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To: Eagle Eye
"God is one, yet you claim that God is three."

The above is a false statement.

It is true that God is one.

He reveals Himself in three persons.

Here is an example of how somebody might be revealed as two persons, but is the same. It is a philosophical lesson in identifying the issue of De Re vs De Dicto which had been studied by the RCC in some of its doctrines, although I haven't read the source studies. I believe they preceded Quine's studies on the term. Here it goes:

Bob and Susie were college newlyweds. Bob was pursuing his graduate degree, while Susie attended a few courses but remained in their small home most of the time supporting Bob. Bob would leave early in the morning for an 7am class and study till the wee hours of the morning. Susie frequently slept a little later and would then arise about 8 after Bob had left, and walk up a little lane to a coffee shop for a pastry and take in the dew and fresh sun.

Occasionally as Susie walked the lane, she encountered an elderly gent walking his dog, approaching her from the opposite direction and they would exchange pleasantries. One morning, as this familiar scene unfolded, Susie struck up a consversation about the dog and the morning and the gent introduced himself as Tom. Occasionally Tom and Susie would meet and discuss many things in life, but always from a polite and grandfather to granddaughter type perspective. Nothing was thought more about these simple encounters and both pursued their own lives.

Later Susie related to Bob about this wonderful old man she met with his cute dog and how they would discuss this or that, meanwhile, Bob, rather unamused, would simply listen to her. Susie claimed she thought Bob knew him, but Bob refused to acknowledge he ever knew such a man.

Later in the semester, Bob came home from his courses very frustrated and exclaimed, "That dirty Dr. Brown, what an #####**%, I spent 40 hours on this paper and he gives me a negative grade, ...I know this better than anybody else there, but they make buffoons out us as slaves, what a @$##**$" Susie, attempting to calm Bob down attempted to reassure him that maybe it wasn't that bad and besides, "How could anybody give out a negative grade?". Bob responded, "You know Dr. Brown, I've pointed him out to you, and you know how much he hates me from all the past grades he's given me,..they're never fair!". Susie responds, "I have no idea who Dr. Brown is and no I don't believe you've ever introduced us." Bob reacts, "Oh you know him, I know you do, you just don't admit it." Susie responds simply, "I don't know Dr. Brown!"

At this point, rather than argue, Susie decides to change the topic of discussion and encourages her husband to go with her to the bakery and get away from it all. It's a pleasant morning and he needed to get his mind off of school.

Half way up the lane, Bob and Susie meet the genteel old man walking his dog as he comes around the corner.

Susie beams up and "Hi, Tom!, I want you to meet my husband Bob!"

Tom looks angrily at the man, "Good morning Dr, Brown!", and stares at Susie and accuses, "You lied!"

I may not have done the topic justice, but it does raise an issue regarding the use of language, modality and logic. It might also be said that Dr. Brown and Tom were different persons, of the same man, not two different men. In another context, one might assert they are two different men, but but one person.

The doctrine of the Trinity does not ascribe three different Gods. It merely testifies how God is revealed in Scripture in three different persons, still one God. The mere fact that this is how God has chosen to reveal Himself to man, probably also reveals to us how He has created us and what is important in our relationship to Him.

He provides as the perfect example of man, the Son of God, both human and Divine. Through faith in Him, we are naturally drawn as reborn men, to a preoccupation of how our Lord and Savior thinks, decides, and acts with respect to the other two persons of the Godhead, still one God.

If one is preoccupied with confusing the doctrine of the Trinity with thinking of three gods, then one is thinking similar to Bob thinking Susie was a liar when she asserted she didn't know Dr. Brown.

One God, three persons.

73 posted on 02/06/2007 8:35:08 AM PST by Cvengr
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To: Cvengr; Eagle Eye

For the physicists out there, light is a particle, a ray and a wave. How can a particle be a wave? How can a wave be a ray? How can a ray be a particle? We cannot comprehend such things, and yet they are experimentally proven to be true. Light has three natures, and yet is one.

Likewise, God is Father, Son and Spirit. He has three persons and is one.

The trinitarian nature of light also helps us understand the dual nature of Jesus. Eagle eye: How can Christians do greater works than God? They do not. But they will do greater works than Jesus, and Jesus is God. How is that possible?

Look at your microwave oven's door. You will see there is a screen embedded in the glass. It is there because the microwaves are too large to fit through the screen in their wave nature. Yet how big is a photon? It is infinitessimally small. The particle nature of microwave energy is small enough to pass between the Hydrogen and Oxygen in a water molecule, yet the wave nature cannot pass through the holes in a microwave screen.

Christians will do works greater than the human nature of Jesus, but they cannot do works greater than the divine nature of Jesus, since through the divine nature of Jesus, all that is came into being.


76 posted on 02/06/2007 8:51:30 AM PST by dangus
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