# Regarding a Trinitarian Error



## Andrew P.C. (Nov 16, 2016)

If one says "I still think the confession (Ch. 2.1 and 2.2) is reasoning about the attributes of the person rather then appealing to some abstract nature and identify the attributes of that nature", and then say "I didn't say that the persons were defined by the divine attributes, I said that they are the divine attributes", is this not the same thing? Is he wrong in ascribing attributes to the *Persons* when WLC 10 gives the only properties for the persons?



> Edward Leigh says the following: "they are three not in respect of Essence or Divine Attributes, three Eternals; but three in respect of personal properties, as the Father is of none, the Sonne of the Father, and the holy Ghost of both; three Persons but one God, as to be, to be true, to be good, are all one, because Transcendents."
> 
> Edward Leigh, A Systeme or Body of Divinity Consisting of Ten Books, Book 2 CHAP. XVI. Of the Trinity



Thoughts?


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## Contra_Mundum (Nov 16, 2016)

It seems to me, the point the person you are quoting aims at is this:
_It is not proper to separate personality and nature with respect to God._

To "abstract" the divine nature would raise it to another state (theoretically); and then make the three Persons draw from that reservoir for their own participation in divinity, or possibly make one (e.g. the Father) hierarchically superior to the other Persons as his dependents. What we would allow for in terms of human personality and nature we should not allow with respect of God.

In the second part of the quote the person affirms his original point (in response to a question or charge); denying that, for example, the Son is certainly God because he is omniscient, because he participates in that which only God has (even if you could justify that comment in another context). Rather, God the Son is omniscience, and so is God the Holy Spirit, and so is God the Father.

This makes the three Persons indistinguishable in terms of divine attributes, without positing a theory of divine nature conceptually distinct from any one of them. However, the three remain distinguishable in terms of personal properties.


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## Dachaser (Nov 16, 2016)

Hasn't the correct understanding been though that they are Three in essence, as all equally God, yet each one is a seperate distinct Person?

What does he mean by Transcendents?


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## RamistThomist (Nov 16, 2016)

The persons are distinguished by personal properties, not by divine attributes. There is a sense in which Augustine in his more unguarded moments called the person attribute "x."


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## RamistThomist (Nov 16, 2016)

Andrew P.C. said:


> "I didn't say that the persons were defined by the divine attributes, I said that they are the divine attributes",



I would ask:
1. How do we know which person is this or that divine attribute?
2. If the Son is the attribute of Eternity, then is the Father not Eternal?
2* If the Father is also eternal, and the Son is Eternity/Eternal, then isn't the Father also the Son?


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## Contra_Mundum (Nov 16, 2016)

ReformedReidian said:


> Andrew P.C. said:
> 
> 
> > "I didn't say that the persons were defined by the divine attributes, I said that they are the divine attributes",
> ...



Jacob,
I don't think it is correct analysis to separate the follow up statement from the previous. The respondent is not divvying up the attributes. His use of the plural "attributes" (final word of the quote) I read as predication of ALL divine attributes of ALL the Persons.


edit: based on additional information offered below, I could well be wrong about the respondent's intent. In which case, Jacob's questions are quite germane.


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## Dachaser (Nov 16, 2016)

Isn't the main distinction between Them though in the roles that each one of them agrred to take on?

They all were of one Mind regarding the plan of salvation, but the Father sent forth His Son as messiah, who died/rose again, and the Holy Spirit is the One that brings forth the enabling/quickening to sinners to save them?

ALL 3 equally God, and each one has a specific function in the Godhead taking on?


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## Andrew P.C. (Nov 16, 2016)

Thank you for the feedback. One thing that I failed to mention is that this person states that WCF 2.1 and 2.2 refer to the Father. The reason for this is because he says the proof texts for 2.1 and 2.2 refer to the Father.


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## Andrew P.C. (Nov 16, 2016)

Dachaser said:


> Isn't the main distinction between Them though in the roles that each one of them agrred to take on?
> 
> They all were of one Mind regarding the plan of salvation, but the Father sent forth His Son as messiah, who died/rose again, and the Holy Spirit is the One that brings forth the enabling/quickening to sinners to save them?
> 
> ALL 3 equally God, and each one has a specific function in the Godhead taking on?



We only know the Persons by their personal properties. The Father begets the Son, the Son is begotten of the Father, and the Spirit proceeds from both the Father and the Son.


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## Contra_Mundum (Nov 16, 2016)

Andrew P.C. said:


> Thank you for the feedback. One thing that I failed to mention is that this person states that WCF 2.1 and 2.2 refer to the Father. The reason for this is because he says the proof texts for 2.1 and 2.2 refer to the Father.



His comment is overly restrictive. The Shema (Dt.6:4) is the very first prooftext, and it is false to say that the One God Israel worshipped was the Trinitarian Father, exclusive of the other two Persons.

Similar rebuttals could be offered respecting other prooftexts. As Christians, we require a rationale for _limiting_ some divine reference in Scripture to one Person or another.

I definitely wanted to be fair in judging his original statements. But if he is as Jacob implied earlier *divvying up* divine attributes (or partitioning them), this is tri-theism. And heretical.


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## RamistThomist (Nov 16, 2016)

Contra_Mundum said:


> ReformedReidian said:
> 
> 
> > Andrew P.C. said:
> ...



Fair enough. I was kind of confused by the claim anyway.


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## RamistThomist (Nov 16, 2016)

Contra_Mundum said:


> Andrew P.C. said:
> 
> 
> > Thank you for the feedback. One thing that I failed to mention is that this person states that WCF 2.1 and 2.2 refer to the Father. The reason for this is because he says the proof texts for 2.1 and 2.2 refer to the Father.
> ...



Well stated. I am going to wait and see what he actually means.


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## RamistThomist (Nov 16, 2016)

Dachaser said:


> Isn't the main distinction between Them though in the roles that each one of them agrred to take on?
> 
> They all were of one Mind regarding the plan of salvation, but the Father sent forth His Son as messiah, who died/rose again, and the Holy Spirit is the One that brings forth the enabling/quickening to sinners to save them?
> 
> ALL 3 equally God, and each one has a specific function in the Godhead taking on?



No. This is where Grudem's functionalism errs. The persons are primarily distinguished by their personal properties. The Son has the property of being begotten. The Father has the property of begetting, and the Holy Spirit has the property of proceeding from Father and [or through] the Son.


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## Dachaser (Nov 16, 2016)

Why would the truth be though that both aspects are true regarding the trinity though?

As Dr Grudem not anly one have read that focused on this view of the trinity as He did?

Think Dr Erickson had the same answer as Dr Grudem also...


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## RamistThomist (Nov 16, 2016)

Dachaser said:


> Why would the truth be though that both aspects are true regarding the trinity though?
> 
> As Dr Grudem not anly one have read that focused on this view of the trinity as He did?
> 
> Think Dr Erickson had the same answer as Dr Grudem also...



Erickson wrote a book refuting Grudem.


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## RamistThomist (Nov 16, 2016)

Here is a review of Millard Erickson's critique of Grudem.
https://cocceius.wordpress.com/2016/11/16/erickson-contra-grudem/


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## Andrew P.C. (Nov 18, 2016)

Contra_Mundum said:


> Andrew P.C. said:
> 
> 
> > Thank you for the feedback. One thing that I failed to mention is that this person states that WCF 2.1 and 2.2 refer to the Father. The reason for this is because he says the proof texts for 2.1 and 2.2 refer to the Father.
> ...



I've thought about this comment. What if the person says that the text isn't in "exclusion" of the other two, but that the Father is primary over the other two in this text?


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## Contra_Mundum (Nov 18, 2016)

Andrew P.C. said:


> I've thought about this comment. What if the person says that the text isn't in "exclusion" of the other two, but that the Father is primary over the other two in this text?


What is the basis for this claim? As it stands, such an _*assertion*_ would be a distinction without a difference.

The point of noting an _explicit reference_ to one Person rather than one of the others is because there's an overriding demand from the text itself. For instance, the Voice out of heaven juxtaposed with Jesus standing before the witnesses is a _prima facie_ case for attributing the Voice as coming from God the Father. Other instances--mainly NT material--can be multiplied, e.g.: Jesus at prayer, epistolary references to Christ or the Spirit _beside_ references to God; etc. But, find a reference to the Angel of the LORD in the OT (who typically accepts worship) referring to God or the LORD, and you may well have a comparable OT instance of the same phenomenon.

Positing a "primary" referent in Dt.6:4, resulting in rendering the other Persons "opaque" even if they are not denied an outright presence, accentuates the distinction without a difference. If you might as well not be there, that's really just another way of not being there. Appeal to a kind of necessity of being--like saying Baby Joe was "present" in utero when Momma Ann was stealing a pack of gum--is just a weak concession.

The reality is that God in the OT, whether referred to as God (El/Elohim), Jehovah (YHWH), or other titles such as Adonai, are recognized by the NT to have reference to all the Persons, typically quoting an OT text and applying it to some Person or another. So, what would be the rationale for a (merely) practical reduction of the Trinitarian content of Dt.6:4?

The issue has nothing to do with whether Israel on the Moabite plains had full possession and apprehension of God's complex (not simplex) nature; but what we understand IS that God, who do possess and apprehend more complete revelation respecting his complex nature. Mal.3:6, "For I am the LORD, I change not."


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## Dachaser (Nov 18, 2016)

Thanks, reasd the article very informatve!

Is the basic prolem with holding as Grudem does then seem to be implying that within the Trinity there are lower positions/authority, so that God the Father would seem to be somehow superior to Jesus and Holy Spirit?


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## RamistThomist (Nov 18, 2016)

Dachaser said:


> Thanks, reasd the article very informatve!
> 
> Is the basic prolem with holding as Grudem does then seem to be implying that within the Trinity there are lower positions/authority, so that God the Father would seem to be somehow superior to Jesus and Holy Spirit?



That's the basic problem. The other problem, as the church has long pointed out, is not only are the persons of the Trinity _homoousios_, but so are the relations between the persons. Grudem destroys that.


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## Justified (Nov 18, 2016)

ReformedReidian said:


> Dachaser said:
> 
> 
> > Thanks, reasd the article very informatve!
> ...


Do you understand a divine person to be a subsistent relation? Otherwise, what are we exactly saying when we say that the relations themselves are homoousios.


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## RamistThomist (Nov 18, 2016)

Justified said:


> ReformedReidian said:
> 
> 
> > Dachaser said:
> ...



Generally, yes. I don't think that's what Athanasius meant when he made this argument, though.


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## Dachaser (Nov 18, 2016)

he would not be deny the trinity in that the 3 are God, but has an inferior view on that?


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## Dachaser (Nov 18, 2016)

That would mean that the 3 are eternally ralted to other by function of eternally existing as God?


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## RamistThomist (Nov 18, 2016)

Dachaser said:


> That would mean that the 3 are eternally ralted to other by function of eternally existing as God?



"Function" language is misleading and I try to avoid it. The Father begets the Son (and spirates the Spirit); The Son is Begotten (and spirates the Spirit). The Spirit proceeds. 

They are identified by their characteristics (propria), not by their functions.


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## RamistThomist (Nov 18, 2016)

Dachaser said:


> he would not be deny the trinity in that the 3 are God, but has an inferior view on that?



Grudem doesn't deny the Trinity. He just has a bad view on it.


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## Andrew P.C. (Nov 28, 2016)

Update:

Here is what was said by this person:



> The Father is Omnipotent qua person, that omnipotence is not what distinguishes him as a person. That does not mean that he is not an omnipotent person.
> 
> Each person is/has all of the divine attributes, and is identical to the other persons in respect to those attributes. What distinguishes them is their hypostatic relations, but that does not mean that they do not have those attributes....
> 
> ...



Question 11 is in regards to the Larger catechism and the particular notice of ascribing attributes to God only. 

Here is my thought:

We can only understand the Persons (qua persons) by their personal properties. When we start ascribing attributes to them (qua persons), we start to formulate a type of tritheism. Am I wrong in this assessment?


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## Andrew P.C. (Nov 28, 2016)

Found these (well i transcribed them from the copy)

“the world is a production of that Essence which is common to all three, not any personal emanation from this or that subsistent; which is the reason why a Deity may be inferred from thence, but not any distinction of Persons, much less the determinate number of a trinity” (John Arrowsmith, Chain of Principles, Pg. 137)

“The attributes of God however diversified in our conceptions (as hath been said) are identified with his Essence, which is but One” (John Arrowsmith, Chain of Principles, Pg. 147)


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## Dachaser (Nov 28, 2016)

Based upon him separating them based upon their functions/roles within the Trinity, but still views all of Them as being equally God. correct?


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## Dachaser (Nov 28, 2016)

Don't the entire atributes of the Godhead though essentially makes up whom they are?


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## RamistThomist (Nov 28, 2016)

Dachaser said:


> Based upon him separating them based upon their functions/roles within the Trinity, but still views all of Them as being equally God. correct?



Who is the "him" in that sentence?


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