De Trinitas

[Craig]

I don't normally listen to R.C. Sproul in the afternoons...I'm not usually able to. Today I was because I had my lunch during his program time.

He discussed the bibilical doctrine of the Trinity, and there were some points I found troubling...mostly because it seemed like extra-biblical inference (I do believe there is such thing as biblical inferrence).

I am a rabid Trinitarian and uphold the Oneness in essence, Threeness in Person...co-equal, co-eternal...Father is not the Son, Son is not the Holy Ghost etc.

What troubled me was the way Sproul explained the origin of the Son and Holy Spirit. He stated that the Son originates from the Father (no prob here) and their eternal love has this, what sounds to me like, "product" we call the Holy Spirit.

While Sproul said each was co-eternal with the other Persons, it seems there is only one logical conclusion: The Father is a necessary being while the Son and Spirit are not.

How do we distinguish between the Persons, explain their order, and avoid what appears to be One is necessary while the others are not?

 

[C. Matthew McMahon]

Here is how it is best phraed:

In the unity of the Godhead there be three persons, of one substance, power, and eternity: God the Father, God the Son, and God the Holy Ghost.


At this point we are fine with the language.

Then,

the Father is of none, neither begotten, nor proceeding; the Son is eternally begotten of the Father; the Holy Ghost eternally proceeding from the Father and the Son.
(Matt. 3:16-17; 28:19; II Cor. 13:14; see Eph. 2:18; John 1:14, 18; see Heb. 1:2-3; Col. 1:15; John 15:26; Gal. 4:6)

Distinctively we make a differentiation between economic proceeding - The Fahter plans, the Son is sent and the SPirit applies proceeding both from the Father an Son.

We do not say each is a "product". Rather, it is theri mode of personal distinction that is trying to be conveyed (a hard thing to do in and of itself). One essence and three persons of that essence, and different in function.