Please don’t absolve people of their duties to God on threads I’m hanging out in. Unless it is father-son-spirit-polycarp now? I’d have a heck of a time explaining that one 
How is that Gaudere’s duty to God? She is not male, and if young, not a ruler, nor I believe rich, and she has not been vouchsafed the Evangelical Counsels under any order of religious. In any case, it was said with tongue in cheek, as I gather she caught and I’m sorry you didn’t: the Evil Green Grinning Smiley at the end of the post was intended to convey that it was all lighthearted. However, I will refrain from posting in threads you are involved in, since you so wish.
I read a book by Fulton Sheen on this topic many years ago. This is my (probably muddled) recollection of his explication:
To be classified as a being, the thing in question just has to exist. The necessary ingredients for a person are an intellect and a will.
Using this terminology, consider a rock. The ratio here is 0 persons to 1 being. Human being? 1 person to 1 being. So, the ratio can vary. Also, this ratio goes up as you progress to ‘higher’ beings, in the sense that humans are higher than rocks.
Extrapolate and you see the context for the belief in three persons in one Divine Being.
I’ve been meaning to start a thread questioning exactly what the RCC teaches in this area. It is rather interesting, but of course I’d draw about a dozen flames before the first intelligent post.
No, no, Poly! I enjoy your commentary; you are a bright person. I didn’t mean to be hypercritical.
Interesting discussion. I’ve always liked to turn this around given from Genesis that man (humanity) was made in God’s image, and God is a trinity, then man must be a trinity.
How does this map? Well, God the Father corresponds to our intellect, God the Son, to our emotions, and the Holy Spirit to our physical self (body). I’ve also found support in that the body is a “temple” of the Holy Spirit.
(Does this have some interesting parallels with Freudian pyschology in the id, ego, and super-ego?)
Anybody out there ever heard of Prof. Paula Fredriksen from Boston University? I see her on TV all the time, whenever they have a program about Jesus and/or early Christianity. Brilliant woman. Years and years ago, when she taught at the University of Pittsburgh, I was honored with taking two of her classes and for one of them I had to write a paper about the Nature of God as contrasted between Origen and Augustine. Pretty dry stuff, believe me (but fascinating, too)! Anyway, here’s a little excerpt of what I wrote (the entire thing can be read at http://sodamnhip.com/RS119-FA.html). I don’t know if it answers anything but . . .
"[…] Concerning the nature of God, Origen spells out in no uncertain terms that he considers God to be the Supreme Mind.
Just as the Mind of Man is incorporeal and without spatial or physical limitations, so is God, only on a far greater scale.
Following the Platonic tradition, God is immaterial and completely without any type of physical body. He is greater than that
which the physical world could ever permit. Origen considers God to be simple and indivisible. Nothing can be added, nothing
can be removed. He is the Perfect Intellectual Being, transcending far beyond either space or time. He is pure Mind,
incorporeal and eternal. He has always existed and always will exist. The Supreme Intelligence, God is the source of all
intellectual activity. Though He is not the Creator, nothing could exist without Him. He knows all, sees all. He needs neither
space, time nor a body to exist, as they only exist because He exists, though he did not create them.
Per Origen, God is so great that he is incomprehensible to Man. Only through his works of beauty is his presence known
to Man at all. All Men are aware of his providence, though only those whom He considers worthy does He reveal Himself to.
This would be analogous to, any man can look at and see the Mona Lisa, but only those worthy would recognize it as the
masterpiece that it is. For Origen, God is also an active, personal force, delving into the lives of Men. He possesses a
self-consciousness and a free will, and as such he is not Absolute, but Perfect, perfect in all things.
For Origen, God is to the Cosmos what the Mind is to Man. As such, God is quantumly greater than anything in the
Cosmos. He is pure, perfect Mind, and all intellectual activity in the Universe comes from Him.
Because God is so perfect, Origen cannot accept Him as the Creator. For that function there needs to be a Logos, or the
Son. Per Origen, the Logos is the first born of God, perfect in every way, just as God is perfect. The Logos never existed
without God, and God never existed without the Logos; however, God is the source of the Logos. God is ontologically prior
to the Logos, just as a flame is ontologically prior to its light. If God is the Universal Mind, the Logos is the source of all
Rational Beings, the Creator. Only through the Logos does Creation occur. Only the Logos has seen or knows God, and only
through the Logos can anyone attain knowledge of and union with God. While the Logos is an exact mirror image of God, He
is also inferior to God, as God is the energy that produces the Logos.
The first creation of God through the Son was the Holy Spirit, which is a Christian concept rather than anything from
Plato. Origen derives this purely from Scripture, while he never explains it in depth. The Holy Spirit forms the third leg of a
Divine Triad-- again, all eternal, all incorporeal and immutable, but inferior to the Logos. In descending order Origen lists God,
the Logos, and the Holy Spirit; all distinct yet one, and all superior to the created world. […]"
In other words, the “Holy Spirit” doesn’t really have a definition, it is a uniquely Christian concept which no one ever really explains. A lousy answer I must agree, but oh well . . .
One day some missionaries came to our town, and they were friendly guys. They wanted to introduce us to their god, and this god’s son. We said, “that’s interesting, but where is the mother? How can you have a father and a child and no mother?” It’s a rather lame theology, we thought.
Well, the missionary could see that our culture was really attached to our Goddess the Mother, and that we would not be converted without Her (except perhaps by torture.)
So, the missionary said, “the Feminine aspects of the Deity reside in the Holy Spirit. And thus God has three aspects: Father, Child, and Mother.” And this interested us, and so we listened for a while longer. But they weren’t really serious about recognizing Her, and after they left our village they quickly dropped the pretense.
Now in Isaiah 9:6 “…there has been a son given to us,…”,
Now let us look at John 3:16 “For God loved the world so much that he gave his only begotten Son, in order that everyone exercising faith in him might not be destroyed but have everlasting life.” Ironically, Trinitarians from my personal experience with them rely on this verse (John 3:16) very heavily when trying to prove that Allah or Jehovah came down to earth to die for our sins. They claim that Jesus being God’s unique son, makes him the only Son for God, which ultimately lead us to the conclusion that Jehovah is Jesus.
Also, let us look at Hebrews 11:17 “By faith Abraham, when God tested him, offered Isaac as a sacrifice. He who had received the promises was about to sacrifice his one and only son…” Abraham had two sons: Ishmael and Isaac. Ishmael was 13 years older than Isaac. Yet we see that “his one and only son” expression was used for Isaac. The Bible uses expressions like this to magnify people or to glorify someone on a certain occasion. The Bible in this verse glorifies Isaac for being the chosen sacrifice to God. So Jesus being God’s “only begotten Son” in John 3:16 doesn’t make him God nor the only Son of God.
Now, Let us look at Exodus 4:22 “Thus saith Jehovah, Israel is my son, even my firstborn.” Here we see in this verse that Israel is not only God’s so called “Son”, but also his first born !!. Does this mean that Jehovah is Israel? Does it mean that we must worship Israel as Jehovah or Allah? Of course not !!!
Also, let us look at Jeremiah 31:9 “I am a father to Israel, and Ephraim is my firstborn.” Ephraim in this verse means Israel. This verse is similar to Exodus 4:22.
Let us also look at Psalm 2:7 “…Jehovah had said onto me (David), thou art my Son; this day have I begotten thee.” Here in this verse we see that God not only called David his “Son”, but also had made him his begotten Son !!!.
Swapping Game: Let us play a little swapping game between the verses of John 3:16, Exodus 4:22, Jeremiah 31:9, and Psalm 2:7. Let us take “his only begotten Son” from John 3:16 and replace it in Exodus 4:22, and let us take “even my firstborn” from Exodus 4:22 and replace it in John 3:16.
Do you honestly think that the little swap game above would change anything in the meaning? Would you still have believed in Jesus as Jehovah if the above swap was true?
The above swap proves that the word “Son” doesn’t mean actual biological “Son” at all. It just means that Jesus is a “Son” of Jehovah in a way that Jehovah loved him so much that he chose him to be his messenger to the people of Israel.
Another Swapping Game: Let us replace “I begotten thee” from Psalm 2:7, and replace it in John 3:16, and take “his only begotten Son” from John 3:16 and replace it in Psalm 2:7
Again, do you honestly think that the little swap game above would change anything in the meaning? Would you still have believed in Jesus as Jehovah if the above swap was true?
Clearly, the above swap proves that the word “Son” doesn’t mean actual biological “Son” at all. It just means that Jesus is a “Son” of Jehovah in a way that Jehovah loved him so much that he chose him to be his messenger to the people of Israel.
Jesus worshiping his God:
Let us look at Luke 5:16 “And he (Jesus) withdrew himself into the wilderness and prayed to his God.” Here we see that Jesus had a God, a supreme God, who is higher than him and stronger than him. Jesus was God’s servant and he prayed to God so God would strengthen him more and reinforce him with patience and desire to continue his mission in spreading the word of God Almighty.
Also, let us look at Matthew 26:39 "And going a little way forward, he (Jesus) fell upon his face, praying and saying ‘My Father, if it is possible, let this cup pass away from me. Yet, not as I will, but as you will.’ " Here in this verse we see two things: (1) Jesus bowed down on his face and prayed in submission to his GOD in obedience. (2) Jesus was begging his GOD to let the cup pass away from him. Jesus did not have the power to will it for himself and make the cup pass away from Jesus. GOD had to do it for Jesus !. How can Jesus be the Creater of this Universe, the all knowing, most powerful??!!
Also, let us look at Matthew 26:42 “Again, for the second time, he (Jesus) went off and prayed, saying: ‘My Father, if it is not possible for this to pass away except I drink it, let your will take place.’” My comments on this verse are similar to the above one (Matthew 26:39), Jesus begged his GOD to will what Jesus wanted to happen. Jesus couldn’t will it by himself.
Also, let us look at Matthew 26:44 “So leaving them, he (Jesus) went off and prayed for the third time, saying once more the same word.” Here we see that Jesus for the third time begged his GOD to will what Jesus wished for in Matthew 26:39 above. How can Jesus be the Creater of this Universe if he (1) begs, and (2) lacks power??!!
NO Compulsion in Islam: I am enjoying your commentary very much. I think you are I are saying much the same thing, though you are doing it far more eloquently than I. Basically, we are both suggesting that one must be very careful when taking passages in the Bible literally – especially when taking them out of context (of the story, of the history/culture, of the traditional literary devices) as well. If people are still doing this now, quite naturally they were doing so in the first and second centuries CE, and so may have built up a rather skewed interpretation of what was actually meant.
Unfortunately, it does not appear that the others are particularly interested in what we have to say. Oh well.
Perhaps you should begin a new thread on this particular topic.
:rolleyes: Can I can someone a troll for a change?
(missionary realizes primitive tribe can’t see beyond what is between their legs and gives up)
Now what I really don’t get is the TriPrimality of the Church of the SubGenius.
Um… I tried to follow this. Really. I’m afraid I didn’t get your point.
Why do you guys assume you know what is going on and the early Church did not?
Your point?
you must have misread this entire thread and concluded Jesus is the Father, and the Father is the Son! Go back ten spaces!
Like I said, the Son is complete nothingness were it not for the Holy Spirit i.e. the love of the Father for the Son, which thus elevates the Son.
:rolleyes: Go to jail. Go directly to jail. Do not pass Go. Do not collect $200.
I have been reading this with interest, and I thought I would post a few scriptures that speak of Christ’s essential humanity and divinity. The 1st Commandment speaks of having no gods before Yahweh, the Father. And as these scriptures plainly state, Christ has authority over all things in heaven and earth. Christ is not before God or after Him, but with Him. The Word is God, and Christ is the Word made flesh. That is also plain in Scripture.
Matthew 11
27
“”<*1> All things have been handed over to Me by My Father; and no one knows the Son except the Father; nor does anyone know the Father <*2> except the Son, and anyone to whom the Son wills to reveal Him.
John 17
2
even as <*1> You gave Him authority over all flesh, that <*2> to [1] all whom You have given Him, <*3> He may give eternal life.
Daniel 7
13
""I kept looking in the night visions, And behold, with the clouds of heaven One like a <*1> Son of Man was coming, And He came up to the Ancient of Days And was presented before Him.
Matthew 26
64
Jesus said to him, “”<*1> You have said it yourself; nevertheless I tell you, [1] hereafter you will see <*2> THE SON OF MAN SITTING AT THE RIGHT HAND OF POWER, and <*3> COMING ON THE CLOUDS OF HEAVEN.’’
Ephesians 1
20
which He brought about in Christ, when He <*1> raised Him from the dead and <*2> seated Him at His right hand in <*3> the heavenly places,
21
far above <*4> all rule and authority and power and dominion, and every <*5> name that is named, not only in <*6> this age but also in the one to come.
22
And He <*7> put all things in subjection under His feet, and gave Him as <*8> head over all things to the church,
**Philippians 2
5
<*9> Have this attitude [5] in yourselves which was also in <*10> Christ Jesus,
6
who, although He <*11> existed in the <*12> form of God, <*13> did not regard equality with God a thing to be [6] grasped,
7
but [7] <*14> emptied Himself, taking the form of a <*15> bond-servant, and <*16> being made in the likeness of men.
8
Being found in appearance as a man, <*17> He humbled Himself by becoming <*18> obedient to the point of death, even <*19> death [8] on a cross.
9
<*20> For this reason also, God <*21> highly exalted Him, and bestowed on Him <*22> the name which is above every name,
10
so that at the name of Jesus <*23> EVERY KNEE WILL BOW, of <24> those who are in heaven and on earth and under the earth,
11
and that every tongue will confess that Jesus Christ is <25> Lord, to the glory of God the Father.
(This in particular says alot. It plainly describes Jesus as both divine and human, but willfully emptying Himself of His ‘God-ness’ and returning it to the Father for the duration of His human-ness. That is why He still had recourse to the Father as the source of His strength and power while He was man. Upon His resurrection, He was returned to His Glory, not given something new.)
John 1
18
<*1> No one has seen God at any time; <*2> the only begotten God who is <*3> in the bosom of the Father, <*4> He has explained Him.
(That’s pretty clear.)
John 14
9
Jesus said to him, "Have I been so long with you, and yet you have not come to know Me, Philip? <*1> He who has seen Me has seen the Father; how can you say, "Show us the Father’?
I hope some of you find this relevant. Thanks for your time. 
I’m not assuming that I know “what’s going on and the early Church did not”; I am merely suggesting an alternate way of looking at the topic you’ve been discussing, considering the rather slim (and debatable, depending on whom you ask) evidence on which the entire trinitarian doctrine is based.
If is how you choose to acknowledge such suggestions (for the first time, I might add), then I shall leave you to it and not burden you further with my point of view.
Incidentally, since it seems that NO Compulsion is a Muslim, and since Muslims do not believe that Jesus Christ was divine, it follows that Islam would have a different doctrine on the subject.
Or is this thread restricted solely to a Christian point of view?
Arguing against the Trinity by pointing out that the Son and the Father are different persons and that the Son is not the Father, when that is exactly what the Trinity shows, lacks a certain logical consistency no matter to which faith you might adhere.
If A then not B.
Not B.
Therefore, Not A. <— no!
Excuse me, but I don’t believe that I said anything of the sort. If you have a criticism with what NO Compulsion wrote, address yourself to him specifically, not “you guys”.
If you a criticism about something I wrote earlier, then address it to me.
Is that logical enough for you?
I suppose should have made my question for you both more of a parenthetical (the rest of my post was adressed to No Comp, in so much as I was replying to his post) – I thought setting this question off in its own paragraph would have made this clear. Thanks for your response.
I think this disagreement is due to different conceptions of the question being asked and answered.
As I understand it, Gaudere originally wanted to get a better understanding of the traditional Christian view of the Trinity…what the dogma entailed and what it did not mean, since at best it is confusing and at worst it is, in the words of the Athanasian Creed regarding the three persons, “perfectly incomprehensible.”
Now, your personal view may be that the idea is total malarkey. And that is legitimate to post. But it is not legitimate to post that the traditional Christian view is that the doctrine is total malarkey.
Jews and Muslims, in a rare show of agreement, concur that the idea of one god with three personae in some kind of managed Multiple Personality Disorder, is ridiculous. And No Compulsion is quite free to post that. However, he should not attempt to equate the three distinct persons in an effort to disprove it. If CK agrees with me and Tuba does not, can I legitimately say that the SD Management is confused? Or would I be forced to recognize that they are separate people with a right each to their own opinion? Analogously, this is what No Compulsion was suggesting and JMullaney objecting to. You may find the idea of Jesus as an aspect of God ridiculous, but you cannot condemn the idea that he is by equating him to God the Father and then “proving” that this entails a contradiction in terms, because that is not what Christianity said.
By another analogy, my “disproof” of Islam by claiming they believe that Mohammed levitated and flew, when quite obviously men have no such ability, would be flawed, because they make no such claim…according to Islamic doctrine, it was Allah who lifted Mohammed up and assumed him into heaven, as He is said to have done to Elijah, Mary, and perhaps Enoch. And if I ventured such a proof, No Compulsion would be justified in flinging it back at me as a canard and a troll.
In sum, that you consider the traditional Christian doctrine of the Trinity absurd is something you are quite welcome to post. And you are equally entitled to tear apart any explanation that Joel, Jodi, Tom, or I attempts to make of how it is supposed to work. Where you would be wrong is in refuting a claim that traditional Christianity never made, as No Compulsion inadvertently did, or in stating that an accurate statement of what the traditional understanding is, is not a correct statement of what traditional Christians have believed. (Of course, all of us who are attempting to explain it are laymen with some background and would welcome constructive criticism and clarification where we do err in the explanation of something tough to explain.)
Does that help? Or is it as unclear as the basic topic? 
Understood. No harm done.
For the record, I should say that I wasn’t defending No Compulsion’s post as logical. Rather I was saying that because Islam does not recognize the divinity of Christ (and therefore the Trinity), quite naturally its interpretation of certain biblical passages – some of which are the same as the ones you have been discussing – will be viewed in this light. (And presumably Islam’s interpretation is as arguable/defensible as that of the Christian trinity, whether by No Compulsion or someone else.)
This being the case, my point/suggestion is that perhaps it’s all in how one looks at the biblical language (e.g. Jesus’ own words) and to what extent one takes it literally or metaphorically. Christians take some things one way, Muslims another. This “flexibility” in the source material makes for a rather shaky foundation on which to build other complex metaphors, let alone a picture of the divine or of the cosmos.
To put it another way: if one has taken the original source material the wrong way, then all of the arguments which are developed from that material are suspect, regardless of how complex, elaborate, elegant and intelligent. Or how old. A long-standing theory or belief is not the correct one just because it is long-standing.
So no, I’m not saying I know better than the disciples and early Christians. I was just posing the question: what if they misunderstood what Jesus was saying to them? It’s not an unreasonable question to ask, given the immensity of the subject matter.
My previous post was in response to jmullaney.
Polycarp I did not say that anything is “malarkey” or “absurd”; please do not put words in my mouth. Furthermore, I did not state, anywhere, that “what the traditional understanding is, is not a correct statement of what traditional Christians have believed.” If you have taken something I wrote in that way, please point it out to me and I will be happy to explain or rephrase.
I was not attempting to prove or disprove anything. I was simply offering a point of view which, I thought, might be interesting and relevant to the discussion. Evidently I was wrong and that is not allowed, so I shall excuse myself from the thread.
Don’t be too hard on Polycarp – he has a knack for peacemaking and he is doing his best. (I have an unfortunate knack for warmongering so I appreciate his help.)
This has come up recently in my thinking. Jesus said he would sent the Spirit to those who keep his teachings, and it would teach them what his teaching are.
Interestingly, I was parusing The Book of the SubGenius today and they have a similar teaching:
Spooky, huh?
But the opposite assumption is just as dangerous to the faith. If there is no Holy Spirit, then Jesus was just a raving loon. Then is only one God, The Father, who apparently does not give a whit about us lowlifes either way. Or maybe he loves everyone, there is no justice, and everyone goes to heaven when they die, even the infidels – and I’m off to commit suicide-by-cop. If Jesus isn’t divine, then he is co-equal with all the other prophets, and who is to tell the false prophets from the true ones?
Not that I know much about Mohammed. I don’t have the slack to learn Arabic to find out what Mo was on about. I have been meaning to start a few GQs on this to deepen my knowledge, but who knows if those people would give the true answers?
The apostles had the Holy Spirit. It seems likely they would have been able to pass on their teachings for at least a few hundred years. If the flame flickered, God must somehow have kept it going.