one god
1- one is always going to equal one and only one
2- i dont think god is a person
And, for that matter, zero.
Not true. One jury is twelve people, for example.
But you are trying to show that the doctrine of the trinity is contradictory. You can’t show that it’s contradictory by showing it contradicts what you think. To show that it’s contradictory, you have to show that it contradicts itself.
You don’t think God is a person, but classical Christian theism holds that there are, in fact, three people who are god. That my contradict what you think about God, but to convict them of contradiction, you have to show that it contradicts what they think about God.
What do you mean by “person”?
Actually, let’s be clear: what’s the issue up for debate here? Is it “The Trinity, as understood by Christian theologians throughout the centuries, violates the Law of Identity”? Or is it “The Trinity, as understood Robert163, violates the Law of Identity”?
If it’s the former, then you need to make some effort to understand, and use the terms of, standard Christian theology. If it’s the latter, then you don’t, but why should anybody else care?
No, that’s Modalism.
You can conceptualize God as a community of three Persons, who love one another so intensely that they can be said to be one. That’s Swinburne’s conception of the ‘social trinity’, and it makes the most sense to me of any model I’ve heard.
In denying that there are three gods, as the creeds do, we mean to deny that there are three independent divine entities, which can act on their own and be in conflict with each other (like, say, the gods of the Greeks or the Hindus).
I’d flip your question around and ask you: a grove of aspen trees with three separate tree trunks, all of which are genetically identical and share a root network, is that one plant or three?
ok, i am redefining the question. does a christian have any - objective standard - by which they can defend the logical fallacy of law of identity and the trinity.
good question! not sure it really applies sine you are talking about tress and i am talking about an abstract concept
It seems to me that the Law of Identity isn’t going to have any problem with any definition/explanation of the Trinity of the form “God is three X’s but only one Y.”
In what way is their definition illogical? It may not be justice as you think it should be practiced, but that’s not the same thing as illogical. Justice does not have an absolute definition. It is, basically, a term to identify, “what we think is fair and right.” If a jury agrees to let a murderer walk free because of the color of his victim, that’s justice as they see it. If a Saudi oil prince decides his son shouldn’t be tried for a crime because he’s rich and he says so, and the courts go along with him, that’s justice as they see it. And if God says, “Everyone who says they’re sorry gets to go to heaven, no matter what he’s done,” then that’s justice as God sees it. None of these conceptions of justice are illogical, just because they don’t square up to 21st century Western conceptions of the term.
I would say that Justice indicates what - is - fair and right, not what we think is fair or right. I think objective standards are best. I would certainly not call the christian view of justice to be objective.
How do you distinguish between what we think is fair and right, and what really is fair and right? What are the objective standards of justice? How do you define them, and how do you demonstrate that they are, in face, objective?
you know what. i’ve grown tried of talking to you. if you want to call it justice when a Saudi Shiek buys his son out a murder conviction, go ahead, (i don’t think you really actually think that) but i’m just not going to sit here and argue semantics with you.
I dont know. But just because I don’t know everything doesn’t mean I can’t identify something that is clearly wrong, ie, sending Fred to jail to serve the time for Tom’s crime, and letting Tom go free.
No, I certainly don’t think that what goes on in the courts of Saudi Arabia is any kind of real justice. But there’s a lot of people in Saudi Arabia who disagree with me, and think it’s the American courts where there’s no real justice. How do you demonstrate that one of us is right, and one of us is wrong? If you can’t demonstrate that (and your dogged resistance to answering some not-particularly-difficult questions suggest that you can’t) then you have no basis to criticize Christian concepts of justice as illogical or “not real” justice. This isn’t just semantics, it’s pointing out that you fundamentally do not comprehend the terminology of your own argument: justice is not an objective term. It’s a creation of human philosophy, and is by its nature tied to the social mores of the society that spawned it. The idea of what constitutes a crime, and what the appropriate penalty for that crime, is entirely a function of what the people in that society at that time think is right and fair. There is no external check you can make to verify that they have it right.
really, and how do you know that’s correct, or is that just what you think???
Trinity can be summarized as follows:
- God consists of his three hypostases: the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit.
G = F + S + H
- The Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit are co-equal, co-eternal and cosubstantial.
F = S = H
- Each of the three (the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit) is God, whole and entire.
F = G
S = G
H = G
This means:
F = F + S + H
S = F + S + H
H = F + S + H
How can one aggregate 1), 2) and 3) without violating the Law of Identity?
- There’s no logical fallacy. The Trinity is three persons, one essence.
- I just defended it, the Trinity is a community of persons. What is it you aren’t getting?
Why not?
Which part of my post are you referring to? The idea that there is no external, absolute morality? Well, since we’re both atheists, what external, objective source on morality do you think we can appeal to? The state? Lots of states in history have instituted justice systems that you and I would both find repugnant. Popular consensus? Popular consensus used to hold that it was just to keep black people as slaves. Our own internal sense of right and wrong? That’s not external, obviously, and clearly lots and lots of people have internal sense of right and wrong that allow them to do things we’d both consider unacceptable. Some other moral/ethical framework? I’m a fan of secular humanism in general, but ultimately that’s a matter of personal preference, not absolute truth. I can’t “prove” that secular humanism is better than Catholic Doctrine, except in so far as it tends towards results I prefer - which is, itself, a subjective determination.
If you’re arguing that there’s a non-theistic, external source of perfect morals, what exactly do you imagine it is?