Trinity.

[mattrose]

The main thing about God is not that He is love (though he is) or that he is relational (though he is) but that he is Holy and entirely "other."

Obviously this is where we disagree. I'm not sure how 'holy' could be the 'main thing' about God if, in logical sequence, there was once nothing to be 'other' than! Holiness is just a word that became reality because of the act of creation.

What makes you think an infinite God without dimensional or temporal or other boundaries or other restrictions would necessitate another person to fulfill his loving nature any more than his creative nature would seemingly necessitate a Creation in eternity past?

Creativity is an attribute that flows naturally out of a God who is love. Love desires to multiply the pool of that which it can love.

By the way, I haven't listened to it all yet, but based on his tweets I'd say Bruxy Cavey presents what I'm saying here in this sermon
http://www.themeetinghouse.com/teaching ... roper-5649

[Homer]

I must say I agree with some of what you all are saying.

Darin's point:

Revelation 4:8,(NASB)

8. And the four living creatures, each one of them having six wings, are full of eyes around and within; and day and night they do not cease to say,
“Holy, holy, holy is the Lord God, the Almighty, who was and who is and who is to come.”


So why aren't the creatures exclaiming "love, love, love" if that is the chief characteristic of God?

And as for Brenden's question, God lacked nothing prior to creation.

Acts 17:25, (NASB)

25. nor is He served by human hands, as though He needed anything, since He Himself gives to all people life and breath and all things;


Matt's point:

As John Mark Hicks has pointed out, there was love shared among the Trinity prior to creation, and God created man to share in that love. And in regard to the atonement, God took our punishment and internalized it; He did not punish a "3rd party".

And as JR said, God's love is beyond our understanding.

[mattrose]

So why aren't the creatures exclaiming "love, love, love" if that is the chief characteristic of God?

Of course, that would really only be an argument against my position if I was denying God's holiness!

I could just as easily wonder why Jesus didn't say the greatest commandment was holiness... or why Paul didn't say the 'greatest of these is holiness'

There are a lot of people who say there are 2 'main' or essential things about God: Love AND holiness. That's a legitimate view.

I just struggle to see how separateness had any meaning prior the creation of any 'other' thing. And if you focus on the 'perfection' aspect of holiness what better word for that than love?

[TheEditor]

Well I can't accept love because it is 'to hard to understand'.

When ecountering an anomaly, one can deal with the anomaly, or ridcule it, I suppose.

Regards, Brenden.

[steve]

God's holiness seems to be related to the "otherness" or "uniqueness" of His nature. His nature is love, according to scripture, so why would we not understand His "holiness" or otherness to be in terms of this characteristic? In other words, His love is the characteristic which defines His uniqueness.

[darinhouston]

My only point is that Matt seems to assume that to be love requires a relationship between distinct persons. That's ascribing human restrictions on a limitless God.

Creativity is shown by a creation. But wasn't God creative before He created?

I know Matt distinguishes "being love" from "being creative," but that seems contrived to me.


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[Paidion]

Yes, if we insist on God being "wholly other", then, as Steve wrote, why not consider his perfect love to be the chief characteristic of this "otherness".

However, I think we are more like God than the theologians think. For man was created in God's image and likeness.
Therefore we have (1) free will—the ability to choose as does God. (2) the ability to love which ability God posesses (3) the ability to reason which ability God possesses. (4) emotions as does God. You can probably think of several others.

Many theologians believe God to be without emotions (God is said to be "impassable"). But when we go by Scripture, we see that

1. God has regrets (Gen 6:6)
2. God is grieved (Ps 78:40)
3. God gets angry (Ps 2:5, Jer 7:18,19)
4. God laughs (Ps 2:4)
5 God rejoices (Zep 3:17)
6. God loves (John 3:16)
7. God hates (Deut 16:22)

Of course, the aforementioned theologians dismiss all of these as "anthropomorphisms". But supposing God does have emotions, how else could the Bible writers have expressed it so that we would accept it?

[dizerner]

[user account removed]

[dizerner]

[user account removed]

[Paidion]

Hi Dizerner. I see you have just joined the forum today. Welcome!

I am just wondering. Have you found a Scripture which states that God became a man, or any that describes a "Creator-creation hybrid".

And so we come to the explanation that satisfied me, personally, and that is roles. The meaning of the Trinity is the roles that each plays, and without that I don't think you can find any satisfactory meshing of doctrine. Now if we assume the role of the Father is all that it means to be God, then of course the Spirit and Son cannot be God as well, since their roles are not the same.

Those who believe that the three are roles of a single Divine Individual, are called "Modalists". In the early church, the followers of Sabellius held this view. Sabellianism pre-dated Trinitarianism as a widely-held view in Christendom. A true Trinitaian believes in three divine Individuals who are somehow melded together as a compound God.

Do we then find, as some have pointed out here, something like "divine but not God." Err, but as others pointed out you can't have something "really, really, really close to being God, but, uh, not quite God." There's a pretty big gap between God and his next best creation.

When "God" is used in two different senses as in John 1:1, we can say "Jesus is God, but Jesus is not the God" without contradiction. No one, to my knowledge, is saying that Jesus is "close to being God, but not quite God." I think that may be your understanding of what some of us are saying, but that is not what we are saying. We are saying that Jesus is "the only-begotten Son of God" and therefore is the only one other than the Father who is fully divine. Jesus addressing His Father (how could He do that if He WAS His Father) said, "And this is eternal life, that they may know you the only real God, and Jesus Christ whom you have sent.(John 17:3). By use of the conjunction "and", He indicated that He was someone other than "the only real God". But in virtue of being of the same essence as his Father, Jesus can be said to be "God" as in John 1:18, where He is called "the only begotten God". Yes, Jesus is the only begotten God, for the Father, the creator of all things was unbegotten.