Sometimes those who have not struggled with the logical implications of Scripture go off into heresies that place them outside the Protestant and catholic (little "c") faith as it is expressed in the Reformation confessions and the ecumenical creeds. Even the Lutherans do not get the Trinity wrong. But apparently Ryan Hedrich and Shelton Drake cannot understand that all three persons of the Trinity think the propositions that can only be thought by Deity. Therefore, all three persons are fully God, fully divine, and full Deity.
Click here to read Sean Gerety's article:
A Special Kind Of Arrogance | God's Hammer
14 comments:
I.e. tritheism. Looks like you need to bone up on the difference between classes and infima species.
Gordon H. Clark's book, The Trinity, clarifies these issues well enough. Clark was not a Tritheist. The Athanasian Creed makes it clear that there are some propositions that the Father does not think. The Father does not think, "I am the Son," or "I am the Holy Spirit." On the other hand, all three Persons think all the divine propositions except those propositions that distinguish each of the three Persons from the other two. a is not b or c. b is not a or c. c is not a or b. Yet a b c are all one God which is tri-Personal. God is three in one sense and one in another sense. You would appear to be the one who needs to re-read Clark's book on the Trinity.
Logic is much more complicated than you seem to realize.
Charlie
Just to clarify, when I said that what can be said about the two natures in Christ is in reference to common parlance only, not to theological and philosophical precision. When I say Jesus is God I mean that in reference to the general understanding of all Christians. I am not referring to the more complicated theological and logical precision outlined by Clark in The Incarnation. The human "person" of Christ is assumed into full and complete union with the Person of the divine Logos. Yet the two are not confused or mixed. The human person is contained within the union with the divine Person of the Logos, yet the Logos does not replace the human personality of Christ. That was Clark's argument. The man Jesus can legitimately be called God and worshipped as God. Yet, as Robert Reymond pointed out, we do not worship the human nature of Christ. We worship Him because all the fullness of the Godhead dwells in complete union with His human nature/person.
Charlie
Firstly, they all think the same propositions. Otherwise, they wouldn't be omniscient. Rather, they simply don't have the same thoughts (The Trinity, pgs. 129-130). It's quite funny that you make this elementary mistake and then tell me to reread Clark.
"I" is an indexical which depends on the person who utters it. This doesn't have anything to do with Trinitarianism, by the way, I just thought you might like to avoid compromising the omniscience of the persons of the Trinity.
Secondly, as I said, your point is not relevant to mine. The persons have different thoughts. So what? We have different thoughts too. Since there are two of us - two men - why are there not two Gods? After all, if "God" is just a class like man is, and if "God" is predicable of three infima species or individuals like "man" is predicable of you, men, Sean, Clark, &c., then there must be multiple Gods just as there are multiple men.
The Father is God.
Jesus is God.
The Holy Spirit is God.
The Father is not Jesus, and neither are the Holy Spirit.
This view - if unqualified by noting "God" can bear more than one meaning - simply and irrevocably leads to tritheism. That's plain logic. Three individuals under the genus man = three men, three individuals under the genus God = three Gods.
I think you must not have read anything I have written and have taken Sean's misrepresentations and evasions at his word.
The Incarnation is a different subject altogether, though one which Clark also was mistaken about.
Your analogy fails since God is not a man. Three men are all human but the human nature is the same for all three men. Humans are in the class of human beings. God is in a class all His own. God is three in one sense and one in another. It is increasingly clear to me that Sean Gerety's assessment of your theology is correct. You're hopelessly confused--and irrational.
Charlie
If the Father thinks He is the Son and the Spirit, then you have come up with modalism:) That's another heresy added to the list.
You do realize that a mere claim that the class of God differs from the class of man is not sufficient to show how, right? Clark compared them, after all:
//Now, when we face the subject of the Trinity-the common unity in the three Persons-may we not say that the three Persons share or communicate the common characteristics of omnipotence, omniscience, and so forth, and so constitute one essence? The Platonic point of view makes this essence a reality, as truly as Man and Beauty are real. Were the essence not a reality, and the Persons therefore the only realities, we should have tritheism instead of monotheism.//
http://www.trinityfoundation.org/journal.php?id=9
The problem is we STILL have tritheism on this view. For there are multiple men, and because neither Clark nor you can explain why God is different than all other classes with multiple subspecies, by parity of reasoning we have multiple Gods.
"If the Father thinks He is the Son and the Spirit, then you have come up with modalism:) That's another heresy added to the list."
No one said that they think the same thing, I said the opposite. Pay attention.
I'm not the one who needs to re-read Clark. That would be you. Since all knowledge is propositional it follows that if the Father thinks or knows that He is not the Son or the Spirit, that those are propositions. Otherwise, God must be very confused:) Furthermore, the pages you referenced refer the human nature, not to the Trinity.
"The definition of Deity does not define the Son; nor can the definition of the Son apply to Deity. A succulent does not have all the qualities of a cactus, but the latter has all the characteristics of the former. That is to say, the Trinity or Godhead, absolutely and as such, does not have the characteristics o any one Person, absolutely and as such; but each Person has all the predicates of Deity. Note that the word here is Deity, not Father. Trinity, page 53.
Obviously, the Son is fully God. God is not simply the Son, but all three Persons. And in The Incarnation, Clark asserts what I earlier said:
"A bit more exactly, since all men make mistakes and believe some falsehoods, the definition must be a composite of propositions. As a man thinketh in his (figurative) heart, so is he. A man is what he thinks.
... Aside from whatever objections will be immediately raised against this uncommon conclusion, theologians will complain that this reduces the Trinity to one Person because, being omniscient, they all have, or are, the same complex. This objection is based on a blindness toward certain definite Scriptural information. ....Though they are equally omniscient, they do not all know the same truths. Neither the complex of truths we call the Father nor those we call the Spirit, has the proposition, j"I was incarnated." This proposition occurs only in the Son's complex. . . ." Clark, The Incarnation, pp. 54-55.
I have abbreviated this but you get the point. Thus, you are refuted again by Clark. It's fairly obvious that your influences are not from Clark but from the confused thinking of the Eastern Orthodox mystics and the confused thinking of Drake Shelton.
Charlie
You specifically denied that propositions and thoughts are essentially the same thing since all knowledge is propositional. Here we go with the equivocations again.
As for the pay attention remark, being a smart mouth does not add anything logical to your argument.
And as for Clark confusing the class of men with the class of God, that one is easily refuted. Obviously, even the most basic definition of Deity is that God is omniscient, omnipotent, and omnipresent. I could add other propositions like omnibenevolence and holiness, justice, etc. Man being created in God's rational image and likeness, is personal and intelligent. But certainly no man is omniscient or immutable. Only God fits that definition. So your contention is again refuted.
John 1:1
ὁ λόγος ἦν πρὸς τὸν θεόν, καὶ θεὸς ἦν ὁ λόγος.
The Word was with God, and the Word was God.
Again, a subset proposition is envisioned here. The λόγος belongs to the larger category known as θεός. The force of this construction is most
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likely to emphasize the nature of the Word, not his identity.28 That is to say, the Word is true deity but he is not the same person as the θεός mentioned earlier in the verse.
Wallace, Greek Grammar Beyond the Basics.
"Since all knowledge is propositional it follows that if the Father thinks or knows that He is not the Son or the Spirit, that those are propositions."
But the point is that the Father's thought "I am not the Son" means the same thing as "The Father is not the Son." Since they mean the same thing, they are the same proposition. But only the Father thinks the former. So thoughts aren't propositions. This isn't even relevant to Trinitarianism. Again, I'm just trying to help you see how you are failing to defend omniscience if you deny that the Father knows propositions the Son knows. Each person of the Trinity knows all truths. Each truth is a proposition. But how each thinks those propositions can vary. Why you are fighting this makes no sense to me.
"You specifically denied that propositions and thoughts are essentially the same thing since all knowledge is propositional."
They aren't the same thing. Propositions are the meanings of declarative sentences. Thoughts are not propositions. If they were, then the Father would not think the same thing as the Son, and one of the two (at least) could not be omniscient by definition. You haven't answered this point yet. But on my view and Clark's view, there is no problem because while they have different thoughts (different referents for indexical usage), they each have the same propositional meanings in mind.
"Obviously, even the most basic definition of Deity is that God is omniscient, omnipotent, and omnipresent. I could add other propositions like omnibenevolence and holiness, justice, etc. Man being created in God's rational image and likeness, is personal and intelligent. But certainly no man is omniscient or immutable. Only God fits that definition. So your contention is again refuted."
Lol. What does this have to do with anything? I never said men could be in the class of God. The point was that on Clark's view, just as multiple individual men are under one class, multiple individual Gods are under one class. God and man are genera. What in the world you are talking about I have no idea.
I agree with Wallace. "God" there refers to nature, not identity. I already said as much. On the other hand, in 1:1a "God" just is the identity of the person of the Father.
But the point is that the Father's thought "I am not the Son" means the same thing as "The Father is not the Son." Since they mean the same thing, they are the same proposition. But only the Father thinks the former. So thoughts aren't propositions.
If thoughts are not logical, then nothing you just thought is a proposition and you have said nothing meaningful. Furthermore, since only the Father than think personal propositions like, "I am not the Son," you conceded my point. Of course the Son can know that "the Father is not the Son." But the Son cannot think, "I am the Father." So the two propositions are not the same. Your equivocation is obvious to anyone who is willing to think logically.
As I see it, Sean Gerety had you classified as an heretic for good reason. Not only are you not a Scripturalist, but obviously you have given yourself over to irrationalism.
There is no point in continuing this discussion since obviously you're not willing to concede Clark's definition of a person as the "thoughts he thinks." Thoughts being, of course, propositions.
Charlie
John 1:1 b could in fact be a reference to both the Father and the Spirit since God is Tri-personal. God is not one person.
The threefold nature of John 1:1 is an indication in that direction.
At any rate, this discussion is over since your remarks prove that you are an irrationalist and most likely that nothing you "testify" to can be trusted.
Charlie
Then it is not correct to say that God is the Son as well as the Father and Spirit. If "begotten" can't be predicated of God but can be predicated of the Son, then God is not the Son. That's correct, the Father is not the Son and the Spirit is not the Son. But all three Persons are fully one God. God is defined as three persons who each think their own propositions. If not, what you have is modalism.
Some God is not begotten. The Athanasian Creed makes that clear. The Spirit is not begotten but proceeds.
At any rate, this conversation is over. You're obviously a dissimulator and a liar. You cannot deny the Athanasian Creed and call yourself Trinitarian. The Scriptures distinguish between the three Persons of the Godhead with propositions. The Scriptures also propose there is only one God. Since you disagree with both Scripture and the creeds, it is obvious to me that you have departed from the faith.
I dust off my feet.
Charlie
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