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One God in Three Persons, Blessed Trinity

Andrewn

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The problem is the Greek word ousios, translates not only to Essence but also to Being,
- The term οὐσία is an Ancient Greek noun, formed on the feminine present participle of the verb εἰμί, eimí, meaning "to be, I am", so similar grammatically to the English noun "being". There was no equivalent grammatical formation in Latin, and it was translated as essentia or substantia.

- While the translation of ousia into substantia and hypostasis into persona won the day in the Latin Church, there were ancient views that preferred rendering ousia into essentia and hypostasis into substantia.

- In Aramaic, the term used for ousia is kyana, which is closer to being rather than substance or essence.
 
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The Liturgist

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- The term οὐσία is an Ancient Greek noun, formed on the feminine present participle of the verb εἰμί, eimí, meaning "to be, I am", so similar grammatically to the English noun "being". There was no equivalent grammatical formation in Latin, and it was translated as essentia or substantia.

- While the translation of ousia into substantia and hypostasis into persona won the day in the Latin Church, there were ancient views that preferred rendering ousia into essentia and hypostasis into substantia.

- In Aramaic, the term used for ousia is kyana, which is closer to being rather than substance or essence.

Indeed. And the term for hypostasis and person is qnoma, and parsopa refers to distinguishing attributes. I am familiar with the Syriac terms relating to Christology, indeed, I even can speak a little Syriac; the Syriac Christians I love a great deal. I also tried learning Coptic but that turned out to be really seriously hard, so I gave up.

I am of the opinion that hypostasis should never be translated into Latin or English, as Latin and English lack a word suitable to express it. And indeed, in Orthodox works on theology, and many Catholic and Protestant works, hypostasis is not translated, whereas ousia is almost always translated except in discussions of Arianism (the Christian doctrine of homoousios vs. Arian homoiousios or heteroousios).
 
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Jipsah

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I never point to "one God in three modes" as you just did. I point out scripture has "One God" Deut 6:4 in "three PERSONS" Matt 28:19. Your idea that "a person is merely a mode" is your own speculation - not mine.
Good to know, but it would help if you'd tell us what "God in three persons" means in SDA terms. You seem to embrace some sort of "Protestant Trinitarian" which, based upon my experience, means modalism. Since you deny being a modalist (or at least I think that's what you're doing), then what do you believe if the Trinity. We know it's Not Catholic, and Not Modalist, but you seem to be intentionally vague on what it is rather than what it is not.

The Catholics are very precise as to what they believe concerning the Trinity, Protestants much less so since they tend to be all over the shop. Saying that SDAs embrace a Protestant Trinity is rather like saying SDAs Believe In God. Really? Jewish God? Muslim God? Sikh God? You have to provide some specifics, else you haven't really said anything at all.

Again, the Catholics do everyone the courtesy of saying "Here's what we believe", and saying so, in the Nicene and Athanasian creeds. Creedal Protestants, AFAIK, all officially subscribe to those same beliefs. Non-Creedal Protestants, based wholly on my own observation, take a vaguely modalist view of the Trinity, but generally don't have specific definitions.

So where do the SDAs stand? You obviously reject the Catholic/Nicene view, and you appear to reject modalism, so what do y'all believe? No good keeping on saying, "No, that's not we believe at all!", or referring to a reductio ad absurdum "One God in three persons" which says nothing as to your specific beliefs. YOu can't complain that people are getting your beliefs wrong if you can't/won't say what they are.
 
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Jipsah

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I also tried learning Coptic but that turned out to be really seriously hard, so I gave up.
The Coptic church I've attended here has part of their liturgy in Coptic (or so I was told, since I can't distinguish between it and Arabic; they're both Not English to me.) But my friends told me that very few people there actually understand it, they just know in general what's being said.
 
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BobRyan

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The problem is the Greek word ousios, translates not only to Essence but also to Being, and it is in the Nicene Creed, which is the Statement of Faith for this website. Thus the Creed can be translated as the Son being of One Being with the Father.

The problem with that statement is that the term "being" is used in this thread two different ways when you make that statement - you are inserting the second context for it and not the "one God in three persons" context where “Being” is used as in “a person is a being” or “each one of us is a being”.

"Being" in the case above is in the context of "is becoming something vs is being something" - but in the "one God in three persons" discussion we are talking about a person is a being and not "a person is in a state of becoming something" or a "person is in a state of being something". You are using the same word but in an entirely different context.

This thread is not about God "becoming something" vs God "in a state of constant being something" - rather we are talking about the Trinity as One God in three persons. Humans are beings but that does not mean we do not change because we are not using the term "being" to say "a state of not changing" when it is used in a context such as this discussion.

See two minutes here between minute 13:00 and minute 15:00 for easy clarity.
 
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The Liturgist

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The Coptic church I've attended here has part of their liturgy in Coptic (or so I was told, since I can't distinguish between it and Arabic; they're both Not English to me.) But my friends told me that very few people there actually understand it, they just know in general what's being said.

This is true at present, but Coptic churches in Egypt and the Diaspora are actively teaching the youth to sing and understand Coptic, and as a result Bohairic Coptic has the potential to come back from being a liturgical language to a living vernacular language, which we know from the revival of Hebrew in Israel is a possibility.

Likewise the Syriac Orthodox Church, where Syriac Aramaic speakers are a minority (unlike the Assyrian Church of the East, where at least 700,000 of the million or so members are fluent in Assyrian Neo-Aramaic and of those many can understand a bit of Classical Syriac) is working to increase literacy in Classical Syriac and in the surviving vernacular dialects like Turoyo. One of their objectives is to phase out the use of Arabic from the liturgy in churches in the diaspora. I believe the Copts want to do this as well.

By the way, a lot of Coptic and Syriac liturgical phrases are literally Greek. The Copts sing the Trisagion in Greek, and both churches use the phrases Stomen kalos (stand aright) and Kyrie Eleison (Lord have mercy).

The most distinctive Syriac liturgical phrase is Barekh Mor, which means “Master, give a blessing.” In the case of the Patriarch, this phrase becomes Barekh Mor Moran.
 
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The Liturgist

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The problem with that statement is that the term "being" is used in this thread two different ways when you make that statement - you are inserting the second context for it and not the "one God in three persons" context where “Being” is used as in “a person is a being” or “each one of us is a being”.

"Being" in the case above is in the context of "is becoming something vs is being something" - but in the "one God in three persons" discussion we are talking about a person is a being and not "a person is in a state of becoming something" or a "person is in a state of being something". You are using the same word but in an entirely different context.

This thread is not about God "becoming something" vs God "in a state of constant being something" - rather we are talking about the Trinity as One God in three persons. Humans are beings but that does not mean we do not change because we are not using the term "being" to say "a state of not changing" when it is used in a context such as this discussion.

See two minutes here between minute 13:00 and minute 15:00 for easy clarity.

Ummm no, I am not talking about God becoming anything. God is immutable in His divine essence. Rather, I am seeking to explain the concept of the shared Divine Essence, or Being, which is the Nicene Trinitarian concept. Essentially, the uncreated Son and the uncreated Holy Ghost share in the Divine Essence of the unoriginate Father, so the Divine Essence is not to be understood as some impersonal force uniting the three prosopa.

It is better to use the Greek word prosopon than the Latin derived person when talking of the Father, Son and Holy Ghost, because prosopon (plural prosopa) has additional layers of meaning.

It is also the case that each prosopon has a corresponding hypostasis. In the case of Jesus Christ, we say He is in a state of hypostatic union with humanity, because He is consubstantial with the Trinity and consubstantial with Mankind, as a result of being fully Man and fully God simultaneously.
 
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Andrewn

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“each one of us is a being”.
God is a Being. Or perhaps more appropriately, God is Being. He is not three beings. He is three subsistences.

Mar 12:29
“This is the most important,” Jesus answered: Listen, Israel! The Lord our God, the Lord is One.

1 John 5:7
For there are three that bear record in heaven, the Father, the Word, and the Holy Ghost: and these three are one.

Persons and Subsistences in the Confessions of Faith

What's your issue with the Catholic definition anyway?
 
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The Liturgist

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God is a Being. Or perhaps more appropriately, God is Being. He is not three beings. He is three subsistences.

Mar 12:29
“This is the most important,” Jesus answered: Listen, Israel! The Lord our God, the Lord is One.

1 John 5:7
For there are three that bear record in heaven, the Father, the Word, and the Holy Ghost: and these three are one.

Persons and Subsistences in the Confessions of Faith

What's your issue with the Catholic definition anyway?

Or for that matter the Protestant definition, since virtually everyone participating in this thread has been a Protestant attempting to explain the parity between the Protestant and Roman Catholic definitions. This was never an area of controversy for Protestants, it was not what they were protesting about Rome.
 
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BobRyan

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God is a Being.

No doubt. Since persons are beings.

God is a Being
Or perhaps more appropriately, God is Being.

Indeed - since God "does not change" God is in a "state of being" vs a state of changing or a state of "becoming".

We are each one beings - but we are all in a state of "Becoming" because we constantly change. God does not change. That is the context for the word "being" that was added to the creed.

hence

See two minutes here between minute 13:00 and minute 15:00 for easy clarity.

Ummm no, I am not talking about God becoming anything. God is immutable in His divine essence. .

And as we just saw in that video - that is exactly the point that was put into the creed.
 
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The Liturgist

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No doubt. Since persons are beings.



Indeed - since God "does not change" God is in a "state of being" vs a state of changing or a state of "becoming".

We are each one beings - but we are all in a state of "Becoming" because we constantly change. God does not change. That is the context for the word "being" that was added to the creed.

hence





And as we just saw in that video - that is exactly the point that was put into the creed.

The mistake you’re making is confusing hypostasis with ousios, and also of using the word person rather than prosopon. God has one ousios, and the word ousios is translated into English via Latin as substance or essence, but directly translated means “being.” God is one ousios (being), with three hypostases and three prosopa. The Greek word prosopon is most accurately translated as face; it originally referred to theater masks, but really, it has the sense of identity and personality, of humaness.

The etymology is that in in classical antiquity, slaves or other undesirables were regarded as “habeas non personam”, which is to say faceless or unrecognizable, in that they had no human rights legally and were not viewed as fellow Greeks viewed other Greeks and as fellow Romans viewed other Romans.

Now for a brief but important segue: our individual existence, which we should not call personhood, but rather manhood or womanhood, because person and people have been expanded in meaning in the service of political correctness for decades (to the point where a friend of mine quit working at one of the Disney parks after 30 years because employees are now prohibited from saying “Ladies and gentlemen, boys and girls” for fear of offending transsexuals, and instead, catering to perversion, the park requires employees to say “People” instead. We should not think of ourselves as persons, but as men and women, because our person historically is just part of us; it is our outwardly recognizable unique identity.

Manhood, as we understand it, is derived from both our prosopon and our hypostasis. We also have an ousios, but everything ontologically speaking has an ousios. When we are dead, our body will still have an ousios. Our ousios however is discrete from, but otherwise undifferentiated from the ousios of every other man, in that it is mutable, beginning as the ousios of an embryo, then ageing, then becoming that of a dead man, and then being resurrected.*

In the case of God, the Son and the Holy Spirit share the ousios of the Father but have discrete hypostases and prosopa. The ousios of the Father is immutable, infinite, eternal, omnipotent, unoriginate, and inscrutable, “a boundless sea of being” and “the ultimate sum of the highest form of all virtues and perfections,” to quote St. Gregory the Theologian and St. Basil of Caesarea. The Son and the Holy Spirit are discrete individuals, each a person with a hypostasis, like how you have been using the word being, but the word being, as I am attempting to show, means something else, and the word that best expresses what you mean by being is hypostasis, which translated literally, means “understanding” but that is not the ideal translation. Hypostasis is a word that expresses such a complex nexus of individuality and existence that I prefer not to even try to translate it. Furthermore, our Lord Jesus Christ actually has two beings, for he is homoousios, or consubstantial, of the same nature, as the Father, and also consubstantial, of the same nature, with humanity. These two beings are united in one hypostasis.

*I also believe we have a soul separate from our bodies in which our hypostases and prosopa will repose in Heaven or experience a foretaste of Hell, and this is an incorporeal state of being, one where I further believe prayers for the dead are efficacious. However, I understand this doctrine is not shared by the SDA, and it is not required for Trinitarian faith.
 
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Andrewn

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Hypostasis is a word that expresses such a complex nexus of individuality and existence that I prefer not to even try to translate it.
Heb 1:3 This Son is the radiance of His glory and the imprint of His hypostasis, upholding all things by His powerful word.When He had made purification for our sins, He sat down at the right hand of the Majesty on high.

Heb 3:14 For we will become partners with Christ only if we maintain firmly until the end the hypostasis we originally had,

Heb 11:1 Now faith is the hypostasis of things hoped for, the evidence of things not seen.

In Aramaic theology, hypostasis is rendered into qnoma. @The Liturgist is familiar with the Aramaic terms. According to Mar Bawai the Great (6-7th centuries) in his "Book of the Union", the definition of Qnoma is as follows:

"A singular essence is called a `qnoma'. It stands alone, one in number, that is, one as distinct from the many. A qnoma is invariable in its natural state and is bound to a species and nature, being one (numerically) among a number of like qnome. It is distinctive among its fellow qnome (only) by reason of any unique property or characteristic which it possesses in its `parsopa'. With rational creatures this (uniqueness) may consist of various (external and internal) accidents, such as excellent or evil character, or knowledge or ignorance, and with irrational creatures (as also with the rational) the combination of various contrasting features. (Through the parsopa we distinguish that) Gabriel is not Michael, and Paul is not Peter. However, in each qnoma of any given nature the entire common nature is known, and intellectually one recognizes what that nature, which encompasses all its qnome, consists of. A qnoma does not encompass the nature as a whole (but exemplifies what is common to the nature, such as, in a human qnoma, body, soul, mind, etc.)."
 
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BobRyan

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Most Protestant churches just seem to accept the filioque as an inheritance from Rome; it is only recently as a result of ecumenical dialogue with the Eastern Orthodox, Oriental Orthodox and the Assyrian Church of the East that there have been widespread movements, which I support, to remove the filioque from the creeds used in Protestantism, such as the #DropTheFilioque movement. .

Well inserting that term into the creeds caused a huge split in Catholic West vs Orthodox East - around 1054.

What Caused the Great Schism of 1054?.
 
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BobRyan

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Manhood, as we understand it, is derived from both our prosopon and our hypostasis.

A baby is a being whether male or female and even though if male it has not reached manhood. It is in a state of "change" , a state of "becoming" rather than "a state of being the same". By contrast God is in a state of "being" -- i.e. "unchanging" as we see in Heb 13 and Malachi 3:6. No matter how many "persons".
 
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BobRyan

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*I also believe we have a soul separate from our bodies in which our hypostases and prosopa will repose in Heaven or experience a foretaste of Hell, and this is an incorporeal state of being, one where I further believe prayers for the dead are efficacious. However, I understand this doctrine is not shared by the SDA, and it is not required for Trinitarian faith.

SDAs believe:

Matt 10:28
28 And do not be afraid of those who kill the body but are unable to kill the soul; but rather fear Him who is able to destroy both soul and body in hell.

Ps 146:4 His spirit departs, he returns to the earth;
In that very day his thoughts perish.

Eccl 12:7 Then the dust will return to the earth as it was,
And the spirit will return to God who gave it.

John 11:
1 These things He said, and after that He said to them, “Our friend Lazarus sleeps, but I go that I may wake him up.”

1 Thess 4:13-18
13 But I do not want you to be ignorant, brethren, concerning those who have fallen asleep, lest you sorrow as others who have no hope. 14 For if we believe that Jesus died and rose again, even so God will bring with Him those who sleep in Jesus.
15 For this we say to you by the word of the Lord, that we who are alive and remain until the coming of the Lord will by no means precede those who are asleep. 16 For the Lord Himself will descend from heaven with a shout, with the voice of an archangel, and with the trumpet of God. And the dead in Christ will rise first. 17 Then we who are alive and remain shall be caught up together with them in the clouds to meet the Lord in the air. And thus we shall always be with the Lord. 18 Therefore comfort one another with these words.
Since as you point out this is somewhat off topic - I have started a thread here on this topic above.
 
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Clare73

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How about this - as an example of what we do not find in scripture...
  • The Father actively and eternally generates the Son, constituting the person of “God the Father”.
  • The Son is passively generated of the Father, which constitutes the person of the Son.
  • The Father and the Son actively spirate the Holy Spirit.
Contraire. . .

What we do find in Scripture is the Father generating (ek-elthon, from erchomai) the Son in John 8:42, John 16:27, John 16:28, John 17:8,

and the Father generating the Holy Spirit in John 15:26 (ek-poreuetai (goes out of, from within, as used in Revelation 9:17, Revelation 11:5),

And in Revelation 22:1, the river of the water of life (Holy Spirit, Revelation 22:17) flows from
(Gr: ek-poreuomenon) the throne of God and the Lamb,
proceeding from within, going forth out of, the Father and the Son.
Then they too would be stuck in the position of having to argue that the Trinity is not in scripture --
Contraire. . .they have the above, and the following from Scripture:

A. The NT presents three separate divine agents, Father, Son and Holy Spirit in the work of salvation:
1) Father, Son and Holy Spirit
a) at its beginning (Luke 1:35),
b) at the inauguration of Jesus' public ministry (Matthew 3:16-17) and
c) in the work of atonement (Hebrews 9:14);

2) the Holy Spirit completing the work of the Father through the Son; i.e., the work of salvation (Acts 2:38-39, Romans 8:26; 1 Corinthians 12:4-13 (vv.4-6); Ephesians 1:3-14 (v.14), Ephesians 2:13-22 (v.18); 2 Thessalonians 2:13; 1 Peter 1:2);

3) the only way to enter the kingdom of the Father is through faith in the Son and regeneration by the Holy Spirit (John 3:1-15, vv. 5, 14-15).

B. The Father, Son and Holy Spirit are bracketed together as the triune name of God:
1) Matthew 28:19 - this is the name (singular--not names, plural) of the God with whom we enter into relationship;

2) 1 Corinthians 12:4-6 - Paul uses all three interchangeably;

3) 2 Corinthians 13:14; Revelation 1:4-5 - they are linked in prayer for and in pronouncement of divine blessing.

C. The NT shows the following set of relationships among the three:
1) The Son and Holy Spirit proceeding out from within the Father (John 8:42, John 15:26);

2) THe Son is subject to the Father, for the Son is sent by the Father in the Father's name (John 5:23, 36, 43);

3) The Spirit is subject to the Father, for the Spirit is sent by the Father in the Son's name (John 14:26);

4) The Spirit is subject to the Son as well as the Father, for the Spirit is sent by the Son as well as the Father (John 15:26, John 16:17, 14:26).
 
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BobRyan

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What we do find in Scripture is the Father generating (ek-elthon, from erchomai) the Son in John 8:42, John 16:27, John 16:28, John 17:8,

1. No 'generating' found in any of those texts
2. John 17:8 does not say the Son was "generated" before the world was - rather it says that God "sent His Son" into the world .. as does John 3. It is about the incarnation - not about "generating God the Son"

John 17:
8 for the words which You gave Me I have given to them; and they received them and truly understood that I came forth from You, and they believed that You sent Me.

John 16:28 is focused on the incarnation - not "Generating God the Son before the world was"

John 16:
27 for the Father Himself loves you, because you have loved Me and have believed that I came forth from the Father.
28 I came forth from the Father and have come into the world; again, I am leaving the world and going to the Father.

Just as the world does not generate God the Son and then send Him to the Father. The entire sentence is about incarnation.

Two parallel actions "came from God - sent to the world" vs "Leaving from the world going back to God"

John 8 shows how this is all about incarnation -- Christ coming here -- and is not about "Generation" -- God the Son coming into existence.

John 8
42 Jesus said to them, “If God were your Father, you would love Me, for I came forth from God and am here; for I have not even come on My own, but He sent Me

================

Instead of having to "rework" those texts away from incarnation and turned about for "generating" God the Son before World was... just leave them as "incarnation" texts.

And then find point-blank texts that actually say something along the lines of --

  • The Father actively and eternally generates the Son, constituting the person of “God the Father”.
  • The Son is passively generated of the Father, which constitutes the person of the Son.
  • The Father and the Son actively spirate the Holy Spirit.
 
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BobRyan

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And in Revelation 22:1, the river of the water of life (Holy Spirit, Revelation 22:17) flows from
(Gr: ek-poreuomenon) the throne of God and the Lamb,
proceeding from within, going forth out of, the Father and the Son.

While it is true that Rev 22 says the river of life flows from the throne of God... it does not say the Holy Spirit is generated by the throne of God or that He ever was generated by the throne of God.
 
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Clare73

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Mat 28:19 Go therefore and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit,

Note that there is one name, not 3 names. God is not a committee formed of 3 separate persons.
Three separate persons, yes. . .committee, no.
Actually, some Protestants accept the Filioque, others do not. But the bottomline is that all would accept:
The Father actively and eternally generates the Son, constituting the person of “God the Father”.
The Son is passively generated of the Father, which constitutes the person of the Son.
The Father actively spirates the Holy Spirit.

Those who do not accept that the Holy Spirit proceeds from the Son would say that the Holy Spirit proceeds from the Father through the Son.
 
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Clare73

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1. No 'generating' found in any of those texts
Red herring. . .

In the spirit world, "proceeding out from within the Father" is "generating " and is "found in those texts."
. John 17:8 does not say the Son was "generated" before the world was - rather it says that God "sent His Son" into the world .. as does John 3. It is about the incarnation - not about "generating God the Son"

John 17:
8 for the words which You gave Me I have given to them; and they received them and truly understood that I came forth from You, and they believed that You sent Me.

John 16:28 is focused on the incarnation - not "Generating God the Son before the world was"

John 16:
27 for the Father Himself loves you, because you have loved Me and have believed that I came forth from the Father.
28 I came forth from the Father and have come into the world; again, I am leaving the world and going to the Father.

Just as the world does not generate God the Son and then send Him to the Father. The entire sentence is about incarnation.

Two parallel actions "came from God - sent to the world" vs "Leaving from the world going back to God"

John 8 shows how this is all about incarnation -- Christ coming here -- and is not about "Generation" -- God the Son coming into existence.
John 8
42 Jesus said to them, “If God were your Father, you would love Me, for
I came forth from God and am here; for I have not even come on My own, but He sent Me
While it is true that Rev 22 says the river of life flows from the throne of God... it does not say the Holy Spirit is generated by the throne of God or that He ever was generated by the throne of God.
Previousy addressed. . .

Jesus came forth out of God (John 8:42),
he can forth from the Father (John 16:27-28),
he came forth from you (Father, John 17:8). . .all using
ex-elthon, from erchoami, meaning "to proceed, to emanate (flow out), to issue as from a source (as light issues from the sun), to come out of or go out of, to go forth,"
as in 1 Corinthians 14:36, Matthew 2:6, Matthew 15:18).
 
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