Understanding the Trinity

[PaulSacramento]

because that part that is given to us gives us the ability to forgive and to judge correctly. and, if you want to say to blaspheme the HS is unforgivable, then why is it forgivable to blaspheme God?

I don't think you understood what I wrote.
The HS judges, not us.
Please see those links.

again i ask. if blaspheming the HS is unforgivable, then why can one blaspheme God Himself and be forgiven?

You do understand what it means to blaspheme the HS, right?

[jenna]

you have put forth some valid points, Paul, but i must answer them with other scriptures. to say the HS is "He" is entirely symbolism. please note the following scriptures: Isaiah 13:13. Is the earth female? Matthew 24:29 Is the moon female? Revelations 1:16 Is the sun male? and, to make sure i am following you correctly, since God has a spirit, and man has a spirit, and since we are made in the image of God, if you were to conclude that HS is a being within God, then our spirit would also be a person living within each person.

[jenna]

because that part that is given to us gives us the ability to forgive and to judge correctly. and, if you want to say to blaspheme the HS is unforgivable, then why is it forgivable to blaspheme God?

I don't think you understood what I wrote.
The HS judges, not us.
Please see those links.

again i ask. if blaspheming the HS is unforgivable, then why can one blaspheme God Himself and be forgiven?

You do understand what it means to blaspheme the HS, right?

yes, but you did not answer the question given.

[PaulSacramento]

Some personification and God qualities of the HS:

A. The Holy Spirit is outright said to have a mind which energy does not.

Rom 8:27 He has a mind. (The Father who searches the heart of man knows the mind of the Holy Spirit who intercedes.)
B. The Holy Spirit experience emotions, slights and injuries which energy does not.

Mt 12:31 "blasphemy against the Holy Spirit " (blaspheme energy?)
Heb 10:29 "and have insulted the Spirit" (insult energy?)
Acts 5:3 "You have lied unto the Holy Spirit " (lie to energy?)
Rom 15:30 "I urge you by the love of the Holy Spirit " (love energy?)
Eph 4:30 (Isa 63:10) "and do not grieve the Holy Spirit" (grieve energy?)
C. The Holy Spirit evaluates, reasons and chooses with intelligent freewill which energy cannot do.

John 16:13 "He will not speak on His own initiative, but whatever He hears, He will speak"
Acts 15:28 "it seemed good to us and the Holy Spirit"
1 Cor 2:11 "He knows God's thoughts.
Jn 16:13 "He will guide you"
Acts 13:1-4 "being sent out by the Holy Spirit"
Acts 16:6 "forbidden by the Holy Spirit to go to Asia"
Acts 11:12 "He told Peter to go with Cornelius' men.
Acts 8:39 "He "caught Phillip away."
Matt 4:1; 1:12; Luke 4:11 He led Jesus into the wilderness.
Acts 20:28 The Holy Spirit has made [appointed] you overseers."
D. The Holy Spirit originates intelligent thought and speaks which energy cannot do.

Acts 13:2 "the Holy Spirit said, "Set apart for Me Barnabas and Saul for the work to which I have called them"
2 Pet 1:21 He guided men to write Scripture and speak from God. The words of the Bible itself were chosen by the Holy Spirit. Energy is not intelligent.
Heb 9:8 "the Holy Spirit is indicating this."
Heb 10:15-17 (Jer. 31:33-34) "And the Holy Spirit also bears witness to us; for after saying, "This is the covenant that I will make with them""
Heb 3:7-11 (Ps. 95:7-11) Therefore, just as the Holy Spirit says, "Today if you hear His voice
Mark 13:11; 10:19-20 "it is not you who speak, but the Holy spirit"
Acts 4:25 He spoke "by the mouth of David."
Jn 16:13 "Whatever He hears He will speak" He will disclose to the apostles "things to come."
Jn 16:14 "He shall glorify me"
Rom 8:14 "being led by the Spirit of God"
Rev 2:7,11,7,29; 3:6,13,22 "... let him hear what the Spirit says to the churches."
Luke 2:26 "He revealed to Simeon he would see the Christ.
1 Cor 2:10 "for the Spirit searches the mind of God" Is the Holy Spirit merely a web crawler of information... a massive data base?
Eph 3:5 "He reveals the mystery of Christ."
1 Pet 1:11 "Spirit of Christ" in the prophets "testified beforehand the sufferings of Christ and the glories that would follow."
1 Cor 2:13 "words taught by the Spirit"
1 Ti 4:1 "The Spirit explicitly says"
Acts 2:4 He gave the Apostles "utterance."
E. The Holy Spirit assists us in ways only another person could.

Rom 8:26 "He helps our weaknesses"
Rom 8:26 "He intercedes for us"
John 14:16,17,26; 16:7 The helper, advocate, lawyer like Christ 1 Jn 2:1
F. The Holy Spirit takes actions of intelligent freewill, which energy cannot do.

1 Cor 12:11 The Spirit decides (wills) what spiritual gift each will receive. Makes no sense if energy decides who it will give itself to!
1 Cor 12:11 ""the same Spirit works all these things."
1 Cor 2:10 "the Spirit searches all things"
2 Cor 3:6; Gal 6:8 "Shall from the Holy Spirit reap eternal life" Energy is not the source of life.
Rev 22:17 "The Spirit and the Bride say come (invite)"
1 Cor 12:13 "He baptizes us into Christ."

[PaulSacramento]

you have put forth some valid points, Paul, but i must answer them with other scriptures. to say the HS is "He" is entirely symbolism. please note the following scriptures: Isaiah 13:13. Is the earth female? Matthew 24:29 Is the moon female? Revelations 1:16 Is the sun male? and, to make sure i am following you correctly, since God has a spirit, and man has a spirit, and since we are made in the image of God, if you were to conclude that HS is a being within God, then our spirit would also be a person living within each person.

Did you read those links?
One of them addresses this completely.

[PaulSacramento]

because that part that is given to us gives us the ability to forgive and to judge correctly. and, if you want to say to blaspheme the HS is unforgivable, then why is it forgivable to blaspheme God?

I don't think you understood what I wrote.
The HS judges, not us.
Please see those links.

again i ask. if blaspheming the HS is unforgivable, then why can one blaspheme God Himself and be forgiven?

You do understand what it means to blaspheme the HS, right?

yes, but you did not answer the question given.

If you understood what blasphemy of the HS is then you would know that your question isn't valid.
I'll give you a hint, it's in ACTS.

[Jac3510]

But the spirit of man is a part of man. It is also a created being.

So once again, if you say the same is true about the HS and God, then you are saying that the HS is a part of God. But God has no parts, and therefore, if this being you worship has parts, then it is not God. Therefore, you must say, if you are to affirm that God exists, that the HS is not a part of God. Therefore, the HS is either an intelligent, immaterial person--which is an angel--or else He is not a He but an "It." If the HS is not God and is not a person, then It is merely an impersonal force. But all impersonal forces are material in nature. Therefore, since there is no such thing as an immaterial, impersonal force, then if the HS is not an angel and not God, He/It simply does not exist.

so, if i am reading this correctly, then what you are saying is that God has no parts? that He cannot give us the HS, since it is not a part of Him to give? if this is true, then what do we receive when we repent and are baptized? do you think that we are "possessed" by God, and that He (His entire being) comes into us when we receive the HS?

At the moment of salvation, we receive all of God, not merely a part of Him. As Peter puts it, we become partakers of the divine nature. However, your language of being "possessed" by God is incorrect. God is not spatially located. Do you really think that you can point to something and say "God is right there, but He's not over here"? Of course not. God is ominpresent. He is everwhere absolutely fully. He isn't like some gas, with part of Him in one place, another part of Him more concentrated in another, and still entirely absent from another. Given that, then what does it mean to be "indwelt" by God? I think God's filling of the OT Temple is an excellent analogy. When God indwelt that Temple, it meant that it now had a special, dedicated relationship to Him. He was "there" in a special way--not a spaciotemporal way, but that particular location on earth was one dedicated to serving Him in a special way. And just so with the believer. The moment you place your faith in Christ, you--through the work of God in the Holy Spirit--are now placed in a special relationship with God that you were not in before. You are dedicated to Him, irrevocably, in a special way. You are, in the biblical language, sanctified or set apart. In that sense, the Spirit is "in" you. If you want still another example, it's like when the Scriptures say that Christ is in us and we are in Christ. Well, as I write this, I am sitting on the couch in my living room. I am not pushing Jesus' heart or liver out of the way to make this post, nor if you were to dissect my body now would you find Him hiding in there somewhere. Such language speaks of our unity with Him. Same, again, with the HS.

Once again, then, I challenge you to consider the logic of your own position. There are no parts in God. If there are parts in God, then He is a finite, contingent being, caused to be this rather than that, with something not identical to Himself holding those parts into a unified whole. He is, therefore, not sovereign, not necessary, not eternal. He is a contingent being in need of creation Himself. But all of that is absurd, for something must be necessary and non-contingent. That something is God, and so God is without parts of any kind.

Granted that--and that is explained and defended at length in the book you've been linked to--then my previous statements follow necessarily. Either the Holy Spirit is 100% God, as Christians have always said, or else He is not God in any sense. If He exists, He is an angel, a created being, and not in any sense omnipotent or omniscient or such things. And if He is not a person, not an angel, and yet not God, then He simply does not exist at all. Those are your only choices.

[jenna]

Some personification and God qualities of the HS:

A. The Holy Spirit is outright said to have a mind which energy does not.

Rom 8:27 He has a mind. (The Father who searches the heart of man knows the mind of the Holy Spirit who intercedes.)
B. The Holy Spirit experience emotions, slights and injuries which energy does not.

Mt 12:31 "blasphemy against the Holy Spirit " (blaspheme energy?)
Heb 10:29 "and have insulted the Spirit" (insult energy?)
Acts 5:3 "You have lied unto the Holy Spirit " (lie to energy?)
Rom 15:30 "I urge you by the love of the Holy Spirit " (love energy?)
Eph 4:30 (Isa 63:10) "and do not grieve the Holy Spirit" (grieve energy?)
C. The Holy Spirit evaluates, reasons and chooses with intelligent freewill which energy cannot do.

John 16:13 "He will not speak on His own initiative, but whatever He hears, He will speak"
Acts 15:28 "it seemed good to us and the Holy Spirit"
1 Cor 2:11 "He knows God's thoughts.
Jn 16:13 "He will guide you"
Acts 13:1-4 "being sent out by the Holy Spirit"
Acts 16:6 "forbidden by the Holy Spirit to go to Asia"
Acts 11:12 "He told Peter to go with Cornelius' men.
Acts 8:39 "He "caught Phillip away."
Matt 4:1; 1:12; Luke 4:11 He led Jesus into the wilderness.
Acts 20:28 The Holy Spirit has made [appointed] you overseers."
D. The Holy Spirit originates intelligent thought and speaks which energy cannot do.

Acts 13:2 "the Holy Spirit said, "Set apart for Me Barnabas and Saul for the work to which I have called them"
2 Pet 1:21 He guided men to write Scripture and speak from God. The words of the Bible itself were chosen by the Holy Spirit. Energy is not intelligent.
Heb 9:8 "the Holy Spirit is indicating this."
Heb 10:15-17 (Jer. 31:33-34) "And the Holy Spirit also bears witness to us; for after saying, "This is the covenant that I will make with them""
Heb 3:7-11 (Ps. 95:7-11) Therefore, just as the Holy Spirit says, "Today if you hear His voice
Mark 13:11; 10:19-20 "it is not you who speak, but the Holy spirit"
Acts 4:25 He spoke "by the mouth of David."
Jn 16:13 "Whatever He hears He will speak" He will disclose to the apostles "things to come."
Jn 16:14 "He shall glorify me"
Rom 8:14 "being led by the Spirit of God"
Rev 2:7,11,7,29; 3:6,13,22 "... let him hear what the Spirit says to the churches."
Luke 2:26 "He revealed to Simeon he would see the Christ.
1 Cor 2:10 "for the Spirit searches the mind of God" Is the Holy Spirit merely a web crawler of information... a massive data base?
Eph 3:5 "He reveals the mystery of Christ."
1 Pet 1:11 "Spirit of Christ" in the prophets "testified beforehand the sufferings of Christ and the glories that would follow."
1 Cor 2:13 "words taught by the Spirit"
1 Ti 4:1 "The Spirit explicitly says"
Acts 2:4 He gave the Apostles "utterance."
E. The Holy Spirit assists us in ways only another person could.

Rom 8:26 "He helps our weaknesses"
Rom 8:26 "He intercedes for us"
John 14:16,17,26; 16:7 The helper, advocate, lawyer like Christ 1 Jn 2:1
F. The Holy Spirit takes actions of intelligent freewill, which energy cannot do.

1 Cor 12:11 The Spirit decides (wills) what spiritual gift each will receive. Makes no sense if energy decides who it will give itself to!
1 Cor 12:11 ""the same Spirit works all these things."
1 Cor 2:10 "the Spirit searches all things"
2 Cor 3:6; Gal 6:8 "Shall from the Holy Spirit reap eternal life" Energy is not the source of life.
Rev 22:17 "The Spirit and the Bride say come (invite)"
1 Cor 12:13 "He baptizes us into Christ."

each time the word Spirit is used in these verses, replace it with "the power of God", and it still makes just as much sense.

[jenna]

I don't think you understood what I wrote.
The HS judges, not us.
Please see those links.

again i ask. if blaspheming the HS is unforgivable, then why can one blaspheme God Himself and be forgiven?

You do understand what it means to blaspheme the HS, right?

yes, but you did not answer the question given.

If you understood what blasphemy of the HS is then you would know that your question isn't valid.
I'll give you a hint, it's in ACTS.

actually, no it isnt in acts, but i will give you a hint, it is in Hebrews. and in Matthew.

[Jac3510]

and Christ and the Father are one in the sense that They are of one mind. They are not one being, they are two completely separate beings.

Now let's revisit this part.

If Christ is God and the Father is God, both they are separate beings, then what you have are two distinct gods. That is, we have polytheism. But, of course, Scripture is clear that there is only one God.

Moreover, polytheism is self-contadictory. The reason I am one being and jenna is another--the reason we are different--is that she has something I lack and I have something she lacks. Or, in this case, a lot of somethings. To take the most obvious example, I have my body, which is mine, and she has her body, which is hers. Now, God is not material and so we can't say God has a body (unless we want to be Mormons). So if God is immaterial, and Christ is God, then Christ is immaterial. The Father is immaterial, and therefore it is not their body that distinguishes them.

So then I have this question for you jenna: what does the Father have that the Son lacks, and what does the Son have that the Father lacks?

Please note that if you provide any sort of positive answer to this question, then you are saying that either the Father or the Son lack something and are therefore incomplete in and of themselves. That is to say, you are asserting that they are imperfect. And this is why polytheism fails. For if God is perfect, then He lacks nothing. But if He lacks nothing, there cannot be another God who lacks nothing, for two beings who lacked nothing would be indistinguishable from each other and, in fact, be the same essence. This, of course, is what Christians have always said about God. But jenna now says that Christ and the Father are separate beings, and therefore are both "gods" such that one or both lack something. Therefore, on jenna's views, God is necessarily imperfect. Thus, God does not exist, since God, by literal definition, is perfect and lacking nothing.

The alternative for jenna is to say that the Father lacks nothing and is truly God, but that Christ, as a separate being, is not really God. But now she's just denying Christ's divinity and is an Arian at best.

[PaulSacramento]

each time the word Spirit is used in these verses, replace it with "the power of God", and it still makes just as much sense.

First off, if the writers wanted to say "power of God" they would h ave ( they did elsewhere of the power of God).
Second, no it wouldn't have made as much sense.
Look at what is written, even just the first one:

Rom 8:27 He has a mind. (The Father who searches the heart of man knows the mind of the Holy Spirit who intercedes.)

Are you suggesting that the power of God has a mind ?

I mean, look at just that part:

26 Likewise the Spirit helps us in our weakness. For we do not know what to pray for as we ought, but the Spirit himself intercedes for us with groanings too deep for words. 27 And he who searches hearts knows what is the mind of the Spirit, because[g] the Spirit intercedes for the saints according to the will of God.

change spirit to "power of God and you get this:

26 Likewise the POWER OF GOD helps us in our weakness. For we do not know what to pray for as we ought, but the POWER OF GOD himself intercedes for us with groanings too deep for words. 27 And he who searches hearts knows what is the mind of the POWER OF GOD, because[g] the POWER OF GOD intercedes for the saints according to the will of God.


Doesn't make a lot of sense there, I mean "...POWER OF GOD himself intercedes for us..."
What ?

[jenna]

and Christ and the Father are one in the sense that They are of one mind. They are not one being, they are two completely separate beings.

Now let's revisit this part.

If Christ is God and the Father is God, both they are separate beings, then what you have are two distinct gods. That is, we have polytheism. But, of course, Scripture is clear that there is only one God.

Moreover, polytheism is self-contadictory. The reason I am one being and jenna is another--the reason we are different--is that she has something I lack and I have something she lacks. Or, in this case, a lot of somethings. To take the most obvious example, I have my body, which is mine, and she has her body, which is hers. Now, God is not material and so we can't say God has a body (unless we want to be Mormons). So if God is immaterial, and Christ is God, then Christ is immaterial. The Father is immaterial, and therefore it is not their body that distinguishes them.

So then I have this question for you jenna: what does the Father have that the Son lacks, and what does the Son have that the Father lacks?

Please note that if you provide any sort of positive answer to this question, then you are saying that either the Father or the Son lack something and are therefore incomplete in and of themselves. That is to say, you are asserting that they are imperfect. And this is why polytheism fails. For if God is perfect, then He lacks nothing. But if He lacks nothing, there cannot be another God who lacks nothing, for two beings who lacked nothing would be indistinguishable from each other and, in fact, be the same essence. This, of course, is what Christians have always said about God. But jenna now says that Christ and the Father are separate beings, and therefore are both "gods" such that one or both lack something. Therefore, on jenna's views, God is necessarily imperfect. Thus, God does not exist, since God, by literal definition, is perfect and lacking nothing.

The alternative for jenna is to say that the Father lacks nothing and is truly God, but that Christ, as a separate being, is not really God. But now she's just denying Christ's divinity and is an Arian at best.

not so. it is possible to say there is one God, and also believe that Christ and God the Father are separate beings. with neither lacking nothing. why do I say they are separate? read John 14:28. if God and christ are one being, how could the Father be greater than Christ? and also, John 1:1-2 two distinct, separate beings are identified here, yet both are God. just as a human family can be ONE FAMILY, made up of several separate beings, the God family is made up of 2.

[PaulSacramento]

God isn't "A" being Jenna, he IS Being.
The father being greater than Christ is a comment of authority, not nature.
You and your Father share the same nature and are equal in nature BUT you father has authority over you.

[jenna]

but either way, obviously the three of us will not see eye to eye on this, nor agree on this, so i am bowing out, as i am honestly beginning to think rather nasty thoughts about this, and do not want it to spill out onto the board. I respect the 2 of you too much for that, and so we will just have to agree to disagree on this.

[PaulSacramento]

It seems to me that the issue with Jenna is that she is a bitarian, so the issue is the HS and not Christ.