How many persons am I?

[backwoodsman]

If God exists in three persons, in how many persons does man exist?

Depends. On a good day, how many persons do you feel like?

If the word "God" in Genesis refers a Trinity, there is a problem to solve.

There's a problem only if we, as mere men, assume there's nothing about God or His nature that's beyond our understanding -- an idea that's as ludicrous to me as an ant thinking he could understand everything about you or me. If we accept that there just might be things about God that we can't fully understand, there's no longer a problem with the idea of the Trinity.

[darinhouston]

If God exists in three persons, in how many persons does man exist?

Depends. On a good day, how many persons do you feel like?

If the word "God" in Genesis refers a Trinity, there is a problem to solve.

There's a problem only if we, as mere men, assume there's nothing about God or His nature that's beyond our understanding -- an idea that's as ludicrous to me as an ant thinking he could understand everything about you or me. If we accept that there just might be things about God that we can't fully understand, there's no longer a problem with the idea of the Trinity.

Except there's a difference. The ant doesn't have the revelation of the Word. When he sees me coming, he has a problem to solve, revelation or not. The fact that there are things about me he doesn't and can never understand doesn't mean he doesn't have a problem to solve. Whether he actually can do (or whether we can do) is a different question from whether we have one that we should strive to resolve/understand, particularly when we have fabricated the model to explain it -- we have the obligation to test our paradigm to see if it truly does simply resolve it or create unnecessary questions. If we abandon the paradigm and simply rest on the unknowable mystery of God's and Jesus' and the Spirit's existence and natures, then we have no problem.

Also, I think Paidion might say you have injected a problem of your own with the other texts if you proclaim the references in the OT to God connote plurality.

[Paidion]

If you don't accept the Trinity, then how do you explain the fact that the Father, Son, and Spirit are all called "God" in the scripture?

Modalists don't accept the Trinity, and yet have no problem with calling Father, Son, and Spirit "God", since they consider that God is a single, divine Individual who expresses Himself in these three ways.
Trinitarians use the expression "God the Father", "God the Son", and "God the Holy Spirit" — whereas scipture uses the expression "God the Father" but NEVER uses either of the other two phrases.

In His prayer, Jesus addressed the Father as "the only true God". If the Father is the ONLY true God, then how can one believe that Jesus is the true God? Indeed, Jesus said, "This is lasting life, that they may believe in You, the only true God and Jesus Christ whom you have sent." That little word "and" as an addendum, clearly indicates that Jesus was something OTHER THAN "the only true God" — that is, if we read the sentence in a straightforward manner.

Then, one might ask, why is Jesus called "the only-begotten God" in John 1:18 (earliest manuscripts). The only way that I can see this as being consistent with Jesus prayer, is to assume that "God" is used as a generic term indicating that Jesus is divine in virtue of the fact that He was begotten by His Father "before all ages" (as the early Christians put it).This also comes out in John 1:1.The words "And the Word was God" is written in a Greek construction which indicates that its meaning is that the Word was "God stuff" (to put it crudely), or the Word was Deity (or was divine).To be Deity does not imply being part of a compound God. It is more like being part of a divine Family. But unlike other families, the Son is "the exact imprint of the Father's essence" (Heb 1:3). A human child may resemble his father, but is not an exact imprint of him. Even identical twins are not exactly alike. But the Son is exactly like His Father. That's why He was able to say, "If you have seen Me, you have seen the Father."

As for the Holy Spirit, I see the Spirit as the very Persons of the Father and the Son extended to any point in the Universe. Jesus said that His Father and He would make their dwelling with His disciples. Is that not the Holy Spirit? If the Father and the Son dwell within us by the extension of their Personalities, why propose a third divine Person? In scripture, we read of the spirit of God, and of the spirit of Jesus. We never read of the spirit of the Spirit! Though modern Christians address the Holy Spirit in prayers and hymns (Come Holy Spirit, we need Thee, etc.), there is not a single passage of scripture in which anyone prays to the Holy Spirit.

So you can see that recognizing that both the Father and the Son are called "God" in scripture, and the Holy Spirit is also divine, these facts in no way require a belief in the Trinity, a doctrine which was not widely propogated until the fourth century.

[brody196]

In His prayer, Jesus addressed the Father as "the only true God". If the Father is the ONLY true God, then how can one believe that Jesus is the true God? Indeed, Jesus said, "This is lasting life, that they may believe in You, the only true God and Jesus Christ whom you have sent." That little word "and" as an addendum, clearly indicates that Jesus was something OTHER THAN "the only true God" — that is, if we read the sentence in a straightforward manner.

So, was Jesus something less than the "true God"? 1 John 5:20 says And we know that the Son of God has come and has given us an understanding, that we may know Him who is true; and we are in Him who is true, in His Son Jesus Christ. This is the true God and eternal life...Seems to suggest something other than what you are affirming.

Then, one might ask, why is Jesus called "the only-begotten God" in John 1:18 (earliest manuscripts). The only way that I can see this as being consistent with Jesus prayer, is to assume that "God" is used as a generic term indicating that Jesus is divine in virtue of the fact that He was begotten by His Father "before all ages" (as the early Christians put it).This also comes out in John 1:1.The words "And the Word was God" is written in a Greek construction which indicates that its meaning is that the Word was "God stuff" (to put it crudely), or the Word was Deity (or was divine).To be Deity does not imply being part of a compound God. It is more like being part of a divine Family. But unlike other families, the Son is "the exact imprint of the Father's essence" (Heb 1:3). A human child may resemble his father, but is not an exact imprint of him. Even identical twins are not exactly alike. But the Son is exactly like His Father. That's why He was able to say, "If you have seen Me, you have seen the Father."

Was there ever a time when Jesus did not exist?

[Paidion]

So, was Jesus something less than the "true God"? 1 John 5:20 says And we know that the Son of God has come and has given us an understanding, that we may know Him who is true; and we are in Him who is true, in His Son Jesus Christ. This is the true God and eternal life...Seems to suggest something other than what you are affirming.

I don't think so. Let's examine the verse carefully:

And we know that the Son of God has come and has given us understanding, so that we may know him who is true; and we are in him who is true, in his Son Jesus Christ. He is the true God and eternal life. ESV

1. And we know that the Son of God has come and has given us understanding... This is clearly Jesus who came and gave us understanding. Why?

2. ... so that we may know him who is true... Now who is this one who is true that Jesus gave us understanding to know? It is clearly the father, for the next clause speaks of his son Jesus Christ.

3. ...and we are in him who is true, in his Son Jesus Christ. This is the ambiguous part which I will discuss below.

4. He is the true God and eternal life. There is no doubt that "the one who is true" is the true God and eternal life.

But the question is, "Who is the one who is true in #3? It seems to me that there are two possibilities:

I. The expression still refers to the Father and "in his Son Jesus Christ" indicates that we are also in Jesus Christ. The "He" or more accurately "This one" in #4 refers back to "him who is true", i.e. the Father.
II. "The expression refers to another who is true, the Father's son Jesus Christ. Thus Jesus is "the true God and eternal life".

You can probably guess that I believe the first to be the correct interpretation, since the second contradicts Jesus' words in his prayer where he calls his Father "the only true God."

In his commentary on the verse, Barnes wrote:

This is the true God.* There has been much difference of opinion in regard to this important passage; whether it refers to the Lord Jesus Christ, the immediate antecedent, or to a more remote antecedent--referring to God, as such.

Barnes then goes on to show why he thinks it refers to Christ. However, it is clear that many think it still refers to the Father. For example, Henry Alford, D.D. (a Trinitarian) in his Alford's Greek Testament opts for "the true one" in both expressions as referring to the Father. He says that though some think being called "eternal life" belongs to the Son rather than the Father, it is clear that Jesus in his prayer says "This is eternal life that they may know YOU, the only true God..." so that clearly eternal life belongs to knowing the Father as well as the Son. Alford believed that anyone interested in exegesis rather than doctrinal considerations would so understand it.

Was there ever a time when Jesus did not exist?

Unlike the Arians, I affirm that there was never a time at which the Son did not exist, and yet I also affirm that the begetting of the Son was a single act rather than "an eternal begetting" as the later Trinitarians taught. That God begat the Son as a single act was believed not only by the first and second century Christians, but it was stated in the original Nicene Creed "begotten before all ages", and believed by the early Trinitarians. The later Trinitarians changed the creed from "begotten before all ages" to "eternally begotten".

According to Arius, since the begetting of the Son was a single act, there must have been a time at which the Son did not exist. That would not be the case if that act marked the beginning of time (as I believe to be the case). Then there would NOT have been a time at which the Son did not exist. If there was a true beginning of time then there is not an infinite regression of time into the past. God was there and He begat His Son ... and so time began.

The question "Did God the Father exist before the beginning of time?" is incoherent ... for there was no "before".

[DanielGracely]

I have more or less come to the conclusion that God is three Persons, and that his Oneness is that of purpose. I would also say that God is one in substance, but by this I only mean 'substance' in the analogical sense that we would say that all humans are of the same substance. I disagree with the Nicene Creed when it says that while God is expressed in three Persons, He is one Eternal, not three Eternals. What does that mean? Eternal what?

I'm aware of the O.T. verses where God says there is none besides himself, etc. And I realize God (or I should say 'Elohim') usually uses singular pronouns in reference to himself. But I think translators have conceded enormous territory to the Enemy by failing to translated "Elohim" in the plural, even though it is usually (or always?) coupled with the singular verb, i.e., "The Gods is..." I think many people reading even Genesis chapter one would be struck by the sense of a plurality of persons in the Godhead, and that this would help prepare their hearts for accepting Jesus as a Person of the Godhead. Just my opinion.

[steve]

I do not claim to understand the Trinity—but neither does anyone else, I suspect. The common image of the three Persons, embraced by orthodoxy, is the biggest stumbling block to those of the other monotheistic faiths—Judaism and Islam. Wouldn't it be a shame if this stumbling block turned out to be a theological miscalculation, which ended up alienating millions of people who had the good sense to know that there is only one God, but were put off by traditional Christian perceptions of the Trinity?

I sometimes wonder if Nicea got it right. I am not complaining about their effort. They got farther than I might have on my own. However, it is a shame that the church decided that Nicea should be the end of the investigation and the last word on the topic. It seems that other intriguing possibilities could remain to be explored—and possibly one would emerge that preserves monotheism and maintains the connection with the concepts of both Israel's Yahweh and the Arabs' Allah.

In particular, the Jews, while rejecting trinitarianism, have no problem acknowledging both the Word of Yahweh and the Spirit of Yahweh. They do not tend to think of these as separate "persons" from Yahweh Himself—any more than I think of my word or my spirit as separate persons from myself. I do not know enough about Islam to know whether the same is true of their thinking about Allah.

If Yahweh is indeed One (Deut,6:4), and is also Spirit (John 4:24), and has always operated (in creation and communication) through His Word, as John 1 tells us, can we not think of His Word, and His Spirit as being merely aspects of Himself, as my word and my spirit are aspects of me? Add to this the phenomenon of theophanies, found in the Jewish scriptures, and we are not far from being able to entertain the notion that God, who manifested Himself theophanically as a guest to Abraham's home (Gen.18:1ff); as wrestler with Jacob (Gen.32:24-30); as a pillar of cloud in the wilderness, and as the Angel of the Lord in the Old Testament, might also manifest Himself in a human incarnation (1 Tim.3:16). Such an incarnation would not have to be envisaged as a second God, or even a separate "person" from Yahweh, any more than the pillar of cloud was considered a separate God from Him.

Since the idea of Yahweh's "Word" might readily be applied to any avenue of communication from Himself to humanity, it would be natural enough to speak of what I have described as God's incarnate communication (Word), without doing any violence to what the scriptures actually tell us, nor to logic. Just as God tabernacled with Israel in the theophany in the wilderness, so then, He would be seen as tabernacling among us in the tent of human flesh (John 1:14).

The problem with this concept arises when we picture Jesus, prior to His incarnation, as the "eternal Son," rather than as the Word. However, since Jesus is never spoken of, in scripture, as the "eternal Son"—nor is He ever affirmed to have borne the title "Son" prior to His incarnation, we could satisfy ourselves with the biblical language, which calls Him "the Word" and "God."

Since the incarnation involved creating a human personality in which God tabernacled among us, that personality would have an identity as a human being, as well as being the manifestation of God on earth. He could thus, quite naturally, speak of Himself in terms of deity, when thinking from one angle, and in terms of manhood, when thinking from the other angle. He could even speak, in a single discourse of His being "in the Father, and the Father in [Him]" and also say "the Father is greater than I." The distinction between Himself (Yahweh manifested in flesh) and the Father (Yahweh unembodied and omnipresent) would be one of magnitude, not of identity.

I am out of my depth here. Just musing. Maybe this is the same as modalism or "Oneness" doctrine—I have never really understood the details of that view. As I said, I don't understand the trinity—nor do I find any biblical mandate requiring that we must do so. Christ is God, and the Son of God. That much we are told. What we are not told is how that actually works.

[Homer]

Steve,

Is this close to what you are saying? I'm thinking we are in agreement:

"This God is never called a person. The word person was never applied to God in the Middle ages. The reason for this is that the three members of the trinity were called personae (faces or countenances): The Father is persona, the Son is persona, and the Spirit is persona. Persona here means a special characteristic of the divine ground, expressing itself in an independent hypostasis.

"Thus, we can say that it was the nineteenth century which made God into a person, with the result that the greatness of the classical idea of God was destroyed by this way of speaking... but to speak of God as a person would have been heretical for the Middle Ages; it would have been to them a Unitarian heresy, because it would have conflicted with the statement that God has three personae, three expressions of his being. (Tillich, Paul, A History of Christian Thought, p. 190)

[steve]

Could be. It's a little hard to grasp.

[Paidion]

Contrary to popular opinion, the original Nicene Creed of 325 A.D. did not so much as suggest the Trinity. Nor did it suggest Modalism (Oneness, which the quote from Paul Tillich seems to support. Many people who think they are Trinitarians are actually Modalists). Indeed, it supported the historic Christian teaching (to which I subscribe) that God the Father begat His Son before all ages. There is nothing in the creed with which I (a non-Trinitarian) disagree.

However, the later Trinitarians ALTERED the creed and made additions to it. The most significant alteration was the changing of "begotten of the Father before all ages" to "eternally begotten".

THE NICENE CREED
As set forth at Nicea, A.D. 325

We believe in one God the Father Almighty, Maker of all things visible and invisible;
And in one Lord Jesus Christ, the Son of God, begotten of the Father before all ages, only begotten, that is, of the substance of the Father;
God of God, Light of Light, Very God of Very God, begotten, not made, being of one essence with the Father,
Through whom all things were made; both things in heaven and things on earth;
Who for us people, and for our salvation, came down, and was incarnate, and was made man;
He suffered, and was raised again the third day, And ascended into heaven
And he shall come again with glory to judge the living and the dead.

It seems that the Father and the Son share the name "Yahweh". Here is a text which seems to indicate two different individuals named "Yahweh".

Then Yahweh rained on Sodom and Gomorrah sulfur and fire from Yahweh out of heaven. (Genesis 19:24)

The context indicates that three "men" came to visit Abraham to warn him of the impending destruction of Sodom and Gomorrah. At one point two of the "men" departed and went to Sodom. Abraham addressed the "man" who remained behind as "Yahweh". After their conversation, this Yahweh "went his way" apparently as the instrument through which the Yahweh in heaven sent destruction on Sodom and Gomorrah.
So the verse quoted above seems to indicate that the Yahweh on earth "rained on Sodom and Gomorrah sulfur and fire", while the source of that sulfur and fire was the Yahweh in heaven.