Dear 21centpilgrim and Paidion,
Thank you for your replies…. Providentially and interestingly, this discussion we are having occurs on a day in which we Catholics commemorate the Trinity in a special way (as today, in the Catholic Church, is "Trinity Sunday").
First, to answer your question, 21centpilgrim…we need to first define what we mean when we say that any given doctrine is more fundamental than another doctrine. For, if there is a claim that any truth is the MOST fundamental doctrine of Christianity, then we need to know what we mean when we say any one truth is more fundamental than another truth.
So, this being said, one doctrine-- call it doctrine A-- is more fundamental than another doctrine-- call it doctrine B-- if the truth of doctrine B depends upon doctrine A being true.
To give a simple example from common experience, the truth that "the sun is hot" is a more fundamental truth than that truth which says "excessive exposure to the sun causes sunburn", because the truth of the latter statement is dependent upon the first statement being true.
Or, again, from math, "a triangle is a (closed and concave) three-sided figure in a plane" is a more fundamental truth than that truth which says, "the sum of the measure of the angles of a triangle is 180 degrees", since this latter truth depends upon the former truth being true.
Applying this notion to theology, the doctrine which says that "the Father is God" is more fundamental that the doctrine which says "the Father is Almighty", because the doctrine which says "the Father is Almighty" depends upon the truth of the statement "the Father is God".
So, with that being said, we can say that the doctrine of the Trinity-- "in one and the same God there are three Divine Persons, Father, Son, and Spirit"-- is the most fundamental doctrine of Christianity, since the truth of all other doctrines in Christianity depends upon the fact that God is a Trinity, upon the fact that the doctrine of the Trinity is true. So, for example, the fact that "Jesus is Lord", depends upon the truth of the fact that Jesus is the Second Person of the Blessed Trinity, that is, that He, with His Father, is true God, and, therefore, Lord. Or, again, the fact that "Jesus is Savior", depends upon the fact that Jesus is first, true God, that is that he is the Second Person of the Blessed Trinity, and the truth of this latter statement is dependent upon the truth that God is a Trinity (for, in order for Jesus to be Savior, He needs to impart to us Divine Life, which means that He must have in himself Divine Life, which means that he must be God-- and this is true because He is Second Person of the Blessed Trinity, and, this, of course, depends upon the fact that God is a Trinity). So, the doctrine of the Trinity proves to be a more fundamental doctrine than even that which says that "Jesus is Savior", since the truth of this latter statement is dependent upon the truth of the doctrine of the Trinity. And, no matter what doctrine we look at, the truth of that doctrine is, ultimately, going to depend upon the fact that God is a Trinity. This means that the Trinity is the most fundamental doctrine of Christianity.
And, so, we see that it is not necessarily the case-- and, in fact, it is not the case-- that, for a doctrine to be the most fundamental doctrine of the Christian Faith-- that it must be clearly and explicitly spelled out in one simple sentence in the Scriptures. For, for a doctrine to be the most fundamental doctrine, it is sufficient that the Scriptures simply reveal this doctrine IN SOME MANNER, and that the truth of this doctrine be the reason for the truth of all other Christian doctrines, such as is the case with the Trinity (which doctrine is revealed in the Scriptures, not in one simple sentence, but by putting together multiple pieces of Scriptural data, and which doctrine, again, is at the root of the all other doctrines being true). And, so, this premise-- that a doctrine must be spelled out in one simple sentence in order for it to be the most fundamental doctrine of Christianity-- is an arbitrary (and, I should add, non-Scriptural) principle, which, in the end, proves to not be true.
All this being said, the more fundamental question in OUR discussion (to utilize this notion of "more fundamental" again!) is not, "Why would one claim that the Trinity is the most fundamental doctrine of Christianity?", but, rather, "Is the doctrine of the Trinity true?", since that latter question must be addressed (and answered) first in order to adequately address and answer the former question. You stated that you are familiar with the Scriptures which are used to show that God is a Trinity, but that you are not convinced of the veracity of this theological reasoning (reasoning I gave in my earlier post). So, the question to ask is which part of that reasoning is not convincing to you?
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Now, to address your post, Paidion…carrying out this notion of one doctrine being “more fundamental” than another, it is clear that the more fundamental question/notion with which we need to deal is this question/notion about God being “outside of time”/eternal. For, this notion is at the root of so much theology, including the theology of the Trinity (and, the way we understand—or accept—this notion will determine how we interpret statements from the Scriptures and the Fathers concerning, say, the generation of the Son). Of course, this is a huge question, and would require a thread of its own—or, perhaps, a book!—to answer it sufficiently well. But, short of that, I will leave this.
First, Boethius defines eternity as, “the simultaneously-whole and perfect possession of interminable life."
Then, Thomas Aquinas, going off of Boethius’ definition, then describes eternity as follows:
As we attain to the knowledge of simple things by way of compound things, so must we reach to the knowledge of eternity by means of time, which is nothing but the numbering of movement by "before" and "after." For since succession occurs in every movement, and one part comes after another, the fact that we reckon before and after in movement, makes us apprehend time, which is nothing else but the measure of before and after in movement. Now in a thing bereft of movement, which is always the same, there is no before or after. As therefore the idea of time consists in the numbering of before and after in movement; so likewise in the apprehension of the uniformity of what is outside of movement, consists the idea of eternity.
Further, those things are said to be measured by time which have a beginning and an end in time, because in everything which is moved there is a beginning, and there is an end. But as whatever is wholly immutable can have no succession, so it has no beginning, and no end.
Thus eternity is known from two sources: first, because what is eternal is interminable—that is, has no beginning nor end (that is, no term either way); secondly, because eternity has no succession, being simultaneously whole.
Applying this notion of eternity to God, Aquinas then goes on to say,
The idea of eternity follows immutability, as the idea of time follows movement, as appears from the preceding article. Hence, as God is supremely immutable, it supremely belongs to Him to be eternal.
Key to Aquinas’ argument here is the claim that God is “supremely immutable”. He holds to this position for two reasons: first, natural reason, by means of philosophy, can show this to be true. Secondly, and more importantly, the Scriptures reveal it to be true (as The Psalmist says: “But You, Lord, endure forever”; and he goes on to say: “But You art always the selfsame: and Your years shall not fail” (Ps. 101:13, 28)).
Now, there is no questioning that, as with all things related to God, this notion of “eternity” is a very difficult one to grasp—or, rather, as with other notions related to God, for us, in this life on earth, living IN TIME, it is IMPOSSIBLE for us to perfectly grasp what it means to be “outside of time”, and eternal. However, as with our efforts to understand all other qualities and perfections of God—eg., His omnipotence, His immateriality, etc.—we usually come to SOME understanding of these perfections by way of “negation” (as Aquinas would say), that is, by understanding what God is NOT. Thus, by understanding more what time is, and then coming to see (by means of both philosophy and Scriptural revelation) that God is “outside of time”, we come to understand what God is NOT (i.e., He, unlike things subject to time, is NOT subject to motion, change, decay, etc.). Again, as with everything related to our mysterious God, this is a HUGE philosophical/theological question, and I do not pretend that this response comes anywhere near to fully answering the question—again, one would, really, need a book to come close to adequately responding to it—but, let what I have written here hopefully serve at least as a start to considering this notion of eternity more deeply.
Though our “being on the same page” with regard to this notion of eternity would certainly be helpful for me to give you an adequate response to your questions about Ignatius (and Justin Martyr’s) statements, I will at least say this. The reason why Ignatius can talk about Christ, the Word, being (eternally) begotten of the Father before all ages, and “then” being born of the Virgin Mary is because, well, that is simply how we human beings, this side of heaven, talk—that is the best we can do. Those of us who hold to God’s eternity talk like that all the time; because we are living in time, our imagination—and, thus, our speech—is necessarily bound to the way we perceive things “in time”. So, even though we believe that God is eternal, and outside of time, we will say things like, “BEFORE God created the universe, He was perfectly happy.” When we make assertions like that, we are not asserting that there was time before the universe, but we are simply using our IMAGINATIONS in considering the universe, and what God was like “before” the universe existed. We are, simply speaking, speaking according to the way we IMAGINE things. And, such was the way Ignatius spoke here in referring to the Word being born of the Virgin “after” He was begotten—eternally begotten—by the Father. He speaks like that because that is how we time-bound creatures—even those of us who recognize that God is eternal—IMAGINE God, and, thus, speak about God. In other words, we often speak METAPHORICALLY about God (as Ignatius does here).
In fact, Paidion, it seems to me that you yourself, actually, are relying upon SOME notion of God being “outside of time” when you assert that time “started” when God begot the Son, that the begetting of the Son was the first act of God in time, the act that God time “rolling”. It seems to me that you, when making such assertions, are holding to the idea that, BEFORE this generation of the Son, God still existed BUT, yet, time did NOT…and, therefore, it seems to me that, implied in your theology, there is some notion of God existing without (outside of?) time. What do you think? Is this true to say about your theology, or am I missing something to your thinking here?
Peace.
In Christ,
BrotherAlan