A great explanation of the trinity

[Guest]

But would he (Matt) then be sorry that he had made them (his children) and destroy them? I don't think the analogy quite fits, although I still don't know how to fit this passage into my theological paradigm.

[Guest]

God performed his first act, the begetting of His Son, and thus time began.

Hi Paidion,

I understand that the scritptures call Jesus the only begotten, but I have always understood this in light of the incarnation, and never His origin. I am aware that many trinitarians (of which I am one) have come up with pretty fancy explanations as to just what "begotten" is all about, and you seem to have what is a new (to me) explanation.

I am wondering, what is wrong with the understanding that "begotten" just refers to the incarnation?

Is there a biblical reason to think otherwise? Of the top of my head, Jesus is never refered to as the "only begotten" before the incarnation. He is also not called the Son, but is refered to as the "Word" (theophanies in the OT notwithstanding).

Just curious as to what you thought about this (or anyone else for that matter).

God bless,
Derek

[Guest]

Hi Paidion,

Is Jesus Eternal in the sense that He was never created? Or was he created and then exalted to a high position?

[Guest]

Brody

Is Jesus Eternal in the sense that He was never created? Or was he created and then exalted to a high position?

The second statement is clearly false.
As the ancient creeds stated, He was "begotten not created."

But the fact that Jesus was not created does not seem to me to have any relation to the fact that He is eternal (will never cease to exist). He is eternal because He is the Son of the Eternal God. Even His disciples will become eternal, or perhaps a more appropriate word would be "immortal", when they are resurrected.

[Guest]

Brody

Is Jesus Eternal in the sense that He was never created? Or was he created and then exalted to a high position?

The second statement is clearly false.
As the ancient creeds stated, He was "begotten not created."

But the fact that Jesus was not created does not seem to me to have any relation to the fact that He is eternal (will never cease to exist). He is eternal because He is the Son of the Eternal God. Even His disciples will become eternal, or perhaps a more appropriate word would be "immortal", when they are resurrected.

It seems as if Acts 13:33 and Col 1:18 say that Jesus is the first born/begotten from the dead. Not speaking of His creation but of the new creation.

[Guest]

Sean

It's also known that "time travel" is possible. If you travel at near the speed of light, time would "slow down" for you. You wouldn't notice it until you returned to earth and found that thousands of years passed, but you were still alive. Time is relative, it's not fixed. If time is realtive and can even be tampered with my mere men, isn't it possible God can "time travel".

Time travel is logically impossible.

Only if you define time the way you do. Think about God. He is impossible. I mean how can a spirit create physical things or move physical things? And where did God get all the "stuff" to make the universe? How could it all come from nowhere? That's logically impossible too. We could go on and on about how illogical all the attributes of God are. Just because we can't comprehend them, doesn't mean they are "logically impossible"

Suppose you travel to a time two hours after your birth. You see yourself as a baby. Who is the real "you", the conscious being you identify as yourself, you, the time traveller, or you, the baby?

But it gets worse. Suppose you time travel just 5 minutes ago, meet up with yourself, and the two of you travel to 5 minutes earlier, pick up your self from that time, and travel another 5 minutes back. You could end with hundred of Seans in the same place and time!

Of course, there would be plenty of contradictions if, at time A, you travelled to "the future" to time B. If you found yourself committing a crime, returned to time A, and allowed time to proceed "normally" you presumably could not avoid committing that crime when the time came. We have been cultured by science fiction to suppose you could refuse to commit the crime, and thus "change the future". But that would mean that your actions which you had previously committed at time B were not perfomed at time B after all. But it gets worse. Now, after having temporally arrived at time B without committing the crime, suppose you travelled back to the time A. But at time A, you travelled to time B. Now when you travel to B you have not committed a crime. Thus you have not not only changed the future by time travel, but also the past.

I am not convinced of the supposed ramifications of Einstein's theory of relativity. Many aspects of the theory seem to correspond to reality. Nevertheless, as I see it, the theory is not about time at all, but about the behaviour of light.

First, I never said traveling back in time was possible. Only forward.
Second, if you go back in time you splinter the time line (or enter an already existant one). So any changes you make when you go back in time only affect that time line.

For example, I go back in time and prevent my own birth. This has no affect on me because I came from another time line. Nor can I return to my original time line. I'd be stuck there.

Is that provable? No, because I already said time travel backwards like in the sci-fi movies is still unproven. But as TK said. It's been proven using atomic clocks. Future time travel isn't all that impressive anyway since freezing you and bringing you back after a number of years would accomplish basically the same thing. You wake up in the future.

Steve 7150

"I make known the end from the beginning, from ancient times what is still to come. I say MY PURPOSE WILL STAND AND I WILL DO ALL THAT I PLEASE" Isa 46.10
Chicken or egg? Does God know what free will agents will do or does he intervene to CAUSE events?

This scripture so often quoted to show that God knows and makes known all events in advance, does not qualify for that purpose. God knows the end from the beginning of what? When we read the passage in context, we see that it refers not the end from the begining of all events in history, but the end from the beginning of His plans and purposes. Your own quote reveals this. Note the part you capitalized:

"I make known the end from the beginning, from ancient times what is still to come. I say MY PURPOSE WILL STAND AND I WILL DO ALL THAT I PLEASE" Isa 46.10

Of course, He knows His plans from beginning to end, and can declare them before they happen. For if God makes up His mind to do a thing for certain, nothing can prevent it. It will happen. But we cannot conclude from that that the same is true of all events that ever happen.

I still don't understand. How can God predict that He will bring something to pass, if, as you went on to say "So Israel did not do what God thought they would do. If God knew what they would do, how could He have thought they would do something else?"

You seem to prove too much. If God can't bring something to pass that He tried to accomplish but failed, and even seems to be bewildered as to why, then how can we, or God for that matter know that He can bring anything to pass? He might be stumped again. How can He know for sure?

It seems that God either:
-"Hopes" to bring what He wants to pass if free will agents cooperate.
-Forces free will agents to do His bidding to bring events to pass.
-Can see what's going to happen ahead of time.

Paidion, I know this doesn't prove anything but when I was a young heathen I had two dreams of the future (a few weeks into the future). Both times I dreamed events that later came to pass with stunning accuracy. They were unique events that have and could only have happened once in a lifetime. I literally saw the future. I don't know how or why this happened. I certainly can't explain it, but I can testify that they did indeed happen. My guess is that God gave me the dreams. This is no doubt why I believe God can see the future.

[_TK]

Just a reminder to everyone-- we hashed a lot of these points out previously under the topic "open theism" under misc theological topics. i thought i was having deja vu for a second there. i am not trying to derail this conversation( i think it's excellent) but just wanted to point everyone to another topic where many of these issues were discussed, particularly free will agents, etc etc.

on the subject of time travel, there has been much theorizing over the use of wormholes, etc for just such a thing (e.g. Timeline by Michael Crichton, The Light of Other Days, by Arthur C. Clarke. there are things in science that are extremely difficult to grasp (string theory, black holes, singularities, etc) but God is behind them all. If we are here long enough, who knows what technology will be discovered. this just in!.. http://www.cnn.com/2006/TECH/science/10 ... index.html

by the way, one possible proof that backward time travel is not possible is that we dont have people from our future visiting us. Oh-- wait a minute-- maybe that's what UFOs are

TK

[Guest]

What's amazing to me is that physicists still don't really understand what time is. There are many theories and postulates, ranging from the classical/Newtonian that time is motion in space measured against fixed points to the view of some quantum physicists that time is essentially an illusion. Einstein's Theory of Relativity (as I understand it) doesn't say that time travel is possible but that the passage of time is relative to the speed of an object. Since there are many theories of the nature of time, there are different views on whether or not time travel could occur. Personally, I think not (for temporal beings such as ourselves anyway).

I think perhaps the illustration by Dr. Wood in the Trinity article is using time in terms of how we see it and how it acts upon us. Likewise, we perceive God by how He is revealed to us, without fully comprehending His nature.

[Guest]

We could go on and on about how illogical all the attributes of God are. Just because we can't comprehend them, doesn't mean they are "logically impossible"

My friend told me the other day that he read about how St. Augustine was walking along a beach, and seen little kid digging a hole in the sand. Augustine stopped, and asked him, "what are you doing"? The little kid said, I am digging the whole so I can put all of the ocean (or water, sea etc.) in the whole. Augustine kind of laughed and walked off. Then after he did so, he began to think, "that's just like trying to comprehend in our mind everything about God".

[Guest]

I still don't understand. How can God predict that He will bring something to pass, if, as you went on to say "So Israel did not do what God thought they would do. If God knew what they would do, how could He have thought they would do something else?"

You seem to prove too much. If God can't bring something to pass that He tried to accomplish but failed, and even seems to be bewildered as to why, then how can we, or God for that matter know that He can bring anything to pass? He might be stumped again. How can He know for sure?

What I "went on to say" was taken directly from the scriptures, as I quoted them. Do you claim that God's statement is false when he said,

I thought how I would set you among my children, and give you a pleasant land, the most beautiful heritage of all the nations. And I thought you would call me, My Father, and would not turn from following me. Instead, as a faithless wife leaves her husband, so you have been faithless to me, O house of Israel, says the LORD. Jeremiah 3:1,20

Do you maintain that God did in fact see into the future, and knew that Israel would be faithless to Him, but that He nevertheless thought otherwise? Or was this just a charade? A pretence on God's part that He thought otherwise?

God does not know what free will agents will choose. I have shown elsewhere that statements about future choices of free will agents are neither true nor false. But God can state what He intends to do. Nothing, including free will agents, can stop God from doing what He intends to do.
For example, God intended that His Son should be born as a human being. So He stated through the prophets that this would take place.

On the other hand, when predicted events involved free will agents, the often didn't come true. In 2 Kings 20, Isaiah prophesied the imminent death of Hezekiah with "Thus saith the Lord". But God was persuaded by Hezekiah's plea, and gave him another 15 years of life. So Isaiah returned and prophesied differently from the first time.

"Thus says the LORD, the God of David your father: I have heard your prayer, I have seen your tears; behold, I will heal you; on the third day you shall go up to the house of the LORD. And I will add fifteen years to your life. I will deliver you and this city out of the hand of the king of Assyria, and I will defend this city for my own sake and for my servant David's sake."

Our world is very complex and what happens is the result of countless variables. Free will agents are some of the main variables, and God takes them into account. Man was created with free will. So God frequently responds to man's prayer. If the future is already known, nothing can happen that varys from the blueprint. The future would be fixed. It would be useless to pray. God would do everything according to His blueprint anyway. Instead God relates to the free will agents that He has created.
He sometimes responds to their pleas. He doesn't know exactly what they will choose, but He does what is best in the circumstances.