Hypostatic Quaternity

[Diogenes]

?
Why couldn't there be a hypostatic 4-ness?

In the Summa, it's limited to 3 merely due to that being the number of witness in 1 John 5:7, though the translation of that verse is in dispute. (Summa).

[Cow Poke]

I think WLC's Cerberus analogy is the best when it comes to the Trinity. I'm rather sceptical of the Trinity being either biblical or necessary for salvation. Logically speaking, Monarchianism is more simple imo.

Although it's not "in the Bible" as "the Trinity", I believe it is biblical. That said, I do not believe it's necessary for Salvation. I think there are a lot of things that are necessary to be a teacher or a preacher or an elder or a deacon or even a growing Christian.

I don't think one has to believe in the Trinity or even the Virgin Birth to be saved.

Now, I do NOT believe one can be saved DENYING the Trinity or the Virgin Birth.

[Diogenes]

Any analogy regarding the Trinity breaks down pretty quickly because of the absolute uniqueness of the Trinity.

I think WLC's Cerberus analogy is the best when it comes to the Trinity (Reasonable Faith). I'm rather sceptical of the Trinity being either biblical or necessary for salvation. Logically speaking, Monarchianism is more simple imo.

[Diogenes]

I am attempting to reconcile it all, and I think I see something in the philosophical fog that looks like Jesus was and is the Incarnation of God, and all of this stuff is actually reconcilable and satisfyingly so.

If your willing to risk being labeled a heretic by Western Christendom, you could follow the Oriental Orthodox Church in their dissent regarding the Council of Chalcedon. You could then go along with WLC's so called Neo-Apollinarianism.

[Hypatia_Alexandria]

The Flesh died on the cross,

Yet Jesus body contained two natures.

I think God went into Hell or something like that before He quickened Jesus' body with Life. I wouldn't think God ever died, just Jesus' body.

That suggests the apocryphal work the Gospel of Nicodemus with its exciting account of the descent into hell.

[Machinist]

God died on the cross? Is that what you are contending?

How can a god be killed?

The Flesh died on the cross, I think God went into Hell or something like that before He quickened Jesus' body with Life. I wouldn't think God ever died, just Jesus' body.

[Hypatia_Alexandria]

Both did. Hypostatically.

God died on the cross? Is that what you are contending?

How can a god be killed?

[Machinist]

That reads as two contradictory statements.

For my own part the questions that a perfect man/incarnate god raise are completely ludicrous.

For example what died on the cross? A man? Or a god? How do those who adhere to this belief in a perfect man explain Luke 2.25?

Both did. Hypostatically.

[Hypatia_Alexandria]

It's a serious pickle. But not really.

That reads as two contradictory statements.

For some, things like this don't make them question anything. It has a significant impact on others.

For my own part the questions that a perfect man/incarnate god raise are completely ludicrous.

For example what died on the cross? A man? Or a god? How do those who adhere to this belief in a perfect man explain Luke 2.25?

[Machinist]

I am attempting to reconcile it all, and I think I see something in the philosophical fog that looks like Jesus was and is the Incarnation of God, and all of this stuff is actually reconcilable and satisfyingly so.

[Machinist]

The intrinsic problem in Christianity has always been the attempt to reconcile the ineffable and unknowable god of the Jews with a Hellenistic anthropomorphic deity. It has never really been satisfactorily achieved. In the early centuries of the Christian church such a belief could only be enforced by Imperial Edict and the threat of severe punishment for those who dissented.

The gospel of John which would provide so much material for later theological musings and argument is far from clear on the writer’s beliefs about the nature of the Son and the language employed is always equivocal and periphrastic. Nowhere, even in this highly developed theological work, are the words “I am God “ put into the mouth of Jesus and although we have him apparently stating that “I and the Father are one” [10.30] barely four chapters later we have him telling his disciples that “the Father is greater than I” [14.28b]. No one can deny that there appears to be something rather paradoxical in these two contrasted statements that the author puts into Jesus' mouth.

Further problems arose for later theologians from the words found at Luke 2.25. If Jesus was created as a perfect man what did the evangelist mean by that verse? If Jesus “increased in wisdom, stature and in favour with God and men” then it implied that at some point he was a less developed/undeveloped human being. How could this be possible if he was [as many contended] born a perfect man?

The Triune deity problem has never been fully reconciled [as the different Christian sects we see today demonstrate] and in the early centuries of the Christian church it only served to create further questions and conflict. Theories were put forward that ranged from Jesus having a human body but a divine mind and soul, to him being twice conceived, once divinely and once in his human form.

Such theological contentions merely served to raise ever more issues and questions. Which of his natures performed his miracles? If he was fully man when he suffered what happened to his divine nature at those moments? Where did his divine nature go during his crucifixion? Did his divine nature suffer the agonies of the cross? Even more questionable was can God be killed?

Then there was the status of his mother. By the fifth century the virgin Mary was increasingly becoming the object of personal devotion and this led to the question about her role as the mother of Jesus. Did she give birth to the Christ, to God, or to a man? This raised another thorny question, can God be birthed by a mortal woman? Certainly the mythology of the Hellenistic world showed that demi-gods and heroes could be. However, the God that is the Alpha and Omega was another matter.

It's a serious pickle. But not really. For some, things like this don't make them question anything. It has a significant impact on others.

[Hypatia_Alexandria]

It also means bad-mannered and churlish. But go ahead keep on demonstrating the "incessant obsession with nitpicking and hairsplitting" part

I have been neither bad mannered nor churlish.

I have merely pointed out your use of Anguished English!

[Hypatia_Alexandria]

Hey. Thanks again. There is a definite hint of subordination within the Trinity at the Church I attend as well. I think anytime the Father/Son image is used, it just has that inherent hint.

The intrinsic problem in Christianity has always been the attempt to reconcile the ineffable and unknowable god of the Jews with a Hellenistic anthropomorphic deity. It has never really been satisfactorily achieved. In the early centuries of the Christian church such a belief could only be enforced by Imperial Edict and the threat of severe punishment for those who dissented.

The gospel of John which would provide so much material for later theological musings and argument is far from clear on the writer’s beliefs about the nature of the Son and the language employed is always equivocal and periphrastic. Nowhere, even in this highly developed theological work, are the words “I am God “ put into the mouth of Jesus and although we have him apparently stating that “I and the Father are one” [10.30] barely four chapters later we have him telling his disciples that “the Father is greater than I” [14.28b]. No one can deny that there appears to be something rather paradoxical in these two contrasted statements that the author puts into Jesus' mouth.

Further problems arose for later theologians from the words found at Luke 2.25. If Jesus was created as a perfect man what did the evangelist mean by that verse? If Jesus “increased in wisdom, stature and in favour with God and men” then it implied that at some point he was a less developed/undeveloped human being. How could this be possible if he was [as many contended] born a perfect man?

The Triune deity problem has never been fully reconciled [as the different Christian sects we see today demonstrate] and in the early centuries of the Christian church it only served to create further questions and conflict. Theories were put forward that ranged from Jesus having a human body but a divine mind and soul, to him being twice conceived, once divinely and once in his human form.

Such theological contentions merely served to raise ever more issues and questions. Which of his natures performed his miracles? If he was fully man when he suffered what happened to his divine nature at those moments? Where did his divine nature go during his crucifixion? Did his divine nature suffer the agonies of the cross? Even more questionable was can God be killed?

Then there was the status of his mother. By the fifth century the virgin Mary was increasingly becoming the object of personal devotion and this led to the question about her role as the mother of Jesus. Did she give birth to the Christ, to God, or to a man? This raised another thorny question, can God be birthed by a mortal woman? Certainly the mythology of the Hellenistic world showed that demi-gods and heroes could be. However, the God that is the Alpha and Omega was another matter.

[Machinist]

You are welcome. You might find the following of interest.

Gregory of Nyssa and his brother Basil, who along with their friend Gregory of Nazianzus are usually known as the Cappadocian Fathers were all highly educated men with a wealth of non-Christian Greek thought and texts at their disposal. Gregory of Nazianzus left his native Cappadocia in 348 CE when he was around eighteen or nineteen and went to study in Athens, a city he declared to be “truly of gold and patroness of all that is good.” During the ten years he was there he studied numerous classical authors, and like Origen [died c. 253 CE] considered them to be an essential part of a full education. His friend Basil also with him in Athens argued that “profane writings” were a stepping stone to understanding the deeper truths of the “Holy Scriptures” which was an interesting thought!

It is therefore unsurprising that these three men would go on to have such a profound impact on the development of Christian theology.

For example Basil [in attempting to explain homoousios this divine essence shared by God the Father and the Son] used an analogy of light, “Since, therefore, the Father is light without beginning, and the Son is begotten light, yet one is light and the other is light, they [the fathers of Nicaea] rightly declared them homoousios . . . For things which are brothers to one another cannot be homoousios, as some have supposed; on the contrary, when both the cause and that which has its existence from the cause are of the same existence, they are said to be homoousios.”

He continued his argument by drawing on an Aristotelian idea of distinguishing between the substance of a thing and its individual properties. An item [e.g. a stone] might be split in two and each half painted a different colour yet despite the differing appearance of the two pieces they would share the same substance. So, for Basil, God the Father and Jesus the Begotten Son could share a substance while appearing to be different.

Basil also adapted the word homoousios to describe the single Godhead that included the Holy Spirit [which up until this point had not been of great interest/significance]. He also used hypostasis[personality] to express the distinct identity of each of the three within this single Godhead.

Of course none of this offered any rational proof for the Nicene view and actually introduced a new controversy into the debate; namely how could each member of the Trinity each be fully God, while each retained a distinct and separate personality without there being three gods? Furthermore, despite their arguments that the three divine personalities were co-equal the Fathers still tended to refer to God the Father as the source or fountainhead of the Trinity which suggests that they retained a distinct hint of subordinationism.

Hey. Thanks again. There is a definite hint of subordination within the Trinity at the Church I attend as well. I think anytime the Father/Son image is used, it just has that inherent hint.

[rogue06]

No it is not boorish [i.e. unmannered, crude, insensitive]

It also means bad-mannered and churlish. But go ahead keep on demonstrating the "incessant obsession with nitpicking and hairsplitting" part