Starting today August 7th, 2024, in order to post in the Married Couples, Courting Couples, or Singles forums, you will not be allowed to post if you have your Marital status designated as private. Announcements will be made in the respective forums as well but please note that if yours is currently listed as Private, you will need to submit a ticket in the Support Area to have yours changed.
The two commentaries I checked agree with this. Creation isn't until 1:3.This "in the beginning" (John 1:1) would be the same as saying "before time and space began" -- eternity past. Before anything was created, the un-created God existed as three Divine Persons. That is why they said "Let US make man in OUR image." Elohim (God) is a uni-plural word which already reveals the Trinity in Gen 1:1.
It is my witness that all scripture is from God, and that it is not even reasonable to think that men have had control of what goes forth in the name of God, and that God has not had control.Do not out words into my mouth or interpret my beliefs for me. Ask first. I did not say Scripture as all nonsense. I said that it is not all inerrant. The fact that something is not all inerrant does not mean it is nonsense. I reject either-or thinking. Either Scripture is all inerrant or it is worthless. Such either-or thinking is unrealistic and actually what underlies neurotic behavior, by the way. Reality is a shade of grey.
Look, go and read Thomas for yourself, then. You will find he says exactly what I claim here.You've paraphrased Thomas there so, no, it's not "precisely" what Thomas had to say.
I am inclined to think that Gen. is a veiled reference to polytheism, which the Israelites were subject to.This "in the beginning" (John 1:1) would be the same as saying "before time and space began" -- eternity past. Before anything was created, the un-created God existed as three Divine Persons. That is why they said "Let US make man in OUR image." Elohim (God) is a uni-plural word which already reveals the Trinity in Gen 1:1.
Yes, I am using logic. That is what one should do. That's what God gave us reason for. Otherwise, God becomes the excuse for irrational, unrealistic thinking. The fact God is transcendent does not mean we should make irrational assumptions about God. Also, you brought up an analogy here. It would appear that you, yourself, are bringing human logic and experience into the picture.You would get Tritheism only by looking at this with human logic. When all the Scriptures are compared, then we find that this is the Mystery of God. Hence beyond human logic. Can water be ice and vapor at the same time in the same container? Absolutely. That is simply an analogy.
* I think the Paradise Trinity is fixed, eternal and inevitable.Do you not think that the Son was there before creation?
Well, that is your thinking and your opinion. However, it can and has been seriously questioned. In my previous post, I explained some of the major reasons why.It is my witness that all scripture is from God, and that it is not even reasonable to think that men have had control of what goes forth in the name of God, and that God has not had control.
Claiming that the Bible is the Word of God isn't found in the Bible, either, but people do it. The Word of God is God, not the Bible. "In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God and the Word was God."
* I think the Paradise Trinity is fixed, eternal and inevitable.
* I don't believe Jesus is the second person of the Trinity, I believe he is a Son of the Paradise Trinity.
* I believe Jesus existed before this world was, that Jesus, aka Christ Michael, had a beginning in eternity but we don't know when.
What book? I sure don't know of any. Yu need to provide evidence to back your statement. I have extensively studied the Apocrypha and I know that the term "Trinity" is not used. Fort one thing, it is a Greco-Latin term in origin.
It isn't just possible. The Bible claims that they definitely did.
They never said there's more than one mind in God.
To my knowledge, classical Trinitarian thought does not claim that there are three minds. The Catholic Encyclopedia, which represents traditional Catholic view in the early 20th Cent, says there's one mind. "Granted that in the infinite mind, in which the categories are transcended, there are three relations which are subsistent realities, distinguished one from another in virtue of their relative opposition then it will follow that the same mind will have a three-fold consciousness, knowing itself in three ways in accordance with its three modes of existence." (article on the Trinity, Catholic Encyclopedia, newadvent.org)
The things that we normally think of as constituting a person actually go with the nature, not the Person. The only thing that isn't one is the relations. That's one reason we've all agreed that "Person" in Trinitarian theology is not the same as the common-language use of "person."
I don't think I trust your evaluation of whether a theology is modalist.
I'm with Erose on this one. I agree that persons in the common-language sense are beings, but God is one being. (Except of course when we get to the Incarnation, when the Logos is one being, but that's a different problem.)
. I have and found I'm not wrong. Something can "be" and not be a person. Granted every person is a being, which is true as well in the case of the Trinity, the only difference is that in God there is one being three Persons.I would strongly suggest you study this matter further. You are way, way off. You claim that "being" and "person" are separate concepts, for example. But that was never the case in theology.
. The definition he offers is for a person is: "Person” signifies what is most perfect in all nature---that is, a subsistent individual of a rational nature." And in the case of God, the term is defined as: "person” signifies in God a relation as subsisting in the divine nature.If you go back and read Thomas, you will find he affirms "person" as the highest form of "being."
. Actually refers to the Persons as relations within the essence or being of God, and he does use the term individual to refer to those relations.Also, you should look carefully at this concept of teh Trinity. He makes it very clear the Trinity refers to internal relationships within the mind or personality of God, not three separate individuals or persons in our sense of the terms.
The Father is fully God, the Son is fully God, and the Holy Spirit is Fully God, but not three gods, but one God.The Father stands for God. The Son stands for God's self-knowledge. The Spirit stands for God's love of his self-knowledge. Read or reread Ques. 33 and 34 in his "Summa."
We won't become eternal, but immortal. After our resurrection, we will still have our physical bodies, physical objects exist in time, eternity is outside of time. We will always exist in time.When we become eternal will we have a past?
Jesus or should we say the Son, has always had the glory of being God.Did Jesus have glory with God before this world was?
I don't trust your evaluation of whether a theology is modalist. Look at what you said above. Yu said that the mind will have a threefold consciousness of its three modes of existence. That is modalism to the hilt. I strongly agree that traditional Trinitarian thought did not use the modern concept of a "person." What I disagree with is the tendency of many Christians to posit three minds, three subjectivities, within the Godhead. That is continually happening in this forum. And it is generally done in the name of fighting modalism.
In many other posts from other members and in some of yours, you did present God as a cosmic society of three separate, unique personalities, whether you care to admit to this or no. I was simply truing to correct that. You also presented some other weird arguments, such as the fact "person" was a wholly separate category from "being." I also corrected you on that, referring to what Thomas has to day.Your the only one that I see trying to impose on others that they are claiming three minds, I never have nor would I. The divine Persons have the same mind the same will, the same divinity, etc, That is a given. But at the same time we know that the Father, the Son and the Holy Spirit are not the same Person.
Eternal means immortal, in theology.We won't become eternal, but immortal. After our resurrection, we will still have our physical bodies, physical objects exist in time, eternity is outside of time. We will always exist in time.
Jesus or should we say the Son, has always had the glory of being God.
. I have and found I'm not wrong. Something can "be" and not be a person. Granted every person is a being, which is true as well in the case of the Trinity, the only difference is that in God there is one being three Persons.
. The definition he offers is for a person is: "Person” signifies what is most perfect in all nature---that is, a subsistent individual of a rational nature." And in the case of God, the term is defined as: "person” signifies in God a relation as subsisting in the divine nature.
Now he does say that a person is a substance, but he qualifies it by saying that whenever speaking of the Persons of the Trinity it always refers to "first substance" and never second. That is an extremely important distinction there.
. Actually refers to the Persons as relations within the essence or being of God, and he does use the term individual to refer to those relations.
The Father is fully God, the Son is fully God, and the Holy Spirit is Fully God, but not three gods, but one God.
Well, take some time and study up on it.Could be, since I have not spent much time on this.
We use cookies and similar technologies for the following purposes:
Do you accept cookies and these technologies?
We use cookies and similar technologies for the following purposes:
Do you accept cookies and these technologies?