In view of this, it might be said that the Father created the Word, this term being used in place of the more accurate generated, inasmuch as the exemplar ideas of creation were communicated by the Father to the Son. According to his psychology the formation of a concept is not essential to thought as such, though absolutely requisite to all natural human knowledge. It is manifest that a dogma so mysterious presupposes a Divine revelation. We could say, then, that in relation to their persons, the Son and the Spirit are a Patre (from the Father), but in relation to their essence they are a se. This differs in a fundamental point from the Aristoteleanism of the Scholastic theologians. Another essential in the life of Christ, which is indispensable for the Church faith, is the Crucifixion of Christ, which is considered the end of His humiliation and emptiness on earth. He is the Second Person included in the unity of the one God of the Bible. At a later date, however, some famous names are to be found defending a contrary opinion. But it is necessary first to indicate in what consisted the transition effected by St. The doctrine of the Trinity is formally taught in every class of ecclesiastical writing. For before anything came into being, He had Him as a counsellor, being His own mind and thought [i. as the logos endiathetos, c. x]). And at other times, it is hard to know which person of the Trinity is at the forefront of some activities. On the other hand, St. Hippolytus, who combats it in the "Contra Noetum", claims Apostolic tradition for the doctrine of the Catholic Church: "Let us believe, beloved brethren, in accordance with the tradition of the Apostles, that God the Word came down from heaven to the holy Virgin Mary to save man.
And he offered for one time a sacrifice that can take away our sin (Heb. In and of itself, seeking knowledge is good; it was the object that was disordered (and thus forbidden). In explanation of this it should be noted that at that period the relation of philosophy to revealed doctrine was but obscurely understood. The highest probative force must necessarily attach to these, since they express not the private opinion of a single individual, but the public belief of the whole body of the faithful. One explanation only can be given, namely, that the perfection we call fecundity must needs be found in God the Absolutely Perfect (St. Whosoever denieth the Son, the same hath not the Father: (but) he that acknowledgeth the Son hath the Father also.
Divine attributes are affirmed of Him. That the Persons are co-eternal and coequal is a mere corollary from this. It is out of the question to suppose that men who were prepared to give their lives on behalf of this fundamental truth were in point of fact in so great confusion in regard to it that they were unaware whether their creed was monotheistic, ditheistic, or tritheistic. The Bible teaches three coexistent, co-eternal Persons who comprise the one God. And, since whatever they have and are flows from Him, this writer asserts that if we fix our thoughts on the sole source of Deity alone, we find in Him undiminished all that is contained in them. Our redemption stands or falls with the eternal sonship of Christ, for he is the Lamb that was "slain before the foundation of the world" (Revelation 13:8). For this reason it has no place in the Liberal Protestantism of today. This, the Church teaches, is the revelation regarding God's nature which Jesus Christ, the Son of God, came upon earth to deliver to the world: and which she proposes to man as the foundation of her whole dogmatic system. The Holy Spirit, it is contended, proceeds from the Father and the Son as the term of the love by which God loves Himself. The answer is simple: It is the only place in the entire Bible where the words "the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Ghost" are written together as a phrase. The witness of the doxologies is no less striking.
The Nicene Creed still preserves for us this point of view. Notwithstanding the force of the arguments we have just summarised, a vigorous controversy has been carried on from the end of the seventeenth century to the present day regarding the Trinitarian doctrine of the ante-Nicene Fathers. Clement speaks of Wisdom as "created before all things" (protoktistos), and Tatian terms the Word the "first-begotten work of (ergon prototokon) the Father. The angel of the Lord is distinct from YHWH. Afterwards it appears in its Latin form of trinitas in Tertullian ( On Pudicity 21). The angel of the Lord is God.
Picture, if you will, the Trinity as a human body made up of many parts. Scripture clearly tells us not to add or takeaway words from the Bible: You shall not add to the word which I command you, nor take from it, that you may keep the commandments of the Lord your God which I command you (Deuteronomy 4:12 NKJV). In Scripture there is as yet no single term by which the Three Divine Persons are denoted together. Each of these three performs complementary roles in our salvation. Since all the Powers possess the same mind, does it not follow, he asked, that in each case thought produces a similar term? So, too, in regard to the mission of the Holy Spirit. The Church considers this divine event the "sorrowful Easter, " for it is linked with His Resurrection. In this Trinity of Persons the Son is begotten of the Father by an eternal generation, and the Holy Spirit proceeds by an eternal procession from the Father and the Son. The expression is not one which would have been employed by Latin writers who insist that creation and all God's works proceed from Him as One and not from the Persons as distinct from each other. Heresy The denial or doubt by error of judgment, publically or privately, by a baptized, professed person of any truth revealed by God and proposed for belief by the Catholic Church. This is emphasized again in Isaiah 44:6, and I am going to quote the Tanakh just so you know that this translation is not a product of Christian bias. 1 Chronicles 16:38; 29:11; Psalm 103:31; 28:2), is an expression of praise offered to God alone. 22; Cyril of Alexandria, "In Joan. Amen" ( Sermon on Theophany 10).
He is the seal, Himself impressing on us the Divine image. He expresses that all things came from the Father. A similar line of argument establishes that the Divine Nature as communicated to the Holy Spirit is not specifically, but numerically, one with that of the Father and the Son. Nor can it be objected that the notions of Christians on the subject were vague and confused, and that their liturgical forms reflect this frame of mind. And this drawing occurs through his Spirit at work within individuals. Jerome says, in a well-known phrase: "The true profession of the mystery of the Trinity is to own that we do not comprehend it" (De mysterio Trinitatus recta confessio est ignoratio scientiae "Proem ad 1. xviii in Isai. The former mode of considering them has been the more common since the Arian heresy.
The point is worth noting, for this diversity of symbolic representation leads inevitably to very different expressions of the same dogmatic truth.
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