As a student of fourteen years of traditional Catholic School with the Baltimore catechism, that is the first time I have ever heard the Trinity explained in such a way. Thank you!
Heretical prayer: O Mother of Perpetual Help, thou art the dispenser of all the gifts which God grants to us miserable sinners; and for this end He has made thee so powerful, so rich, and so bountiful, in order that thou mayest help us in our misery. Thou art the advocate of the most wretched and abandoned sinners who have recourse to thee: come to my aid, for I recommend myself to thee. In thy hands I place my eternal salvation, and to thee I entrust my soul. Count me among thy most devoted servants; take me under thy protection, and it is enough for me. For, if thou protect me, I fear nothing; not from my sins, because thou wilt obtain for me the pardon of them; nor from the devils, because thou art more powerful than all hell together; nor even from Jesus, my judge, because by one prayer from thee He will be appeased. But one thing I fear: that in the hour of temptation I may through negligence fail to have recourse to thee and thus perish miserably. Obtain for me, therefore, the pardon of my sins, love for Jesus, final perseverance, and the grace ever to have recourse to thee, O Mother of Perpetual Help. This is a legit Catholic prayer, look up "O Mother of Perpetual Help" if you want to know if it’s legit. This is super heretical. This doctrine of invoking departed saints doesn’t seem just like "hey it’s like praying to a friend.". . : ) :)
The personal relationship to Jesus, to me, is to realize that He would have gone all the same through Passion even if He had known only I alone would be saved. This is how I understand the infinite love of God Almighty for the worthless creature that I am.
Heretical prayer: O Mother of Perpetual Help, thou art the dispenser of all the gifts which God grants to us miserable sinners; and for this end He has made thee so powerful, so rich, and so bountiful, in order that thou mayest help us in our misery. Thou art the advocate of the most wretched and abandoned sinners who have recourse to thee: come to my aid, for I recommend myself to thee. In thy hands I place my eternal salvation, and to thee I entrust my soul. Count me among thy most devoted servants; take me under thy protection, and it is enough for me. For, if thou protect me, I fear nothing; not from my sins, because thou wilt obtain for me the pardon of them; nor from the devils, because thou art more powerful than all hell together; nor even from Jesus, my judge, because by one prayer from thee He will be appeased. But one thing I fear: that in the hour of temptation I may through negligence fail to have recourse to thee and thus perish miserably. Obtain for me, therefore, the pardon of my sins, love for Jesus, final perseverance, and the grace ever to have recourse to thee, O Mother of Perpetual Help. This is a legit Catholic prayer, look up "O Mother of Perpetual Help" if you want to know if it’s legit. This is super heretical. This doctrine of invoking departed saints doesn’t seem just like "hey it’s like praying to a friend.". . : ) :)
@@leew3365 What many Trinitarians do not realise is that "homoousios" (same substance) is based on the pagan Greek concept (metaphysics) of Aristotle's definition of "ousia"; the proto-Trinitarians at Nicaea in 325 ce could find no support or language in the bible to support their novel idea, so they were forced to look outside the bible for support and found the technical jargon they were looking for in Aristotle! Catholics in general and most Protestants...have not studied the origin of "ousia", they just simply accept what they have been indoctrinated with! The Triune belief has more in common with Stoicism and Neo-Platonism than the bible. The Trinity is not a bible teaching, thus, whether they realise it or not, Trinitarians are at best pagano/Christians!
@@leew3365 Not so much Irenaeus, but Asanasias was indebted to Greek philosophy, as he and the other proto-Trinitarians norrowed Aristotle's concept of the "ousia", pagan through and through and was under the Neo-Platonic spell of substance sharing! Augustine and the 3 Cappadocians were some of the worst ones infected with Platonism and Neo-Platonism!
Holy Trinity is a Mystery, Jesus reveals The Father and the Holy Spirit and Himself (3 persons One God), I believe ! this saves me from much thinking and worries, I thank God for the Church Fathers explaining this most wonderful mystery. ☘🥤
There is a difference between mystery and absurdity. In a mystery there is no contradictory information but some information is missing. An absurdity contains contradictions as in 1=3, and is known and deemed as nonsense. There is no mystery in that.
Ephesians 2 says we’re built upon the foundation of the Apostles, Jesus Christ himself being the chief cornerstone. It does not say we’re built upon the church fathers. HUGE difference there. The trinity comes from the church fathers, not from Jesus and the Apostles.
The speaker in the video says that the Father eternally generates...? What the Speaker will not tell you! Again, what many Trinitarians do not even realise, is that the eternal generation concept was introduced by Origen, who as saturated with pagan Greek metaphysics and thus, was under its influence, which shaped his own personal theology, his concept of "eternal generation" was seized upon by proto-Trinitarians and worked on by later church fathers, who were also under the influence of Greek philosophy, in essence, they were Hellenised Christians and turned Christianity into a philosophy! Here is the real source o the Trinitarian eternal generation! The Neo-Platonic "One, Nous and Soul" No-Platonism is a highly polished version of Platonism. The eternal One eternally emanates, generates the Nous, the Nous is of the same substance as the One and is a copy of it, a stamp, impress an exact representation of the One, in turn, the Nous eternally generates a copy of itself called "World Soul", it is of the same substance as that of the Nous, which is of the same substance as that of the One and down the metaphysical eternal generation ladder it goes until we arrive at lifeless matter (Plato's concept of Forms/Ideas), the Platonic church fathers saw something in this and reworked it until what was ended up with was an eternal Father, who eternally generated his Logos, the so-called Holy Spirit was a reworking of the eternally generated, emanated "World Soul" from the Nous, which was turned into the Logos, this Logos, though an everyday word also had special theological significance to the Stoics, as they taught that the "Logos", was the Mind or Reason that pervaded the whole of the Universe (much like the Force in Star Wars), the Stoics associated the Logos with God and it was from these elements that gave birth in time to a full fledged Triune Doctrine, the fathers at the council of Nicaea were to a greater or lesser degree contaminated, tainted with pagan Greek philosophy, they are the true origin of the Trinity, not the bible, as the Hebrews had no concept of metaphysics until they were contaminated themselves after the death of Alexander the Great, when they began to come under the influence of Greek philosophy and one of the contaminating marks was the Platonic Immortality of the Soul, which is in itself, like substance sharing, not a bible teaching!
You seem to me like the personified "docta ignorantia". God has revealed Himself as Holy Trinity in the New Testament. This Revelation is clear as sunlight. That the Hebrews didn't know that before, is obvious. Thanks to the Triune God for St Thomas Aquinas, his beautiful Scripture based doctrines and their profound and accessible explanations in "Aquinas 101.
Best explanation I've ever heard. I tried explaining this yesterday for a coworker and failed miserably. But now when I go back I can just show him this video. Thank you very much!!!!
I am extremely humbled that out of 8 Billion plus people on the planet; the majority of whom do not know God as we Catholics do; that God has drawn me to know Him thus. The phrase 'there but for the Grace of God go I' should be a tattoo on my forehead. 'No one can come to me unless the Father draw him'. I'm a winner in the life lottery.
This is actually not the Trinity that Christian's believe. Also I don't follow the Catholic religion just because God doesn't like it either because they teach a lot of stuff that God says not to do. But God bless you man I hope you keep increasing your faith in the Lord.
@@chasedollars1643 If you study the history and development of the Trinity it actually traces back through the Catholic Faith all the way to the Apostles. It is strange though if God doesn't like the Catholic Faith then why does He continue to bless it and approve of it with so many fully documented miracles. You would think He would pull back His Graces; not multiply them as He does in the Catholic Faith to this very day. I think you have been influenced by too much anti-catholic mis-information. Just remember that without the Catholic Faith you would not have a bible nor very much of what you consider 'christian'. Right now you are in a sect of your own invention and not part of the Church Jesus began with His Apostles 2000 years ago. Thus you are judging the whole thing backwards. Your sect is only Christian to the degree it still maintains and mimics any of its Catholic heritage.
@@39knights so after watching the whole video I see now that he was explaining the Trinity and not telling you what the Trinity is, so he was just going in debt of what it is, my bad I was wrong. But I still don't agree with a lot of the teachings of the Catholic religion. And you are making it sound like Catholics were before Christian's, because the Bible calls his people Christian's not Catholics, Catholics came after. Catholics is a religion but Christianity is a lifestyle. And it doesn't mean that God doesn't still bless his followers just because they do a few sinful things that the Bible goes against. Like for instance (Matthew 23:9 says that you shall not call anyone on Earth your father for one is your father he who is in heaven) and yet the Catholics call the Pope the holy father. And other stuff like hail Marry and praying to saints and just small stuff like that. And I believe that God blesses a lot of people but even the Islamic religion thinks that God is blessing them but we all know that their lifestyle is bad. I'm not saying that you guys are going to hell 🤣 I'm just saying that I would rather follow exactly what the Bible says then what the Catholic religion thinks. I love everybody
@@39knights also Christians filled with the holy Spirit wrote the Bible. So if Christianity was first then how am I here because of Catholics? Nowhere in the Bible does it mention the word Catholic. So give me the Bible verse that explains your crazy logic that Catholics were first and then came along Christianity
@@chasedollars1643 The fact you are using a Bible at all. I suppose you think the bible somehow magically appeared just as Joseph Smith's golden tablets did??? No. It was the Catholic Faith in the years around 385AD who through their Apostolic Teaching Authority and guided by the Holy Spirit were able to determine the error-free inspired works from amongst the over 5000 pieces claiming to be of divine origin. The bible didn't exist as a coherent recognized document until then. From 385AD until Luther that was the only Bible. By the time Luther and others got done with re-creating their man-made error -ridden false bibles based on their personal whims (ie. Lutheran Bible, Tynsdale Bible, Calvin's bible, KJV, etc.) you again only have a book which is a bible only in so far as it mimics or retains its Catholic Heritage. The same goes for your version of Christianity. It only remains Christian only in so far as it retains its Catholic vestiges. The Apostolic Christians (those formed and taught by the Apostles themselves) didn't really have a name for themselves. Others began calling the 'Jesus-movement' The Way or Followers of The Way. By the time you get to St. Ignatius of Antioch (who was taught by St. John the Apostle) do we see in writing (107AD) that these Apostolic Christian Communities were commonly calling themselves Catholic to distinguish themselves from other communities which had already began to fall away in heresies. "...So give me the Bible verse that explains...." No. You show me where in the bible where it says what books belong in the Bible?? Point me to a library anywhere in the world which has a copy of the bible pre-385AD?? It does not exist. This whole Sola Scritpura is a recent man-made false ideology which did not exist in real christianity before the 1500s. What I can show you is that the earliest recorded evidence for what the Authenticate Apostolic Christian Communities did was they centered themselves around a Bishop who was the recognized appointed successor of an Apostle via the 'laying on of hands', who met in house churches the first day of the week to hear their testimony, the word of God, and to celebrate the eucharist by this Bishop or his appointed delegate (again via the laying on of hands) a priest and they believed in the Real Presence as Catholics do today. The only modern community that can claim direct descendent and faithfulness to these earliest Christians in its fullest form is Catholics today and those we recognize to be in communion with us.Christin
These are lifesaver, im taking medeival philosophy right now and I've been assigned to write an essay on this topic! These vids summarized the main idea very well. God bless
I debate anti Trinity Christians online a lot. One thing I notice is They seem to think they can figure it out. Or have figured it out The Trinity cannot be figured out.
John 17:3 And this is life eternal, that they might know *THEE* the ONLY true God *AND* Jesus Christ, whom thou hast sent. John 20:17 Jesus saith unto her, Touch me not; for I am not yet ascended to my Father: but go to my brethren, and say unto them, I ascend unto *MY Father* and *YOUR Father* and to *MY God* and *YOUR God* *The Trinity Contradicts the Bible* ru-vid.com/video/%D0%B2%D0%B8%D0%B4%D0%B5%D0%BE--IIsPlNaT3Y.html
It's really hard not to drift into the heresy of Modalism. I've battled with this for years. It seems like the Father is the essence, the Logos is the voice, and the Spirit is the active agent. I've come to believe that it's about how God reveals himself to us: as a Being, as a Voice, or as an Agent.
Try Converting your thinking into the realization that God is Love. When you dig yourself out of seeking/experiencing God as Lover, the intellectual scaffolding tends to fall away.
Im a Filipino born and was raise as a Catholic and our place in Manila is near University of Sto Thomas in Espanya so I frequently attend the Sunday Mass there. I remember how a simple Thomasian Filipino priest explained to us Children what the Holy Trinity is for us children to grasp the idea he said There are three personalities in one God, God the Father, God the Son Jesus Christ who accdg to St John of the Cross is the Word of God the Father made flesh and the Love between them is the Holy Spirit! They are all equal in Power thats why they are called Trinity and they are drawn in a Triangular shape! K
For being such a complex and nuanced subject, the Trinity was explained pretty well in this video! My only complaint (if you could call it that) is that the Godhead wasn't talked about. The concept of the Godhead deals with how the three Persons of the immanent Trinity relate to each other on a metaphysical level, _i.e._ in terms of their substance, essence, being, attributes, consciousness, _etc._
The easiest way for me to think of the Holy Trinity is by analogy to man: Self (The Father), Self-Expression (The Word) and Self-Awareness (The Holy Spirit). None of them is the other one but they all make up and are...you. Or in the case of the Holy Trinity, God.
The concept of Trinity is very simple, considering that the third persona, the Parakletos is the spirit of God, the second persona, the Logos is the word, or body of God, and the first persona, the Pater is the source of divinity, or mind of God, while the hypostasis, known as the persona of God, stands for God's manifestation in the world, and these three personas share a single nature, as manifestations of the same God.
Wow! I watched this to try to understand what Christians believe the Trinity is but ended up more confused than ever. Still have no idea how three persons make one.
3 in one just like going to a grocery store buying a toothpaste 3 in 1 if you separate one material from the toothpaste it seizes to be toothpaste but something else thats why i explain to my kids. 🙏
Saying that Son is the Father's "word, rationality and wisdom" (or God's knowledge of himself) and the Holy Spirit is the love between the two is very very different from saying that each is an individual person. In fact it sounds a lot more like Neoplatonism's idea of the One, the Nous and the Soul.
Questions for Trinitarians 1. The Father has a name, the Son has a name. What is the name of the Holy Spirit? 2. In Paul’s epistles, why did he leave out salutations to the Holy Spirit? Eg. Romans 1:1-7, 1Corintians 1:1-3, 2Corintians 1:1-2, Galatians 1:1-5, Ephesians 1:1-2, Philippians 1:1-2, Colossians 1:1-2 3. Why is there no conversation recorded between the Father and the Holy Spirit or the Son and the Holy Spirit? 4. Who is Jesus’ Father? God the Father or God the Holy Spirit? 5. In the Bible, is Jesus the Son of God or God the Son? 6. Isaiah 44:6, how many beings are being mentioned here that are talking? 7. Isaiah 45:21, why is the Holy Spirit not mentioned in this verse? 8. Isaiah 57:15, the Father dwells only with the Son? 9. Matthew 11:27, why is the Holy Spirit not mentioned in this verse? 10. Matthew 28:18-20 - Jesus commanded his disciples to baptise in the Father, Son and Holy Spirit. However, his disciples in the book of Acts only baptise in Jesus name. Why? 11. Why John 1:1 does not mention the Holy Spirit? 12. John 5:30, John 6:38, If the Son is also the Father, why would there be 2 wills? 13. John 10:30, why is the Holy Spirit not mentioned? 14. John 10:30, why Jesus did not include the Holy Spirit? 15. 1Corinthians 3:23, Christ belongs to God or Christ is God? 16. 1Peter1:1-3 and 2Peter1:2, why did Peter leave out salutations to the Holy Spirit? 17. 1John 1:3, why was fellowship with the Holy Spirit omitted? 18. Why was 1John 5:7 only added in AD325? This verse is not found in scriptures before that time. 19. 2John 1:3, why John’s salutation also omit the Holy Spirit? 20. Revelation 5:7, why would God hand the book to Himself? 21. Revelation 11:15, why only mention Lord and Christ but not the Holy Ghost? 22. Revelation 22:1, why is there a seat for Jesus but no seat for the Holy Spirit at the Great White Throne? If the Father is the Son and vice versa, why is there a need for separate thrones?
1. The Holy Spirit does not have a proper name in Scripture, though some Church Fathers called him Paraclete. His name expresses his office - to proceed from the Father and Son as their gift of communion and inspiration to the Church. 2-5. The epistles focus on Christ's redemptive work and ethics for the early Church, not detailed exposition of the immanent Trinity. 6. Isaiah 44:6 alludes to the Father ("first") and Son ("last") as origins of creation. 7-9. Specific mention of persons varies, but the authors' pneumatological assumptions do not need to be read as denials. General references suffice to convey Trinitarian themes. 10. Repentance leads to baptism and baptism in the "name of Jesus" results in the forgiveness of sins (personal sin and original sin) and the gift of the indwelling of the Holy Spirit. This is not in contradiction to the Trinitarian baptismal formula Jesus gave the Apostles in Matthew 28:19, but is a summation "in the "name" of Jesus implies baptism as Jesus' instructed. 11-14. John writes to affirm Jesus' preexistence, divinity and unity with the Father against heresy. Specific mentioning of each person is not John's aim in every text. General coherence with rest of Scripture implied. 15-17, 19. Salutations focus on sender and receiver's relationship, not exhaustive Trinitarian exposition. Omissions do not negate broader biblical and creedal Trinitarianism. 18. It does not change the meaning of verses 7-8 except to clarify that the three witnesses include the three persons of the Most Holy Trinity and places them "in heaven" in parallel to the three witnesses to Christ on earth. Most Biblical scholars assume it was originally a note written in the margin of a manuscript. The theory is that over time it was copied and then inserted into the text itself where it became part of 1 John until the early twentieth century when it was no longer included in the Letter of 1 John. 20-21. God gives or reveals through the Word made flesh as mediator, not necessarily to or from himself in an economic sense. Imagery does not imply partialism. 22. The vision shows distinct yet coequal persons, as focus was on Jesus' parousia, not detailed Trinitarian ontology. The Father's invisible throne is the origin and wellspring of all.
Correct me if I'm wrong. But this explanation feels like The Father thinking about His own mirror reflection, the part of His Wisdom, and then The Word is generated. It's like God having jouska with Himself, and thus, Jesus is generated. And by reading John 1, all the universe we know is created by The Word. It feels I'm wrong here, though.
If the Son, as mentioned, is the rationality, the reason of the Father, does it somehow make the Son be modest compared to the Father's power and nature? Aquinas was influenced greatly by Aristotle, and if say the Son is reason of the Father, it means that the Father is primary substance while the Son is predicate or secondary substance, doesn't it? Except you mean to say that the reason is essence of the human being?
All of it is a great mystery. I keep asking why God created me and other people. Why He put me and others into this earthly existence full of suffering and misfortunes and which is a constant fight between the good and evil?
Saying that the Father is without body, parts, and passions does not cause Him to disappear, however many sectarians claim it is true. Doctrine and Covenants 130:22 The Father has a body of flesh and bones as tangible as man's.
One hears often enough these days that the Holy Spirit IS the love between the Father and the Son. That doesn't seem quite right to me. Is there a proper way to understand what is being said here, or is that just wrong?
The analogy of mutual love is described in St. Augustine's De Trinitate, but he prefers the Analogy of the Word and love. The basic shape of that argument is given in ST Ia Q. 27, a. 3 (aquinas101.thomisticinstitute.org/st-ia-q-27#FPQ27A3THEP1). The anthropological complement to it is found in Q. 93, a. 6 (aquinas101.thomisticinstitute.org/st-ia-q-93#FPQ93A6THEP1). Also, these two lectures (1. soundcloud.com/thomisticinstitute/fr-john-baptist-ku-op-the-triune-god-the-central-mystery-of-the-christian-faith-part-one & 2. soundcloud.com/thomisticinstitute/fr-john-baptist-ku-op-the-triune-god-the-central-mystery-of-the-christian-faith-part-two) will give you an excellent sense of St. Thomas's teaching on the Trinity.
First of all I apologize if this post seems unlearned; I have no training in Christian philosophy, so this question might seem silly. But how is the Son both "uncreated word of the Father" and "generated/begotten from the Father"? I'm not a native English speaker so I might be misunderstanding this, but doesn't the latter imply that there exists a time when the Son is not yet generated/begotten?
The problem in the first place is that Aquinas appears to think that even the nature his deity can be known through wordplay. I question how that is not the height of arrogance.
Great talk on a very difficult subject. I may not be in agreement with one of your diagrams (3:07 - 4:02 minute mark). The Son proceeds from the Father and the Holy Spirit is spirated from the Father through the Son. Through the Son, not around Him but certainly together. The diagram shows two heavy red arrows from both the Father and the Son spirating the Holy Spirit, not from the Father through the Son then spirating the Spirit.
So-does God exist outside of space and time? In that case no conflict because there is no Time. Human concepts like "before" and "after" would not apply?
Of course “time-space” concept doesnt apply to God, since God is outside of time & space. Therefore, the concept of “there is a time when only the Father exist and the son & holy spirit doesnt exist” doesnt match, since God is outside of time. Thats why (if im not mistaken), St Atahanasius once said “If God has no beginning, his Word and his Spirit also doesnt have beginning.”
Ik the bible says that when an animal has an animal that animal is what it came from like if a dog has a baby that baby will be a dog same with a cat a rat and all animals make children after their kind just like what the Bible says. So when God had Jesus, Jesus is God. But Jesus is still different he is different I don't know if that makes sense but it makes sense to me.
So to sum it up, the doctrine is based on interpretations from bible verses? as i didnt see explicit statement about triune god. what i see (from the images) there are more than 1 god
Jesus always prayed to His God. Jesus never said, "I am God" or taught Trinity rather he said, " My Father is greater than I am. I of my own self can do nothing" Even Muslims believe and follow the teachings of Jesus Christ mentioned in the Bible. When asked about the greatest commandment, Jesus replied, "Hear O Israel! The Lord our God is one and only Lord. And you must love the Lord your God with all your heart, all your soul, all your mind and all your strength." Mark 12:29-30. This most important commandment (God is one and only) mentioned in the Bible by Jesus Christ should be the criterion. Ministers must be challenged on misleading statements. We cannot allow to be led around by the nose to believe in absolute nonsense (God is one in 3) that Jesus never taught. To get the correct answer, we should use our common sense and always ask the right question, "Did Jesus say that?"
yeah, but our common sense can be misleading this is why we should appeal to the Divine Revelation rather that our human knowledge. and there are evidence from the Scriptures that show Jesus and the Father are one. its true God is one but exist as different persons. From the video the father quoted; John Chapter 1 "In the beginning was the WORD and the WORD was with God and the WORD was God....VERSE 14 states that the "WORD became flesh and dwelt among us" the word that became flesh was our Lord Jesus Christ who is God the Son became incarnate of the blessed Virgin Mary though the Holy Spirit. John Chapter 8:58 Jesus say "Jesus said to them: Amen, amen, I say to you, before Abraham was made, I AM" reiterating God the father words during the Call of Moses to show that they are different persons but one in divinity John 10:29-30-That which my Father hath given me, is greater than all: and no one can snatch them out of the hand of my Father. [30] I and the Father are one. That is, one divine nature, but two distinct persons.
Is it wrong to pray directly to the holy spirit? Or should Christians always pray to the father "through" the Lord Jesus "in the power" of the holy spirit?
Jesus tells us directly how to pray: Our Father, who art in heaven..... It is Jesus who makes this connection possible. John 14:6: “I am the way, and the truth, and the life. No one comes to the Father except through me." Pray to the Father. The Holy Spirit will act on His will.
We do indeed. Different viewers have offered to undertake both Chinese and Portuguese captions. We don't have the capacity for it, but we're happy to have other jump in.
@@ThomisticInstitute Thank you for the answer. First step, the ideal step, is to upload English captions. Than for us, the rest of the world, would be easy to translate in our native language (for me, Romanian). Second step: in RU-vid settings, allow people to upload subtitles, and the community will do the work. God bless you!
@@ThomisticInstitute It is just great! Now community can enter! Will not be easy (Aquinas is not easy), will not be quick, but it`s a sure way. I will try to involve someday, after the current project of translation.
Catholics always quote men, men whom Jesus said "think evil thoughts continually." They would quote Jesus, except Jesus never said the things they say. By the way , Jesus is The Word. He and the Father are one. There is only a trinity in the deceived minds of catholics. The catholic church, according to Jesus, is " the great harlot " for continually changing The Word.
Isn't this just a hopelessly flawed and human conception of the mystery, and do we not run the risk of holding on to this concept a little too tightly since we have nothing else? I'm not saying this to criticise your work too strongly, I think it is an excellent and knowledgeable presentation. Thomas was using the scientific concepts of the time to think through what he believed by Faith, but this scientific construct was itself extremely questionable. Or what do you think? How can these Aristotelian-scholastic views surmount the modern and postmodern philosophies? Wouldn't Thomas be working within those in this era?
Your point is well taken. Human beings are always liable to make idols of their notions about God. St. Thomas is eminently conscious of this. In Q. 3 of the prima pars, he passes from the proof that God is to a consideration of what God is. At this juncture, he pauses to note that we cannot so much know "what God is" as "how God is not." He expends his energy in the succeeding questions ruling things out from our notion of God: composition, imperfection, defect, change, etc. When it comes to our understanding of the Trinity, we are constrained to do our best with what is given to us in the Lord Jesus Christ, in the the Scripture, and in the Church's tradition. By applying our minds to revelation, we risk reasoning poorly, but were we not to reason at all, what hopes we have for growing in knowledge and love of God would be partially hamstrung by fear of error. I think we can all afford a healthy dose of epistemic humility, but that should prevent us from making attempts according to our best philosophical lights to advance in our pursuit of wisdom.
There's nothing to reconcile because it's not contradicting what was said in this video about procession and the relationship of the Holy Spirit in the Trinity. Yes, the Holy Spirit proceeds from the Father, AND the Son. That's the Catholic "why not both?"
Christ promises to send the Holy Spirit and says that the Spirit proceeds from the Father, but that the Spirit proceeds from the Father doesn't mean that he proceeds only from the Father. St. Thomas's reasoning on the filioque is pretty straightforward: The Persons are distinguished by their respective origins which give rise to relations. Each person just is, for St. Thomas, a subsisting relation. Now, the Son is from the Father alone. If the Holy Spirit were also from the Father alone, what would there be to distinguish him from the Father? Thus, given the Scriptural testimony and the Church's tradition (which he marshals in support), St. Thomas shows how it is reasonable to believe that the Holy Spirit proceeds from both the Father and the Son.
Summa Theologiae Part I Q36 A2 ad 1: We ought not to say about God anything which is not found in Holy Scripture either explicitly or implicitly. But although we do not find it verbally expressed in Holy Scripture that the Holy Ghost proceeds from the Son, still we do find it in the sense of Scripture, especially where the Son says, speaking of the Holy Ghost, "He will glorify Me, because He shall receive of Mine" (John 16:14). It is also a rule of Holy Scripture that whatever is said of the Father, applies to the Son, although there be added an exclusive term; except only as regards what belongs to the opposite relations, whereby the Father and the Son are distinguished from each other. For when the Lord says, "No one knoweth the Son, but the Father," the idea of the Son knowing Himself is not excluded. So therefore when we say that the Holy Ghost proceeds from the Father, even though it be added that He proceeds from the Father alone, the Son would not thereby be at all excluded; because as regards being the principle of the Holy Ghost, the Father and the Son are not opposed to each other, but only as regards the fact that one is the Father, and the other is the Son.
That’s like if I claimed “X&Y are true” and you tried to refute my position by asserting X is true. You would have to prove that only X is true to refute my position. We believe the Holy Spirit proceeds from the Father and the Son. To assert the the Holy Spirit proceeds from the Father does not contradict our view. You would have to show that the Holy Spirit proceeds from the Father alone to show that we are wrong. However we see that the only way to posit a distinction in the person without having differences in the Divine Essence is to say the Persons are different by relations of origin. Now the Orthodox might disagree with this, but they have no explanation for the distinction of the Persons then. So, if the Son and the Holy Spirit both proceed from the Father alone, there would be no way to distinguish the Persons. Thus either the Holy Spirit proceeds from the Father and the Son or the Son proceeds from the Father and the Holy Spirit. But we know that the Son does not proceed from the Holy Spirit. Thus the Filioque must be true.
Why call it 3 separate persons? I am a person separate than you, we are not the same person, so why divide God in 3? There is only one person in the Trinity, Jesus and the Holy Spirit are but manifestation of the same Person, the only and one God creator of the universe.
Comments Add a public comment... Andrew Graham What many Trinitarians do not realise is that "homoousios" (same substance) is based on the pagan Greek concept (metaphysics) of Aristotle's definition of "ousia"; the proto-Trinitarians at Nicaea in 325 ce could find no support or language in the bible to support their novel idea, so they were forced to look outside the bible for support and found the technical jargon they were looking for in Aristotle! Catholics in general andcmost Protestants...have not studied the origin of "ousia", they just simply accept what they have been indoctrinated with! The Triune belief has more in common with Stoicism and Neo-Platonism than the bible. The Trinity is not a bible teaching, thus, whether they realise it or not, Trinitarians are at best pagano/Christians!
Metaphysics is as much a “pagan Greek concept” as geometry is a “pagan Greek concept.” What’s your argument? 1. pagans discovered something 2. ?????? 3. Therefore we can’t use what they discovered What’s premise 2? Metaphysics is literally just the application of reason to the fundamental nature of reality. The use of the word “essence” literally just means nature underlying something. Saying me and you are of the same essence just means we both have a human nature. So the use of ousia or Essence or consubstantiality all just means that the Father and the Son share the same nature. Since they are One God, thus it must follow they have the same One Divine Essence. Furthermore in Hebrews 1:3 it says that the Son is the exact expression of [the Father’s] substance (ὑποστάσεως) The Greek word used (ὑποστάσεως) literally means “ὑπό (hupó, “down, under”) + στάσις (stásis, “standing”)” which is just to capture what we mean by substance, Essence, or nature. Substance = underlying nature or that which is sub-standing.
I'm trying to figure out how we can say that the Son is God in the same sense as the father but at the same time we are saying the father is the origin and the Son is eternally dependent upon the father. Would appreciate any help :)
What you're running into is the "intellectual scaffolding" that theologians erect around the monument of the "mystery of the trinity" in order to study it. God has not changed and we will "see face to face" after death. Continue to respond to God's love through the Holy Spirit and all will be revealed.
Psalm 2:6-7 Jesus is anointed "Son". Acts 4:24-26 and Acts 13:33 show that Jesus is the one in Psalm 2 who is the anointed Son, and given this role. So the interpretation the Apostles give us is that Jesus was clearly pre-existent and given a special anointed by the Father to become the "Son". Since one must exist before given an anointing, role, or position and we do not begin to exist at the moment of an anointing, role, or position Jesus is the Son of God and the Son of man. Both are God yet not the same person and perform a different role in relation to the anointing/roles they meet out. Hence Jesus is God and yet the Son of god. I hope this helps friend be safe and take care God bless in Jesus' great name.
If the Holy Spirit is just the love between the Father and the Son, then in what sense does the Spirit have personhood? That explanation seems to reduce the Spirit to a force or feeling.
@@Eloign fair point. I have no more answers. Maybe we just try to make some sense of things that were revealed to us, and we cant possibly make all this by reason..
So since the father generates the son and the Holy Spirit proceeds from father and son does that mean the father is first and perhaps existed even slightly prior to the others
The Father is a principle without principle. St. Thomas says that he is innascible or unborn. That being said, the processions of the Persons of the Trinity are eternal. There is no time before the Son was. The order and priority is not a temporal order or priority. Rather, it is just to say that the Son is God from the Father from all eternity, and the Holy Spirit is God from the Father and the Son from all eternity. So, we don't want to use the language of priority to suggest before or more importance or somehow having more of the Godhead.
@@ThomisticInstitute Could you please elaborate on the sentence "the father is the origin". How can we say that Jesus ist true God if he is not self sufficient, if he is dependent on the father, if he derives his essence from the father?
@@mikeschmoll7762 You see because God exists outside of time and space the very words like origin and be getting as it deals with the Holy Trinity will have a different meaning. For be getting in human terms would necessarily include time but knowing that Christ has always being there with the Father and The Spirit before time requires that we prayerful ponder at this great mystery and concede that God cannot be fully known for if that be the case he ceases to be God. We can only try to speak of God in relation to His revelation of Himself in scripture and the testimony of the fathers. So we consider the entirety of the scripture and the testimony of the Church and that can only but give a glimpse of who and what God is.
I'm a Roman Catholic Christian and God the Father revealed himself to me in 3 different modes God is = 1. Unitarian as one 2. Binitarian as two 3. Trinitarian as three This is my Revelation from the LORD JESUS 🙏
Did you know that in John 1:1-3, there are different Greek words for both Gods mentioned? The Word, Jesus, (Λόγος or Logos), was with God (Θεόν, or Theon). The Word was God (Θεὸς, or Theos). He, Jesus, was in the beginning with God (Θεόν, Theon). Even though these are different tenses of the same word, they are nevertheless differentiated. Satan was also called θεὸς, or Theos at 2 Corinthians 4:4. Is Satan also God? Don’t know Greek? Neither do I. Let’s break this down a little further shall we? In the beginning was the word (Jesus, Son of God), and the word (Jesus, Son of God) was with God (Almighty God, God the Father), and the word (Jesus, Son of God) was God (Almighty God, God the Father)? No matter how you put it, it doesn’t make sense!! What does make sense is that Jesus, being in the beginning with God (Genesis 1:26, John 1:1), in fact being God’s very first creation (Colossians 1:15, Proverbs 8:22, Revelation 3:14), actually calls God his God and worships God the Father. (Revelation 3:12, John 20:17)
Absolutely (embarrassingly) not; that's just according to your ridiculously pretentious and enormous ignorance; that goes against the doctrine of the Holy Catholic Apostolic Church that Christ Himself founded and promised in the Apostle soon-to-be-first-pope St. Peter (St. Matthew 16,16-19) that wrote, compilated, safeguards and interprets the Holy Scriptures (that a lost heretic like you laughably think to be the holder and best interpreter) themselves. And to be even more embarrassing: Scripture couldn't be more clear that the statement ‘According to all of God's revealed scriptures, including the Holy Bible, God is 100% unary, not triune’ is a utterly ridiculous oxymoron: ‘And God said, “Let US make man in OUR image, after OUR likeness”’(Genesis 1,26); ‘For the Son of Man is Lord of the Sabbath.’ (Matthew 12, 8); ‘Therefore go and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit’ (Matthew 28,19); ‘In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God’ (John 1,1); ‘Jesus said to them, “Most assuredly, I say to you, before Abraham was, I AM.”’ (John 8,58); ‘I and the Father are one’ (John 10, 30); ‘Thomas said to him, “My Lord and my God!”’ (John 20,28)…
So, the son has all the qualities of the father, but is not himself the father? But, if A has the same qualities as B, wouldn't we say that A == B? I understand that, The Father is God, the Son is God, and the Holy Spirit is God, but the Father != the Son != the Holy spirit? But how can this be? Is it a paradox?
The Son has all the qualities of the Father, but he has them from the Father. The distinction of the Persons of the Trinity, for St. Thomas, is bound up with their respective origins. The Father is not from another Person. The Son is begotten by the Father, and the Father and Son breathe forth the Holy Spirit. From these processions, there arise relations. The Father is related to the Son (paternity) and the Son to the Father (filiation). Also, the Father and Son are related to the Holy Spirit (common spiration) and the Holy Spirit is related to the Father and Son (procession). St. Thomas goes on to describe the Persons as subsisting relations. Each person subsists in the divine nature as related to the other Persons of the Trinity in light of their distinct origin.
@@ThomisticInstitute I have human nature from my parents. I am human, they are human. We all have the same kind of nature. But that does not make us one man but three. How is it possible for the Father, Son and Spirit to be one God only because they have the same kind of nature? It's impossible.
@@florentin-teodorconstantin7316 your difficulty may lie in the fact that, when the doctrine of the Trinity was affirmed, the use of the term "person" held different meaning than it does today. I think you could benefit from studying the Trinity from this perspective.
@@florentin-teodorconstantin7316 It's not impossible, it can be explained by the Doctrine of Divine simplicity. Each Divine Person of Holy Trinity is not an instance of a kind. God is his own existence.
Is the Trinity true? “Hear, O Yisra’ĕl: יהוה our Elohim, יהוה is one! Deḇarim (Deuteronomy) 6:4 “You heard that I said to you, ‘I am going away and I am coming to you.’ If you did love Me, you would have rejoiced that I said, ‘I am going to the Father,’ for My Father is greater than I. Yoḥanan (John) 14:28 Yeshua said these words, and lifted up His eyes to the heaven, and said, “Father, the hour has come. Esteem Your Son, so that Your Son also might esteem You, “And this is everlasting life, that they should know You, the only true Elohim, and Yeshua Messiah whom You have sent. Yoḥanan (John) 17:1, 3 Yeshua said to her, “Do not hold on to Me, for I have not yet ascended to My Father. But go to My brothers and say to them, ‘I am ascending to My Father and your Father, and to My Elohim and your Elohim.’ ” Yoḥanan (John) 20:17 “He who overcomes, I shall make him a supporting post in the Dwelling Place of My Elohim, and he shall by no means go out. And I shall write on him the Name of My Elohim and the name of the city of My Elohim, the new Yerushalayim, which comes down out of the heaven from My Elohim, and My new Name. Ḥazon (Revelation) 3:12 And you belong to Messiah, and Messiah belongs to Elohim. Qorintiyim Aleph (1 Corinthians) 3:23 For even if there are so-called mighty ones, whether in heaven or on earth - as there are many mighty ones and many masters - for us there is one Elohim, the Father, from whom all came and for whom we live, and one Master YESHUA Messiah, through whom all came and through whom we live. Qorintiyim Aleph (1 Corinthians) 8:5-6 one Elohim and Father of all, who is above all, and through all, and in you all. Eph`siyim (Ephesians) 4:6
Well trinity peeps. You have some interesting fellow worshipers. Enjoy and sleep well. Sumeria "The universe was divided into three regions each of which became the domain of a god. Anu's share was the sky. The earth was given to Enlil. Ea became the ruler of the waters. Together they constituted the triad of the Great Gods" (The Larousse Encyclopedia of Mythology, 1994, pp. 54-55) Babylonia: "The ancient Babylonians recognised the doctrine of a trinity, or three persons in one god-as appears from a composite god with three heads forming part of their mythology, and the use of the equilateral triangle, also, as an emblem of such trinity in unity" (Thomas Dennis Rock, The Mystical Woman and the Cities of the Nations, 1867, pp. 22-23). India: "The Puranas, one of the Hindoo Bibles of more than 3,000 years ago, contain the following passage: 'O ye three Lords! know that I recognize only one God. Inform me, therefore, which of you is the true divinity, that I may address to him alone my adorations.' The three gods, Brahma, Vishnu, and Siva [or Shiva], becoming manifest to him, replied, 'Learn, O devotee, that there is no real distinction between us. What to you appears such is only the semblance. The single being appears under three forms by the acts of creation, preservation, and destruction, but he is one.' "Hence the triangle was adopted by all the ancient nations as a symbol of the Deity . . . Three was considered among all the pagan nations as the chief of the mystical numbers, because, as Aristotle remarks, it contains within itself a beginning, a middle, and an end. Hence we find it designating some of the attributes of almost all the pagan gods" (Sinclair, pp. 382-383). Greece: "In the Fourth Century B.C. Aristotle wrote: 'All things are three, and thrice is all: and let us use this number in the worship of the gods; for, as the Pythagoreans say, everything and all things are bounded by threes, for the end, the middle and the beginning have this number in everything, and these compose the number of the Trinity'" (Arthur Weigall, Paganism in Our Christianity, 1928, pp. 197-198). Egypt: "The Hymn to Amun decreed that 'No god came into being before him (Amun)' and that 'All gods are three: Amun, Re and Ptah, and there is no second to them. Hidden is his name as Amon, he is Re in face, and his body is Ptah.' . . . This is a statement of trinity, the three chief gods of Egypt subsumed into one of them, Amon. Clearly, the concept of organic unity within plurality got an extraordinary boost with this formulation. Theologically, in a crude form it came strikingly close to the later Christian form of plural Trinitarian monotheism" (Simson Najovits, Egypt, Trunk of the Tree, Vol. 2, 2004, pp. 83-84). Other areas: Many other areas had their own divine trinities. In Greece they were Zeus, Poseidon and Adonis. The Phoenicians worshipped Ulomus, Ulosuros and Eliun. Rome worshipped Jupiter, Neptune and Pluto. In Germanic nations they were called Wodan, Thor and Fricco. Regarding the Celts, one source states, "The ancient heathen deities of the pagan Irish[,] Criosan, Biosena, and Seeva, or Sheeva, are doubtless the Creeshna [Krishna], Veeshnu [Vishnu], [or the all-inclusive] Brahma, and Seeva [Shiva], of the Hindoos" (Thomas Maurice, The History of Hindostan, Vol. 2, 1798, p. 171). "The origin of the conception is entirely pagan" Egyptologist Arthur Weigall, while himself a Trinitarian, summed up the influence of ancient beliefs on the adoption of the Trinity doctrine by the Catholic Church in the following excerpt from his previously cited book: "It must not be forgotten that Jesus Christ never mentioned such a phenomenon [the Trinity], and nowhere in the New Testament does the word 'Trinity' appear. The idea was only adopted by the Church three hundred years after the death of our Lord; and the origin of the conception is entirely pagan . . . "The ancient Egyptians, whose influence on early religious thought was profound, usually arranged their gods or goddesses in trinities: there was the trinity of Osiris, Isis, and Horus, the trinity of Amen, Mut, and Khonsu, the trinity of Khnum, Satis, and Anukis, and so forth . . . "The early Christians, however, did not at first think of applying the idea to their own faith. They paid their devotions to God the Father and to Jesus Christ, the Son of God, and they recognized the mysterious and undefined existence of the Holy Spirit; but there was no thought of these three being an actual Trinity, co-equal and united in One . . . "The application of this old pagan conception of a Trinity to Christian theology was made possible by the recognition of the Holy Spirit as the required third 'Person,' co-equal with the other 'Persons' . . . "The idea of the Spirit being co-equal with God was not generally recognised until the second half of the Fourth Century A.D. . . . In the year 381 the Council of Constantinople added to the earlier Nicene Creed a description of the Holy Spirit as 'the Lord, and giver of life, who proceedeth from the Father, who with the Father and Son together is worshipped and glorified.' . . . "Thus, the Athanasian creed, which is a later composition but reflects the general conceptions of Athanasius [the 4th-century Trinitarian whose view eventually became official doctrine] and his school, formulated the conception of a co-equal Trinity wherein the Holy Spirit was the third 'Person'; and so it was made a dogma of the faith, and belief in the Three in One and One in Three became a paramount doctrine of Christianity, though not without terrible riots and bloodshed . . . "Today a Christian thinker . . . has no wish to be precise about it, more especially since the definition is obviously pagan in origin and was not adopted by the Church until nearly three hundred years after Christ" (pp. 197-203
THE FATHER ALSO THE SON ( MESSIAH / CHRIST ) AND THE HOLY SPIRIT IS THE WORD'S ROLE IN HIS ETERNAL ECONOMY BEFORE AND AFTER BECOMING GOD-MAN. Romans 9:5 Messiah The Son is God. In the OT, the Messiah the Word became God- Man (God in form of man) named Melchizedek, As God-Man wrestled with Jacob, As God Man - Commander of God's Armies met Joshua, As God Man met Manoah and his wife. In the NT, the Messiah the Son / The Word became God-Man ( Man incarnated from God) named Jesus.
