world.

There are those who seek to create a hierarchy of three distinct beings; then we would have three gods - and if three, why not more? Yet John speaks to this: In the beginning there was the Word ... and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. They are one in essence.

We must understand enough about God so that we do not error in His worship and write our own rules, which is very much a human tendency.

 

[GratiaCorpusChristi]

When it comes to whether God is logical or not, we have to make sure we are on the same page. Is logic something that is greater than God? Something that He is bound by? Or is it a created thing? Something that He is "above"? I think the "o"rthodox answer would be that God is supra-logical... In a way that our human minds simply cannot fathom. This may appear, especially to our fallen minds, as if it were illogical, while in reality, they are, as I mentioned, above any human concept of logic.

Well I thought I made my position fairly clear when I said that:

The confessions say that God's ways cannot be deduced from logic. We do not know about God from philosophy. That does not mean they are not logical. God, the Trinity, is internally consistent.

I don't mean to say that God can be known purely through human reason. I don't know of anyone who would say that, not even Aristotle or Thomas Aquinas or some such.

I also don't mean to say that God can be primarily known through human reason, or that human reason apart from revelation can search out the ways of God. This is not, as far as I am concerned, an epistemological issue. This is not about how humans can grasp God.

This is about the nature of God as revealed. And the nature of God as God has revealed it is one that is A. ever-faithful to certain purposes, and whose being and behavior is forever consistent with those purposes, and B. more philosophically, In the beginning was the λογος.

Logic does not bind God any more than other things that can be said of God bind God. Does the Trinity bind God? Heavens no! The Trinity is God unbounded, a community of self-giving, self-donating eternal love.

If you want a further example on the relationship not only between faith and reason but between the nature of God and the nature of reason, look no further than Benedict XVI's Regensburg lecture. Yes, it was controversial (I'm sure RadMan loved it, given its statements about Islam), but aside from the controversy it produced, the actual purpose of the lecture was to outline the place of faith and reason in Christianity as opposed to Islam.

To quote from the lecture:

At this point, as far as understanding of God and thus the concrete practice of religion is concerned, we are faced with an unavoidable dilemma. Is the conviction that acting unreasonably contradicts God's nature merely a Greek idea, or is it always and intrinsically true? I believe that here we can see the profound harmony between what is Greek in the best sense of the word and the biblical understanding of faith in God. Modifying the first verse of the Book of Genesis, the first verse of the whole Bible, John began the prologue of his Gospel with the words: "In the beginning was the λόγος". This is the very word used by the emperor: God acts, σὺν λόγω, with logos. Logos means both reason and word - a reason which is creative and capable of self-communication, precisely as reason. John thus spoke the final word on the biblical concept of God, and in this word all the often toilsome and tortuous threads of biblical faith find their culmination and synthesis. In the beginning was the logos, and the logos is God, says the Evangelist. The encounter between the Biblical message and Greek thought did not happen by chance. The vision of Saint Paul, who saw the roads to Asia barred and in a dream saw a Macedonian man plead with him: "Come over to Macedonia and help us!" (cf. Acts 16:6-10) - this vision can be interpreted as a "distillation" of the intrinsic necessity of a rapprochement between Biblical faith and Greek inquiry.

The Official English Translation of the Regensburg Lecture

He quotes at length from from the erudite Byzantine emperor Manuel II Paleologos and an "educated Persian" on the subject of reason as inherent in the nature of God or a created thing used by humanity, but superseded by commands of the Qur'an.

God, in his essence, is truly unknowable (ineffable). Logic, on the other hand, can be deduced and fully understood, as it is a human tool, a human concept of the study of reasoning. I am sure you will not deny that God is above human reason.

"... dwelling in unapproachable light"
- 1 Timothy 6:16
(I am sure you completely understand that this is not referencing a physical light)

"How unsearchable are His judgments and His ways past finding out! "
- Romans 11:33

"The true knowledge and vision of God consists in this—in seeing that He is invisible, because what we seek lies beyond all knowledge, being wholly separated by the darkness of incomprehensibility"
- Saint Gregory of Nyssa

"God is infinite and incomprehensible and all that is comprehensible about Him is His infinity and incomprehensibility"
- Saint John of Damascus

I know that last two are "questionable" sources to the Lutherans, even the Orthodox do not accept the Saints as being inerrant, they were just thrown in for consideration.

Again, you seem to have mistaken my purpose. I am not saying that God can be epistemologically 'accessed' by human beings. I am saying that logic inheres in the nature of God.

However, logic is a method. It in itself contains no content. For logic to produce any meaningful content, you need certain axioms. Fallen humans, we would agree, have no such axioms that can lead to ultimate truth.

However, the Trinity- one being in three persons- is in a way axiomatic for the structure of God, and the way in which they relate- eternal self-giving love- is the logic on which they operate. God loves because God is love. Is that not logical?

Please understand the original context of my statement: Efendi said that God is beyond logic, because the Islamic understanding of God is total transcendence. God can make two plus two equal five, in our universe and in any other. Therefore, God in Islam is less like a person (or trium of persons) with loving purposes than a spot of energy emanating in all directions.

This statement is true enough, "deus revelatus" is God revealed, but we can't lose sight of "deus absconditus", or God hidden. Those are Luther's terms, but the ancient Church would simply make the division between God's energies, which are knowable, and God's essence, which is entirely unknowable.

You know, of course, that western theology has no energies-essences distinction.

As for deus revelatus and deus absconditus, I have never had the impression that God revealed and God hidden can be contradictory.

If God revealed is a Trinity, than he really really is a Trinity. If God revealed is λογος, he really really is consistently reasonable. There are many things of God that he has chosen not to reveal to us, but those unrevealed things are not somehow 'more real,' as though they may hold contradictory truths that override the truths revealed. Otherwise, why should we trust that anything God has said is true?

So all this was really just to balance your earlier statement that "Actually, the view that God is beyond logic is purely a Muslim view." Because, as we know, God is, of course, knowable insofar as He has Revealed Himself to us, but He is most certainly not fully knowable. He is beyond any form of human understanding, including logic.

And this is where it becomes most clear that you have mistaken my point. I ought to have been more clear. I don't mean that God is fully knowable. I mean that logic inheres in the structure of God. Whether in the relationship of the persons or in the essence of his being, I do not know- though to venture a guess, I would say the latter, since the logic at the heart of God is specifically known in the Second Person. But that's another matter.

In any case, thank you for giving me a reasoned and intelligent debating partner with whom I can chat without malice. It is a breath of incredibly fresh air.

Have a visitor asking about the Trinity, next thing I know, we have two members discussing neo-orthodoxy.

Well that would be wonderful if every time I spoke RadMan wasn't bringing it up.

God is on the heaven, 3 but 1, have human form, on the heaven, these are matter of logic.

I don't know exactly what you mean by heaven being a matter of logic, but I should tell you that God having human form only applies to the Second Person of the Trinity, the God-man Jesus Christ. We do not say that the Father or the Spirit have physical bodies. They have no physical existence whatsoever. I am vaguely aware that there has been some dispute between Sunnis and Shiites over whether God (in Islam) has feet, hands, a head, etc., but there is no such dispute in Christianity. As far as we are concerned, the Father and the Spirit do not have a body, and the Son has a fully human body born to the Virgin Mary two thousand years ago. In fact, his humanity is not merely a human body; he has a human soul and a human mind. He has all the humanity that you and I have, yet without sin. He is not the divinity inhabiting a human body, like Vishnu in Hinduism. He is fully God, as much as the Father and the Spirit, and fully human, as much as you and me, yet without sin.

If the relationship between the divinity of the Son and the humanity of the Son isn't clear to you, feel free to ask. I always feel that it is best to cover the Trinity and the incarnation of Jesus Christ at the same time. The one always helps clarify the other.

 

[Efendi]

There has been one thing brought up in this thread I would like to comment on. How does it hurt us if we don't comprehend the nature of God?


Well: it hurts us because if we don't understand the nature of God, we are prone to heresies of many kinds. There are those who claim to worship a form of Christianity who believe that Christ was never really a man. Yet Christ had to be a man in order to live a perfect life as a man, for only a being who lived as a man and was subject to all the temptations of a man and yet live a perfect life could be a suitable sacrifice for the sins of another, and yet he was God - for only the sacrifice of a divine being would be suitable for the sins of the world.

There are those who seek to create a hierarchy of three distinct beings; then we would have three gods - and if three, why not more? Yet John speaks to this: In the beginning there was the Word ... and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. They are one in essence.

We must understand enough about God so that we do not error in His worship and write our own rules, which is very much a human tendency.

So God should be structured on Logic?

 

[Efendi]

Do mainstream christians think Logic is created by God?

 

[Protoevangel]

And this is where it becomes most clear that you have mistaken my point. I ought to have been more clear. I don't mean that God is fully knowable...

Sorry for the misunderstanding. I still don't fully agree with everything you are saying, I do see that you weren't saying what I had thought you were saying.

In any case, thank you for giving me a reasoned and intelligent debating partner with whom I can chat without malice. It is a breath of incredibly fresh air.

I don't know if "intelligent" is a fitting description, but thank you nonetheless.

 

[GratiaCorpusChristi]

Sorry for the misunderstanding. I still don't fully agree with everything you are saying, I do see that you weren't saying what I had thought you were saying.




I don't know if "intelligent" is a fitting description, but thank you nonetheless.

Ha, well, I'm not one to suppose that all disagreements are the results of misunderstands. Two people may understand one another, and yet disagree. That's fine, and that just makes the world more interesting.

 

[LutheranMafia]

I think the Trinity is simple and straight forward if you believe that we all have a spirit and a soul. (I'm not sure what Muslims beliefs on this are?) If we are all made in the image of God then we have 3 parts too--soul, spirit and body. The Holy Father corresponds to our soul, the Holy Spirit corresponds to our spirit and the Son is God's incarnate form. I think it is that simple.

 

[Efendi]

Logic = Universe = datas, rules.

God is not Universe (the createds) or even part of it.

If God is not unviverse, God is not made of datas. There is no data to understand God, or to describe God, such as image, weight, space.

Our mind can not think without datas. Without data human mind can not understand and describe things, no matter how big its performance is. It is only a motor created by God.

If Trinity is data, I think it conflict with the sense above, doesn't it?

 

[LutheranMafia]

The above conflicts with the Biblical teaching that God is everywhere. God is ominpresent.

In Jeremiah 23:24 God declares, "Do I not fill heaven and earth?"

"Whither shall I go from thy spirit? or whither shall I flee from thy presence? If I ascend into heaven, thou art there: if I make my bed in hell, behold, thou art there. If I take the wings of the morning, and dwell in the uttermost parts of the sea; even there shall thy hand lead me, and thy right hand shall hold me"
-Psalms 139:7-10

"Heaven is my throne, and earth is my footstool." -Isaiah 66:1

"The high and lofty One that inhabiteth eternity" -Isaiah 57:15

"And lo, I am with you alway, even to the end of the world" -Matthew 28:18

"For in him we live, and move, and have our being;" -Acts 17:27

"Where two or three are gathered together in My name, there am I in the midst of them" -Matthew 13:20

 

[GratiaCorpusChristi]

Logic = Universe = datas, rules.

God is not Universe (the createds) or even part of it.

If God is not unviverse, God is not made of datas. There is no data to understand God, or to describe God, such as image, weight, space.

Our mind can not think without datas. Without data human mind can not understand and describe things, no matter how big its performance is. It is only a motor created by God.

If Trinity is data, I think it conflict with the sense above, doesn't it?

Well, you're certainly a good Muslim.

But Christians say that God is logos, which is Greek for word, reason, account, or logic, per John 1:1: In the beginning was the Logos, and the Logos was with God, and the Logos was God.

I would disagree that logic is data, though. Logic is not information, but a way of looking at information. It is method, not content.

God has a way of being. God is, and that is-ness has a way to it. A form. A mode. And that way of being, that form of being, that mode of being, is its own logic.

Logic is not a created thing, but a pale human reflection of God's way of being. God is consistent; God is rational.

I, and we, are not saying that logic is above God; what I, and those who agree with me (obviously not everyone here), are saying is that logic inheres in the very nature of God, just like beauty and justice and truth. They are determined by him, yes, but they are determined by him not as ex nihilo creations, but by penetrating to the very core of who he is.

 

[Tangible]

Logic is not a created thing, but a pale human reflection of God's way of being. God is consistent; God is rational.

I, and we, are not saying that logic is above God; what I, and those who agree with me (obviously not everyone here), are saying is that logic inheres in the very nature of God, just like beauty and justice and truth. They are determined by him, yes, but they are determined by him not as ex nihilo creations, but by penetrating to the very core of who he is.

I like to say that man's logic is only a subset of God's logic.

 

[GratiaCorpusChristi]

I like to say that man's logic is only a subset of God's logic.

That's a fair way to say it, I think. I think, however, it is a true subset. Incomplete, but true of God nonetheless.

 

[BoC]

Well, you're certainly a good Muslim.

But Christians say that God is logos, which is Greek for word, reason, account, or logic, per John 1:1: In the beginning was the Logos, and the Logos was with God, and the Logos was God.

I would disagree that logic is data, though. Logic is not information, but a way of looking at information. It is method, not content.

God has a way of being. God is, and that is-ness has a way to it. A form. A mode. And that way of being, that form of being, that mode of being, is its own logic.

Logic is not a created thing, but a pale human reflection of God's way of being. God is consistent; God is rational.

I, and we, are not saying that logic is above God; what I, and those who agree with me (obviously not everyone here), are saying is that logic inheres in the very nature of God, just like beauty and justice and truth. They are determined by him, yes, but they are determined by him not as ex nihilo creations, but by penetrating to the very core of who he is.

I would think that making explanations in theological ideas instead of philisophical premisses would be more beneficial than quoting supositions. Opinions are dime a dozen. You're not so sure if the Holy Spirit will do it's job are you?

 

[GratiaCorpusChristi]

I would think that making explanations in theological ideas instead of philisophical premisses would be more beneficial than quoting supositions. Opinions are dime a dozen. You're not so sure if the Holy Spirit will do it's job are you?

I can't even follow what you're trying to say.