Posted on 06/14/2006 8:05:55 AM PDT by NYer
We believe in the Blessed Trinity because we believe in Jesus, Who revealed the Trinity. God had prepared the Jews not only to welcome the Messiah, but to recognize through revelation what philosophers like Aristotle achieved through reason: that there is a God and there can only be one God.
Moses said to the Jews, “Acknowledge today and take to heart that the Lord is God in heaven above and on the earth beneath; there is no other but to believe in God Who is the only God.” When the Messiah finally came, He revealed a huge mystery that went far beyond what the Jews were expecting: that the one God in Whom they believe is not solitary, but a unity, a communion of three persons, Father, Son and Holy Spirit, and that the Messiah is the Son.
He told them explicitly that the Father and He are one (Jn 10:30). He told them that He and the Father would send the Holy Spirit (Jn 14:26, Jn 15:26). And when He sent them out to baptize in the name of God, He didn’t give them instructions to baptize in the “names” of the Father, Son and Holy Spirit — as if they were three different gods — but in the “name,” for they are fundamentally a union of three persons. This is what the term Trinity means. It was devised by the early Church apologist Tertullian around the year 200 from the Latin words “unitas” and “trinus,” literally “unity” and “three.” It signifies that there is a unity of three persons in one God.
Since the beginning of the Church, theologians have spent their lives trying to penetrate this mystery and explain it to others. St. Patrick used the image of a three-leaf clover. St. Augustine used the image of the mind, with memory, reason and will. More recent minds have used the image of H20, which can exist as ice, water, or steam. But none of these analogies — though interesting and somewhat helpful — do justice to the reality of the mystery of how three persons can exist in the one God.
When St. Augustine was in the middle of his voluminous and classic study of the Blessed Trinity, he took a walk along the beach in northern Africa to try to clear his head and pray. He saw a young girl repeatedly filling a scallop shell with sea water and emptying it into a hole she had dug in the sand. “What are you doing?” Augustine tenderly asked. “I'm trying to empty the sea into this hole,” the child replied. “How do you think that with a little shell,” Augustine retorted, “you can possibly empty this immense ocean into a tiny hole?” The little girl countered, “And how do you, with your small head, think you can comprehend the immensity of God?” As soon as the girl said this, she disappeared, convincing Augustine that she had been an angel sent to teach him an important lesson: No matter how gifted God had made him, he would never be able to comprehend fully the mystery of the Trinity.
This, of course, does not mean we cannot understand anything. If we want to get to the heart of the mystery of the Trinity, we can turn to the most theological of the Apostles, who meditated deeply on all that Jesus had revealed and, inspired by the Holy Spirit, said simply and synthetically, “God is love” (1 Jn 4:16). For God to be love, He has to love someone. None of us can love in a vacuum; there must always be an object of our love. Who is the object of God’s love? It cannot be man, or the created world, or the universe, because all of these existed in time and God is eternal and therefore existed before time.
It’s also impossible to say that God merely loved Himself in a solitary way, because this would not really be love but a form of egotism and narcissism. For God to be love, there needed to be an eternal relationship of love, with one who loves, one who is loved, and the love that unites them. This is what exists in the Blessed Trinity: The Father loved His image, the Son, so much that their mutual and eternal love “spirated” or “generated” the Holy Spirit. They exist in a communion of love. The three persons of the Blessed Trinity are united in absolutely everything except, as the early Church councils said, their “relations of origin,” what it means to be Father, what it means to be Son of the Father, and what it means to proceed from the Father and the Son.
These theological insights about the blessed Trinity may seem theoretical, but they become highly practical when we reflect on the fact that we have been made in the image and likeness of God and called to communion with God. To be in the image and likeness of God means to be created in the image and likeness of a communion of persons in love. Our belief in the Trinity — the central teaching of the Catholic faith — has given the Church the deepest understanding available to human beings of the nature of man, the meaning of human life, and what it means to love.
The blessing that is extended to Mary in the Magnificat is the same as the blessing extending to Jesus. And Mary is told by Gabriel that the Lord is with her. This means that Mary is already in a state of grace, else her soul would obscure the Lord rather than magnify him.
Of course timeframe is relevant. Was she weeks away from marriage ... or ... who knows when ?
Sorry, but it's not relevant. How many years did God take to give Sarah a child? Yet she knew that He meant the child would come about through marital relations. She didn't ask "how can this be?"
Right ... Sarah laughed in disbelief.
The time frame does not matter. The facts are Mary was betrothed and any normal girl in that situation would not question how a baby could come to be conceived in her.
The time-frame does matter. The timing of Mary marrying is sufficiently ambiguous so that some young girls in her position, as opposed to all young girls in her position, ... would ask such a question.
Also consider that Mary's announcement came in a miraculous way. It is not reaching to suppose that Mary might want to know ... 'how will this happen ?'
It could be that something about the angel's delivery caused Mary to expect a sooner, rather than a later, fulfillment.
That's a possible, sensible answer. But it still doesn't explain Mary's answer that she "knows not" man. She doesn't say she has not known a man (past tense), but that she does not (present and continuing).
"I have not eaten meat" is different from "I do not eat meat."
Or, more reasonably, ... "Presently, I don't eat meat."
We believe in the trinity because it is revealed in scripture. Scripture -- the words of the apostles -- is the only source we have for this teaching.
The proper exposition of scripture reveals it to be the truth.
Since you left them out, I'll mention that the "immaculate conception" and "assumption" are also not found in Scripture. Many non-Catholics don't realize that those Catholic terms apply to Mary (and not to our Lord).
I don't know who Marcus Grodi is. (sorry)
But I think if you had to provide proof that there are 33,000 protestant denominations that are very distict and separate, you would have a very difficult time indeed. I am providing a link of those supposed 33,000 denominations you can see that they are often times only separated by distinction of location. http://66.102.7.104/search?q=cache:3XISpAa6nnMJ:www.adherents.com/+adherants+denominations&hl=en&gl=us&ct=clnk&cd=1
Using Grodi's method of identifying distinct denominations, we can see there are many, many separate listings for Catholic Church (in addition to the following list, there are also listings under Russian othodox, orthodox etc....):
Catholic: 1,100,000,000 (2121 recs.)
Catholic - affiliated
Catholic - Albanian Catholic Church: 1,405
Catholic - Alexandrian Rites: 385,065
Catholic - Antiochene Rites: 3,381,484
Catholic - Antiochene/Syrian Rites
Catholic - Armenian Catholic: 334,860 (3 recs.)
Catholic - attend at least monthly (18 recs.)
Catholic - attend regularly (8 recs.)
Catholic - attend weekly (16 recs.)
Catholic - Augustinian: 4,500 (2 recs.)
Catholic - Belarussian Catholic Church: 30,000
Catholic - Benedictine
Catholic - bishops (56 recs.)
Catholic - black (7 recs.)
Catholic - black congregations
Catholic - Bohemian parishes
Catholic - born-again (2 recs.)
Catholic - brothers (2 recs.)
Catholic - Bulgarian Catholic Church: 20,000
Catholic - Byzantine Rites: 8,995,048 (3 recs.)
Catholic - Capuchin
Catholic - Carmelite: 13,000 (2 recs.)
Catholic - Carthusian (2 recs.)
Catholic - Celestines
Catholic - Chaldean Catholic Church: 308,409 (5 recs.)
Catholic - Chaldean Rites: 3,588,995 (3 recs.)
Catholic - churchgoers (5 recs.)
Catholic - Cistercian (15 recs.)
Catholic - clergy (5 recs.)
Catholic - Cluny Order (4 recs.)
Catholic - colleges and universities (2 recs.)
Catholic - Coptic Catholic: 192,955 (3 recs.)
Catholic - Czech Catholic Church
Catholic - Dominican
Catholic - Eastern Rite: 12,000,000 (2 recs.)
Catholic - Ethiopian Catholic: 192,110
Catholic - evangelical
Catholic - foreign language parishes
Catholic - Franciscan (9 recs.)
Catholic - French parishes
Catholic - German parishes
Catholic - Greek Catholic: 2,300 (7 recs.)
Catholic - Hispanic
Catholic - Hungarian Catholic Church: 280,750
Catholic - Indian language parishes
Catholic - Italian parishes
Catholic - Italo-Albanian Catholic Church: 61,597
Catholic - Jesuit: 25,000 (8 recs.)
Catholic - Knights of Columbus: 1,600,000 (2 recs.)
Catholic - Krizevei Catholic Church: 48,937
Catholic - Latin Rite: 997,000,000 (19 recs.)
Catholic - Lithuanian parishes
Catholic - Malankarese Catholic
Catholic - Maronite: 2,948,949 (14 recs.)
Catholic - Melkite Catholic Church: 1,073,340 (2 recs.)
Catholic - miscellaneous language parishes
Catholic - missionaries
Catholic - nominal (2 recs.)
Catholic - non-Roman: 16,700,000 (3 recs.)
Catholic - nuns (66 recs.)
Catholic - official
Catholic - other (17 recs.)
Catholic - Pentecostal: 80,000,000 (16 recs.)
Catholic - Polish parishes
Catholic - practicing (8 recs.)
Catholic - priests (64 recs.)
Catholic - priests, diocesan
Catholic - priests, religious
Catholic - Redemptorist
Catholic - Redemptoristine
Catholic - Romanian Catholic Church: 1,423,800
Catholic - Russian Catholic Church: 4,000
Catholic - Ruthenian Catholic Church: 495,888 (2 recs.)
Catholic - secular apostolic institutes: 15,000
Catholic - seminarians (49 recs.)
Catholic - seminarians, major (2 recs.)
Catholic - Slavic parishes
Catholic - Slovak parishes
Catholic - Slovakian Catholic Church: 229,190
Catholic - Spanish parishes
Catholic - Syrian Catholic Church: 109,547
Catholic - Syro-Malabarese Catholic Church: 3,280,586 (2 recs.)
Catholic - Syro-Malankara: 322,988 (2 recs.)
Catholic - Trappist (4 recs.)
Catholic - Trappistine (2 recs.)
Catholic - Ukrainian Catholic: 5,323,841 (29 recs.)
Catholic - Uniate (16 recs.)
Catholic - Ursuline (2 recs.)
Catholic - Vietnamese parishes (2 recs.)
Catholic - white
Catholic - Xaverian Brothers
Catholic Alliance
Catholic Apostolic Church (Irvingites) (7 recs.)
Catholic Apostolic Church at Davis
Catholic Apostolic Church in America (7 recs.)
Catholic Charismatic Renewal
Catholic Christian Church (2 recs.)
Catholic Church of the Apostles of the Latter Times (2 recs.)
Catholic Golden Age
Catholic Life Church
Catholic Patriotic Church
Protestants are not broken up into 33,000 distict denominations any more than the Catholic Church is broken by the above "denominations."
Major Denominational Families of Christianity
Branch Number of Adherents
Catholic - 1,050,000,000
Orthodox/Eastern Christian - 240,000,000
African indigenous sects (AICs) - 110,000,000
Pentecostal - 105,000,000
Reformed/Presbyterian/Congregational/United - 75,000,000
Anglican - 73,000,000
Baptist - 70,000,000
Methodist - 70,000,000
Lutheran - 64,000,000
Jehovah's Witnesses - 14,800,000
Adventist - 12,000,000
Latter Day Saints - 12,500,000
Apostolic/New Apostolic - 10,000,000
Stone-Campbell ("Restoration Movement") - 5,400,000
New Thought (Unity, Christian Science, etc.) - 1,500,000
Brethren (incl. Plymouth) - 1,500,000
Mennonite - 1,250,000
Friends (Quakers) - 300,000
(Catholic: Includes Old Catholic, Aglipayan (Philipines), Uniate, in addition to the Catholic Church headquartered at the Vatican. Occasionally "Catholic" is used, as in the table above, to refer to a branch of Christianity that includes the Catholic Church headquartered at the Vatican, as well as relatively recent off-shoots that still consider themselves Catholic, such as the Old Catholic churches. Certainly it also includes non-Latin Rite Catholic churches such as Uniates, Greek Catholics, Ukrainian Catholics, Maronites, etc., all of which are in full papal communion and regarded as part of the same religious body as the "Roman Catholic" church. The fact that there are non-Latin Rite Catholics such as these is one of the reasons that many Catholics do not like the term "Roman Catholic Church" as a name for their church. While "Roman Catholic" has long been used without any offense intended, it is increasingly disliked by some members of the Vatican-based Catholic Church, and in nearly every place on this web site that this church is mentioned, the term "Catholic Church" is used. "Roman" is left off, as both inaccurate and potentially objectionable. On other pages, the term "Catholics" by itself refers to members of the Vatican-based Catholic Church, whether they be Roman Catholics, Greek Catholics, Ukrainian Catholics, Uniates, Coptic Catholics, etc. )
Wow, she called a saint a pinhead! LOL
She must have been an angel, she sure had a message!
Just so we're all clear, can you cite chapter and verse for "sola fide", "sola scriptura", rapture and dispensationalism?
But she didn't pretend she didn't know where babies come from.
The time-frame does matter. The timing of Mary marrying is sufficiently ambiguous so that some young girls in her position, as opposed to all young girls in her position, ... would ask such a question.
I find that dubious. Find me a young engaged girl. Tell her you've had a vision that she is going to conceive a child. Assuming she doesn't think you're mental, I bet she doesn't ask how this could be.
SD
For you, sure. It's right there, not very far from where it says, "Trinity."
Quester is right, Dave. Mat. 1:18 plainly states that Miryam (Mary) and Joseph were "espoused" or "bethrothed" to Joseph, and the very next verse states that Joseph, her husband-to-be, was considering divorcing her quietly for what he thought was the result of infidelity during the engagement period.
I understand Protestant apprehension about the Immaculate Conception and the Assumption; however, I have never understood why perpetual virginity is a stumbling block for them.
You mean it's really NOT
"the immaculate contraption?"
How can Quester be "right" about this when I never denied this. Can you explain further what you mean? We were talking about the angel's annuniciation to Mary and her response and whether they made any sense given the Protestant meme that Mary was just a normal girl waiting to be officially married and start having children.
SD
It isn't a stumbling block. It would be a great joy to believe that someone besides Christ was sinless and exalted, but by doing so, don't you think you lessen the divinity of Christ? I mean He IS God incarnate and perfect isn't he? Is Mary also God incarnate or simply a very pure vessel in which the Lord was born into the tribe of Judah. She in fact was the purest of the lineage of David, but she is not God incarnate...therefore she is not perfect.
Besides it is not Biblical http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-religion/1649201/posts?page=89#89
Each individual has their own unique truths of faith. That's because these truths are learned and we all receive it differently, no matter how consistently taught. Therefore, we all have our own perception of the Lord. To argue it is meaningless.
It's funny, as a Swedenborgian we believe in the Trinity of Person in Jesus Christ but we reject Sola fide. Here on FR, I tend to agree with Catholics more than not on the important stuff - how we live our lives according to our faiths. Meanwhile, a good number of protestants who seem more concerned what a person thinks than any charity in their hearts.
In Matthew:
22:36 "Teacher, which is the great commandment in the law?"
22:37 Jesus said to him, "'You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, with all your soul, and with all your mind.'
22:38 This is the first and great commandment.
22:39 And the second is like it: 'You shall love your neighbor as yourself.'
22:40 On these two commandments hang all the Law and the Prophets."
If we all kept this in mind as Christians, we could do a lot to move forward. Swedenborg writes that loving your neighbor does NOT include attacking their beliefs.
Near as I can tell, it's an afront to their ability to read the Bible in plain English and understand it perfectly. If you must take into consideration the culture, language and historical understanding; not to mention the logic of which Joses is which and which Mary is which, and why is the Mother of Jesus called "the other Mary" you begin to question your ability to know all by yourself.
It's easier to simply take the words at face value, pluck out quotes as needed and use them as a cudgel to beat up on Catholics.
SD
Nobody has EVER suggested that Mary was divine.
But by the same token, why is it so difficult to believe that God bestowed Salvation on Mary prior to her birth? Catholicism does not contend that Mary didn't require a Savior, just that her Salvation preceeded ours.
Finally, were Adam and Eve conceived free from sin (i.e. in an immaculate state)?
Don't some Swedenborgians reject the Trinity outright?
A perfect human is not the same thing as a divine being.
I'm not sure why Protestants make this error over and over, but they do. "Human nature" does not equal "sin." And "human perfection" does not equal "divinity."
I'm not sure which is worse, artificially elevating even the purest human to divine status, or lowering the concept of divinity to be merely that of a human with no sins.
SD
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