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Just a shout out to my good friend David, WHAAAATS Up !, as they would say. Thanks for comming by to add your expertice using the Biblical Sciences and Original Language's, Structures [Aramaic, Hebrew, Koine A Greek] which Johnny and FiatLux seem to be ignorant Of [That includes me also]. Why is it our critics "NEVER, EVER" use the cultural meanings of the Biblical world as they were used by them. Causes problems dosen't it David, They see, but they see not!.

Hey Tanyan! What up?! No problem. Thanks for emailing me and asking me to visit. I haven't had a lot of time of late and have been posting only sporadically. This will have to continue for a time but I thought I'd pop in while I had a few spare moments. Anyway, you asked me to address John 1:1. I do not have time to hunt the post down so I'll just make a few comments. You are correct to observe that many people try to force later definitions onto earlier words when they should be trying to read the early texts using the early understanding, insofar as that can be recovered. It simply will not do to read a first century collection of texts through fourth century or later glasses. Few understand that and the more people who do come to this understanding the better things will be. I do not forsee that coming for quite some time.

John 1:1 is problematic because Greek has two grammatical usages for the word we translate God in that passage (one a noun and the other a predicate construction that causes the latter occurrence of the word God to become a quasi-adjective) but English only has one, which is a noun. Thus, you can see the confusion that results from reading of English texts. Here is John 1:1, with brackets added, to show what I am saying about the passage:

John 1:1: En arkh
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Since everyone or no one for that matter answered this I will re-hash it......

See if this makes sense:

Paul has told me repeatedly that 3 personhoods equal 3 Gods and that is THE ONLY WAY TO SLICE IT? Let me ask you this:

How many personalities/personhoods exist within a ONE Schizophrenic?

Answer: More than one

FIRST OFF, (before I get slammed) this is by no-way and no means speaking of the mental capacity/stability or anything related to Gods psychological state. The intent of this analogy is to prove that just because it doesn't seem rational doesn't make it impossible or wrong. Schizophrenia isn't rational, but its real. The reaity of Schizophrnia alone, absolutely breaks the back of your 1 to 1 theory if you will. Now with that being proven to not be the only possible way (although most common) for the human mind and personalities to exist..............how can you begin to fathom the possibilities of his makeup and while doing so applying your limitations to him?

Simply saying 3 personhoods MUST BE DIVIDED into 3 seperate Gods doesn't even apply to us as humans (3 personalities can exist within 1 person), so by what rational do you apply it to God? Is God not capable of taking this state of being and perfect it?

Thanks

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...Simply saying 3 personhoods MUST BE DIVIDED into 3 seperate Gods doesn't even apply to us as humans (3 personalities can exist within 1 person), so by what rational do you apply it to God? Is God not capable of taking this state of being and perfect it?...

One cannot perfect a genetic defect but one can replace the defect with a perfect genetic structure. Of course, that would do away with the genetic defect and the state of having more than one personality would cease. On that note, there is a very real difference between a personality and a person participating in personhood. Personhood is the state of being a person while a person is an independent center of consciouness. A personality is the collection of qualities of a person.

To say that God had perfected the state found in schizophrenia and uses it himself is to participate in the ancient Modalist heresies in all their forms. The persons are really distinct while sharing the same essence or nature of deity amongst them, as is found in the various traditional doctries of the Trinity in any one of its forms, and even to a degree in the LDS view if one thinks it through far enough. The difference, of course, between the traditional view and the LDS view is that no one person of the Trinity can be any less than the others, all three have always been part of a simple whole, and all three equally share that nature as part of a single divinity that cannot exist without any one of the persons, whereas the LDS view allows for some time before time and before all creation where the Son and Holy Spirit were not entities of a Trinity with the Father, and where the Father can and did exist as one person and divinity before begetting the Son and so forth.

Of course, on the other hand there is the doctrine of eternal generaton of a number of early church fathers which maintains that God before all worlds generated the Son from himself, which view has somewhat in common with the LDS view that God begat the Son before all creation, and that before that event of generation in the eternity before time as we know it, the Son was in the Father as the tribe of Levi was said to be in Abraham by the Bible. Of course, yet another difference there is that there is no room for a heavenly mother in the generation of the Son in the views of the early fathers. That is where the similarities and differences between Catholic and LDS Christian views of the Trinity lay.

Yet, various Modalist heresies speak of God as manifesting three personalities, masks, or modes of existence of one person, which is antithetical even to the traditional doctrine of the Trinity. Your Modalist analogy is invalidated on several fronts. I suspect that is why no one addressed it until now.

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noahnoah  writes,

Paul has told me repeatedly that 3 personhoods equal 3 Gods and that is THE ONLY WAY TO SLICE IT?

3 personhoods DO NOT equal 3 Gods

Simply saying 3 personhoods MUST BE DIVIDED into 3 seperate Gods doesn't even apply to us as humans (3 personalities can exist within 1 person), so by what rational do you apply it to God?

Saying that their are 3 seperate Gods is DIVIDING God which is simply is not consistent with scripture because scripture repeatedly states that God is one.

Is God not capable of taking this state of being and perfect it?

"Personhod" represents the distinction between them. Each "person" is distinct in their relations of origin, it is the Father who generates, the Son who is begotten, and the Holy Spirit who proceeds. Each of the divine persons is God whole and entire, by nature one God

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Tanyan,

Let me help you translate what David is saying ...

He is saying that John 1:1 is saying that Jesus is the only Son of the Father and he is God himself

Perhaps you should help yourself a bit. The second reference to God in John 1:1c refers to the nature or quality of Deity, not to either a person or a substance. The first reference refers to an actual person, who is the Father.

That makes us anointed ... that makes us sons of God ... it does not makes us God because the anointing comes from God.

Remember that son of God = nature of God? If so, sons of God = ?

I know you want to avoid that possibility but the early fathers understood the term sons of God to mean participation in the Divine Nature, meaning godhood. A number of the fathers were quite clear that the saints would "become God" (their words not mine) by this participation in divinity as sons of God. Of course, I acknowledge that later Necene and Post-Nicene theology increasingly widened the gulf in that participation, making distinctions in that the Son of God is God by nature whereas we are made God by grace (their words not mine).

I was hoping you would explain your words "This is not allowed by traditional trinitarianism" because I would differ with your words at face value but I wanted to better understand what your reasoning was.

Traditional Trinitarianism cannot allow a complete union between God and man in that the nature of manhood is swallowed up in the nature of divinity, the two natures being forever separate as to essence, and cannot allow that the unity of Father and Son is the same as that which will be shared among the saints as they are united to God in the same way Father and Son are united now. This would cause a complete union of man with God and equal participants with God in the Divine Nature. While earlier theologians did not see the distinction, later theologians were clear that the union itself cannot ever be a perfect unity because the entire essence of the Divinity would rest in more than the three persons in the Trinity. This is not allowed by traditonal trinitarianism because the entire essence of the Divinity rests only in the Trinity and cannot be equally shared with God by those who are said to be sons of God by grace, and the gulf between the natures of God and man are forever separated though their spirits are united. Can't get much clearer than that. :P

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