How are God and Jesus the same, but different?

Matthias

Matthias

Well-known member
This article - posted on biblestudytools.com - contains several statements about the Trinity which I would like to ask trinitarian members of this forum about.

I’ll start with this one. (I’ll ask about others in follow-up posts in this thread.) As a trinitarian, what is your reaction to this:

”… God and Jesus are also separate beings …”

www.biblestudytools.com

Is Jesus God?

The Bible tells us that Jesus is God. Let's look at some statements Jesus made as well as the differences between God and Jesus.
www.biblestudytools.com www.biblestudytools.com

Does this statement about the Trinity raise a red flag, or is it non-problematical?
 
Problematic, but complicated topic so we extend a degree of charity.

Being is an extremely generic word with a crazy wide range of meaning, so we could conceivably call a center of self (a "person") a being.

To bring greater clarity and accuracy in theological terms, it is better to be more strict and not use non-technical definitions to avoid confusion.

Being/substance/essence/nature is typically used for ontology not related to the identity of personhood for Trinitarians.

Person is another difficult term that a certain Unitarian on Carm always likes to harp about, and has no exact correlation in the original languages.
 
Yes when we say God is One ( something ) that refers to Gods Being, Nature, Substance, Essence etc......... not Person.
God is One Divine Essence, One Divine Nature, One Divine Being, One Divine Substance. All synonymous Terms to describe God is One.

Person/Personhood is not synonymous with nature as they are distinct. There is not a one correlation with person and nature/being.

God is One Being and 3 Persons
Christ is One Person having 2 natures, He is not 2 Persons. Natures are not Persons. Christ is a Divine Person who has a human nature, His Person is Divine, not human. Nestorius heresy taught there were 2 persons and nature/person were the same.

Anhypostasia is essential to a trinitarian understanding of the person of the God-man. It is impossible to be a trinitarian without a confession of it. Classical Christology has described the relationship of the two natures of Christ by using the rather arcane-sounding terms anhypostasis and enhypostasis. What does this mean? Well, firstly, the human nature of Jesus has no hypostasis, or "person", of its own, but subsists only as the human nature of the Son of God, the second person of the Trinity. His human nature is anhypostatic in that it has no personhood, or independent reality of its own (the word 'subsists' is used rather than 'exists’' to indicate this dependence): rather it is hypostatized in union with, in (so, enhypostasis), the person of the Logos. This is how Chalcedon is explained: we have in Jesus one person in two natures. The subject of this human nature is divine. Thus Jesus is a divine person and not a human person! Here's Louis Berkhof, A Summary of Christian Doctrine, The Banner of Truth Trust, 1938, p. 87:
 
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dizerner said:
Problematic, but complicated topic so we extend a degree of charity.

Being is an extremely generic word with a crazy wide range of meaning, so we could conceivably call a center of self (a "person") a being.

To bring greater clarity and accuracy in theological terms, it is better to be more strict and not use non-technical definitions to avoid confusion.

Being/substance/essence/nature is typically used for ontology not related to the identity of personhood for Trinitarians.

Person is another difficult term that a certain Unitarian on Carm always likes to harp about, and has no exact correlation in the original languages.
Click to expand...

Thanks.

What exactly do you find problematic about it?

Do you think it is problematic enough that something should be done about it?
 
Anhypostasia is essential to a trinitarian understanding of the person of the God-man. It is impossible to be a trinitarian without a confession of it. Classical Christology has described the relationship of the two natures of Christ by using the rather arcane-sounding terms anhypostasis and enhypostasis. What does this mean? Well, firstly, the human nature of Jesus has no hypostasis, or "person", of its own, but subsists only as the human nature of the Son of God, the second person of the Trinity. His human nature is anhypostatic in that it has no personhood, or independent reality of its own (the word 'subsists' is used rather than 'exists’' to indicate this dependence): rather it is hypostatized in union with, in (so, enhypostasis), the person of the Logos. This is how Chalcedon is explained: we have in Jesus one person in two natures. The subject of this human nature is divine. Thus Jesus is a divine person and not a human person! Here's Louis Berkhof, A Summary of Christian Doctrine, The Banner of Truth Trust, 1938, p. 87:
 
dizerner said:
It uses imprecise language conflating substance with person.



Just a clarification is fine, not a huge deal.
Click to expand...

Not a huge deal? That’s interesting.

Let’s look at another trinitarian source.

“… there is one being: God.”

carm.org

What is the Trinity?

What is the Trinity? The Trinity is the Christian view that God is three distinct, simultaneous persons: The Father, Son, and Holy Spirit.
carm.org carm.org

The Trinity, per the first trinitarian source, is comprised of separate beings.

The Trinity, per this source, is one being.

The Trinity can’t be separate beings and one being. One of the sources - the first - must be wrong. But how serious is it?

If the Trinity is three separate beings, would that be or not be three Gods?
 
Matthias said:
This article - posted on biblestudytools.com - contains several statements about the Trinity which I would like to ask trinitarian members of this forum about.

I’ll start with this one. (I’ll ask about others in follow-up posts in this thread.) As a trinitarian, what is your reaction to this:

”… God and Jesus are also separate beings …”

www.biblestudytools.com

Is Jesus God?

The Bible tells us that Jesus is God. Let's look at some statements Jesus made as well as the differences between God and Jesus.
www.biblestudytools.com www.biblestudytools.com

Does this statement about the Trinity raise a red flag, or is it non-problematical?
Click to expand...
I could write a much more precise and theological/biblical article than the woman did in that article regarding the Trinity and the 2 natures in Christ. I'm not bragging but just stating facts. She is a blogger.

Jessica Brodie is an award-winning Christian novelist, journalist, editor, blogger, and writing coach and the recipient of the 2018 American Christian Fiction Writers Genesis Award for her novel, The Memory Garden. She is also the editor of the South Carolina United Methodist Advocate,
 
civic said:
A Summary of Christian Doctrine, The Banner of Truth Trust, 1938, p. 87:
Click to expand...

Just for Matthias' benefit, I do disagree with this quotation.

1. It confuses the old usage hypostatis as person, which is incorrect.
2. It proposes the hypostatic union which is a less Biblical model.
 
dizerner said:
Just for Matthias' benefit, I do disagree with this quotation.

1. It confuses the old usage hypostatis as person, which is incorrect.
2. It proposes the hypostatic union which is a less Biblical model.
Click to expand...
And the Chalcedon Creed got it right condemning Nestorius.
 
Matthias said:
The Trinity can’t be separate beings and one being. One of the sources - the first - must be wrong. But how serious is it?
Click to expand...

Actually it can, being has more than one definition.

It's like saying "according to this person bark is the outer covering of a tree, therefore it cannot be the sound a dog makes."
 
dizerner said:
Actually it can, being has more than one definition.

It's like saying "according to this person bark is the outer covering of a tree, therefore it cannot be the sound a dog makes."
Click to expand...
Find me one systematic theology used in seminary that supports God is 3 beings.
 
Matthias said:
Would you say that tritheism is or isn’t a huge deal?
Click to expand...

I find Trinitarians too skittish to emphasis the differentiation of Persons.

Many go so far as to say God has one will, which violates the definition of Person.

We have a lot of Semi-Modalism in Trinitarian theology.
 

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