Posts by aqwsed12345

228

The point of existence and how it refutes the Trinity

by slimboyfat in

rowan williams, the former archbishop of canterbury gave an interesting answer to the somewhat stark question, what’s the point of us existing?

as a christian, my starting point is that we exist because the most fundamental form of activity, energy, call it what you like, that is there, is love.

that is, it’s a willingness that the other should be.

aqwsed12345

@joey jojo

Thank you for the response—your skepticism is honest, and I appreciate the opportunity to clarify further. I understand how the phrasing "not a what but a who" might sound humorous or even absurd when heard through the lens of modern speech or pop culture. But I’d ask you to pause for a moment and consider that we are speaking here not of a creature or a physical entity, but of the infinite, transcendent God—whose very nature is beyond complete human comprehension, yet who has revealed Himself in Scripture as Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. When I wrote that the Holy Spirit is "not a what but a who," I meant precisely this: the Holy Spirit is not a thing, not an impersonal force, not a symbolic metaphor, but a divine person. Not “a person” in the modern psychological sense (e.g., someone with a Myers-Briggs type or quirks), but in the classical theological sense—as a subsistent relation within the one undivided divine essence. Now, let’s unpack this more carefully—not for the sake of clever wordplay, but for the sake of reverence and truth.

Yes, it’s absolutely true—and not merely convenient—that the word “person” in Trinitarian theology does not mean what it typically means in modern speech. And this isn't some post hoc rationalization; it’s part of a long and careful intellectual tradition reaching back to the early Church and articulated most profoundly by St. Thomas Aquinas and the scholastic theologians. When you or I say “person” today, we often mean “a center of consciousness,” or “a psychological being with preferences, emotions, and a personality.” But this modern definition comes from post-Enlightenment developments and doesn’t work when describing the inner life of God. Why? Because if we applied this meaning to God, we would end up with three minds, three wills, three essences—which is tritheism, not monotheism. Instead, in classical theology—especially as developed by Boethius and Aquinas—a person is defined as: "An individual substance of a rational nature" (Boethius, De Persona et Duabus Naturis). But in God, we must go further: since God is one undivided being (actus purus), the Persons are not separate beings or minds. Rather, the term "Person" in God refers to a real relation within the divine essence. The Father is not the Son, and the Son is not the Holy Spirit—but they are not divided in nature. They are distinct only in terms of origin and relation:

The Father is unbegotten.
The Son is eternally begotten of the Father.
The Holy Spirit proceeds from the Father and the Son as from one principle.

This is not “convenient,” but necessary to preserve both God’s unity and the reality of the distinctions Scripture teaches.

Let’s return to the original point. The Holy Spirit is not a “what,” because He is not an impersonal force like gravity. A what can’t teach, can’t be grieved, can’t speak, can’t be lied to. But Scripture shows the Holy Spirit doing all of these:

He teaches (John 14:26)
He speaks (Acts 13:2)
He distributes gifts as He wills (1 Cor 12:11)
He can be resisted and lied to (Acts 5:3–4)
He intercedes with the Father (Romans 8:26)

These are personal actions. They are not what a mere “force” does. If Scripture speaks this way, we must either take it seriously or explain why it should be reinterpreted. As Catholics, we take it seriously—while avoiding both tritheism and modalism.

Why not just say the Holy Spirit is God’s power? Because Scripture doesn’t treat Him that way. When Jesus sends out His disciples, He commands them to baptize in the name (singular) of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit (Matthew 28:19). That formula reveals equality of dignity and being. It would be incoherent to list a Person, a Person, and then an impersonal power. Moreover, if the Holy Spirit were merely God’s power or active force, why would He speak? Why would He forbid Paul to enter Asia (Acts 16:6)? Why would He be grieved (Ephesians 4:30)? Why would He test Ananias and Sapphira (Acts 5)? And why would blasphemy against Him be an unpardonable sin (Matthew 12:32)? You don’t blaspheme a metaphor. You don’t lie to an “it.”

I get it—it may sound strange. That’s because we’re describing a reality we can’t fully grasp. We’re not talking about apples, chairs, or animals. We are talking about the infinite inner life of God. The Trinity is not a puzzle we solve, but a mystery we receive—not irrational, but beyond the limits of finite human concepts. The Church doesn’t ask us to accept absurdity, but to accept what has been revealed and clarified through millennia of prayer, study, and faithful worship. St. Augustine once said that when someone denies the Trinity, they risk losing their soul—but when someone tries to understand it fully, they risk losing their mind. Yet through faith and love, what seems like a riddle becomes a window into the divine life. The Holy Spirit is that divine Love between Father and Son, who has been given to us so that we might become sharers in God’s own life.

So yes—perhaps to modern ears, “not a what but a who” sounds strange. But if we take revelation seriously, and if we want to avoid flattening God into a caricature—either a modalist mask-wearer or a collection of divine beings—we must speak in precise and faithful terms. The Holy Spirit is not just “God’s power.” He is God. Not a separate deity, but the one God in three Persons. Not a force, but the divine Person who indwells the hearts of believers. He is, as the Creed says, “the Lord and Giver of Life.” That is not comedy. That is awe. And that is the God we are called to know, love, and worship.

If you’re willing, I’d love to keep discussing this. I’ve been where you are—in the wrestling, in the questions, and in the desire for clarity. But truth has a way of inviting us deeper. And sometimes what sounds strange turns out to be the only thing that makes sense.

228

The point of existence and how it refutes the Trinity

by slimboyfat in

rowan williams, the former archbishop of canterbury gave an interesting answer to the somewhat stark question, what’s the point of us existing?

as a christian, my starting point is that we exist because the most fundamental form of activity, energy, call it what you like, that is there, is love.

that is, it’s a willingness that the other should be.

aqwsed12345

@joey jojo

First, we need to define what we mean by "person." The traditional formulation of the Trinity is "one God in three persons." However, in modern language, the concept of "person" is practically identical with "being," and it has connotations such as "personality." Within the Trinity, these are "persons" only in a relative sense, in which sense the Father and the Son are not "persons" either, in the same way that humans are persons. It is more correct to speak of three subjects (supposita) or three subsistencies.

The Holy Spirit is truly God—coequal, consubstantial, and coeternal with the Father and the Son. He is not a mere force, energy, or divine influence, nor is He a separate deity alongside the Father and the Son. He is the third Person of the Blessed Trinity, fully God, yet distinct in personhood. To speak clearly and faithfully, we must begin by carefully defining what it means to be a “person” in the Trinity, and how this applies to the Holy Spirit.

The term “person” in Trinitarian theology does not carry the modern psychological or behavioral meaning it often does in casual speech today. It does not refer to personality traits or psychological self-awareness. Rather, in classical Catholic theology, especially as defined by Boethius and developed by Aquinas, a “person” is an individual substance of a rational nature. In God, however, we must refine this further, since God's nature is not divided among the Persons. In the Trinity, there is one divine essence, one intellect, one will—shared entirely and equally among the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit. The distinction among the Persons lies not in what they are, but in how they are related. The Father is unbegotten, the Son is begotten of the Father, and the Holy Spirit proceeds from the Father and the Son as from one principle.

Therefore, the Holy Spirit is not “another god,” but the same God. He is the same divine being who is eternally breathed forth as the mutual Love between the Father and the Son. He is not a separate mind, not a separate nature, but He is a distinct person—a unique I within the Godhead. This can be difficult to grasp because our human concept of “personality” is often tied to distinct centers of consciousness, and this creates confusion. Some ask: does the Trinity contain three egos, three “I”s, three consciousnesses? Are we not then veering toward tritheism? But this is not how the Church speaks. In fact, we must distinguish carefully: while there are indeed three Persons—and hence three I’s—there is only one divine essence, and therefore only one divine intellect and one divine will. So while the Father can say “I,” and the Son can say “I,” and the Holy Spirit can say “I,” these three Persons do not constitute three separate minds, nor do they each possess a different divine essence. They each fully are the one and only God.

To understand this, the analogy often employed by the Church Fathers and developed by Aquinas is that of relations. In God, the Persons are distinct only by their relations of origin. The Father is the origin without origin. The Son is eternally begotten, meaning He receives the fullness of the divine nature from the Father in an eternal act of generation. The Holy Spirit proceeds not by generation but by spiration—He is spirated by the mutual love of the Father and the Son. He is not their creation, not their product in time, but their eternal gift to each other, their shared breath of divine Love. That is why the Church speaks of Him as the “Gift,” the bond of charity, the living flame of divine communion. And yet, as the Nicene Creed proclaims, He is “the Lord and Giver of Life, who proceeds from the Father and the Son, who with the Father and the Son is adored and glorified.” He is not a mere expression of God’s power or presence—He is God.

This understanding guards us from two major errors: on one side, modalism, which says that God is only one person appearing in three different “modes” or roles; and on the other side, tritheism, which would treat the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit as three distinct gods. The Catholic faith avoids both extremes by carefully affirming one essence in three Persons. The Holy Spirit is not simply the “power” of God, as some heretical sects suggest. He is not a faceless “force” like in pantheistic systems. A force does not speak, does not love, does not intercede, does not grieve. But the Holy Spirit does all of these things in Scripture. He teaches (John 14:26), He intercedes (Romans 8:26), He distributes gifts (1 Corinthians 12:11), He is lied to (Acts 5:3–4), He sends (Acts 13:2), and He is named equally with the Father and the Son in baptism (Matthew 28:19). These actions are not those of an impersonal energy but of a divine person.

The Holy Spirit, then, is not a separate deity, nor is He a mere function or action of God. He is the third Person of the Most Holy Trinity. He is the Love breathed eternally between the Father and the Son. And because love is not something God has but something God is (1 John 4:8), the Holy Spirit is not simply what unites the Trinity but who unites the Trinity. He is not the passive effect of the Father and the Son, but a Person in His own right—possessing the fullness of divinity, acting with divine authority, and worthy of divine worship.

The Thomistic tradition preserves this mystery by maintaining the essential unity of God’s being while also upholding the real distinction of persons. God is one substance, one divine being, but He exists as three subsistent relations. This language may seem technical, but it protects the mystery: we do not invent explanations out of human categories. Rather, we confess what has been revealed—what Christ has spoken, what the Spirit has inspired, and what the Church has handed on with clarity and reverence. In this confession, we adore not three gods, but one God in three Persons. And in this mystery, we discover that God is not solitary, but eternally relational: an infinite communion of love, into which we are drawn by grace.

So when we ask, “Who is the Holy Spirit?”, the answer is not a what but a who. He is the Lord, the Giver of Life, the Sanctifier, the Teacher, the Advocate. He is the divine Person who comes to dwell in the souls of the baptized, making them temples of God. He is not an impersonal presence but the personal Love of the Father and the Son, poured into our hearts. And by Him, we cry out “Abba, Father” (Romans 8:15), because He draws us into the inner life of the Trinity, where the Love that is God becomes our own life and joy forever.

228

The point of existence and how it refutes the Trinity

by slimboyfat in

rowan williams, the former archbishop of canterbury gave an interesting answer to the somewhat stark question, what’s the point of us existing?

as a christian, my starting point is that we exist because the most fundamental form of activity, energy, call it what you like, that is there, is love.

that is, it’s a willingness that the other should be.

aqwsed12345

I refer to this article:

Are there two personalities in Christ, a human "I" and a divine "I"?

Here is what the blogger writes in one of the comments:

If you think there are two "I"s and two personalities, how do you reconcile verses like the one I have pointed to above?: "I am the way" (according to his humanity) "and the truth and the life" (according to his divinity).
Here we have Christ speaking in one "I" of himself as God (the Truth and Life) and as Man (the Way).

So it is not unprecedented that Christ "switches" within a sentence whether a statement refers to his divine or human nature. See also:

How Jesus is the Way, and how he is the Truth and the Life

228

The point of existence and how it refutes the Trinity

by slimboyfat in

rowan williams, the former archbishop of canterbury gave an interesting answer to the somewhat stark question, what’s the point of us existing?

as a christian, my starting point is that we exist because the most fundamental form of activity, energy, call it what you like, that is there, is love.

that is, it’s a willingness that the other should be.

aqwsed12345

@slimboyfat

It’s not like "dividing" Scripture arbitrarily into strictly human or strictly divine statements, Jesus does not alternate “back and forth” between two isolated natures as though He were two separate beings, one human and one divine. This would be Nestorianism, do you know the essential difference between Nestorianism and Chalcedonism? The core principle of orthodox Christology is precisely that Jesus is always one Person acting in and through two natures simultaneously. When Christ speaks or acts, He does so as the one eternal Logos who fully and personally possesses both the divine and the human nature, united without confusion in one hypostasis or person. Hence, every action and every statement made by Jesus can be properly attributed to the Person of the Son, yet some of these acts and statements express truths that pertain particularly to His divinity, others to His humanity, and some express the reality of both natures at once.

By the way, this is where the concept of communicatio idiomatum comes into play, which also establishes Mary's title of Theotokos. That is why there is a saying that the Theotokos is the refuter of all (Christological) heresies, since whoever understands it correctly, understands what hypostatic unity is, what communicatio idiomatum is. Although of course, if someone doesn't understand communicatio idiomatum, the question is how they can explain biblical passages like Luke 1:43, Acts 3:15, Acts 20:28, 1 Corinthians 2:8. In fact, guided by Thomistic metaphysical logic, Chalcedonian Trinitarianism is the only pure monotheistic view of all religions. Look at my arguments written to Muslim apologists about the Trinity vs. "Shirk".

In John 10:18, Christ’s assertion, "I have authority to lay down my life, and I have authority to take it up again," does not require one to arbitrarily divide the verse into a human or divine "speaker." Rather, it reveals precisely the profound unity of His Person: the divine Son, who became incarnate, possesses divine authority inherently (by His eternal divine nature) but also exercises it concretely through His humanity, having willingly taken flesh. The very fact that He speaks of receiving a command from the Father does not diminish this inherent divine authority but emphasizes that His human will is perfectly united to the divine will. Thus, He freely and willingly accepts the Father’s will as His own—not out of inferiority or ontological subordination, but out of the harmony and order intrinsic to the divine persons and revealed concretely in the incarnation.

Your objection rests on a misunderstanding of the Christological doctrines as if they imply some sort of competing dualism. The incarnate Logos is always acting as one Person, whose divine authority is not obliterated or reduced by His humanity, nor is His human obedience negated by His divinity. Instead, the two natures coexist in a single subject, the Son of God, without mixing or confusion. When Jesus expresses His obedience to the Father, this is a genuinely human act flowing from His human nature, yet it is also fully personal to the divine Son. Similarly, when He speaks of possessing divine authority to raise Himself, this authority is fundamentally rooted in His divine nature and is perfectly integrated with His human obedience. These realities are complementary, not contradictory.

The mistake Arians make—and the one reflected implicitly in your argument—is the assumption that the presence of genuine human obedience necessarily excludes genuine divine authority. But such an assumption only makes sense if one already presupposes a unitarian framework in which there is only one layer of being, either human or divine, but never both simultaneously united in one Person. The Chalcedonian understanding explicitly denies that assumption. Christ’s human obedience is the freely chosen expression, within time, of the eternal Son’s divine will—manifested through human acts in the economy of salvation. The very fact that Christ can speak both of His authority and of receiving a command without contradiction underscores precisely the mystery and the profundity of the incarnation: the eternal Son, who is fully divine, is also authentically human. His human obedience is a concrete manifestation of His divine Sonship, perfectly expressing within human history His eternal relationship with the Father.

Christ always acts as a single Divine Person, whose actions authentically manifest both His divinity and His humanity. In John 10:18, Jesus’ statement reveals this profound unity: the Son who eternally receives the divine nature from the Father also perfectly and freely obeys the Father in His human nature. The incarnational reality is neither contradictory nor confusing—it is precisely the profound truth of who Jesus is: the eternal Word made flesh.

228

The point of existence and how it refutes the Trinity

by slimboyfat in

rowan williams, the former archbishop of canterbury gave an interesting answer to the somewhat stark question, what’s the point of us existing?

as a christian, my starting point is that we exist because the most fundamental form of activity, energy, call it what you like, that is there, is love.

that is, it’s a willingness that the other should be.

aqwsed12345

And oh well... let's see other option, like

1) I have my own pre-written notes

2) I only use AI to proofread and format my shorthand responses

So don't accuse me that these aren't my thoughts and I don't know the technical terms myself. For example, the apple-basket analogy is entirely my own, I have never heard it from a single theologian, and you couldn't find it anywhere else. I used to use this analogy even when ChatGPT didn't even exist yet.

Also, if you hadn't noticed, I often upload my comments and often add a few paragraphs to them afterwards, so the time of uploading the post doesn't mean that I wrote and posted everything in that minute.

But instead of accusing, you could also focus substantially on the content.

228

The point of existence and how it refutes the Trinity

by slimboyfat in

rowan williams, the former archbishop of canterbury gave an interesting answer to the somewhat stark question, what’s the point of us existing?

as a christian, my starting point is that we exist because the most fundamental form of activity, energy, call it what you like, that is there, is love.

that is, it’s a willingness that the other should be.

aqwsed12345

You wouldn't believe how efficient I can be if I want to ;-)

228

The point of existence and how it refutes the Trinity

by slimboyfat in

rowan williams, the former archbishop of canterbury gave an interesting answer to the somewhat stark question, what’s the point of us existing?

as a christian, my starting point is that we exist because the most fundamental form of activity, energy, call it what you like, that is there, is love.

that is, it’s a willingness that the other should be.

aqwsed12345

@slimboyfat

Your objection hinges on two misunderstandings: first, a mistaken view of what it means for Jesus to say He received authority; and second, a false assumption about what it would mean for God to be "commanded." These rest on an Arian reading that denies the incarnation, ignores the two natures of Christ, and fails to understand Trinitarian theology as it has been confessed by Christians since the apostolic era.

Let’s begin with your imagined statement: “God took back his life because he was commanded to do so.” You object that this doesn't make sense because, in your words, (1) “God can’t give up his life,” and (2) “God can’t be commanded by anyone.” But this ignores the very core of Christian belief: the Word became flesh (John 1:14). Jesus, the eternal Son, took on human nature. He did not cease being God, but He entered into a real human existence — one that included mortality, weakness, obedience, and growth (Luke 2:52; Hebrews 5:8). So when Jesus says, “This command I received from my Father” (John 10:18), He is speaking in His incarnate, messianic role, not denying His divinity.

Yes — as God, the Son shares the divine nature, is uncreated, and is of one being (homoousios) with the Father. But as man, He could say things like “the Father is greater than I” (John 14:28), or “I do not know the hour” (Mark 13:32), or “I received a command” — not because He lacks divinity, but because He is one divine Person with two natures (divine and human), and He speaks truly from both. This is not contradictory; it is the Incarnation.

You claim that God can’t die. Of course — as God. But Jesus didn’t die in His divine nature. The eternal Son died in His human nature, as Christians have always believed. If God the Son never truly became man — if He was merely an exalted creature — then we have no Incarnation, and Christianity collapses. But if He truly took flesh, then His obedience, His death, and His resurrection are not signs of inferiority, but of the humility of the God who stoops to save.

You also say that “Jesus says He was given all authority by God” (Matthew 28:18), and then argue, “Where is the verse where God says ‘all my authority was given to me’?” But this is a category mistake. The Father is not the Son. Trinitarian theology doesn’t teach that the Father is the Son or the Son is the Spirit. Rather, it teaches that the three Persons fully share the one divine nature, and that the Son, as Son, eternally receives His divine being from the Father, not as a creature receives power, but as a Son receives the same nature. This is called eternal generation — and far from implying inferiority, it affirms equality of nature.

So when Jesus says, “All authority in heaven and on earth has been given to me,” He is speaking not from the standpoint of abstract divinity, but as the risen, glorified God-man, who has now assumed kingship over the world as the Messiah. The “giving” of authority is not about a created being being given divine power, but about the enthronement of the Incarnate Son, who has completed His work (cf. Daniel 7:13–14; Philippians 2:9–11). It is the reward of His messianic mission, not proof of ontological subordination.

As for John 10:18, you’re downplaying Jesus’ own words. He says, “I have authority to lay it down and I have authority to take it up again.” The Greek (ἐξουσίαν ἔχω) is clear. This is not mere passive obedience. It’s divine prerogative. And it’s inseparable from the statement: “No one takes it from me, but I lay it down of myself.” That is a divine claim. No prophet ever spoke that way. Not Moses, not Elijah, not even Michael (assuming, wrongly, that he could be identified with Jesus). But Jesus says He has authority over life and death — not just others’, but His own. This is the power of One who is life itself (John 1:4; 11:25).

You cite Matthew 28:18 as if the phrase “was given” proves subordination. But this is again only compelling if you reject the Incarnation. Jesus is the God-man. He possesses all authority in His divine nature from eternity — but as the risen Messiah, He now exercises that authority in the human nature He assumed for our salvation. In that nature, He received glory and honor from the Father — not because He lacked it eternally, but because the Son took on a new role in time. This is Philippians 2:6–11: “Being in very nature God… he humbled himself… therefore God exalted him.”

Your argument also fails to account for John 2:19: “Destroy this temple, and in three days I will raise it up.” Jesus clearly says He will raise His body — not He will be raised, not the Father will raise Him, but “I will raise it.” And as John adds, “He was speaking about the temple of His body.” That is a direct claim that He, Jesus, would resurrect Himself. No mere creature talks this way. Paul affirms the same divine identity when he writes: “Christ Jesus, who… did not consider equality with God something to be grasped” (Phil 2:6).

Finally, your entire critique collapses when you try to argue that authority “given” to Jesus implies inferiority — as though one divine Person cannot entrust a mission to another without that implying inequality. But this is to import human categories into God, and to confuse economic roles with ontological rank. Within the Trinity, there is order without inequality, mission without subordination of nature. The Son is not less than the Father — He is the Son, who from eternity receives the divine being and shares it fully.

So yes, Jesus was “given” authority — but as man, as Messiah, as Savior. And yes, He was “commanded” — because He came to do the will of His Father. But in doing so, He revealed His divinity, not denied it. As the Nicene Creed rightly proclaims: “God from God, Light from Light, true God from true God, begotten not made, consubstantial with the Father.” That’s not a corruption. That’s the Gospel.

When engaging with Arian claims that deny the full divinity of Jesus Christ, one recurring confusion lies in the way Scripture refers to Christ in both His human and divine natures. Arians often take verses that refer to Christ’s humanity—such as “The Father is greater than I” (John 14:28), “He learned obedience” (Heb. 5:8), or “He grew in wisdom and stature” (Luke 2:52)—and treat them as conclusive evidence that Christ cannot be fully divine. But this fails to account for the central Christian truth of the hypostatic union: that Christ is one Person in two natures, divine and human.

To clarify this concept, imagine a simple analogy with two baskets and apples.

Suppose you're sorting apples: you have two baskets, one for green apples and one for red apples. Your job is to put each apple in the right basket. This is not difficult when the color distinction is clear. You don't put a green apple in the red basket just because it’s still an apple.

Now apply that logic to the biblical texts about Christ:

You have one "basket" for passages that refer to Christ's human nature (e.g., born of a woman, tired, hungry, growing in wisdom, praying to the Father, dying on the cross).
You have another "basket" for passages that refer to Christ's divine nature (e.g., “In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with [the] God, and the Word was God” – John 1:1; “I and the Father are one” – John 10:30; “though he was in the form of God…” – Philippians 2:6; worshiped by angels – Hebrews 1:6).

The Arians try to take verses that clearly go into the "human nature basket" and throw them into the "divine nature basket" to disprove Christ’s divinity. That is as confused as trying to prove that all apples are green by holding up only green apples and pretending the red ones don't exist—or worse, by putting green apples into the red basket and claiming there's no difference.

John 14:28 ("the Father is greater than I") is a green apple—it belongs to the basket of Christ’s human experience. It does not contradict John 1:1 or Philippians 2:6, which are clearly red apples, belonging to the basket of His eternal divine nature.

This sorting is not arbitrary—it reflects the truth of the Incarnation. Christ is fully God and fully man. The human nature did not cancel the divine nature, nor did the divine nature consume the human. The Person of Christ operates in both natures without confusion, without change, without division, without separation, as defined in the Council of Chalcedon (451 AD).

So, what does this mean for Arian proof-texting? Whenever an Arian points to a passage like:

“The Father is greater than I” (John 14:28)
“The Son does not know the day or the hour” (Mark 13:32)
“My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?” (Matt. 27:46)

... they are pointing to real truths—about Christ’s humanity. But they misapply them by acting as if they speak to the entirety of His Person, or as if they exclude His divinity. But Scripture also teaches:

“In Him dwells all the fullness of the Godhead bodily” (Col. 2:9)
“All things were created by Him and for Him” (Col. 1:16)
“Before Abraham was, I AM” (John 8:58)

You cannot interpret one set of passages in a way that cancels out the other. That’s bad exegesis and bad theology.

In conclusion, to rightly understand Christ, we must discern which nature is being emphasized in a given passage. The error of Arianism arises from collapsing both baskets into one and insisting that every statement about Jesus must apply equally to His essence in the same way. But orthodox Christianity maintains the vital distinction: one Person, two natures—truly God and truly man. Denying either nature leads to heresy. Keeping them properly distinguished leads to the worship of the true Christ, the eternal Son of God who took on flesh for our salvation.

228

The point of existence and how it refutes the Trinity

by slimboyfat in

rowan williams, the former archbishop of canterbury gave an interesting answer to the somewhat stark question, what’s the point of us existing?

as a christian, my starting point is that we exist because the most fundamental form of activity, energy, call it what you like, that is there, is love.

that is, it’s a willingness that the other should be.

aqwsed12345

@slimboyfat

Quoting John 5:30—“I can do nothing on my own authority”—to deny Jesus' divine agency in His resurrection profoundly misrepresents the context and meaning of that passage. Far from being a statement of weakness or inferiority, it affirms the perfect unity between the Son and the Father in will, judgment, and divine action. Jesus is not saying that He lacks divine authority in Himself. Rather, He is speaking as the obedient Son, who, in perfect harmony with the Father, acts not independently in opposition to the Father but in concert with Him. The phrase “I can do nothing on my own” (οὐ δύναμαι ποιεῖν ἀπ’ ἐμαυτοῦ οὐδέν) is not a confession of incapacity but a declaration of inseparable unity. It echoes John 5:19, where Jesus says:

“The Son can do nothing of his own accord, but only what he sees the Father doing. For whatever the Father does, that the Son does likewise.”

This means that the Son does everything the Father does—in the same way, including resurrection:

“My Father is always at his work to this very day, and I too am working.” (John 5:17)
“As the Father raises the dead and gives them life, so also the Son gives life to whom he will.” (John 5:21)

And that includes judgment:

“The Father judges no one, but has given all judgment to the Son, that all may honor the Son, just as they honor the Father.” (John 5:22–23)

This is not subordinationism; this is divine identity. Hence Christ does not question that He is equal to God — which He would have had to do if He were not — but rather states that the divine works of the Son are also the works of the Father. The Son can only do what He beholds in His divine essence, which He received from the Father; and thus, He does everything that the Father does, insofar as the Son operates with the same divine power as the Father. They work equally, because they are completely equal in nature; only where there is no equality of being can there be no equality in mode of operation. That this refers exclusively to divine actions is self-evident, because those divine acts of the Son which were also human — for example, His sufferings — can only be called acts of the Father insofar as they were in accord with His will, but not as acts proper to Him; for the Father did not become man together with the Son. Insofar as the Incarnation introduced a certain distinction of being between the Father and the Son, the God-man’s actions could not be proper acts of the Father.

No mere creature can give life “to whom he will” or demand that all people give him the same honor as the Father. The claim that Jesus is merely an “agent” misunderstands what kind of agency He possesses. He is not like Moses or a prophet, temporarily commissioned and ontologically distinct from the Principal. He is the eternal Son, who has life in Himself, just as the Father does (John 5:26). This is a shared divine attribute—aseity—which no created being can possess.

So when Jesus says in John 5:30, “I can do nothing on my own authority,” He is expressing His perfect unity of will and action with the Father—not an inability, but an inseparability (cf. Perichoresis). Augustine rightly comments that this means Christ judges “not without the Father,” because all divine acts are performed in unity. He judges “as He hears,” not because He is an ontologically subordinate receiver, but because His hearing and judgment are part of His divine knowledge, which He possesses eternally from the Father. As the Church Fathers observed, the Son’s divine will is not “another” will; it is one with the Father’s. Furthermore, your objection ignores John 10:17–18, where Jesus says with absolute clarity:

“I have authority to lay down my life, and I have authority to take it up again. This command I received from my Father.”

Here, Jesus explicitly claims active authority in His own resurrection. The verb “take up again” (λαβεῖν) is not passive. It is set in parallel with “I lay it down,” both governed by the repeated phrase “I have authority.” This is Jesus’ own interpretation of His role—not as a passive recipient, but as one who acts with divine power. And when Jesus says He received a command, He is not denying His power. He is affirming the Trinitarian harmony of mission: the Son’s work is the Father’s work, but this mission is carried out with divine authority shared within the Godhead.

Your interpretation also conflicts with John 2:19, where Jesus says:

“Destroy this temple, and in three days I will raise it up.”
And John clarifies: “He was speaking about the temple of His body.” (John 2:21)

This is unambiguous: Jesus declares He will raise Himself from the dead. The Gospel of John affirms both the Father’s role (John 5:21; Acts 2:24), and the Son’s active role (John 2:19; 10:18), and the Spirit’s role (Romans 8:11) in the resurrection. This is not a contradiction. This is the Trinitarian unity: one divine action, one divine will, three Persons inseparably working together.

Lastly, the “agency” model some anti-Trinitarians invoke cannot explain this level of divine prerogative. Jewish agents never claimed to be honored as God is honored, to have life in themselves, or to judge the world on the Day of the Lord. Jesus does all these—and then says, “that all may honor the Son just as they honor the Father.” (John 5:23)

No created agent can receive the same honor due to God without blasphemy—unless that agent is Himself divine.

Therefore, John 5:30 does not diminish Jesus’ authority, nor does it conflict with His power to raise Himself. It affirms the Son’s divine identity, inseparable unity with the Father, and the perfect harmony of the Trinity in the work of salvation.

228

The point of existence and how it refutes the Trinity

by slimboyfat in

rowan williams, the former archbishop of canterbury gave an interesting answer to the somewhat stark question, what’s the point of us existing?

as a christian, my starting point is that we exist because the most fundamental form of activity, energy, call it what you like, that is there, is love.

that is, it’s a willingness that the other should be.

aqwsed12345

@slimboyfat

You claim that since Jesus says, “This command I received from my Father,” this implies that Jesus had no authority of His own, and merely received back His life passively. But this interpretation is inconsistent with both the language Jesus uses and the broader New Testament teaching.

Yes, the Greek word λαβεῖν (infinitive aorist active of lambanō) can mean both "to take" and "to receive", depending on the context. But context is king, and here Jesus clearly frames both laying down and taking back His life as active expressions of His own divine authority:

“I have authority (ἐξουσίαν ἔχω) to lay it down, and I have authority to take it up again.” (John 10:18)

This is not passive reception. Jesus is not being acted upon; He is acting. Moreover, the contrast Jesus draws is explicit:

“No one takes it from me, but I lay it down of myself.”
(οὐδεὶς αἴρει αὐτὴν ἀπ᾽ ἐμοῦ, ἀλλ᾽ ἐγὼ τίθημι αὐτὴν ἀπ᾽ ἐμαυτοῦ)
— John 10:18

So when Jesus says He “received this command from His Father,” He’s speaking of His Messianic mission, not of lacking power or agency. He is voluntarily submitting to the Father’s will — a will that He shares, as John 10:30 makes clear: “I and the Father are one.”

When Jesus says, “This commandment I received from My Father,” He is not suggesting ontological inferiority or dependence in essence. The Son, in His incarnate role, speaks as the obedient Servant, the one who fulfills the Father’s redemptive plan — freely, not under compulsion. Jesus’s whole life and mission are marked by loving submission to the Father — but it’s submission within the Trinitarian harmony, not because He is a lesser being. Philippians 2:6-8 makes this clear: “Being in very nature God… He humbled Himself…” That humility presupposes His divine nature.

You downplay John 10:18, but Jesus elsewhere reiterates His active role in His resurrection:

John 2:19 – “Destroy this temple, and in three days I will raise it up.”
John adds in v.21: “But He was speaking about the temple of His body.”
This is a straightforward, unambiguous claim by Jesus that He will raise Himself.
John 11:25 – “I am the resurrection and the life.”
That’s not something a mere creature says. That is a divine title.

So the claim that Trinitarians mistranslate λαβεῖν is false. The verb can mean “take,” “receive,” or “take up”, and in this context, Jesus’ clear emphasis on His own authority — “I have authority to take it again” — demands an active sense. It is entirely consistent in Scripture for:

The Father to raise Jesus (e.g., Acts 2:24),
The Son to raise Himself (John 2:19, 10:17–18),
The Spirit to raise Him (Romans 8:11).

This doesn’t suggest three gods or contradictions. It reflects the Trinitarian teaching: one God, three Persons, fully sharing the divine nature, power, and will. The Son shares the authority of the Father — not as a lesser being, but as the eternal Logos, the one who was with God and was God (John 1:1).

In conclusion, your reading of John 10:18 fails to account for:

The contextual force of Jesus’ declaration of authority,
The active voice and theological intention of the verb λαβεῖν,
The consistency of Trinitarian involvement in the resurrection across Scripture,
And the unique self-consciousness of Jesus, who claims what no mere creature ever could.

Jesus did not just “receive” His life back in passive obedience — He laid it down and took it up again with divine authority. That’s what He said. And we must take Him at His word.

228

The point of existence and how it refutes the Trinity

by slimboyfat in

rowan williams, the former archbishop of canterbury gave an interesting answer to the somewhat stark question, what’s the point of us existing?

as a christian, my starting point is that we exist because the most fundamental form of activity, energy, call it what you like, that is there, is love.

that is, it’s a willingness that the other should be.

aqwsed12345

@slimboyfat

You’re misrepresenting both Philo and Christian doctrine by conflating categories and assuming that Christian Trinitarianism is somehow rooted in or derived from Philo’s allegedly “creaturely” Logos. First of all, Alan Segal is not a Church Father — nor a neutral observer of Christian theology. Yes, Segal’s Two Powers in Heaven is a landmark academic work. But quoting Segal on how Philo viewed the Logos does nothing to undermine Trinitarianism, because Christianity does not derive its doctrine of the Logos from Philo. Philo is not a proto-Christian, nor did he speak with theological authority on Christian doctrine. Segal himself is not claiming that John intended to copy Philo’s Logos. He’s describing the philosophical context, not affirming the truth of the theology. In other words: what Philo or Segal thought about the Logos has no binding weight on what the Church confesses about the Word made flesh (John 1:14). Christian theology reinterprets and corrects the philosophical milieu in light of divine revelation — it doesn't merely absorb it.

Your use of Segal actually confirms my point: that there were varied Jewish speculations about mediators, wisdom, and divine action — but that does not mean those ideas are equal to or source material for the Christian Logos doctrine. Segal writes:

“So the logos, defined as the thinking faculty of God, can easily be described also as an incorporeal being, created for the purpose of carrying out His thoughts…”

Yes, and this exactly proves my earlier argument: Philo’s Logos was not a divine person consubstantial with God, but rather a philosophical abstraction adapted to a Jewish worldview — a kind of cosmic intermediary. This is the very contrast with John’s prologue.

John 1:1–3 corrects and transcends Philo:

“In the beginning was the Logos” — eternal preexistence, not created.
“The Logos was with God” — personal distinction.
“The Logos was God” — shared divine essence, not just an intermediary.

Nowhere does Philo say “the Logos was God” in the same sense. He may assign divine functions to the Logos (as the Stoics and Middle Platonists often did with their intermediate agents), but he never crosses the threshold of identifying the Logos with the very essence of YHWH. John does — unequivocally. So Alan Segal’s reading of Philo simply reflects Jewish philosophical development, not apostolic revelation.

The Logos in Christianity is not “a creature outside of God’s being” — this is your Arian lens speaking, not Christian orthodoxy. Even if Philo believed the Logos was a “creature outside of God’s being,” that says nothing about what the Gospel of John or the Christian Church teaches. Christian orthodoxy affirms, that the Logos is

begotten, not made (John 1:14, Nicene Creed),
homoousios with the Father — of the same being,
not subordinate in nature, even if functionally sent.

To say that John “adopted” Philo’s idea of a created Logos and applied it to Jesus is not only speculative and historically unjustified, it contradicts:

The prologue of John (1:1–18),
The worship of Jesus by NT authors (e.g. Philippians 2:9–11),
The early Christian rejection of subordinationist heresies (e.g. Arius),
And the unbroken patristic witness that Jesus Christ is God in the fullest sense.

Even within Philo’s thought, the Logos is not easily reduced to “creature”. Philo is notoriously ambiguous on the status of the Logos. Sometimes he speaks of the Logos as the first-born Son (e.g., De Confusione Linguarum, 146), other times he calls it the image of God, or even “a second God” (De Somniis, I.229–230). In short: Philo wasn’t offering a systematic theology, and he didn’t hold a consistent view of the Logos. He was a Platonizing Jew wrestling with transcendence and immanence. But John's Logos is not Philo’s Logos — and the Church Fathers knew that.

You’re reading Christian doctrine through the lens of Arianism, not Scripture. Let’s say it clearly: Christian doctrine doesn’t teach the Logos is a “second God” or “lesser God.” We don’t affirm two gods, nor a created demiurge. Rather: "the Logos was God… and the Logos became flesh" (John 1:1, 14) — not a creature that later earned divine status. You are importing Arian categories (created Logos, exalted being) into the text — a position that was explicitly condemned at the Council of Nicaea in 325 and is refuted in Scripture:

Hebrews 1:3 – The Son is the exact imprint of God's nature.
Colossians 1:16–17 – All things were created through Him and for Him.
Revelation 5 – The Lamb receives the same worship due to God the Father.

This cannot be said of a created being. The Fathers were not dupes of Hellenism — they were careful exegetes of divine revelation who rejected the very idea you’re proposing: that the Logos is a creature.

While it's true that early Christianity emerged in a religious environment where various Jewish groups speculated about divine agents—Wisdom, the Logos, the Angel of the Lord—this in no way means that the Christian view of Christ was merely one more version of a “primary angelic helper” idea. The apostolic writings of the New Testament go far beyond any Second Temple Jewish model by affirming not just functional agency but ontological divinity. The Gospel of John opens not by calling Jesus an angelic mediator, but by declaring, “In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God.” No Jewish mystical group ever made that claim. The Word is not merely with God, like a servant or angel, but is God in essence—eternally preexistent, the one through whom all things were made (John 1:3).

Similarly, Philippians 2:6-11 presents Jesus as “existing in the morphḗ of God,” not as a creature promoted to divine status. The early Church Fathers, such as Ignatius of Antioch, Justin Martyr, and Irenaeus, explicitly affirmed the divinity and preexistence of Christ long before the Council of Nicaea. They did not describe him as an angel, nor as a created intermediary, but as “our God Jesus Christ” (Ignatius, To the Ephesians), and as the one who is “eternally co-existent with the Father” (Irenaeus, Against Heresies 2.30.9).

Moreover, the idea that Nicene Trinitarianism “replaced” a supposedly earlier angelic Christology is a distortion. The Council of Nicaea did not invent the divinity of Christ—it formally clarified what the Church had always confessed in the face of the Arian heresy, which was a novel deviation, not a recovery of earlier tradition. The creed articulated the eternal generation of the Son, “begotten, not made,” and insisted on his consubstantiality with the Father, because this is what had been taught by the apostles and preserved in liturgical and theological traditions.

Gnostic sources, moreover, are not reliable witnesses to apostolic Christology. They represent radical departures from Judaism and Christianity alike, often blending pagan cosmologies, Platonic dualism, and speculative myth with borrowed Christian language. To argue that their portrayal of Christ as a divine intermediary reflects the mainstream Christian view prior to Nicaea is to mistake fringe sectarian distortions for apostolic teaching.

Alan Segal’s observation that some Jews and Christians posited divine agents does not prove that Christianity originally saw Jesus as a high angel. Rather, it proves that the category of divine agency was present and provided a context for early Christians to understand and redefine those roles in light of the Incarnation. The New Testament writers do not reduce Jesus to the level of a helper—they worship him, call upon his name, and equate him with YHWH himself, as seen in texts like Romans 10:13 and Hebrews 1, where the Son is declared superior to the angels, worshiped by them, and addressed by the Father as God.

In short, the claim that Jesus was viewed "primarily" as a high angel until the fourth century is contradicted by both Scripture and the earliest patristic testimony. The Church did not "evolve" from an angel-Christology into Trinitarianism; it defended the eternal divinity of Christ from the beginning and rejected any reduction of him to a creature—no matter how exalted.