Question about the Christian Trinity
So the trinity is the idea that somehow God, Jesus, and the Holy Ghost are separate, but one. Different manifestations of the same being. What I don’t understand is in the Bible, Jesus communicates directly with God. Wouldn’t this amount to nothing more than talking to yourself? How could Jesus feel forsaken, as he famously declares on the cross? Wouldn’t he be privy to all the information or knowledge that God has? I get it that expecting Christianity to make sense is asking too much of it, but I don’t think I’ve seen this objection to the idea of the trinity, and I’m wondering if it has been posed before, and if so what the responses were.
Comments (276)
The terms used were “ousía” and “hypostasis”, where “ousía” meant general essence or substance and “hypostasis” meant particular or individual reality. The example given is “man” as the general genus and “Peter, Paul, John” as individual manifestations of it (John of Damascus, Fount of Knowledge, etc.).
When they said “three hypostases in one ousía” they meant one general essence or substance existing as three particular realities:
1. God in Himself
2. God operating in the world as the Divine Power or Spirit (Holy Ghost).
3. God manifested as the World Teacher and Savior (Christ).
https://oxford.universitypressscholarship.com/view/10.1093/0199246122.001.0001/acprof-9780199246120-chapter-5
The rational thing to do would be to reject the inconsistent description. However what you will witness instead is escalation of commitment.
But anyway, I take it that a mind is indivisible and thus the mind of God - like any mind - is not divisible. It is thus one, not three. Nevertheless, take a writer of a film, who then decides to cast themselves in one of the roles, and also to direct the film. That person would get three separate credits. And when they play the role, we could talk meaningfully about the character of that person without what we say transferring to the character of the writer/director. And when they 'get into character' they might wonder exactly why some things are happening which made sense when they were in the role of writer/director.
So, I think there's plenty of scope to make some kind of sense of it without contradiction or metaphysical absurdity. But perhaps what I've just said conflicts with something in the bible, I don't know.
Correct. It isn't strictly in the Bible, but the early Church Fathers spoke Greek and had received a Greek education, so they used terminology from Greek philosophy when discussing the Trinity.
Those familiar with the Platonic concept of three “hypostases” or spiritual principles of (1) the One, (2) the Cosmic Intellect/Divine Mind and (3) the World Soul, that were essentially one, would have had no problem understanding the Trinity. In fact, the problem seems to come more from translating Greek “hypostasis” as “person” into Latin and other languages unfamiliar with Platonic concepts.
The sayings of Jesus, New Testament and the doctrine of the Trinity are three different things. Jesus would have been appalled to find that he was deified. He made a clear distinction between himself, a human being and God. The New Testament is largely the work of Paul and John. The Trinity is a later invention. The idea that Jesus was the same ousia or being or substance as God and the Trinity were made official Christian doctrine at the Council of Nicaea.
There have been many attempts to provide a rational explanation of the Trinity. All have failed, but this has not dissuaded believers.
:up:
Someone definitely skipped his logic classes.
Jokes aside, there's a sense in which the Holy Trinity can be made sense of mathematically. What if God = Infinity and supposing that Infinity is the set of all numbers, call it A, can be subdivided into 3 distinct sets: 1. Pure imaginary numbers (Z) , 2. Rational numbers (R) and 3. Irrational numbers (I). Each of these three sets are same in that they are infinity but they're separate in the sense mutually exclusive with respect to elements/members that constitute them.
Thus, we are justified in saying,
1. Z = R = I [they're all infinity] [The Father = The Son = The Holy Ghost]
2. Z =/=R [the elements are different] [The Father is not The Son]
3. Z =/= I [the elements are different] [The Father is not The Holy Ghost]
4. R =/= I [the elements are different] [The Son is not The Holy Ghost]
Someone definitely didn't miss his math classes.
You guys analyize the Trinity with logic instead of intuition intertwined with logic. The Trinity and incarnation are high philosophical ideas and shouldnt be rejected just because you can't understand them. Few do
I think so too. But the facts are as follows:
1. Jesus and God are one (“I and the Father (God) are one”, John 10:30).
2. The Holy Spirit (Power of God or “Power of the Most High”, Luke 1:35) and God are one.
(The Holy Spirit is God’s Power by which he acts in the world and which is inseparable from God.)
3. Therefore, God, God’s Son, and the Holy Spirit are One.
However, Jesus was both human and divine, both man and God (“the Word of God become flesh”). He did use some of God’s power to work miracles, etc., but otherwise he acted like a man because, while on earth, he was a man and because that was the only way humans could relate to him and he could accomplish his mission on earth.
So, there is no contradiction. It's just a matter of formulating it in a way that makes it acceptable to philosophy in general, not just to Christian philosophers.
Incidentally, when Christians pray to God, they don’t pray to the Trinity, they pray either to God the Father or to God the Son.
Christians discover ideas that can be thought of but which are above reason. Those doctrines are amazing and mind expanding.
Well, maybe. Who knows. You could come up with something along the lines of, as the logos, the formal aspect of reality, the way things are, Jesus is the the knowledge God has. Or some such. Do you feel fobbed of with ad-(hic haec)hoc rationalisations? Or is this kind of thing good for you?
The Bible is short on actual metaphysics generally I think. Except maybe John a tiny bit, or Genesis if you want to get very interpretative. Even then it's not clear. You have to dig for it, and have an idea of what you want to find before you go looking.
Agree. I quite enjoy reading the Philokalia and other Christian writings. However, there can be no harm trying to put some religious ideas or concepts in more philosophical language IMO
But you have failed to do this.
What you call "facts" are just assertions. But those assertions do not provide a logical explanations of the Trinity.
There are two senses of "one". One, as in being in some way united, is not the same as being one and the same thing or being or ousia. To read this as 'one and the same' is contrary to Jesus' own words.
The "power of the most high" is not the same as what has that power. God and His power are not the same thing. They are not, despite the claim, homoousios, one being or substance.
There are, however, philosophers who, based on the limits of human knowledge and understanding, accept that there are things we cannot comprehend and are accepted by faith. If, however, philosophy is to be guided by reason, the Trinity cannot be made acceptable to philosophy,
In a few quick posts you have gone from claiming you can formulate the Trinity in a way that is acceptable to philosophy in general to throwing a tantrum.
Disagreeing with you in no way denies you the "right" to believe whatever you want to. Pointing to Christian sects that do not accept Trinitarianism is not an attack on Christianity.
Have you given up on trying to give a rational defense of the Trinity?
Sorry, but I think you are insane. That's why you call yourself a "Fool", isn't it? I never said I can formulate the Trinity, I don't need to. I was suggesting it to @Bartricks because he seems to be good at coming up with some neat formulations. But, obviously, you can't even think let alone read. And you imagine you can interpret the Christians' scriptures for them. Sounds about right, doesn't it?
I wrote a comment but I am deleting it because I don't think it fits in well on this particular thread.
You said:
Quoting Apollodorus
Was I wrong to assume that you were saying that you could do it? Was it someone else who tried to do so in your post? https://thephilosophyforum.com/discussion/comment/543286
There is no contradiction to me. So, I don't need to formulate it for myself. But @Bartricks may be able to do so as he himself suggested. My comment was addressed to him. Nothing to do with you. You seem to have some serious mental issues there.
The issue is whether it can be formulated it in a way that makes it acceptable to philosophy. Since you see no contradiction it follows that it is not possible for you formulate it in such a way.
Quoting Apollodorus
This is a public forum. If you don't want anyone to challenge your claims then you are in the wrong place.
It doesn't follow at all. No logical or even grammatical connection between one thing and the other.
Quoting Fooloso4
My claim is that Christians have the right to interpret their own religion in whatever way they wish. You may try to challenge that but it will only expose you as a militant and somewhat unhinged anti-Christian, nothing else.
Have you forgotten what is being discussed? You said:
Quoting Apollodorus
Since you see no contradiction you are not able to address what is contradictory in the claim of the Trinity.
Quoting Apollodorus
Yes, you have said so many times. No one is preventing you from interpreting it any way you want. That does not mean that your interpretation cannot be challenged. This is a philosophy forum and differences of interpretation is one of the things we do on this forum. Do you think that your religious beliefs are somehow exempt from examination?
And once again: to challenge the Trinity is not anti-Christian. The problems with the idea have been discussed by Christians for almost 2,000 years. It is one thing if you are unaware of this. Is is quite another to close your eyes to it.
I will leave it there.
Neat analysis.
That's exactly what you're trying to do. Every time anyone says anything about Christianity you say stuff like this:
"Quoting Fooloso4
When it is pointed out to you that there is no way you can possibly know that, you become agitated and abusive. Atheist "experts" on Christianity is the last thing Christians need.
Yes. Unfortunately, you can't expect atheists and anti-Christians to understand that. Yet they are allowed to dominate the debate and even encouraged for some strange reason.
Ye. I am Catholic in a way, culturally at least. I don't like when Christians try to prove their beliefs but if they aren't doing that then I'm one of them in a sense although they probably regard me as more a Buddhist or something.
Not really. I just don't think statements like "Jesus would have been appalled" are logical arguments in a debate when there is no evidence to back it up.
We dominate?
Every second thread is interrupted by you and your friends, but we dominate?
The Christians are a blight on the forum, yes, because they only have one topic; but more, because they do not accept rational discussion.
It's a malignancy.
Have you read Aquinas's treatise on the Trinity or read Scotian counters to some of his finer points? No. So your claim is like an algebra student critiquing a paper on calculus. Formulations on the Trinity are as intricate, deep, and difficult as high level mathematics
Actually... yes. Bet that plays havoc with your faith in initiation rituals.
Fine. Then it would be more honest to ban Christians from the forum.
Plus, belief is belief. I don't see atheists subjecting their beliefs to "rational discussion" at all. On the contrary.
We already had this discussion. Did you forget because you did not like the answer or did you close your eyes and pretend it didn't happen?
You choose to ignore what we are told Jesus said in the Gospels and latch on to something in John that does not unambiguously say what you want it to.
If It were mine to do, I would. I think I've made that clear over the years. I would ban any form of theology or apologetics. You would be free to post, but not to preach.
Quoting Apollodorus
What you don't see is no more than an odd piece of autobiography on your part. It is Christians who demand that every discussion be framed in terms of God. Atheists can talk about other things - and do.
But, demonstrably, there are atheists here, presenting arguments, in direct contradiction of your assertion.
This very post is an example.
What conclusion should we reach, if not that you are wilfully dishonest?
I don't know what you mean about rituals. I don't do rituals. But it's a surprise you've read Aquinas considering what you say on this thread and others. But kudos to you
It's not crazy to believe God exists. Jesus might have been God, might have not existed, might have been evil, might have been a lesser god, or an infinity of other things. However: "Through analogies and types we can form a representative concept expressive of what is revealed, but we cannot attain that fuller knowledge which supposes that the various elements of the concept are clearly grasped and their reciprocal compatibility manifest. As regards the vindication of a mystery, the office of the natural reason is solely to show that it contains no intrinsic impossibility"- George Joyce
I don't think so. Statements like "Jesus would have been appalled" aren't arguments. just unfounded speculation IMO.
And are Muslims "a blight" as well, or just Christians?
He's just not that good. Of some historical interest, but not philosophically important.
Nothing's above Reason. For either you think there is a reason to think something is above Reason - in which case you demonstrate only that you are confused - or you think there is no reason to think there is something above Reason, in which case you have no case by your own lights.
Anyway, you're clearly more interested in being dazzled than in gaining understanding - sounds like Buddhism might be more up your street, or anything taht goes by the name of 'eastern philosophy'.
Yeah, we can see you don't think so. More autobiography. So what?
And yes, Muslims who come to the cite and do nothing but quote the Koran and drag god into unrelated threads would not be welcome. You attempt to shift topic is noted - more examples of your refusal to address the issue.
I think it's the other way around. I was right on the topic which is the Trinity when the Foolo started to claim that Jesus told him that he doesn't believe in the Trinity.
Dude, you tried to move form Christianity to Islam.
Here's my objection:
Quoting Banno
Not at all. I only asked out of curiosity, to see if you hate other believers as well or just Christians.
Ah, persecution.
I don't hate Christians. I don't like bad philosophy.
But perhaps i should reconsider. You do provide a plethora of examples of poor reasoning. Without you, we would be reduced to a critique the quantum maniacs and MAGA.
So how can you discuss the Trinity on a thread about the Trinity without quoting Christian beliefs?
Plus, your own statement was this:
Quoting Banno
That doesn't sound like a logical argument to me at all.
Here's the thing: There should be no thread on the Trinity in a philosophical forum. Quoting Banno
Quoting Apollodorus
Indeed, it isn't. It was a reply to the OP, in which those contradictions are set out.
Quoting out of context as a rhetorical device. Nice example. Thanks.
(This is me trying to be appreciative...)
That's where you're totally wrong. I never said I was a Christian. I was only defending the Christians' right to interpret their own beliefs without being attacked by atheists who think Jesus has spoken to them.
You only posted one or two statements on the Trinity. Do you expect me to make some up for you?
Do you even know how to read?
Indeed, I have noticed your tendency to make stuff up and attribute it to your interlocutors.
False attribution. Another nice example. Thank you.
Well, there is a thread on the Trinity. Starting one and then attacking people for posting comments seems a bit irrational to me. But I could be wrong. Maybe that's how things are done on atheist forums.
Confabulation? that's a psychological issue, not a logical one. Let's put this down as misattribution. Thanks.
You mean your misattribution.
I begin to see the worth of having theists on the forum. They are excellent bad examples.
The trinity is Neoplatonic.
Are we questioning about whether or not some omniscient being responsible for punishment will punish our ignorance? If so, the lack of faith, though incredibly understandable, would seem to preclude what is asked.
Yes, I agree that we must be taking about one and the same mind.
I would take issue with the claim that 'the Holy Spirit and God are one' is consistent with understanding the Holy Spirit to refer to God's power or agency. For that's a category error. A person's power is not one and the same as the person, but is rather a property of that person. I have powers, but I am not my powers.
Imagine a cube of clay. I then alter the shape of the clay into a sphere. And then I alter it again into a pyramid. A cube is not a sphere, and a sphere is not a pyramid, but it remains the same object that is cuboid, spherical and pyramidical respectively.
We can, perhaps, talk of a God-object, a Jesus-object and a Holy-Spirit-object, just as we can talk of a cuboid object, a spherical object and a pyramidical object. They can all be the same object, but what differentiates them is their possession of different properties. The God-object has omnipotence, omniscient, and omnibenevolence. The Jesus-object can be one and the same as the God-object without having to possess any of those properties. This would then make sense of how it could be that Jesus might not fully understand God even though God and Jesus are one and the same person. The cuboid lump of clay can, in virtue of being cuboid, do things that the spherical lump of clay cannot (fit through a certain size of square hole, for instance). But this does not, of course, imply that the spherical lump of clay is not the same lump of clay as the spherical lump of clay.
No, that's confused. Power, love etc - these are properties of a mind, but they do not constitute it. You are conflating an object with its properties.
I have powers, but I am not my powers (which is why, if I lose them, I remain the same person).
I have thoughts, but I am not my thoughts (which is why I can have some thoughts at one time and different ones at another, yet be the same person throughout).
God is not his power. To qualify as God you have to be omnipotent. Just as to qualify as a bachelor you have to lack a wife. But that does not mean that the person of God - the mind of God - has to be omnipotent. That would be like thinking that if one is a bachelor, then one is incapable of having a wife, or that were one to acquire a wife, one would be a different person.
Intellect and will similarly refer to properties of a mind, not the mind itself. A mind can lose its will and still be a mind. And a mind can lose its intellect (which I take to refer to its capacity to reflect) and still be a mind. That applies to the mind of God as much as any other.
Indeed, I don't think any mind can have any properties essentially, not if God exists anyway. For if God exists, then there is a mind that can do anything, and thus that mind does not have to have any of the properties it actually has, for if it did then it would lack omnipotence. And no other mind or thing can have any of its properties essentially either, for that too would operate to limit the powers of the omnipotent mind, which is a contradiction in terms.
So every thing has the properties it has thanks to God, and that includes God. And thus God - or rather, the mind that is God - has no essential properties and can remain one and the same person through any transformation whatever.
1. 4 (God) = 0 + 4 (The father) = 1 + 3 (The son) = 2 + 2 (The holy spirit)
2. 12 (God) = 1 × 12 (The father) = 2 × 6 (The son) = 3 × 4 (The holy spirit)
3. Half (God) = 1/2 (The father) = 0.50 (The son) = 50% (The holy spirit)
4. 1 (God) = 0 + 1 (The father) = 2 - 1 (The son) = 3 ÷ 3 (The holy spirit)
5. 1/3 (God) = 2/6 (The father) = 3/9 (The son) = 4/12 (The holy spirit)
I agree that it sounds like a category error. I just thought that God is, by definition, sui generis. He isn't an ordinary "object" or comparable to anything else. Other than that, the Trinity as the same object with different properties sounds very interesting to me. We'll have to see how theologians would see it. By the way, did you just think of that trick now, or did you read about it somewhere in connection with the Trinity?
Good try. However, whether Christians would be entirely happy with reducing the Holy Trinity to numbers, seems uncertain. But you can never know.
The numbers are simply meant as analogies to illustrate what I feel is the meaning of The Holy Trinity which is that The Father, The Son, and The Holy spirit are just different ways of expressing the same thing viz. God
Then, Cusa argued, a triangle that had sides which were infinitely long, would be an infinitely long straight line. That is because the longer the sides of the triangle become, the closer it gets to becoming a straight line.
That is how he explained, metaphorically, how 3 and 1 could be the same.
It's easier to understand with an infinite circle, which is also the same as an infinite line according to Cusa:
At origin, yes. But it has become Christian in the meantime. Although, as I said, Christians not unnaturally tend to pray either to God the Father or God the Son, very seldom to the Trinity. To my understanding the Trinity is more for Christian philosophers than ordinary believers. It doesn't look like there are many of them on this forum anyway.
Yes, and it makes sense to me. But would you not have to put it to theologians in mathematical terms? On the other hand, if there is no other solution, they may have to accept it. Something is better than nothing IMO.
Yes, maybe a triangle would be an apt illustration for the Trinity. Maybe the Trinity concept isn't quite so "inconsistent" after all.
That's what I thought, too. As long as they are excellent, who cares about "bad"?
The idea of different agencies is strongly influenced by Gnostic concepts. Some of their creation stories involve the interaction of separate agents well before the "world" is made. Scholars do not agree about the sources involved. It is complicated.
As a matter of Pauline theology, the incarnation relates to the first separation of Adam being cast out of Paradise by the Creator. The sacrifice of the Son is an opportunity to return. But it is just an offer that means nothing without takers.
Pascal and wagers and such.
It's all me - I haven't read anything whatsoever about the trinity, but I am sure someone else will have made the same point somewhere. (Although perhaps not, as theologians are hobbled to some extent by their commitment to respecting scripture - though as I do not know what scipture says on this matter, perhaps it doesn't - and many theistic philosophers seem to insist that God exists of necessity, or has certain properties of necessity or is only 'omnipotent' in some rather weedy way, and this all may prevent them helping themselves to the kind of understanding I've proposed.....but I don't know as I am not religious ,and I am not sure to what extent they are respecting scripture....I mean, I do know that Jesus shares my view of omnipotence and not theirs).
This is a perfect example of magical thinking, The fact that a thing and the power of a thing are not the same is no longer a problem because this being is not like any other being, There are no constraints on this magical being because there are no constraints on what you can claim about it.
Such irrationalism is not acceptable to philosophy in general.
And yes, you are free to believe whatever you want, but you can't have it both ways, both rational thought and an irrational religion.
Well done, in that case. But to go back to your cuboid, spherical and pyramidal objects.
How about taking (1) a circle/sphere to represent God, (2) a square/cube inside the circle/sphere to represent the Holy Spirit, and (3) a triangle/pyramid inside the square/cube to represent Jesus?
Or Circle, Octagon, Square?
What I'm saying is could we use geometric figures in such as way as to amalgamate your analogy with those of @TheMadFool and @Amalac (and maybe others) into a great Unified Theory/Analogy of the Trinity?
And would it demonstrate that the statement "the Trinity is inconsistent" is false?
It is not about me. And it is not about you. This is about a very old problem that Christian theologians have wrestled with for well over a thousand years.. It is about the attempt to avoid logical contradiction by arguing the being in question is unique and defining it in such a way that it is exempt from logical scrutiny.
Now one can make a rational argument for theological irrationality, and it has been done, but one cannot then argue that the irrational is rational.
If it can be shown that the "irrational" is rational then it ceases to be irrational. But then you've spoken to Jesus or he to you and you know better than anyone else, so it's OK.
Is that something you think you can do? It is not what I said. What I said is that one can make a rational argument for theological irrationality. That is not at all the same.
Nobody is preventing you from doing that, so you can calm down now.
. I want you to understand this simple Truth ...
. Please ... read it carefully ... with no-mind ... put your mind aside ... with a simple and serene attitude ... so the false can be perceive as the false ... once for all ... and then ... yes ... truth can rise up ... when False is not ... just then ...that which is ... is perceived ... as that which is ...
. Jesus is reported to have said that "God is Love" ... which is totally an absurd ... he could not have said that absurdity ... God is not Love ... cannot be Love ... Why is it so ... ?
. Because ... it emplies that he can be many other things, Love is not his totality - he can be just, he can be all-powerful, he can be all-seeing, he can be present everywhere; Love does not exhaust his whole being, Love is only one of the attributes of God. But if you change it into: "Love is God", then God becomes an attribute of Love.
. And Love is an oneness ... has no other attributes. Love is the only experience on the earth, which is not of this world, the only experience which can give you a taste of the beyond ...
. God cannot be proved ... because ... it is an attribute of Love ... God comes out of Love ... not the other way round. Love can be proved. Love cannot only be proved, it can be lived. And, as you live Love, you will know, something divine has entered into you. You are no longer just an ordinary human being. Something in you, in your consciousness, has gone beyond humanity. And that beyondness, the taste of that beyondness is, the only argument and the only evidence of something which people have called God.
. Now ... your Doubt ...
. First of all ... don't repress yourself ... whenever you want to criticize religions. In fact, religions deserve criticism. They deserve to be burdened completely. Their so-called holy scriptures are very unholy.
. The trinity is not separate ... God cannot be separate ... out of that so-called religious act ... was borned a profanation ... a religious cancer ...
. When Jesus says that ... "I'm the son of God ... " or "I'm the son of Man" ... or even "I'm God ... " he's saying that he turned to a state of non-being ... he reached to a superconsciousness state ... He is one with the whole ... He's Brahma ... He's God ... He's the non-manifestable ... because ... there's nowhere ... where ... he is not ... He's the oceanic consciousness ... He's just a crystal lake ... reflecting the moon shape ...
. The whole history of Jesus has been totally misunderstood ...
. To see God ... means... to become Godly ... because ... it is a state. It is the ultimate peak of consciousness. It is the ultimate flowering of the seed that is hidden within you. It is the manifestation of the one that was hidden.
. Godliness is a state of being. This is why it is a better word than God ... because ... Godliness is a state, not a person. It is divine. Instead of calling the ... ultimate ... God ... or the Brahman ... call it Godliness or Divinity.
. Man is a seed. You can say that he is a seed of existence or of divinity, of godliness, and as long as he does not blossom into a flower of godliness, his restlessness will continue ...
. Jesus is a Christ ... because ... since his unity with that which is ... his restlessness ceased ...
. Don't follow this priests ... follow your inner light ... it will lead you to the ultimate experience of oneself ... one can become a Christ ... because ... Christ is a quality ... not a definition of Jesus ...
. Surely ... subtle and well managed lies are convenient ... for this huge ... massive ... economical movement of Christianity ...
. They don't want you to know ... that ... Christ is a quality ... that you CAN BECOME A CHRIST ... THAT ... IT IS NOT SOMETHING RESTRICTED TO JESUS ...
. But ... if ... they tell you that ... this whole religious cow dung ... produced ... by Christianity and so on so forth ... will be drowned away ...
. When False is perceived as False ... then ... the Lotus ... the flower ... of Truth ... blossoms.
. And ... remember ... the Lotus ... does blossoms from the mud ... from Falsehood ... So even Falsehood ... is valuable ... so you can perceive it as non-Truth ... then ... out of that perception ... The Lotus is born ... Truth is born ... Truth is resurrected ...
. Then ... the flowering of Truth ... happens ...
You miss the point. You can do one or the other, not both. You can attempt to make a rational theological argument and then deal rationally with any contradictions or you can decide that rational argument is inadequate for understanding the mystery.
This thread is about the Trinity, not about you. I think you are confused.
There is nothing in my posts about myself. In an earlier post I said:
Quoting Fooloso4
I keep pointing to the problem of the Trinity. I have offered what many Christian theologians, ancient and contemporary, take to be the only way out of the logical contradictions that arise from theological claims.
It is all well documented and easy to find, the work of Christian theologians.
It's all "me, me, me" all the time, isn't it?
There is no "problem of the Trinity" whatsoever. There was some discussion regarding its precise philosophical interpretation. That is all. Of course anti-Christians latch on to that because they have no other arguments. But that's their problem, not anyone else's.
There is a problem with the Trinity. It is an historical fact that has been wrestled with by Christians for and against the doctrine for all long as it has existed. That debate has not been limited to how it is interpreted, but rather whether or not it should be accepted by Christians as true or not.
There was no personal attack, just a statement of fact. I don't need to "defend" the rationality of the Trinity because there is nothing irrational about it except in your imagination. Basically, you're talking to yourself and struggling with your own irrational doubts.
No, I don't think that works. I take it that one wants to say that God, Jesus and the Holy spirit are all one and the same person or mind (i tend to use mind and person interchangeably, but some may not). But that's not what you've described. A box that contains another box, which in turn contains another box, are not correctly described as 'the same box'. They're distinct boxes.
A cube of clay that is then formed into a sphere and then into a pyramid is one and the same lump of clay through all of these transformations. The same clay, but with different properties. By analogy, God, Jesus and the Holy spirit would be one and the same mind, but with different properties.
True. Classical texts use a similar analogy where a lump of gold assumes the form of different pieces of jewelry. But in the Trinity case all three exist simultaneously, so I thought it wouldn't be bad if they could be visually represented as occupying the same or almost the same space.
I do not know what Christians are committed to saying about the trinity (if anything). And so I do not know why the 'same entity, different properties' proposal doesn't put the matter to sleep. Certainly an object that is spherical is not cuboid at the same time and so one cannot coherently say of an object that it is spherical and cuboid at once.
But God is like 'bachelor' in that it denotes a person who has certain properties, namely the omni properties. The mind that has those properties will remain the same mind if they divest themselves of them, either permanently or temporarily, just as a bachelor remains the same person after getting married even though he no longer has the status of a bachelor.
Perhaps many theologians think God has his omni properties essentially or something - but in that case I think they are confused and misunderstand the nature of omnipotence. They must think there is something impossible about divesting oneself of these properties, even though an ability to do so would have to be included in being omnipotent. So God doesn't have to be God, he just is. That is, God is God by God's own grace. And if that's true, and I fail to see how it couldn't be, then the person of God can have different properties at different times and still be one and the same person.
But like I say, I do not know what doctrines about the trinity have been formulated or to what extent any of it is anything anyone is committed to by scripture. So, I have heard people describe it as 'three persons in one godhead' or something like that. Well, I do not know why anyone would interpret it that way as that doesn't give you one person, but three seperate persons in one location. Maybe it's just tradition or something. But anyway, what good reason is there for rejecting the 'same person, different properties' analysis?
No particular reason, to be honest. However, seeing that non-Christians or anti-Christians can sometimes be a pain in the neck and make up all kinds of spurious objections, I thought it wouldn't be bad to formulate it in a way that sounds more convincing even to the more recalcitrant ones.
Having said that, I've found that for everyday purposes, even my formula of (1) God the Father (God in his transcendent aspect), (2) Holy Spirit (God in his immanent aspect), and (3) God the Son (Jesus), tends to work.
But as you say, it needs to be confirmed with theologians. I think you did a good job on the justification for reincarnation as well. I do appreciate that. :up:
To perhaps clarify a bit, I’m really not interested in debating the funds aspects of the trinity aside from what I specifically mentioned. What’s confusing to me is that Jesus is typically considered by Christians as flawless, or perfect, and divine. To me that means he must have perfect knowledge in the same way God is presumed to have. But if that’s the case, why all the questioning of God by Jesus? Shouldn’t he have known his fate (crucifixion) and agreed with it if his consciousness is one and the same as God’s? How could one feel forsaken by one’s own consciousness?
He didn't. He was about to die and was reciting from Scripture, Psalm of David, Psalm 22:2
http://www.mechon-mamre.org/p/pt/pt2622.htm
There can be more than one way to be perfect. Being perfect, then, does not have to involve having one set of unalterable characteristics. One can change one's characteristics and still be perfect.
Quoting Pinprick
It should now be clear that this does not follow. One can be perfect and know everything - and one's knowing everything can be part of what makes one perfect - and one can be perfect and not know everything - and one's not knowing everything can be part of what makes on perfect. For again, there's more than one way to be perfect. Take Velasquez's portrait of pope innocent X, and Da Vinci's Madonna of the rocks. Both might qualify as perfect paintings, and it might be the loose brushwork on the Velasquez that partly contributes to its perfection even though that same kind of brushwork on the Madonna of the rocks would detract from its perfection. They are both perfect, but for different reasons.
So, anyway, omniscience can make an omnipotent omnibenevolent being perfect, but that doesn't mean that omniscience is essential to perfection. Thus the mind of God can divest itself of omniscience, still be the same mind, and still be perfect. Sometimes, for instance, it seems that a person can be better for not knowing something than for knowing it. Take being perfect itself. If you believe you are perfect - which would be a requirement for knowing it - then that may actually make you less than perfect. Someone who is perfect but does not believe it, displays a humility the perfect person who knows he is perfect lacks.
Quoting Pinprick
You're conflating consciousness with mind. There is no such thing as 'a consciousness' . There are conscious states and then there are minds that bear them. You have conscious states and by virtue of being in them you qualify as 'conscious'. But talk of 'your own consciousness' is confused. And it is contributing to your confusion above. God's mind and Jesus's mind can be one and the same mind, without having to have the same content. I am the same mind as the mind I was yesterday, and yesterday I wrote a note to myself telling myself to do something today, something that I cannot today fathom the reasoning behind. There is no problem with this - I am wondering why I told myself to do X.
Seems to me, then, that you're seeing or making problems where there are none.
Correct. @Pinprick doesn't have a clue. He is substituting imagination for fact.
The fact is that there is nothing in the Gospel text to suggest that Jesus was “forsaken”. He only said “Why have you forsaken me?” because he was reciting from the Psalms. When someone is about to die, the normal procedure is to ask for forgiveness after which you say the final prayers (viduy) that contain verses from the Psalms - any verses you want.
1. Jesus asked for forgiveness but not for himself (as he was naturally blameless):
“Father, forgive them, for they do not know what they are doing." Luke 23:34
2. He then said:
“Why have you forsaken me?” Matthew 27:46 (from Psalm 22:2)
and
“Father, into your hands I commit my spirit." Luke 23:46 (from Psalm 31:5)
So, Jesus’ last words were consistent with tradition. He never said anything that would suggest he was literally forsaken or anything of the sort.
Taking statements out of context can lead to all kinds of interpretations or "conclusions" but that only amounts to deliberate misconstruction of the text, which is what @Pinprick is doing for his own agenda.
The problem is solved if the Gospels are read and interpreted on their own merits rather than through what came to be the "official" doctrines of Christianity. What the Gospels say and what Christianity came to mean as the result of the work of the Church Fathers is two different things.
Another distinction is made between the early followers of Jesus and the establishment of the the canonical Gospels. The early Jesus movement was best characterized as 'inspirational', that is, by the indwelling of spirit. There was no one single expression of this. It was rather a matter of the witness of personal experience. The Church Fathers wanted to unify this movement and created the "catholic" or universal church. To do so they had to assemble gospels that provided a unified message, condemning all others, such as those of Gnostic Christianity, to heresy.
Despite what some here might say, this is all part of the historical record.
The bolded statement is from the reviewer Larry W. Hurtado, professor emeritus of New Testament language, literature, and theology at the University of Edinburgh.
And from an interview with Ehrman on NPR:
First of all, you can’t even spell Ehrman’s name.
Second, Ehrman is only “eminent” to atheists and anti-Christians like yourself.
The truth of the matter is that his theories have been widely criticized by Christians and scholars in general:
"Daniel Wallace has argued that in Misquoting Jesus Ehrman sometimes "overstates his case by assuming that his view is certainly correct." For example, Ehrman himself acknowledges the vast majority of textual variants are minor, but his popular writing and speaking sometimes makes the sheer number of them appear to be a major problem for getting to the original New Testament text."
"Andreas J. Köstenberger, Darrell L. Bock and Josh D. Chatraw have disputed Ehrman's depiction of scholarly consensus, saying: "It is only by defining scholarship on his own terms and by excluding scholars who disagree with him that Ehrman is able to imply that he is supported by all other scholarship." "
Ehrman is an atheist and anti-Christian agitator. I'm not surprised that you seem incapable of citing impartial sources in support of your spurious theories.
Bart D. Ehrman – Wikipedia https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bart_D._Ehrman#Reception
You don't think there can be essential properties in God because you don't believe in something above reason. From Aristotle to Hegel, great philosophers have said the greatest joy for a human is to glimpse divine truth although it remains incomprehensible. Your God sounds like an immaterial Boltzmann brain instead of an infinitely simple being. Catholics emphasis God's transcendence and complete simplicity (which means God is one in every way possible) while Lutherans speak about God's complete immanence in being "everything in everything". I don't see a distinction between philosophy and theology. We get a lot of our ideas from archetypes and history. The Trinity is a high level idea which is philosophically analysable but cannot be made into perfect cognition by us ever. Philosophy and theology are too separate in Catholicism, I'll grant that. Lutherans and Eastern Orthodox do a better job on this and on God's immancence but a dialectic within Christianity is very important for growth of thought. Aquinas had a specific notion of God as utterly simple and as pure actuality and had countless ideas that are philosophically sound if you accept his premises. He was another Aristotle. His system needed completion by others, but he was a first rate mind
First of all, if I misspelled his name then so have you.
Quoting Apollodorus
According to Hurtado:
This is not Ehrman's theory and cannot be dismissed by you as such.
Quoting Apollodorus
This is what you omitted when you quoted Wallace from Wiki:
Whatever disagreement Wallace has with another of Ehrman's books does not speak to the issues addressed here.
Following Wallace's statement in the Wiki article:
A text that is widely used in American colleges and universities is about as mainstream as it gets.
Quoting Apollodorus
This lacks necessary specifics. Consensus about what? Ehrman's writings cover a lot of issues.
And following this quote:
And this:
Andreas J. Köstenberger, Darrell L. Bock and Josh D. Chatraw are evangelical Christians. That they faulted Ehrman's work for lacking in "devotional tone" is telling.
Quoting Apollodorus
Funny. A source that criticizes him for not being devotional is hardly an impartial source. You skip the stuff about Ehrman's professorship at a major university, that his text on the history of early Christian writings is widely used in American colleges and universities, and that he serves on the board of several journals of Biblical scholarship.
The fact that you are agitated by scholarly work on Christian history does not make him an agitator.
Ok, then what about his prayer in Gethsemane? This too seems to illustrate the same point. He seemingly lacked knowledge of God’s plan/will. And maybe even disagreed with it.
Quoting Bartricks
I disagree. Perfection necessarily entails flawlessness. Not knowing something is a flaw.
Quoting Bartricks
I see what you’re trying to say, but their collective mind existed simultaneously. Your mind can change day to day, but at each particular point in time its content is whatever it is. I don’t see how one mind can at the same time know X, but also not know X.
Quoting Apollodorus
I may not have a clue, but I’m not trying to imagine anything. I wasn’t aware he was reciting scripture. So I’m fine with tossing out that example.
Quoting Apollodorus
My agenda? What are you talking about? I’ve admitted my ignorance about the subject, and am only asking questions. It appears to me that you’re the one drawing unwarranted conclusions about me. Why assume I’m deliberately misconstructing the text? Stop being so defensive, I’m not even attacking you.
I’m vaguely aware of how Christianity came to be, and I’m not trying to deny any of it. I wasn’t aware of much that’s been discussed, so it may just be a confused thread from a confused mind.
As usual with your statements, there is no logic there whatsoever. I haven't, you have. Look again or get you eyesight checked. Here's your statement:
Quoting Fooloso4
Your words, not mine. As I said, you seem to be confused. Could be Alzheimer's or something, so you should be concerned.
Quoting Fooloso4
That's a typical leftist straw man. Most US colleges and universities are notoriously dominated by atheists and anti-Christians like Ehrman. The same applies to journals of "Biblical scholarship".
Quoting Fooloso4
lol I'm not agitated at all. On the contrary, you make me laugh. Ehrman is an atheist who is devoting his life to constructing Christian texts as "forgeries". That qualifies him as an anti-Christian activist and agitator IMO.
Here is Ehrman's own statement:
"If a student is a fundamentalist, I hope they finish the semester as a wiser and more thoughtful fundamentalist than when they came into the class. If that happens, I’ve done my job".
So, according to Ehrman, everyone who disagrees with his unfounded claim that Christian texts are "forgeries", is a "fundamentalist", and his job is to make them "less fundamentalist".
As I said, it isn't in the least surprising that anti-Christian activists like yourself cite other anti-Christian activists like Ehrman as their "eminent authority". You aren't fooling anyone.
I do not think you are confused. The Gospels do not form a single coherent whole. Most notably the differences between John and the canonical gospels. And then the imposition of the doctrines of the Church Fathers.
You are overstating things. The Gospels CAN be read as consistent with themselves and Christian theology. It just not necessarily the only reading. 3 Gospels speak of Jesus's humanity and John states the Divinity part too. No contradiction
...and in every thinking smart intelligent man's and woman's imagination.
It is true that you do not need to defend the rationality of the trinity or Trinity. You do not need to defend the rationality of the Trinity because you are personally and hopelessly irrational when it comes to discussing church matters, matters of faith, or any matter whatsoever. If I want to hear a rational defense for the Trinity, I listen to someone else but you, hoping that opposed to you, they don't just vomit garbage out of their mouths.
Except you. You are being fooled by Fooloso4, because you even mistake what Fooloso4's most eminent authority is the Ehrman. No Ehrman is not. It is the bible itself. You were fooled by your own idiocy.
There enough ways for you to doubt the Bible and enough reasons for Christians to see it as consistent. It depends of which eyes you use to read it
Well, that only proves that you don't have a clue. There was no offence intended, it was a statement of fact which you yourself now admit. I do realize that atheists and other non-Christians often raise rhetorical questions of this type but they tend to stem from lack of knowledge about Christian scriptures and beliefs. So it looks like you're tossing out your arguments about the Trinity and about Jesus' last words.
As already stated, Jesus had a dual nature. He was both human and divine. If you will you can take the example of an actor who is his own person in everyday life but assumes a distinct identity on stage as prescribed by a particular role at a particular time. There is no contradiction there.
You are absolutely right. What you said here is true.
If you use the rational, thinking person's eye, the Bible is inconsistent. If you can believe its contents, then your eyes are already providing skewed vision, so it appears consistent.
I did not misspell his name. His name is correctly spelled. It is the same spelling you used. The error is that I wrote 'scholar's' rather than 'scholar'.
The real issue is not typographical. This is simply your attempt to avoid addressing the issues raised.
Quoting Apollodorus
Yes, I figured you would say that. My response is to your claim:
Scholars in general include university scholars and board members of journals.
Once again, you have done everything you can to avoid addressing the issues.
For the third time:
Now unless you are able to identify these scholars you have no basis to label them all as atheist or anti-Christian. The work they do stands on its own merits.
I think you were fooled by your idiocy. At no point has Fooloso4 referred to the Bible.
I am glad you see this. I am sure that others do as well. I have repeatedly pointed to the NT and he repeatedly turns away from it.
For the third time, you misspelled Ehrman's name.
Edit Here's your statement:
Quoting Fooloso4
Besides, @god must be atheist claims that you are quoting the Bible. I haven't seen even one single quote. So, one of you must be lying. Or possibly both.
This is a fundamental mistake of Christian apologists. There are plenty of Christians who do see the inconsistencies. This does not mean they doubt the Bible.
You must be blind as much as you are stupid. Fooloso4 did not QUOTE the bible, but he referred to it many many places. You don't even speak the language, for crying out loud.
Some Christians, not all. I have previously pointed to the First Council of Nicaea where these issues were argued and left unresolved, but one side was declared the winner for political reasons.
You are a fing idiot. You misquote me. I did not say Foolso4 quoted the bible. I said he referred to it. Go fuck yourself, you are so full of shit.
Of course I didn't say that. Just because you believe only in reason, that doesn't make you reasonable. People who believe in things higher than reason are not necessarily unreasonable either. These are your mistakes, probably fueled by anger. Buddhists call reason a "mad dog" and believe the essence of a real dog is "non-dog"
That was exactly what I said. He isn't quoting the Bible he talks about his own misconstructions of Biblical statements. Surely, you can distinguish one thing from the other. Or maybe not.
They aren't stupid. They see things you don't. That's how life works. But your argument was that "you would uh think that all the Gospels would speak of Jesus's divinity" when this is not true. Christians believe it was in tradition and that the first three Gospels were speaking of Jesus's humanity and life, while the last one spoke out authoritatively of Divinity for their followers. So your argument is wrong
He doesn't believe in reason at all. He believes in skewed reason or lies to promote his hidden agenda. In actual fact, he is being unreasonable and irrational, possibly due to ignorance, loneliness, and frustration.
What is the difference between:
'Ehrman's' and 'Ehrman’s'. The first is from my post, which you quoted. The second is yours.
Once again you avoid substantive matters. The following statement is either true or false. If you think it is false then point out the errors. Show where in the gospels of Matthew, Mark and Luke Jesus calls himself God.
Rationalists critique things that in reality they don't understand. I don't like how Christians try to prove their faith is true but they have every right to defend the logic of their beliefs from rationalist attacks
I just refuted that
To a rationalist. Faith sees things differently
You are avoiding the issue again, aren't you? This is your own statement, is it not?
Quoting Fooloso4
People do make typos, but if I have to tell you 5 or 6 times that you've misspelled Ehrman's name and you still don't register, then you've got some serious issues there, my friend. I've pointed that out many times when it comes to leaving out parts of translations, etc.
Isn't a logical defense a rational defense? If it can be defended rationally or logically then it should be capable of being understood rationally or logically.
You have not rationally, logically, or otherwise explained away the reason why there is no mention or claim that Jesus is God.
It is true that some Christians employ unwarranted methods to prove their point. But the "rationalists" don't really critique Christian beliefs, they attack them with irrational arguments and angry rhetoric which only proves their own irrationality. Therefore, they don't seem to be genuine rationalists. They are more fanatical anti-Christians. Fanaticism itself is irrational.
Yes I have. Christians believe that early believers already knew Jesus was God. If a priest is to give 4 sermons to his followers, why is it odd that he mentions Jesus's divinity only in the last one? You don't think about these issues properly
Okay, you got me, its Bart not Bert. You are still avoiding the issues.
Don't forget about Ernie
Christians are not monolithic. They hold a variety of beliefs. If Matthew, Mark and Luke believed that Jesus was God why isn't that part of the good news message?
I'm not avoiding anything. There are no issues to discuss and as I've demonstrated time and again, you are too self-preoccupied to see the issues.
You don't think with faith or pre-faith. Christians nowadays believed the apostles believed like they did and they and Paul converted thousands of people. The Gospels were written for believers who already believed God was Jesus. They had oral tradition to back it up already and John's Gospel was enough to solidify it.
What are you going to retract your argument?
Here's the thing. You have a vested interest in this I don't. If I'm wrong nothing changes. If you're wrong, and Jesus is not God, then your whole Christian world collapses. And so, it makes sense that you avoid the issue and pretend that there is no problem.
How do you know they already believed? And even if it were true, that still not not explain why something so important is not even mentioned.
That is their opinion and it's self-consistent. I am not saying it's true. I am saying you can't disprove Christianity from logic.
Quoting Fooloso4
Have many times have you been to church? You don't seem to know how this community, who believes their spirit and state of mind go back to Jesus, thinks. The Gospels make perfect sense as Christian documents. Why are you taking them historically? Christianity is about faith first and then "God" reveals how he worked in history. Most Christians just try to point towards their faith FOR YOU. But when you claim their story is inconsistent, you need to back that up and no one on this thread has done that.
I have explained already why there is nothing higher than Reason and why anyone who thinks otherwise is demonstrably stupid.
Reason is a person - a mind. So not an abstract we know not what. A person. And she will have the omni properties. So the person of Reason and God are one and the same. See? (No, obviously).
I explained too why God has no essential properties: it would be inconsistent with being omnipotent. That's why there are no necessary truths if God exists. Nothing that is true has to be true if there's an omnipotent being.
Simplicity - I don't know why you think I deny God's simplicity. I don't. Minds are simple objects, so God's mind is simple. But 'infinitely' simple is just nonsense of the sort mystery junkies like you go in for.
You also seem to think that God's existence can't be proved and have a dislike of those who seek to show God by rational means. God's existence can be proved and it is perverse to dislike the attempt to do so. It shows a corrupt nature. You prefer mystery over clarity. Like I say, Buddhism will love you. Style over substance.
You seem as well to have a faulty understanding of faith and knowledge. To know something there has to be a reason - specifically an epistemic reason - to believe it. But you do not have to know that there is, for that would set one off on an infinite regress. Some things are therefore known without the knower knowing that there is a reason to believe them. Thus if anything is known, some things are known by faith. But that doesn't mean that everything is known by faith or that that which some know by faith cannot be known by others via reason. Someone who has faith God exists can have knowledge of God, but so too can someone who believes in God on the basis of a proof.
Your idea of God is anthromorphic still because human souls have parts while God's does not. Even calling God "she" doesn't mean God is not *perfectly* simple. The Trinity is what makes perfect simplicity rational
And I love Buddhism. All spiritual ideas are truly about spiritual practice
I am not surprised. I imagine you like crystals too.
Quoting Gregory
Obviously false. Save it for the Buddhists.
Quoting Gregory
Er, what? Did you read what I said? Minds - all minds - are simple. That means they don't have parts. You can't have half a mind. That's true of all minds. Like I say, you're confused (and you like being confused, yes?)
Quoting Gregory
I don't think you're qualified to talk about rationality.
I explained why that is not so. Literally. Did you not read it?
I'll do it again. Read it this time. Velasquez's portrait of pope innocent X is perfect. So is Da Vinci's Madonna of the rocks. Part of what makes Velasquez's portrait perfect is his loose brushwork. But that's not what makes Da Vinci's Madonna perfect. It doesn't have loose brushwork. If you took one of Velazquez's strokes and put it in the Madonna, it would constitute a flaw.
So what would constitute a flaw in one context doesn't constitute a flaw in another. Can you understand this? It isn't hard.
Thus, you could have two people who are perfect, yet different. And one of them could be perfect in part because they know everything, and the other could be perfect in part because they don't know everything. Again....two paintings, both perfect. One of them is perfect in part because of its loose brushwork. One of them is perfect in part because of its disciplined brushwork. See??
Knowing everything can be a perfection in one context, and not a perfection in another. It depends on the person's other features. And again, I actually gave you an example of a way in which 'not' knowing everything could contribute to one being perfect. If you are perfect but don't know it, then you are humble and that could actually be partly why you are perfect. Again: one way of being perfect is to have - among other virtues - the virtue of humility. A being who believes that she is herself perfect does not have that virtue. Thus, not knowing something can sometimes be a virtue, and thus can make someone perfect.
Now, God doesn't have any of his properties essentially. So, nothing stops the person of God going from being perfect in one way, to being perfect in another. There is no contradiction, no problem here. God can know everything one day, and then decide to make himself less than all knowing, and remain perfect throughout.
Don't just say "I disagree - lack of knowledge is a flaw" - you can't make something true just by repeating it enough times. And wisdom doesn't come from cleaving unthinkingly to a store of superficially plausible sounding maxims. Lack of knowledge is 'not' always and everywhere a flaw. Sometimes it can be a perfection.
Setting aside all that rubbish, I'll point out to you that humans have soul (life), reason as its power, and will is element mixed into reason so it can operate. God is an idea we chase and they are not all equal. The clearest idea of God is that in which he is most simple, and it only sustains itself as an idea as Trinity.
What rubbish? You mean the ruthless reasoning?
Quoting Gregory
On whose authority? You're an expert on this sort of thing are you?
Quoting Gregory
Gibberish. Again, save it for the hippies. (A soul is an object, but 'life' is something souls have - to treat soul and life as synonyms is a category error).
Humans have a soul. A soul is another word for an immaterial mind. Minds are simple objects. That is, they lack parts. That's why they're immaterial: any material thing one can conceive of will have parts and thus will be complex, not simple. That's why God is simple. He's simple becasue he's a mind and all minds are simple.
Quoting Gregory
Er, no. Again, save it for the camp fire and your unwashed hippy crystal buddhist friends. But under Reason's cold hard stare, that makes no sense whatsoever. God is not an 'idea'. Ideas are mental states. God is not a mental state. Ideas are 'about' things. THe idea of a chair is 'about' a chair. The idea of a chair is not itself a chair. We can have the idea 'of' God. But God is not an idea. Anyway, none of this is bullshitty enough for you, is it? Anyway, everything you're saying is total nonsense, it really is.
What meds are you on or should be on? I try to talk ideas, it is you throwing arrogant shit everywhere. To me your theology sounds very hippie and no you're not an expert on God
In fact, there are a number of posters on this thread who are actively trying to shut down the discussion, claiming there is no issue to be discussed at all. FWIW I think there is a discussion, but there seems to be no traction here.
Pity.
Now, back to the trinity: is there any contradiction involved in the idea that God, Jesus and the Holy Spirit are one and the same mind? No. None. There is no contradiction in the idea that a cube of clay, and a sphere of clay and a pyramid of clay could all be one and the same lump of clay.
What about 'The David', a sculpture by Michelangelo, and a lump of marble in Florence? Could they all be one and the same thing? Yes.
So, there's no obvious contradiction involved.
For some bizarre reason you actually want there to be, so that you can just appeal to mystery (for under that banner, anything goes).
Back as well to your claim that there are things higher than Reason. No there aren't, and I demonstrated why. Either you think there's a reason to think there are things higher than reason - in which case you're confused as you're appealing to Reason's own authority which only serves to establish that there is nothing higher than Reason - or you think there's no reason to think there's anything higher than Reason, in which case you've got nothing to say in support of your claim but are saying it anyway. Which is it? They exhaust the possibilities. But that's an argument and you don't like those.
Re arrogance: a doctor is not being arrogant when they diagnose you with cancer, are they? You reply "but I don't think I do have cancer" and the doctor says "er, yes you do - here is the evidence", and you then reply "don't be so arrogant". That's confused. What's arrogant is not engaging with arguments - not engaging with evidence - but thinking it sufficient that you think something for it to be so.
I agree. I said earlier:
Quoting Fooloso4
I was arguing actually that you can't prove the story is consistent. You are saying that because three Gospels don't mention Jesus's divinity the religion doesn't stand up to scrutiny
Also, you might have noticed that I engaged with the topic. Solving a problem is to engage with it.
Shall we go through it? A cube of clay and a sphere of clay and a pyramid of clay can all be made of the same clay. A cube isn't a sphere, and a sphere isn't a pyramid. Nevertheless, one and the same lump of clay can be a cube, then a sphere, then a pyramid. So....God and Jesus and the Holy Spirit can all be one and the same mind, even if they have incompatible properties.
That's called engaging with the topic.
That's not the only way a reconciliation could be achieved either. One and the same thing can simultaneously answer to different descriptions (though not incompatible descriptions). Once more: The David, a sculpture by Michelangelo and a giant lump of marble in Florence are all one and the same thing under different descriptions. So, God and Jesus and the Holy spirit could all be one and the same thing under different descriptions.
That's engaging with the topic too.
I have also pointed out - and this is metaphysically interesting and challenges what many theists think about God - that God will not have any properties essentially, for God is all powerful and thus does not 'have' to have any property. Thus any property the person of God has, he does not have to have.
If you don't find that interesting, then you're dead philosophically.
The Trinity makes sense because of God's utter simplicity. In humans the soul is always united to the body as its form. Immediately after death you find the resurrection. There is no "hanging out in heaven", if you will, without a body. The form is simple. We always can say reason is "over here" and will "there" as identity relating to action. But this is not the case with God because he is soul but not form. How this supreme soul acts and has purpose is through the Trinity. You make God into an object instead of an idea. The Trinity is above reason because the idea is a fluid one and not one that works be mechanics (like logic does").
Quoting Gregory
That may be what they believe but it is inconsistent with the historical facts. There is no one single Christian community. Christianity began as a pluralistic religion. The Church Fathers tried to put an end to that. They were largely but not completely successful.
See my earlier post on the indwelling spirit. That was a belief that was suppressed by the Church Fathers. It threatened the hierarchy.
Quoting Gregory
I am taking them historically because there is a long history of their establishment and disagreements between Christian sects. Some people think that questioning the Trinity means you are anti-Christian. History shows that the challenges to the doctrine were from the beginning largely from within Christianity. The history makes clear that the Trinity does not make perfect sense, if by perfect sense you mean rational, logical sense.
Quoting Gregory
Except:
Quoting Apollodorus
A formulation that is acceptable to philosophy is a rational argument.
Quoting Gregory
You have not been paying attention.
Now you have a new argument. So far they are
1) One Gospel only talked about Jesus's divinity, so he couldn't be divine
2) Many religious sects claim to be Christian so Jesus really didn't found one of them
These are just plain bad arguments
I haven't denied that God is a simple object. God is a simple object. God is a mind and minds are simple objects. Therefore, God is a simple object. How much clearer can I be? God. Is. A. Simple. Object.
Minds, being simple, don't have locations. Why? Because they don't occupy space. Why? Because anything that occupies space is divisible and thus not simple.
So no mind occupies space. Simple things don't occupy space.
Now, a) how does being simple do anything to address the problem of the trinity, if problem there be? and b) what objection do you have to anything I have said? NOte: what I have actually said, not bizarre views that you've decided to attribute to me.
I agree, but neither of them is my argument.
Souls exist in the world. This is what phenomenology proves. God doesn't have a location because he is MORE simple than a soul. He is on another realm of divinity, above spiritual essence. You haven't provided any arguments against this
Well then start your two arguments on this and how they differ from the way I put them and we will go from there
The Trinity explains how God has an equal (two actually) to love. Otherwise a simple God would be a supreme king like Allah instead of pure activity like in the Trinity. Even Aristotle called God pure act
Some people are all too eager to make their beliefs known but defensively unwilling to have those beliefs examined or called into question.
I have already made the arguments.
Quoting Bartricks
What this example demonstrates is that these concepts can all be constructed from the same mind, not that they can BE the same mind - mind being the clay, and ‘being’ occurring in time. But I think I follow what you’re trying to say. The important word here, in association with being, is ‘then’. Interestingly, a lump of clay can also BE three different cubes, all with some properties the same, and some different, and the fact that one and the same lump of clay can specifically be a ‘cube’, then a ‘sphere’, then a ‘pyramid’ doesn’t preclude the fact that it can also BE none of the above - a cylindrical prism, for instance.
Quoting Bartricks
Okay, this one is about perceived potential, which gets us away from the temporal issue and allows for simultaneity. It’s about the concepts, a way of perceiving the material and sharing that perceived potential using discourse. It is not, however, about being, but rather about potentially being perceived as. Notice how your language has changed here from ‘can be’ to ‘could be’. There is an uncertainty here, and loudly dismissing as ‘stupid’ those who don’t perceive this potential is simply attempting to conceal the fact that it could also be described differently. You could empirically demonstrate that a giant lump of marble can’t BE a giant lump of clay (so long as the distinction between ‘marble’ and ‘clay’ is understood), but the relation between this giant lump of marble and the names ‘David’ or ‘Michelangelo’ are a matter of culturally constructed discourse, not of empirical evidence or reason.
Without this historical and cultural discourse to map the way, we can relate to the potential in perceiving this lump of marble by recognising shared qualities of human experience - but the relations lack structure, and so the process feels a bit like making shit up - hypothesising about their relations to random ideas. Except that you still have a particularly-shaped lump of marble, empirically evident, which you can always return to. But ‘God’, ‘Jesus’ and ‘the Holy spirit’ are all descriptions of perceived potential, and have no empirical foundation. Without the particular religious discourse, you’re effectively hypothesising about the relations between ideas and these shared qualities of human experience.
So, for all your ‘solid’ examples, you should acknowledge that all you have available to build on are shared qualities of human experience in relation to ideas. Religious discourse is one way to map this, but not the only way. And when it fails to find agreement, then cubes of clay and marble sculptures aren’t necessarily going to give you the foundation you need. Not like in mathematics.
Quoting Bartricks
Here you may need to clarify: are you discussing ‘God’ as a being, as a concept, or as an idea?
Like I said, argue something.
We have minds.
Minds are simple objects.
Why?
They're indivisible. Half a mind makes no sense.
If they were divisible, they'd have parts and then they'd not be simple.
They're not divisible, therefore they're simple.
They don't occupy space. Why? Becuase they're simple. If they occupied space they'd be divisible and then they wouldn't be simple. But they are simple and thus they do not occupy space.
Your body occupies space if anything does. But all that means is that your mind is not your body.
God is a mind. So God is simple and God also does not occupy space.
Those are called 'arguments'.
Er, what are you on? Explain how God's being a simple entity does anything to explain the trinity.
No, that's not what it demonstrates (for what you've said makes no sense). What it demonstrates is that one and the same object can have radically different properties at different times. And this is as true of minds as it is of anything else. The clay, when it is cuboid, has the property of being cuboid. The clay, when it is spherical, has the property of being spherical. The clay, when it is pyramidical, has the property of being pyramidical. It's the same clay, it just had different properties.
I am the same person I was a moment ago when I was thinking something quite different to what I am thinking right now.
God is omnipotent, omniscient and omnibenevolent. Those are properties of the mind of God. But the mind of God could lose them - could become less than omnipotent, omniscient or omnibenevolent - and still be the same mind, the same person.
This is important becasue I take it that one problem people have is understanding how Jesus and God could be the same person, yet Jesus not know things God knows. The above explains how that's entirely possible. God knows everything, but it does not follow that if Jesus is the same person as God that Jesus knows everything (just as a cuboid has four corners, but it does not follow that if the sphere is the same clay as the cuboid that it has four corners).
Thus, God, Jesus and the Holy Spirit could have mutually incompatible properties yet still be one and the same person. They could not have those properties at the same time, admittedly. But so what? Like I say, I am not a christian and so I do not know whether they need to or not or what scriptural support any of this has. I am simply showing how it can be that God could know things Jesus doesn't know and yet God and Jesus could be one and the same person.
Quoting Possibility
Quoting Possibility
What? I was offering a different way in which one and the same object might answer to three quite different descriptions at the same time. Why do you think you need to point anything out to me? Am I incorrect? Does 'The David' and 'A sculpture by Michelangelo made to adorn the front of the Duomo' and 'the biggest lump of marble in Florence' not refer to one and the same thing? They do.
I was showing how rich the resources were to deal with what others too quickly dismiss as incoherent.
Quoting Possibility
I have literally no idea what you're on about. If you had a cogent criticism you'd make it, but this is just fog.
Quoting Possibility
The word 'concept' and the word 'idea' are synonyms. And God is not a concept (or idea, if you prefer). That's a category error. God is a person. A mind.
The idea of Bartricks is not Bartricks. I am Bartricks. A person. A mind. I am not an idea, even though you have an idea 'of' me. Ideas - concepts - are 'of' things. The things they are of are not themselves ideas unless, that is, we are talking about the idea of an idea.
This is not an argument. God is perfectly simple, we are not. Why? Because we are bodies in the world. The soul and the body are the same thing. I've gotten the impression from you for a long time that you were dissociative. Now I have your "logic" which you use to justify it. If soul is your identity, than you are saying you are nowhere
Because we are en-souled bodies, soul forming the matter into the form human eye can see. We are in a social system on earth, where we relate to other beings. That is how consciousness works. It can't be outside the world unless you are God and God is bound by the law of love. Your idea, which you have no arguments for, is that God is bound by nothing and can annihilate himself. I'm sure he can annihilate himself, but he is bound by laws that are Himself. You don't provide arguments because, to be honest, there are no definite arguments on this, at least on paper. It's about conversing, comparing notes, and then going with what faith tells you. Your rationalism is getting into a lot of trouble here
You believe you are nowhere but have a super-powerful (maybe today totally powerless) alien watching over you. Then mustn't you believe than that you have a body? I'm not trying to play therapist, but your position sounds very very strange especially when you factor in that you throw an insult into all you posts
Yes. Minds don't have spatial locations. Material things have spatial locations. For that's the nature of a material thing - a material thing is something that is extended in space. Thus, they have spatial locations.
Minds are not material entities, and thus they do not have spatial locations. They exist, but they do not have a spatial location.
My mind - and God's mind - do have temporal locations. Anything that exists exists 'now'. And 'now' is a temporal location. So they do exist 'somewhere' temporally - they exist 'now' (but that's kind of contained in the meaning of exists). But they do not exist in a spatial location, because they're not material objects.
Quoting Gregory
I do believe I have a body. I 'have' a body. I am not a body. I have one. I am not one. I have a shirt. I am not a shirt. I have a house. I am not a house. I have a book. I am not a book. I have a body. I am not a body. See? Having a body and being one are not the same.
Quoting Gregory
Then you reveal your ignorance, as my position is not remotely strange - most of the great philosophers held the same view. That is, they held that their minds were immaterial entities that lack locations and that there is a god - God. And some of them - especially Descartes - would think nothing of insulting those who deserved it.
Quoting Gregory
I didn't say that, did I? God exists. But God is not powerless, but all powerful. And I don't think he's "watching over me" - where did I say he was? I don't think he gives much of a toss about me or you. Why would he?
And your response? Quoting Gregory
Oh, thanks. Now I see. All crystal clear now. Cleary cleary clearingtons.
Quoting Gregory
I do have an argument. Reason is not bound by the laws of reason for they are her laws and thus do not bind her. Reason is a person (for only a person can issue edicts or prescriptions or what have you, and the laws of Reason are edicts or prescriptions or what have you). And that person, becusae she is not bound by the laws of Reason, will be able to do anything. As being able to do anything includes being able to destroy oneself, she can destroy herself. (And no, she is not bound by laws that are herself, for as well as not making any sense - she's not a set of laws! - if it did make sense, it would make sense by virtue of conforming to a law of Reason, a law that it is in her gift to undo......thus, once more, she is in no way bound by anything or anyone).
Anyway, i think we are talking past one another, for I mean by an argument a set of premises that entail or at least provide some support for a conclusion. Whereas I think you must mean by an argument 'a set of nonsense or vacuous phrases put together in no particular order'.
Your idea that God can lessen his power stems from not understanding the Trinity. Your god doesn t seem to love anyone while my God love each other (sic) and overflows that to humans, implanting in them that God cannot change because the world is rational and raised up by the Trinity. Everything might disappear, even God, but as long as it exists the world is rational and a Trinity where one Person loses power makes no sense. Philosophy is based on rationality but you make Descartes error, who solved his cogito through his ontological argument which mistakes his soul for God
I have explained in plain English why God can divest himself of his power - he can do anything and that includes that, obviously. That doesn't mean he ever has, just that he could. A being who could not divest themselves of something they had would not be able to do anything, would they?!?
It has nothing to do with love. It's just the logical implication of omnipotence.
The rest is just gibberish so far as I can tell. And Descartes did not mistake himself for God, which you'd know if you read him.
I've read Descartes's full work from 1642. He had dissociative problems. And how do you know God did not divest herself of power this morning? Is it possible she has no power know and you're free to be an atheist?
I have no reason to think she has divested herself of power, for I have every reason to think reasons exist. And reasons cannot exist absent her. And so long as she is the source of all reasons then she is omnipotent. Now that argument was, of course, completely wasted on you. All of this is, isn't it?
Correct. @Fooloso4 uses irrational arguments and totally contradicts himself.
1. He is quoting Ehrman who claims that the Gospels are "forgeries".
2. He is quoting the Gospels to "prove" that Jesus didn't call himself the Son of God.
If that isn't self-contradictory and irrational, I don't know what is.
By the way, are you quite sure you are a Christian and not something else?
1) What Ehrman may or may not have said elsewhere has nothing to do with what he said in the material quoted. And as I said several times, what he said is supported by a significant number of Christian scholars.
2) What is at issue, as you know, is not whether Jesus called himself son of God, but whether the Gospels say that he is God. Nowhere in Paul or Matthew or Luke or Mark do we find such a claim. Given the importance of this claim its absence cannot simply be ignored. In John we find ambiguous claims that can be interpreted either way.
The question of whether Jesus is God arose here out of the question of whether there is a rational explanation of the Trinity. You say there is but you have not been able to provide such an explanation. You have done nothing more than kick up a lot of dust and make ad hominem attacks in hopes of obscuring and deflecting this inability.
If, as a matter of faith, one accepts the Trinity, then that is, as far as I'm concerned a personal matter. If, however, one claims that it is a rational doctrine then it is no longer simply a matter of faith and must be shown to be rational.
lol You do make me laugh, to be honest. If I were you, I would be quiet and just retire gracefully.
1. You claimed that Jesus did not call himself the Son of God.
2. You are quoting non-existent statements in the Gospels to "prove" your point.
3. You are quoting Ehrman who claims that the Gospels are "forgeries".
Do you realize the self-contradiction and total lack of logic of claiming to "prove" something on the basis of non-existent statements in "forged" texts? Are you well?
Here is your own statement:
Quoting Fooloso4
1. You have zero evidence to support that statement.
2. You can’t use the Gospels as evidence (a) because there is nothing in the texts to support your claim and (b) because according to the anti-Christian “eminent scholar” Ehrman whom you keep quoting, the Gospels are “forgeries”!
The Gospels clearly say:
"For this reason therefore the Jews were seeking all the more to kill Him, because He not only was breaking the Sabbath, but also was calling God His own Father, making Himself equal with God. John" 5:18
"The Jews picked up stones again to stone Him. Jesus answered them, “I showed you many good works from the Father; for which of them are you stoning Me?” The Jews answered Him, “For a good work we do not stone You, but for blasphemy; and because You, being a man, make Yourself out to be God.”" John 10:30-33
Edit If the Gospels had been "forgeries" trying to portray Jesus as God, then the texts would have been full of references to that. But you are saying that there aren't any. This actually suggests that they are not forgeries. And there is no evidence that they are.
1) Revisiting old issues in order to avoid the one at hand. The issue was what the term "son of God" meant in its Jewish context versus its pagan Christian context.
2) No, I am not able to quote non-existent statements. I am pointing to the conspicuous absence of any claim that Jesus is God in these Gospels. That does not prove anything. It does, however, raise a question you are doing your best to avoid. Why would they be silent on such an important claim?
3) Repeating the same accusation, one that he have failed to cite, has nothing to do with the truth of what was quoted. It is just evasiveness.
1) The idea that God would have a begotten son is a pagan idea completely foreign to Judaism.
2) Again, where does he say this? Even a forgery has content that can be examined. Upon examination it is clear that the Gospels say nothing about Jesus being God.
Each Gospel is a collection of different eye-witness reports, hence the difference between them.
If they had been forgeries, there would have been just one text by one author. This is evidently not the case.
The claim that the Gospels are "forgeries" is totally unfounded and as I said, if they are forgeries, you can't quote them on statements by Jesus or their absence, because to do so would be illogical and absurd.
Using quotes from John does not show that Paul, Mark, Matthew, and Luke contain claims that Jesus is God.
1. Using non-existent statements from Mark, Matthew and Luke does not prove your claim.
2. Why would anyone forge four different scriptures instead of just one?
With the exception of John, there is no difference between them with regard to the claim that Jesus is God. None of them make such a claim.
Instead of addressing the issues at hand you attempt to divert attention to something you claim Ehrman said. You have not cited where he said this and have not said why it is relevant to the truth of the quoted material.
You haven't given me a chance because you keep frantically posting comments as if that's going to somehow "save" you.
Anyway, Ehrman is your “eminent expert” whom you keep quoting and you don’t know what he says about the Gospels???
His claims are a well-known fact:
Forged (book) – Wikipedia
Have you been living under a rock in the Gobi desert for the past eighty years? Or are you ignorant about who your own "expert witnesses" are and what they are claiming?
Did you read what the Wiki article says?
Ehrman's contention is that what are referred to as "pseudepigraphs" or falsely attributed works, was not an accepted practice in antiquity. That they would have regarded false attribution as forgery.
This has nothing at all to do with the content of the books.
Not at all. The article says:
"Falsely attributed writings are often referred to as "pseudepigraphs" but Ehrman maintains that the more honest term is "forgery". The book posits that 11 or more books out of the 27 books of the Christian New Testament canon were written as forgeries."
So, he is implying that forgery was involved in the writing of early Christian texts.
You yourself are implying that the Gospels are forgeries by claiming that the Gospel of John was forged to show that Jesus was the Son of God.
Anyway, whichever way you turn it, you can't prove your case. You are wasting your time.
Descartes wrote his five meditations and Replies to Objections in 1641 and published them the next year. Ive read them many times in addition to 1) Rules and 2) the Discourse, both in the Great Books edition from the library. Lol you don't know Descartes
He is not implying anything. That the writings were falsely attributed is not in question. What he is contesting is whether false attribution was an accepted practice in antiquity.
You attempted to discredit Ehrman. The following makes it clear that you did not understand what was at issue.
Quoting Apollodorus
It is not that someone forged these works. Their authenticity is not in question.
So now that the dust has settled we still see the problems you have been evading.
These are Ehrman’s own words:
“In my book, I do describe the whole range of motives for producing forgeries. Today profit is the most prominent motive. But that really wasn’t the motive I’m describing in the early Christian world. These forged books were promoted mainly because people wanted their voices to be heard in shaping Christianity—so they would put a famous name on their work. They weren’t doing this to take money to the bank. They wanted to influence Christianity.”
“I’m far from standing alone in saying, for example, that Paul didn’t write a lot of the epistles that claim they’re from Paul. Many other Bible scholars have made this point over the years. But I am arguing that this practice really was forgery and was condemned, if people realized it was happening.”
Interview: Bart Ehrman on Forged & Apocryphal Gospels
So, according to Ehrman, “people forged books to influence Christianity”.
Even you are denying the authenticity of the Gospel of John.
Paul didn't write those letters. It was some other guy named Paul.
The claim of misattribution is not an accusation that begins with Ehrman. What he is saying is that if people had known who actually wrote the book they would regard it differently. The issue is whether this was an accepted practice and were people who read these works aware that these works were not written by the person named as author.
It seems clear that people were not aware because even today many are not aware of misattribution.
In any case, the question of authorship does not change what is and is not said in the Gospels.
Quoting Apollodorus
I do not know who was the author of this work. What is known is that it differs markedly from the synoptic gospels and the writings of Paul. This difference is not insignificant, and yet you are doing everything you can to avoid addressing this.
As to the question of proof. I am not trying to prove anything. I am pointing to the evidence in the books and evaluating it. Again, you have avoided doing this.
If you are not trying to prove anything, then what are you trying to prove with your comments?
1. Ehrman regards Acts as a forgery because he sees contradictions between how the relationship between Peter and Paul are presented in it and how Paul speaks of Peter in his undisputed letters (p. 204)
Then he says:
“the one thing we know best about James of Jerusalem is that he was concerned that Jewish followers of Jesus continue to keep the requirements of Jewish law. But this concern is completely and noticeably missing in this letter. This author, claiming to be James, is concerned with people doing ‘good deeds’; he is not at all concerned with keeping kosher, observing the Sabbath and Jewish festivals, or circumcision. His concerns are not those of James of Jerusalem” (198).
So, Ehrman draws conclusions about James on the basis of Acts which he regards as “forgery”! A bit like yourself, actually.
2. Ehrman says:
“The New Testament emerged out of these conflicts, as one of the Christian groups won the arguments and decided which books would be included in Scripture. Other books representing other points of view and also attributed to the apostles of Jesus were not only left out of Scripture; they were destroyed and forgotten. As a result, today, when we think of early Christianity, we tend to think of it only as it has come down to us in the writings of the victorious party. Only slowly, in modern times, have ancient books come to light that support alternative views, as they have turned up in archaeological digs and by pure serendipity, for example, in the sands of Egypt.” (p. 183)
So, he suggests that the Gospels were just a few among many mutually contradictory Christian books which, on the face of it, implies that the authenticity of the Gospels’ content is questionable.
There are many other problems with Ehrman’s analysis of Christian texts as pointed out in this excellent review of his book:
Review of Bart Ehrman's book "Forged: Writing in the Name of God"
https://www.risenjesus.com/review-of-bart-ehrmans-book-forged-writing-in-the-name-of-god
Even the book's title "Writing in the Name of God" is intentionally suggestive and implies forgery.
The OP is indeed about the Trinity. But you decided to butt in and insert weasel words about Jesus not being the Son of God, etc. after which you adduced “proof” from your “eminent expert witness” Ehrman to promote your pet theories about Christian history.
Unfortunately for you, Ehrman turns out to be as slippery a fellow as a well-oiled eel whose every other sentence obliquely implies that the Christian texts are forgeries, i.e. texts written by unknown people in the name of others (or "in the name of God") for the purpose of “influencing Christianity”.
You yourself are implying, without any evidence whatsoever, that the Gospel of John is a forgery intended to falsely present Jesus as the Son of God.
You are claiming that the absence of references to Jesus as the Son of God in the other three Gospels “proves” that Jesus was not the Son of God.
By your own logic, the absence of references to Jesus in Jewish scriptures should be taken as “proof” that Jesus didn’t exist. But this you deny and thereby you contradict yourself.
These are your own words:
Quoting Fooloso4
The counter-argument is that the fact that John also calls him a rabbi does not mean John denied that he was the Son of God. On the contrary, it expressly says that he was.
And, of course, none of your arguments have anything to do with the Trinity.
Anyway, you still - still - have not provided any argument to show how being a simple entity somehow explains the trinity. You just said some confused and nauseating things about love.
So just to recap: you don't know your Descartes (for everything you have said about him is wrong, from publication dates to number of meditations to substantial philosophical content - and you don't have any argument for anything and you are a christian who is actually a confused Buddhist. Good job!!
Divine love is nauseating? Maybe. But Deism leads to atheism while the Trinity as an idea can withstand doubts. If someone believes in God it is most natural to believe God didn't just love himself for all eternity but is, instead, a family of persons in complete simplicity.
Descartes wrote his Meditations and published them in the Dutch lands where he lived in 1941. He republished it in French, instead of Latin, WITH the Replies to objections in Paris, 1942. That is the edition I read.
And you have to understand how Descartes really thought, not just what his words say. The cogito can never satisfy completely with regard to doubts, like deism cannot satisfy thought. Our minds are made for truth, but Descartes ultimate escape from doubt was the ontological argument which he presented in a form which made his non-local mind (as he believed) into the deity. He thought his ideas were intimately united with God such that the thought of him assured Descartes that divinity was real. But he thought his true identity was not in space and so God, as Descartes idea, was really a phantom of his own self, although he his this from himself
I don't see how you cannot believe you are a person of flesh and bones
Well I've read otherwise and I know he went to Paris to discuss his ideas in 1642 with the intellectual elite. He wrote his physics book next and then his one on passions before he died.
Anyways, maybe you are more Platonic than I give credit for. I far prefer Aristotle to Plato though. Dust we are and to dust we shall return. Death is not saying bye to your body, but the experiencing of death
Oh youre right, there is a 6th meditation. The one explaining pain and God's design. The Meditations was the first philosophy book I ever read
Well there's a lot you don't see. Perhaps if you tried to follow an argument and respected reason more you'd see. Or you could try reading Descartes.
I don't see how you can possibly have gotten this:
Quoting Gregory
from reading Descartes. I suppose if you've arrogantly allowed yourself the luxury of ignoring what he atctually said - Quoting Gregory - then you can get anything you jolly well like from it.
Quoting Gregory
And which was the first one you understood?
Quoting Gregory
That's not what I said. I said you wrote some nauseating things about love. You seem to have serious difficulty respecting what people actually say. Maybe you should try reading people's actual words and not deciding in advance that you understand them already.
Why on earth do you think God loves you? Odd. You live in ignorance in a dangerous world - you think someone who loves you would do that to you? What a remarkable but horribly self serving lack of insight you show. When someone gives you the bird, do you think they're telling you you're no. 1 or something?
Anyway, I am still waiting for an explanation of how God's simplicity in composition explains the trinity. You say this:
Quoting Gregory
How is that an explanation? How is it anything? It's just a kind of woolly nothing. Are you saying that there are three distinct people - three separate minds - who love each other? How are they all one mind, then? And how does simplicity have anything to do with this?
And just to recap:
You said (with that bizarre confidence that infects the ignorant) that Descartes published his Meditations in 1642.
It was 1641.
You then said you meant he wrote it in 1641 and published it the following year.
He didn't. He wrote it over many years and published it in 1641.
You then said you meant the French edition.
That wasn't published in 1642 either. It was published in 1647. (There were different editions printed, as Gassendi took exception to his objections - and Descartes' withering replies - being published, and so Descartes decided to take them out of subsequent editions replacing them with some contemptuous comments on a book of counter-criticisms that Gassendi wrote but that Descartes considered unworthy of his time...Descartes' comments being based on what friends of his who had taken the trouble to read the book had reported back to him about it).
You also described it as '5' meditations. It is 6.
You also decided that what Descartes actually wrote isn't important - it's understanding what he meant that is important, and you think you have some special insight into that.
So, let's be clear: you've been confidently wrong about Descartes on just about every single point. Yet you're still confident you know your stuff. It never ceases to amaze me!
So, how many things is a person allowed to not know, and still be considered perfect, or flawless? Is knowledge a factor at all? If God doesn’t know how to tie his shoes is he still perfect? You’re defining perfect so that nothing is excluded. If that’s the case then I’m perfect too.
It naturally follows that in order for someone to be perfect, they must have perfect qualities, at least those we deem as good. So, God would have perfect compassion, humility, patience, actions, knowledge, reasoning, etc. If any of those are lacking, then he isn’t perfect. Let me ask you a question, are there any qualities other than knowledge that God could lack and still be considered perfect? If not, then you’re special pleading with respect to knowledge. If so, please explain what they are, and how having imperfect qualities can rationally lead to perfection.
There are different ways to be perfect.
One way involves knowing everything.
Another way doesn't.
See?
Are you in high school?
Been there, done that
Quoting Bartricks
Quoting Bartricks
False. A teacher can sense where a student is going without going by the students exact words for example
Quoting Bartricks
Every word
Quoting Bartricks
And then you said in contradiction:
Quoting Bartricks
And then:
Quoting Bartricks
You don't want to learn. That is why I asked if you were in high school
Quoting Bartricks
False. I said it was published in 1642 because I thought the French edition was published then. Why is that hard to understand. Why are you making things difficult and don't want to learn? You just try to zing people on this forum and beat your "arguments" over people's heads and don't listen to other people as if you were a dissociative youth
Yes and got a 1330 on the SAT
I’ve read what you’ve written, but you won’t reply to my objections, or answer my questions. Why is that?
I have no idea what that means. But well done you! Who's a good boy!!
Quoting Gregory
Okay - so in your mind Descartes is the pupil and you're the teacher. Well, you did do 1330 sitting down.
Quoting Gregory
The first philosophy book you understood was every word? Hmm.
Quoting Gregory
There's nothing contradictory about anything in any of those quotes from me. Or is this a case of you - the teacher - knowing where his pupil - me - was going? Even if I didn't actually say anything contradictory, you know that I meant something contradictory?
You think you can teach me anything? So far I've learnt from you that Descartes thought he was God (he didn't), that he published his famous 5 meditations in 1642 (it was 6 meditations and it was published in 1641) and that the French edition came out in 1642 (it came out in 1647), and that you have a special 6th Cartesian sense that allows you to know what Descartes meant regardless of the words dummy Descartes used to express himself.
And you still haven't provided me with any kind of explanation of how divine simplicity does anything whatsoever to dispel concerns about the coherence of the trinity.
Did i not say "for example"
You believe God is contingent (contra Descartes) and perhaps don't understand God yet, so maybe your not at the place to discuss the Trinity. You think you know everything.
"On the other hand, let us suppose that the divine substance is the cause of the accident inhering in it. Now it is impossible that it be, as the same thing would make itself to be actual in the same respect. Therefore, if there is an accident in God, it will be according to different respects that he receives and causes that accident, just as bodily things receive their accidents through the nature of their matter and cause them through their form... Hence, whatever is in Him is there in the most noble way. Now, what a thing itself is, this belongs to it in a most perfect way. For this is something more perfectly one than when something is joined to something else substantially as form to matter; just as substantial union is more perfect than when something inheres in something else as accident. God, then, is therefore whatever He has" Aquinas
So, er, just to be clear: despite having nothing remotely coherent to say about the trinity and despite confidently getting Descartes wrong at every turn - even down to the number of meditations - you 'still' think you're the one in the know and I'm the ignorant one? I know more than you about these things - demonstrably. That is not equivalent to knowing everything. It is only because you overestimate what you know that you think it is.
And once more, you don't understand Descartes' ontological argument. Bachelors necessarily lack wives. That does not mean that if you're a bachelor your lack of wife is a necessary feature of you such taht you are incapable of having one. It means, rather, that the absence of a wife is essential to the idea of a bachelor, and thus to entertain the idea of a bachelor is to entertain the idea of a wifeless man. Similarly, when Descartes says that God exists of necessity, he means that existence is essential to the idea of God, and can no more be separated from it than the idea of a lacking a wife can be taken away from the idea of a bachelor. He does not mean that the person of God lacks the power not to exist. That would, once more, be like thinking that because bachelors necessarily lack a wife, the person of a bachelor is incapable of acquiring a wife. So, 'God exists of necessity' should be understood de dicto, not de re.
If you knew your Descartes, you'd know that held to my (and Jesus') view of omnipotence - namely that it involves being able to do absolutely anything at all, without any restriction from logic. And if you could reason in a straight line then you'd know that he cannot think that God is incapable of taking himself out of existence, for that would be a restriction. Thus God is, by virtue of being omnipotent, capable of destroying himself. And thus his existence is contingent, not necessary. But the idea of God contains the idea of existence and thus to entertain the idea of God with understanding is to understand that God exists (not, note, an argument I endorse - I am a fan of Descartes, but that doesn't mean I endorse every argument he ever made).
As for the Aquinas quote - not sure what work you want it to do.
Prove that Descartes meant this then
On what basis? Either it is clear to you that there is reason to think that the senses are more reliable than the intellect, in which case you are relying on your intellect and demonstrate only that your intellect is not very great; or you think there is no reason whatsoever to think the senses are more reliable than the intellect, but believe it anyway. In which case you are just asserting things and not providing any evidence in support of them.
So, as ever, your position is confused. But you'd have to be better at reasoning than you are in order to be able to realize this and do something about it.
That is the argument in the 4th meditation. In the 3rd one who says the idea of God is so perfect that we can't have an idea of it without it existing. It goes from self-referencing thoughts to God. That is the foundation of the latter argument
Quoting Bartricks
This is a statement, not argument
You're thinking in a line
Why are you doing this? Is it not yet apparent to you that you're talking to someone who knows Descartes well and understands him far better than you do? You're like a parrot, just squawking things without understanding.
You misunderstood his third Meditation. He had two arguments for God.
Your rationalism will fail you. God can do anything whatsoever and at the same time cannot lower his power. You don't know of theology works
I did. You could read Descartes and then you'd know. You'd know Descartes thought God could do anything. You'd know that 'anything' includes destroying himself. And so you'd know that therefore the person of God does not 'have' to exist, anymore than the person of a bachelor 'has' to lack a wife.
'Prove it!' the clarion call of the idiot.
False. You don't know about theology
Also, please explain the difference between the argument for God in the Third meditation and the one in the Fourth. Thank
Er, yes. I know. You were talking about his ontological argument. So I pointed out how you'd misunderstood it. How does the fact he had two arguments show that I was confused?? Only someone intellectually challenged could think such a thing.
Because you don't understand his argument for God. First he says in the 3rd Meditation that he has an idea of a perfect being. Then he says the substance in this idea must correspond to something. It can't correspond to the world because the world is not perfect. So God must have implanted this idea in him. THEN and only then does it go on latter to say the definition of God is that which must exist, which again contradicts what you say btw. So two arguments he gave. One from the substance of his idea (from intuition) and the other from a priori logic. Live and learn
That a lump of clay can have different properties at different times - such as ‘being cuboid’ and then ‘being spherical’ - is a result of 3D restructuring due to interaction between the clay and an external process. That a person can have different properties at different times - such as ‘being pink’ and then ‘being blue’ - is a result of temporal restructuring due to internal interactions in the organism. That a body, a human being and a mind/person can all be the same ‘Bartricks’ is the result of conceptual restructuring due to one’s perception of that person.
If a person is perceived as just a body, then both their humanity and the potential of their mind are ignored as aspects of being a person. They don’t lose those aspects, they are merely perceived in ignorance of those aspects. In the same way, a person can perceive themselves as a human being, but have only a partial awareness of the potential of their mind.
On another level, ‘God’ can be conceived as a mind/person, but it’s only one aspect of the possibility of this idea. Similarly, ‘God’ can be perceived as a human being in ignorance of both their full potential as a mind/person and their relation to this idea.
Quoting Bartricks
Ideas and concepts are commonly mistaken for synonyms. Ideas are a relation to formless possibility/impossibility, or pure imagination. They transcend concepts, and must be subsumed within a conceptual structure or system in order to be useful. Language is one conceptual system. Aesthetics is another. Each human mind, too, is a conceptual system. The same idea has a different form by interacting with different conceptual systems.
So, we are talking about conception of an idea. The idea of an idea is still an idea, and remains beyond language.
God as person or mind is conceptual, as is Bartricks. But Bartricks is also a human being, or at least potentially a being with human properties (as far as I can tell from here). And Bartricks is also a body, although not just a body, and not just a human being. But what constitutes this ‘Bartricks’ - with which others interact - is an interrelation of ideas, not the person, not the mind. That I have a complete conceptual understanding of Bartricks would be an incorrect assumption. That YOU have a complete and accurate conceptual understanding of Bartricks would also be an incorrect assumption - of course, you ARE a complete conceptual understanding of Bartricks, but that’s not the same thing. And while it is almost certain that your understanding of Bartricks includes information that mine does not, it is at least possible that my understanding of Bartricks includes information that yours does not.
So there exists an idea of Bartricks that is not just the person, not just the mind. And accuracy in our understanding doesn’t preclude the possibility of its existence as such. But you and I have little in the way of shared qualities of experience in relation to this particular idea.
I may, however, have shared qualities of experience in relation to the idea of ‘Bartricks’ with other posters on this forum. I can discuss the idea of ‘Bartricks’ with them, and through the interrelation of these ideas, we can form a concept of ‘Bartricks’ - one which probably differs to some extent from the concept that you have of Bartricks. Now, I can argue that there are elements of truth in both concepts, but these concepts are only potentially Bartricks the person, the mind. And yes, it is more likely that your concept has more accuracy, but neither concept is entirely Bartricks. So, the person or mind that is Bartricks exists in relation to an idea - or more accurately, an interrelation of ideas.
So, while you can say that ‘God is a person/mind’, this assertion is conceived from a limited interrelation of ideas, reduced to a conceptual structure or statement.
Except it’s not your assertion. You don’t believe this statement to be true, and you don’t much care either way. You’re looking at the conceptual structure in a logical way, regardless of its truth value, its relation to any idea.
Yet for someone who can experience it as true (regardless of whether it is or not), this statement is only one qualitative aspect of ‘God’. Their relation to this idea extends beyond the conceptual or logical structure of this statement, in the same way we experience that a human being is not just a body. ‘God’ is not just a person, not just a mind. ‘God’ is a relation to an idea. And the person, the mind described in the statement is a limited conception of this idea.
Language doesn’t help us much here, and nor does logic. ‘The Tao that can be spoken of is not the eternal Tao’. Every statement, expression or thought we can make about ‘God’, the ‘Tao’, the ‘One’, the ‘Absolute’, etc subsumes the idea under a conceptual system. Any idea potentially exists only as a conception in relation to the idea. So most of this will not make much sense - especially if your own conceptual structure is limited by logic, which is limited by language. But then, I’m not really arguing against you. I just don’t think your argument, while logical, is as solid as you think it is.
Also what if logical nihilism and its counterparts (paraconsistent logic, dialetheism, etc.) are, how shall I put it?, theological logic, designed as it were to "make sense" of religion but then that could be just the beginning of something even...grander(?) in an Alice in Wonderland way.
It isn't impossible but do note that what applies to one human applies to all (gonna get into trouble for this) unless there are gods (omnipotent) hidden among us but then we're back in contradiction land.
That 3-in-1 doctrine was a rationalization of a logical contradiction. It was thought necessary to resolve some arguments among early Christians from different streams of Jewish and Apostolic influence. Some interpreted Father & Son literally, as two beings. But the abstract Jewish doctrine of divine unity (Monotheism) would not allow God to share god-hood with anyone else. Ironically, Yawheh was originally a son of El, in Hebrew theology. So, the Trinity was an attempt to justify Polytheism within the larger context of Monotheism.
And one result of that miraculous conception was to multiply sub-deities in the form of Christian Saints, playing the role of Roman gods. Consequently, Trinity -- like wine as the blood of Christ -- must be accepted metaphorically in one sense, and literally in another. Most people seem to be flexible enough in their beliefs to juggle such counter-intuitive notions, even though they don't really understand them.
Ironically, atheist Physicists must do a similar juggling act with Quantum non-mechanics, such as Wave-Particle duality, and Quarks as 3-in-1 sub-particles, that are never seen separately -- unlike Superman, who is never seen together with Clark Kent. In super-nature, and quantum probability, all things are possible. :razz:
POLYTHEISM BY ANY OTHER NAME WOULD SMELL AS FISHY
Nor a wavicle, either, but a quantum field.
Yes. Physicsts must believe in a non-empirical invisible Field that is the essence of empirical Reality.
Note -- just kidding. Since I believe that invisible Information is the essence of reality, accepting the metaphor of a mathematical field is no problem. But it makes me hungry for breakfast. :joke:
[i]Alice laughed. 'There's no use trying,' she said. 'One can't believe impossible things.'
I daresay you haven't had much practice,' said the Queen. 'When I was your age, I always did it for half-an-hour a day. Why, sometimes I've believed as many as six impossible things before breakfast. ”[/i] ? Lewis Carroll
Thanks!
Another point to recall is that there are threefolds in many different religious traditions.
The Hindu trinity has Brahma the creator, Vishnu the preserver and Shiva the destroyer.
In Mah?y?na Buddhism, the trikaya, (Sanskrit: “three bodies”), is the concept of the three bodies, or modes of being, of the Buddha: the dharmakaya (body of essence), the unmanifested mode, and the supreme state of absolute knowledge; the sambhogakaya (body of enjoyment), the heavenly mode; and the nirmanakaya (body of transformation), the earthly mode, the Buddha as he appeared on earth or manifested himself in an earthly bodhisattva, an earthly king, a painting, or a natural object, such as a lotus.
There are numerous examples of three-fold deities in other ancient and not well known religious cultures.
I think the Jungian analysis is the most cogent - that these are all reflections of structures in the archetypal level of the collective unconscious (although it would be a mistake to think this is a reductive explanation, i.e. it doesn't make them less real.)
Is three more numerous in pantheons within the scope of religious studies? I would like to see a list of the religions and see how many had 1, 2, 3, 4 etc.
Yes. Trinity seems to be a common mystical metaphor for unity within multiplicity. But, I prefer the concept of Unity as Holism. :smile:
How Ancient Trinitarian Gods Influenced Adoption of the Trinity :
https://www.ucg.org/bible-study-tools/booklets/is-god-a-trinity/how-ancient-trinitarian-gods-influenced-adoption-of-the-trinity
Jewish Numerology (Gematria) :
In their eyes the number 3 was considered as the perfect number, the number of harmony, wisdom and understanding. ... It was also the number of time – past, present, future; birth, life, death; beginning, middle, end – it was the number of the divine
https://wno.org.uk/news/three-is-the-magic-number
7 was also a special number they say
I read your article. So Jews would say the Trinity was pagan and although there is 3 in God there is not three persons? Is this how modern Jews see it?
I don't have enough personal experience with Jewish theology to answer that. But it's clear that Orthodox Jews and Muslims are dogmatically opposed to any partition of their Atomic (indivisible) God. My general impression is that Jesus was a Jewish mono-theist. But some of his non-Jewish followers wanted to deify Jesus as the super-natural risen-from-the-dead Christ, just as some early Buddhist sects began to deify him, after his very human death.
Although Jesus and Siddhartha never claimed divinity directly, "great men" have often been deified, in retrospect, by their disciples. They found easy acceptance of such notions, because they were surrounded by Polytheists, who found it intuitive to envision their gods in human form. It's fairly common in history for human heroes to be regarded, by sycophantic acolytes, as either embodied gods themselves, or sent by the gods to save their suffering people. Even the pre-monotheism (pagan) Hebrews seemed to view their savior Moses as god-like. Actually, only after the return from Babylonian captivity, did the remnant of Jews become fervently monotheistic. :pray:
Monotheism vs Trinitarianism :
Serious critics of trinitarian doctrines are nearly always fellow Abrahamic monotheists.
https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/trinity/judaic-islamic-trinity.html
The Apotheosis of Washington :
Name of a painting in the rotunda of the capital building.
"The Apotheosis of Washington depicts George Washington sitting amongst the heavens in an exalted manner, or in literary terms, ascending and becoming a god (apotheosis)."
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Apotheosis_of_Washington
the idolization of Moses :
God says to Moses, “see, I make you as God to Pharaoh,”
https://newpolity.com/blog/moses-and-the-battle-not-to-be-god
WASHINGTON ELECTED TO GODHOOD
Maybe it's this :point:
See timestamp 0.52 (1 object, 2 images. Sancta trinitas, unus Deus)
Huh? Love and justice are abstracts. A Father and Son can be tangible when they are the result of tangle humans who have sex, but the existence of supernatural beings who some argue is only one being, seems a con game to me, trying to convince something intangible is tangible. I don't know about the Holy Spirit having anything like a tangible existence. The Christian understanding of a god is not the only one, and why would we assume the Christian notion of a god is the only possible one to exist? What about Apollo the power to create and reason? Isn't he also an important god?
It is my understanding the Christians were killing each other during Contanople's time because of the debate of if God was three or one. This was a problem with language. Romans did not have a word for such a trinity but for the Greeks, who had a word for it, had no problem accepting such a trinity. It is my understanding Greek Jews were the first to write a Bible. Using the Greek language would make the trinity of God possible. So the answer to the question is what language were the Jews using. Also, the Romans created a word that made the trinity palatable to them.
Given today's reality, we are thrilled with a loving God, but our understanding of a loving God was not as it is today, until our bellies were full. Not that long ago God was jealous, revengeful, fearsome, and punishing the Satan had demons who could possess us. We are good with arguing the existence of God ignoring the reality of Satan and demons. Today's believers have a whole different understanding of God and Satan because the condition of our lives is so different.
Bottom line, what language are we using, and what is the condition of our lives that makes this or that believable.
Here is an interesting explanation of how concepts evolved to make the trinity of God palatable.
Quoting Britannica
You made my day with that question. I had to gather information to explain my meaning and that lead to an enlightening experience as I realized the relationships between concepts I have long held. Merry Christmas to me, you gave me what I want most- enlightenment.
Perhaps my wording was not exacting enough. Three men are not equal to Father, Son, and Holy Ghost as one, not three. It is the nature of the one that is in question. How does the 3 become the 1?
I will quote from "Jesus Wars" by Philip Jenkins.
Is that better? Rome and everyone understood 3 men. That is the problem in the Jesus Wars. There is the Father, and there is the Son, and there is the Spirit. Three separate gods! People were killing each other with this understanding of a separate Father, Son, and Holy Spirit because there is only one God! Okay, how do we make this right without the language for 3 being 1? Jews expected a savior, they were not expecting God himself. They still do not accept the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit as one God. That begins as a language problem and becomes a science problem. How can the impossible be possible?
If Jesus is God, when did this happen? Was he born a God? Or did he become a God when he was baptized and the Holy Spirit entered him? Or, did he become God when he died? Greeks were okay with men being sons gods, but I don't think they took this too seriously. In Rome, a king had to die before becoming a God. First, we need the language to talk about these things, and then we need some scientific thinking to figure out how a man could be God. Not just any god, but the one and only God. Can we wrap our heads around these language/thinking problems and a different Roman and Greek understanding of the God issue? You know, Alexander the Great was the son of Zeus. That is not how the Romans understood such things.
Digging around for more clarification, the argument gets more and more interesting because it is tied to claims to power and land. Greeks gave up liner heritage and this led to the war against the Maccabees (a Jewish group).
"Apotheosis" https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Apotheosis
The conquering Greeks were giving people jobs based on merit. The Jews found that intolerable because in their society everything was based on linage. Martin Luther and some Christians today, believe God determines who is born to rule and who is born to be a servant. Martin Luther thought God decided who is born to be a leader and who is born to serve. We come out of a Judo/Christian society that was very much determined by our lineage, not our merit.
Now look at the word "Divination" https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Divinization_(Christian)
:rofl: That notion of being divine is a whole lot different from Zeus having sex with your mother. Thank you again for your question. :heart:
It's wording not concept, trinity is God in 3 persons, Jesus him self said he's talking with (or praying to) father, and we know father is not son, both are God but Jesus didn't talk to both, but to father, therefor he didn't talk to himself.
Quoting Pinprick
The meaning of his words of being forsaken is well explained in Psalms 22,2 which start with same famous quote.
Whoo, whoo you are doing it to me again! There is so much I do not know and getting through this ignorance to enlightenment is very challenging! There were so many unfamiliar concepts in what you gave me. The notion of self-differentiation is exciting and I recall number 3 has been very important in several early civilizations. There is a Chinese concept of "one, two, infinity". This would be math and metaphysics.
There is the monad, number 1, the un-undifferentiated whole. "The one Godhead, secret in all beings, all-pervading, the inner Self of all, presiding over all action, witness, conscious knower and absolute...the One in control over the many who are passive to Nature, fashions one seed in many ways." Swetaswatara Upanishad
Then the Dyad where the action begins. 'In the Two we experience the very essence bring to bind many together into one, to equate plurality and unity. Our mind divides the world into heaven and earth, day and night, light and darkness, right and lift, man and woman, I and you- and the more strongly we sense the separation between these poles, whatever they may be, the more powerfully do we also sense their unity." Karl Menninger
Then the Triad. "All was divided into three." Homer "The Triad has a special beauty and fairness beyond all numbers, primarily because it is the very first to make actual the potentialities of the Monad." Iamblichus
We use scales to symbolize justice because it balances two. All of this is more comprehensible with geometry and actually drawing the two overlapping circles and then connecting where the lines cross getting a triangle.
Where is the emotiocon and the melting brain running out of an ear? Like I think the explanation of the trinity needs an understanding of the math, but that is not what comes through the Bible. The explanation you gave me is clearly more than three men ruling together or three gods Father, Son, and Holy Spirit working together. Without coming to metaphysics through math, we are missing an understanding of the forces involved. Am I am making sense?
"The creative activity of God is the source of motion in the world of nature" (from your link) but did you ever hear this explanation in Sunday school or a church sermon? What you gave me opened a whole new way to understand the Trinity and I so regret that was never the subject in Sunday school.
"That nevertheless there are in this world many different realms, each composing of a class of things peculiar to itself...." and then religion runs off in fantastic imagination of another realm mixed up in a history of a small group of people who justify everything they do with a fanciful notion of a god's will and things get very contentious from here.
I really appreciate the information you shared about the Trinity. I would be more interested in attending a church that presents such information instead of lessons for being good children based on fiction instead of math and science.
What I don’t understand is in the Bible, Jesus communicates directly with God. Wouldn’t this amount to nothing more than talking to yourself?
My understanding is that we came from God, we are made up of the essence or a part of the spirit of God (Holy Spirit). So you can think in a sense that before we were conceived we were once one with God. Once we were born and took human form we became distinctly different, separate from God but we are from God. In that sense I believe that is what defines a Soul.
Jesus always spoke in context of the Father (or Spirit) and if you pay attention to his wording and you can tell that he is speaking in metaphoric language (or parables). "I know the Father, and the Father knows me." kind of theme to where he is implying in Human form I am separate from the Spirit but once his time comes he will transcend to become one with the Spirit.
I believe that is why in the beginning of the New Testament he is referred to the Son of Man than later referred to as Son of God. Maybe insinuating that he wasn't always divine or maybe didn't acknowledge his divine nature or aware of his divineness until he began his journey and when it was time for him to go to the cross that it was at that moment when he became the Messiah. A sort of transformation of awareness.
Maybe during Jesus journey he was struggling with his identity of being God. How would you feel if suddenly God spoke to you and said "You will be my vessel and become the Son of God. You will be the sacrificial lamb that will save humanity from Sin." and from birth you will be aware of that.
A sort of Spiritual Existential Crisis but not in a traditional sense. Maybe God being in human form made him vulnerable to attacks by the enemy by means of temptation and that was the challenge for him. To maintain his innocents (Free of Sin) state until he got to the cross. The temptation of either settling to a normal human life existence or completing Gods divine mission to save humanity was the struggle.
Being God the spirit made him immune but becoming God in human form made him vulnerable.
Wouldn’t he be privy to all the information or knowledge that God has?
That would be a very frightening experience to have the knowledge of God. It probably would drive any normal person insane. And that is probably why he was preying at the garden before he was crucified. Knowing your fate and knowing what you have to do to accomplish Gods will which will save humanity.
Knowing the future but knowing you can't change the course of it because this is the way to humanities salvation. The burden of overwhelming responsibility that Jesus held is like holding the whole world on his shoulders.
That's why Jesus said “Father, if you are willing, take this cup from me; yet not my will, but yours be done.” - Luke 22:42
Never asking why he had to do it because he knew why he had to do it. He knew his purpose, he knew why but in a way he was asking the Father to find a way to give him relief from this burden but without compromising his divine mission.
The struggle between human nature and divine nature.
And I like thinking about the difference between being the son of Zeus versus the Son of God. I wish others saw that as an exciting contrast worthy of discussion. As the Greek understanding of math and the laws of nature were different from all others, so is the Christian understanding of God, different from all others. I can not think of any other god that had a son without a woman. The sons of Zeus had real power on earth such as Hercules and Alexander the Great. A son that is a martyr and needs to be sacrificed to save human souls, is a different kind of god. We can not blame the Jews for not accepting that Christian reasoning. Not only is it a different way of understanding God, but it is also a different way of understanding humans.
Jews had a god-like all the other gods when people had patron gods. Patron gods had favorite people who they protected and the people with the most powerful god won wars. When Christians won wars pagans thought it meant they had the most powerful god. You know the jealous, revengeful, fearsome, and punishing God, not the God of love Christians worship today. The Jewish notion of God is not a trinity.
Jesus promoted violating the law saying it was not God's law but human ideas of law. I agree it was human ideas of laws, but that does not make the Christian understanding of the trinity any better and twisting the understanding of the laws of nature to mean a deified Jesus is just wrong.
That is contrary to the older Egyptian notion of the trinity of our souls. When we die part of that trinity, the physical part, becomes nonexistent.
Part of the trinity is judged and may enter the good life after death or not.
Finally, the third part rejoins the source.
That is compatible with the native American notion of the Creator and returning to the source after death.
Christianity externalized the God spirit and made God the trinity.
You just pinpointed one of the many inconsistencies existing in the Bible! :smile:
Do this kind of stories ring a bell? To me yes. It reminds me of school essays written by children. It also reminds me how people with insufficient rational abilities argue in discussions, talk and write on various subjects. Arguing with those persons usually leads to nowhere. So is the study of the Bible!
I’m not familiar with Egyptian faith but this notion is based on my own spiritual self exploration. Is an expression of my own personal interpretation of the Bible.
Quoting Athena
I guess that is true. Again this is based on my own personal perspective on faith. What I realize is there is no standard in how to believe, I guess that is why I am a harsh critic of Systematic Faith. I believe is a flawed practice and the only way, you can worship God and understanding the Nature of God is through Spirituality.
We came from a Source and we return to the source.
Whether you believe in Judaism, Christianity, Buddhism, Islam, Native American faith and even Atheism (return to the Universe into a natural elemental state). This theme of return to the source is Universal.
Quoting Athena
I wonder what your "personal" definition of Christianity is? The argument seemed to be based more on technical systematic understanding than spiritual. And Trying to understand the rational reasoning and the mechanics of what make God, God. Which is a different dynamic and different explanation than spiritual understanding.
Ironically, the Christian Trinity omits a significant deity from Old Testament : Satan. Originally, he was a heavenly prince, whose job was to serve as legal prosecutor in God's dealings with humans (including the temptation of Jesus in the desert). By contrast, the Holy Spirit was basically a messenger boy, who unlike an Angel, didn't take on human form.
The Roman Christians didn't have a name for the abstract concept of "four" (only a symbol : IV). But they could have used the Greek word "tessera" to describe a four-in-one deity : the Holy Tesseract. The Hindu pantheon included both good and evil gods. For example demonic Kali, who was the 10th avatar of Vishnu. What's the name for a 10-in-one deity? :cool:
Persistent controversies over technicalities of Roman Catholic dogma may be interesting to Theologians and Philosophers, who like to argue over fine distinctions. But to the man or woman on the street, the Trinity concept may be accepted as Gospel, but understood as Metaphor.
As legal terminology, "The Trinity" allowed the church to reconcile incompatible literal meanings (Monotheism vs Polytheism) by the indisputable power of faith in inspired church authority. To say that 3=1 does not compute mathematically. But as a religious notion, it works mystically.
Likewise, in a practical sense, the bread (or host) of the sacrament is just baked dough. But as a mystical symbol it combines the mundane notion of eating bread with the sublime imagery of the apparent physical body on a cross, which is secretly only a vessel (host) for a supernatural spirit. Even philosophers cannot argue with poetic figures of speech. :joke:
PS__I was raised in a back-to-the-Bible fundamentalist church that did not accept add-on Catholic doctrines such as Trinity & Saints & Christmas. Ironically, some of us still celebrated Christmas, as a semi-secular holiday. So, I was always conflicted on that "holy day". With one crucial exception, our teachings were logical and subject to evidence. But the only true source of that evidence was a collection of ancient "scriptures", that were later compiled by the very church whose authority we rejected. :yikes:
I am unsure of your meaning, but not many of us would be able to write a book on quantum physics, so maybe when people were writing the word of God, they also had a problem with that? Hebrews knew they were using stories. They were meant to be interpreted literally.
Neither are Egyptians familiar with their ancient gods and reasoning. This is sad to me as they are caught up in religious conflicts with Christians, Jews, and Islam. I don't think anyone has an exclusive hold on "God's truth". As Joseph Campbell said, God came to everyone and their stories are different because they interpreted Him differently. That is going with the first point. We have human interpretations of God's truth, not an invaluable "God's Truth". Much of Christianity is Egyptian. Isis was the bread and water before Jesus became the bread and wine.
Yes, there is a difference. Mine personally includes quantum physics. I am really sitting on the fence between being materialistic or more metaphysical. I have had experiences that can not be explained with a purely material understanding of reality.
:lol: And Christianity rejected the authority of the Jewish system of authority. Perhaps we need a good comedian to help us see the irony in that. Then along comes Mohammid and he retells his people about the same God and prophets. Then comes M?rz? ?osayn ?Al? N?r? who starts the Bahai faith with is inclusive of the other three religions.
Judaism, Christianity, and Islam break down into many separate groups all competing with each other for the "authority" to tell us about God's truth, and that is really humans telling us different things, and it has always been like this. The Bible was written by humans. This is a very serious matter because if we don't get it right, we do not become immortal. But if the trinity is our reality, we have a soul that is immortal. Ah, that is what hell is for, all those souls who don't get to go to heaven where Satan has control and we are eternally punished. I think Christianity has a problem with spiritual reality? Or for sure I have a problem understanding exactly what Christians believe.
Decad is ten. And you have made delightful points. For sure why stop at a trinity? I never thought of that before, but what is the rule that a God can only be a trinity? And what of Satan? He is essential and I can not understand why Jesus wasn't an angel or Satan wasn't a son? Satan was much more popular than he is now. I don't think a church that lectured about Satan would be popular today. For our present understanding of God, we might want to know about Zoroastrians.
Zoroastrians divided the spiritual realm between forces of good and evil. I believe Judaism is a continuum of badness and goodness, not opposing forces. However, it was Cyrus a Persian king and Zoroastrian who freed the Jews from Babylon and ordered that Persia would pay for the rebuilding of the Jewish temple. There was agreement that both religions would be at peace. This eastern influence carried an understanding of demons that did not exist in Judaism and Christians embraced that understanding of demons. They embraced a notion of spiritual reality that has an opposing force of evil. So you are right, the trinity is not the whole of spiritual reality.
I'm not talking about writing in a scientific style or sophisticated manner. I'm talking about inconsistencies. If I say that I am the only child and later ? say that I have two brothers, how can you take what I am saying seriously?
Quoting Athena
Maybe you mean "They were not meant ..."?
Quoting Athena
I can accept that fully.
Quoting Athena
Certainly not.
Quoting Athena
I agree.
Quoting Athena
One can also say, "We are spiritual beings having a spiritual experience". It depends on the kind of experiance ...
Quoting Athena
I don't think you have to be either of them. You are a spiritual being living in a world that is both material and spiritual.
Quoting Athena
Certainly!
Zoarastrianism might have been the foundation of what became Pauline doctrine on the separation between the Absolute and the world. These notions were codified by Christian baptism of the works of Aristotle
I hate it when I forget the little word "not". It makes a slight difference in what I mean. :lol:
Quoting Pinprick
Pinprick, I think you have made an excellent argument that has not been made before. Clearly given that conversation with God, Jesus and God are not the same consciousness.
Quoting Gregory
I so wish we all could discuss Zoarastrianism as easily as we discuss Judaism and Christianity because all these ideas were circulating and religions share them in common. Something that is very exciting to me is the notion of the Creator manifesting the universe by giving order to chaos which is also very much the responsibility of pharaohs to maintain that order. I believe we see this theme throughout oriental thinking. Might we have very interesting discussions if we spoke of global warming as the result of man-made chaos?
Hum, I think I will start a thread about chaos and global warming.
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Occam's Razor here.. "Why have you forsaken, me?" was a person trying to claim the role as messiah, thinking he was actually going to succeed in some miraculous fashion, and then it did not.
Crisis for remaining followers...what to do? Appearances of apparition.. he can't be dead..
This "can't really be dead" turns into much different thing by the Book of John. Now, he is not a human messiah in the Jewish sense (political leader herald in political autonomy and depending on the group- the End Times).. he is some part of a more complicated picture more in line with geometric Greek thought. Perhaps influence from Hellenistic Judaism played a part via Paul in this, through contemporary works by Philo of Alexandria..
The Trinity makes sense multiplicatively because 1 × 1 × 1 = 1 (there's still only 1). The Trinity is 1 cube with a length of 1, a width of 1, and a height of 1. We could say the Sancta Trinitas is our 3D universe.
What about time, the 4[sup]th[/sup] dimension? :chin:
P.S 1 × 1 × 1 = 1[sup]3[/sup] = 1.
In time Jesus came to be seen not a human with the honorific son of God, or even as the only begotten Son of God, but full God, the same ousia as the Father. How could it be explained that the monotheistic God was both one and more than one? While some sought a rational explanation, others regard it as a mystery worthy of contemplation, and still other Christians simply reject trinitarianism.
Interesting. Haven't seen that one before. The dimensions of naive experience (fractional dimensions and fractal geometry being a major element of nature not withstanding) do fit with the number three.
But which part is which entity?
I have been thinking of my own variety, with a Piercean semiotic triangle. The Father is the ground of being, the thing in itself, the Object. Christ is the Logos, the symbol that generates meaning. The Spirit is the interpretant, that which feels. I think this can be combined with insights from Boehme and those he influenced (mainly Hegel for me). If God (the Absolute) must create what It is not to be, and be defined, It must also contain the elements of the triangle for meaning to exist. Apologies if I posted this before, I thought I might of but couldn't find the post, so maybe I left it for when I had more time.
Dan Simmons' Hyperion, which is a sci-fi retelling of the Canterbury Tales in the distant future on an alien world, with some time travel and supernatural and/or science so advanced it seems supernatural to the protagonists elements. It also features a cloned version of John Keats who has his memories intact. Excellent prose, IMO the best in genre fiction.
Anyhow, one of the ideas in it is that the human God is triune, but the Trinity essentially represents past, present, and future, another trifructaion we see in reality. It doesn't really take this in too much of a theological direction though; you don't see which part is which person if the Trinity is which of time. I would guess the Father is the past, the ground of being, the Son is the present, as immediate experience is only interpretable by cognition through the Logos (Christ), and the Spirit would be the future, where hope resides.
I'd say it's one of the very best sci-fi books I've ever read, other contenders being Dune (some people get turned off by that due to the pacing and amount of dialogue), and The Darkness That Comes Before (I recommend this less because people get turned off by the rather extreme amounts of violence/sexual violence, it's a bit slow to start, and has some sexism issues). Unfortunately, the follow up to the original two Hyperion books, written in the 1990s, isn't near as good and Simmons would later go on to become a heavy Islamaphobe after 9/11, but this isn't really apparent in these books, which are from the late 1980s.
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