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I know I said I was leaving but I must reply to Jac3510
Jac3510 wrote:Byblos was completely correct in the other thread. The issue is the hypostatic union. Oldman seems to confuse the man Jesus with the Second Person of the Trinity. I don't think it is unorthodox to say that the man Jesus came into existence at a certain point in time. The human nature, after all, is not eternal in the Godhead in and of itself (although, to be technical, it is eternal in Him as an idea, which Aquinas distinguishes as eternal ex parte Dei vs. ex parte creaturae). Thus Jesus the man is not eternal in that sense. But this is precisely why the dual nature of Christ is so important. He is one person with two natures. The Second Person of the Trinity is absolutely eternal with the First and absolutely equal in every way with Him being identical to Him in substance. That Second Person, however, became incarnated in time, which is to say, He took on a human nature. He did not replace His divine nature with another. He did not put on a "man suit" that He "drove around" like a machine. He did not comingle His nature with the human nature which would result in a nature that was neither human nor divine. No, the Person became incarnated as a man, and as a man, then by nature and definition He must have taken on a man's nature in addition to His own. In history, we call that Person Jesus Christ.
It is easy, then, to talk about Jesus' origins. It is easy to talk about Him being "from" the Father. What we cannot do is confuse language concerning the human nature's physical and temporal origination--that the human nature had an efficient, formal, material, and final cause--with language about the Eternal Sonship of the Second Person considered in His divine nature. For the Divine nature had no efficient, formal, material, or final cause. It had no physical or temporal origination. The divine of the Second Person is identical to and indistinguishable from the divine nature of the First Person (and the Third, I would add).
So the question of Eternal Sonship takes us back to the Trinity. What oldman is doing, I will charitably say is unbeknownst to him, is denying the Trinity. In asserting that the Son had an origination (based on scriptural language about the man Jesus Christ) He is denying that the Son is identical in substance with the Father (and Spirit). What he is actually saying is that there is a God (we call the Father) and that the Father created the Son in eternity past. At best, then, he is a polytheist. At worst, he is an Arian. The simple, inescapable fact in either case is that Jesus is not God.
At this point, then, one "merely" needs to understand the relations of the Persons of the Trinity to each other! But I don't know we need to go there yet, because frankly I believe that oldman has failed to understand the more fundamental points I made above regarding how we talk about Jesus given His dual natures. He has confused language that only properly applies to the human nature and has incorrectly applied that language to the divine nature as well. In doing so, he is (in practice, if not in theory) denying the dual nature of Christ, since he is talking about both of Christ's natures in the same way, which is tantamount to talking about one, single nature of Christ--a nature that is somehow both God and man and therefore in reality neither.
As far as I see “the dual nature of Christ” that you Jac have picked up on here is largely irrelevant to this discussion and serves only to detract from this question I keep asking.
If the Son did not come from the Father before creation began, why has the first and second person of the Trinity been revealed to us as “Father” and “Son”?
Can anyone here then who does not believe the Son came from His Father before creation began give
a reasonable answer as to why the first and second person of the Trinity have been revealed to us as “Father” and “Son”?
As much as I keep asking, no good answer comes forward. What good reason then is there not to believe this?..
In the beginning was the Word” (The Son first existed only in the thoughts of God the Father.), “
and the Word was with God, and the Word was God” (This Word of the Father became a facsimile of the Father,
not a creation as such but another part of the Father, a new free thinking mind having no conceivable beginning to our finite minds. This new mind became another person like the Father: The Father's Son.) “
He was with God in the beginning. All things were made through Him,” (through the Father and the Son's pure and perfect love for each other they began creating everything whilst showing and giving that love to all who they created.) “
without him nothing was made that has been made.” .
Once we start denying the Son came from the Father before creation began then we finish up denying the meaning of the words “Father” and “Son” in the Trinity. That then means we can easily deny the Father and Son relationship that produces the bond of perfect love that only a perfect Father and Son can give to each other. ...and indeed to all who they create.
So let me ask again, If the Son did not come from the Father before creation began, why was the first and second person of the Trinity revealed to us as “Father” and “Son”?
...and let me also say again, the highest form of love is never self-centered but is a love that gives and sacrifices for the sake of others and remains faithful to love unto death.
Only this love can be trusted to speak the truth, for only this love will have no reason to deceive and offend any of us. Such is the essence and character of the Holy Spirit, revealed to us in full through the finished work of the Father's Son.
Through the Father and His Son comes their endless joy in their pure and perfect caring, sharing and giving to each other all that they are and all that they care to create. This Spirit of free and pure endless love naturally embraces all knowledge and wisdom and would mean nothing without being the heart or the innermost ruling character of a person.
This Spirit, this God, will live and rule only in those of us who will value Him above all others.
Jesus is God and the Son of the God who is His Father. Two different persons, “Father” and “Son” united as one God through the only proven Spirit of truth, all three are God. This God created all things.
So let me ask yet again, If the Son did not come from the Father before creation began,
why has the first and second person of the Trinity been revealed to us as “Father” and “Son”?
All reasonable answers welcome.
