In this blog post I want to explore the topic of whether Roman Catholics are committed to the belief that they worship the same God as the Muslims worship. It seems that the Roman Catholic Catechism teaches this and if this is the case then one could devise a compelling argument against the Catholic position.
The Qur’an clearly states:
“[4:171] O people of the scripture, do not transgress the limits of your religion, and do not say about GOD except the truth. The Messiah, Jesus, the son of Mary, was a messenger of GOD, and His word that He had sent to Mary, and a revelation from Him. Therefore, you shall believe in GOD and His messengers. You shall not say, "Trinity." You shall refrain from this for your own good. GOD is only one god. Be He glorified; He is much too glorious to have a son. To Him belongs everything in the heavens and everything on earth. GOD suffices as Lord and Master.”
What is clearly being taught in Sura 4:171 is that there is not a Trinity in the Divine Essence. That is to say: God is only a unity and has no tri-diversity as the Christian Doctrine of Trinity states. Well why might this be a problem for Roman Catholics? The reason why this seems to be a serious problem is because the Official Roman Catholic Catechism states in paragraph 841:
841 The Church's relationship with the Muslims. "The plan of salvation also includes those who acknowledge the Creator, in the first place amongst whom are the Muslims; these profess to hold the faith of Abraham, and together with us they adore the one, merciful God, mankind's judge on the last day."
The Catholic Catechism is suggesting that Muslims and Catholics worship together the same object, namely the one, merciful, God. Catholics adore a God who is One but also three with respect to persons, but Muslims reject that God is three persons and just says he is one. So how could they have the same object of worship? To make it more evident I will lay out three propositions that draw out this contradiction further:
P1: Catholics believe and worship God as a Trinity
P2: Muslims believe and worship God as a Unity
P3: Catholics and Muslims together worship the same object
If the propositions are granted and laid out in this manner there is a clear contradiction between P3 in conjunction with P1 and P2. From this one could come up with this argument against the Catholic position:
P1: The Official Catholic Church teachings on Faith and Practice are true in total
P2: The Roman Catholic Catechism is a part of these true official teachings
P3: The Roman Catholic Catechism contains a falsehood on the object of worship in Islamic theology
C: Hence, the Official Catholic Church teachings on Faith and Practice are not true in total
This seems valid and sound to me. What do you think?
To see the official Catholic Teaching on this from The Roman Catholic Catechism on the Official Vatican site click here.
Well that seems pretty straightforward. I think you're right, that seems like an obvious flaw with the Catechism. I wonder if we could think of a more charitable way to understand this though, like maybe they think that Muslims worship the same God in "ignorance" or something like that. Like they believe in the same God that Abraham believed in because he didn't know about Jesus. Thought its not as though Abraham disbelieved the trinity, Muslims (as you aptly pointed out) clearly deny the trinity. So if the Latins want Muslims to be worshipping True Yahweh then it must mean that by God's severe mercy he is allowing their ignorance to not be considered a violation of true belief. :) Silly Catechism needs to ice skate a little with a polar bear named veritas.
ReplyDeletesorry I didn't mean ignorance, I meant their denial
ReplyDeleteNate--
ReplyDeleteDo you think the same object can be represented with different (including possibly inaccurate) concepts?
This same logic could be used against the Jews, but it would clearly prove wrong at the end of the day because the Jewish God is the Christian God.
ReplyDeleteSo with that in mind, Catholics would say they do worship the same God, but have a distorted/imperfect understanding of Him.
Well Orthodox Jews actually go farther today than simply denying the trinity. They actually deny God is even personal, at all. I asked a Rabbi if it was Platonic, and he said he didn't know much about Plato, but when I explained Platonic thought to him he told me yes that's basically what they believe. God to a Modern Jew goes beyond imperfect denials of the trinity. So current Judaism is even more confused than simply denying the trinity.
ReplyDeleteBut even without that Nick I think you're begging the question. The Old Covenant Jews did of course believe in the same God that we worship. But when further revelation of that God was brought to them not all of them accepted or have yet accepted the further revelation. So about two thousand years ago when the God they were worshipping presented himself to the Jews in an even clearer fashion they rejected that same God they were worshipping.
The question is whether or not people can reject the trinity and still believe in Yahweh. You seem to think the answer is obviously yes, but Nate and I think it is quite clearly no.
Hey Michael,
ReplyDeleteYou Said:
Do you think the same object can be represented with different (including possibly inaccurate) concepts?
Response: I do in one sense and I do not in another. I think that there is a intuitive criteria for at which point one is no longer worshiping the same object because of the concepts being so radically different that seems counter intuitive to say that so and so is worshiping the same object of worship as another party. With that being said I would also add this slight qualification: It seems that one can be slightly mistaken about a object and still be said in general to have that object in mind without having ever single detail correct precisely. This is largely vague in some cases (like in the case of you and I worshiping the same God when you say God does not exist and I do say that God exists, but yet we together believe in the trinity in some way). However, it seems pretty clear to me that the object of worship in Islamic theology and the object of worship in Catholic theology is so radically different that it seems hardly reasonable to say the same object is being worshiped here. But perhaps I am mistaken about this.
God Bless,
Nate
Hey Nick,
ReplyDeleteThe God portrayed in the Old Testament and the New Testament is revealed as unified and diverse (Genesis 19:23). So I do not think the Jews would reject that and if they did then I would be perfectly comfortable with saying that they were not saved and were worshiping a different object of worship. I think it is possible to say that the Jews may have had a incomplete understanding of God, but not a false since I do not honestly believe that they would have rejected that God was three persons. Romans 1:20 says that even unbelievers can know God's nature (certainly his diversity is one of those things we could know) through general revelation and Van Til thought that one can give arguments for God being unified and diverse. So it seems that one could say that all men that God is not Unitarian with respect to his nature and so I think the Jews would have thought something like that as well. Thus, it seems to me that the same argument could not be applied to the truly saved Jews of the Old Testament. For this reason I do not buy your argument and thus the problem with Roman Catholicism seems to remain.
God Bless,
NPT
Well it all depends. God's "diversity" in the sense of Three Persons is something not obvious at all in the OT, and in fact it was so contrary to Jewish thinking that the Incarnation was a total scandal in it's own right. As for Rom 1:20, it is talking about "natural revelation" and thus the most that can be known by an unbeliever is general attributes of God, they cannot know "details" like Three Persons apart from Divine Revelation.
ReplyDeleteCatholic theology distinguishes between natural and divine revelation. The only reason why we can talk about this Unity and Diversity so easily is because it's ingrained in our head, the early Christians didn't think like this (at least not the common man).
Ultimately, this issue can only be discussed so far, because a lot depends on theological/philosophical presuppositions and authority. In the end, the Catholic Church is not at all denying they have a distorted view. I wonder what the Early Church Fathers had to say about whether the Jews worshiped the same God, I would assume yes, otherwise conversations like St Justin with Trypho wouldn't make much sense.
Hey Nick,
ReplyDeleteWell it is obvious that God is diverse in the Old Testament, but it seems implicit that there is a Messiah figure who is a Son and who is God also in the OT, as well as a Spirit, and a Father as well. So I would say it is not as obvious as the New Testament for sure. The question of Trinity and the incarnation are metaphysically distinct since God is a trinity essentially and the fact that God became incarnate is accidental with respect to his properties. So in general revelation one can only know God generally and not know that God is specifically three persons but that he is diverse and unified in some sense.
I am a bit confused how any of this helps the Catholic position here. The RCC seems to suggest that they are together worshiping the same object but how can this be when one object is radically Unitarian and the other trinitarian. I do not see how anything you have suggested thus far negates that fact.
God Bless,
Nate
Nick,
ReplyDeleteIt seems to me that the difference between the OT saints and the Muslims is that the former worshiped God in partial ignorance while the latter has explicitly denied an essential aspect of God. As Nate has already said, it strains credulity to say that people who explicitly deny the doctrine of the Trinity (one of only a tiny handful of doctrines that still unites all of "Christendom") are worshiping the very same God, even "partially" or "in ignorance."
Is it possible that some Muslims have the correct object of worship in some existential way while consciously denying the doctrine of God's tri-personality? Sure, I suppose, but I have no idea how the Catholic Church can claim to know that.
The most authoritative Catholic statement on the worship of Islam is the following from the Second Vatican Council:
ReplyDelete“The Church regards with esteem also the Moslems. They adore the one God, living and subsisting in Himself; merciful and all- powerful, the Creator of heaven and earth, who has spoken to men…” (Nostra Aetate)
In light of this statement, the reasoning above (in the article) does not appear sound.
First, to how many objects can we attribute perfect unity, perfect life, self-subsistence, omnipotence, and creation? Muslim’s attribute all this to the god they adore. It would not help the argument to accuse them of stealing the attributes of the Christian god and illegitimately applying them to Allah, since the only thing they claim to know about their god – with respect to essence – are these very attributes.
An argument could be made that since God is known by his imminent actions (which would include the inspiration and authorization of the Prophet Mohammed), the supernatural power (if there was one) behind the mission of the founder of Islam was not the god of Abraham (since his message clearly contradicts parts of the Christian kerygma).
However, the Catholic position is not that everything contained within the message of Islam is true.
Second, the Christian god is a unity and a trinity. So I fail to see how worshiping God under the rubric of either is illegitimate.
Third, the New Testament does not affirm that contemporary Jews who rejected Jesus ceased worshiping the god of their Fathers. The early church theologians were in agreement with this, as well as the medieval scholastic theologians. With respect to Islam, both groups regarded the religion as heresy, not idolatry.
Hello Anonymous,
ReplyDeleteI am unsure how that additional Catholic statement from VC2 shows that the argument is unsound. Why do you think that and how does it really enlighten the discussion?
Point 1: It may be that the Muslim conception of God is not wrong on every point. But that was not the point of this article. The problem is that the Islamic conception of God as only Unitarianism while rejecting that God is trinitarian. It is a rather strange thing to say that you worship together with someone God when that someone is not even worshiping God that exists.
Point 2: The Christian God is a unity and a trinity but we should worship him as both rather than one or the other. But the Muslims take it a bit further, they reject that he is a trinity which seems to suggests they have another object of worship in their mind, thereby suggesting that they are engaging in idolatry.
Point 3: In John 8:19-44 it suggests that the contemporary Jews had the Father of Satan Rather than their Father Abraham and God the Father. So I am not sure that the New Testament Jews were worshiping the God of their Fathers and I do not know anywhere this is positively affirmed it. That is nice that people were in agreement about that. But it seems that Islam is a heresy and idolatry since they are worshiping a different God, it seems to me.
God Bless,
NPT
(1) Muslim’s claim to worship the god of creation. To that mystery they attribute infinite existence, sovereignty, substantial wisdom and goodness. This is certainly by Christian standards an accurate description in human words of the divine nature. The OT and NT affirm knowledge of God through creation. Ignorance or confusion (from one point-of-view) about the divine mystery, not only does not prevent it from being identified, but such conditions are always present in the minds every rational creature.
ReplyDeleteI think you will have a hard time demonstrating that one self-existent eternal being is different from another.
Also, the historical reality of the development within the Christian consciousness of an adequate understanding of the Trinitarian mystery brings the charge of idolatry back squarely on the Church. Certainly the first, second, third, and even forth century Christians did not grasp with equal clarity what the classical Nicene and Cappadocian terminology meant. Even the great orthodox saints of this period have conceptual problems by later dogmatic standards. Does this mean that those who were not aware of the full Trinitarian arrangement of ideas were worshiping false gods?
(2) How can you affirm the worship of the true god in the OT if the OT saints had no knowledge of the Trinity of Persons? In fact, the “creedal” substance of OT religion is very similar to that of Islam:
"Hear, O Israel: the Lord is our God, the Lord is One." (Hebrew Shema)
“There is no god but God” (Arabic Shahada)
Both of these statements are Unitarian.
(3) How do you account for Jesus’ own Judaism, his participation in the religious life of Palestinian Judaism, particularly the synagogue, his affirmation of Temple worship (which included the right of the priests to received sacrificial offerings), his apostles continued worship in the Temple and the synagogues, the ongoing participation of the early Christians in the Jewish community (including its religious praxis), if, as you say, “I am not sure that the New Testament Jews were worshiping the God of their Fathers and I do not know anywhere this is positively affirmed it.”
This, I think, is a kind of Christian anti-Judaism that is no longer either theologically or historically viable.
Hello again....whoever you are,
ReplyDeletePoint 1: It is pretty simple to demonstrate the difference between one concept of God and another in Catholicism and Islam. One says that God is essentially and necessarily Triune and other openly rejects it. So it is very simple to distinguish one self-existent eternal being from another when one is three persons and the other is not. Some of the early Christians would have either a vague view of the trinity or were not aware of it like the thief on the cross that entered into paradise, but none of these rejected that God is essentially and necessarily three persons.
Point 2: I would not say that the OT saints had no knowledge of the diversity in God (Genesis 1:26;19:23). Their creeds maybe similar, but you are again missing the point because they both accept a that God is one, but the other rejects that God is many as clearly demonstrated in the post.
Point 3: I would account for it by saying that those were appropriate places to worship given that time period since Christianity is a continuation and expansion of the OT religion and I would say the involvement with the Jewish people and hanging around synagogues was to spread news of the fulfillment of the OT religion. If you mean that I am anti-Judaism because I do not like or have a hatred for Jewish people then you have no idea what you are talking about since my best friend and some of my family is Jewish....oh yeah and not to mention my Lord and my God was Jewish. But if you mean that I am against Judaism as a religion that rejects Jesus Christ then I submit to you that you must really dislike what Jesus had to say about the Judaism of his time. Jesus said that those (he was speaking to Jews) who reject him as God (ego eimi, which is the Greek equivalent to YHWH) will die in their sins. Perhaps if your theology is not from the text of the bible you might think that my position is not theologically viable. But I believe in the text of scripture so given what Jesus has to say about the Judaism, this would seem to make my position theologically and historically viable (that is if you believe the bible to be historically reliable in the first place).
God Bless,
NPT
NPT,
ReplyDeleteWhat I suggested was that it is impossible to existentially (not conceptually) distinguish one infinite, absolute being from another. Obviously the reason for this is that there can actually be but one – at least according to classical metaphysics.
The hypostatic distinctions we make within the Godhead (i.e., Father, Son, and Holy Spirit) are not parts of the divine essence. According to the standard creedal definition of the Trinity, the one essence (ousia, being, nature) exists IN three persons not AS three persons, and is not divided between them either. Further, it is not the personal distinctions that are manifest in created nature, but rather the qualities of the one essence (power, wisdom, goodness, etc.) and its operations (creation, providence, etc.). Patristic and medieval theologians were divided over whether YWHW was a name given in the Pentateuch to the one essence or to the person of the Father. Either way, however, the Muslim identification of the god of Islam with the one, transcendent, infinite, self-subsistent divine ousia (of which there can actually only be one) is not falsified simply by their denial of the hypostases, since such recognition of God available in nature does not include knowledge of the divine persons. The attribution of the inspiration of the Prophet Mohammad to this divine ousia (which Christianity traditionally denies) does not prove that the god of creation indentified by the religion of Islam is not the one true god. Rather, it would mean that a false description of the immanent action of the one true god is made within Islam.
There is an analogous event in the Gospel of John where Jesus tells the Samaritan woman that her people worship what they do not know. He does not deny WHAT they worship or THAT they worship, but WHERE they worship. He imputes to them ignorance of the immanent reality of God’s involvement within the world. Such involvement is precisely the source of our knowledge of the divine persons.
There is also a dogmatic division within Christianity that complicates your argument. You say that those who deny the Trinity (presumable in its orthodox form) must not believe in the same god. What do you make of the difference between Eastern and Western Christians over the filioque clause in the Latin version of the Nicene Creed? Are the two groups worshiping different gods? They disagree over the nature of the Trinity. Some in the Orthodox Church claim that this difference is as significant as the difference between Christianity and Islam, because they believe that Catholic and Protestant Christians who insist on the procession of the Holy Spirit from the Son are not talking about the god of Orthodoxy? Are they correct? It would seem so on your view.
Hello again,
ReplyDeleteParagraph 1: I am unsure what you mean by existentially. Please define it. Because it seems to me if you just mean experiential aspects of God then I am not really sure your distinction makes sense in light of the present discussion. I have read many books on metaphysics and I was unaware that this one of the classic tenants of metaphysics.
Paragraph 2: I am unsure how your lesson on the trinity enlightens the discussion or your point about Islam rejecting the trinity. You have not proven that we cannot have some vague notion of God being unified and diverse in general revelation, you have just simply asserted it. And interestingly, in Romans one we read that the general revelation is not worshiped but rather used as a instrument of condemnation. So, I think in this paragraph you are simply assuming your point to be true without evidence and thus you are begging the question.
Paragraph 3: Well the trinity is not only a function of the immanent actions of God but also God in his transcendence since the trinity existed prior to creation. The instance with the Samaritan women falls into the category I mentioned earlier, namely, that Jews and others prior to the NT were either ignorant or they had a vague knowledge of the Trinity like the thief on the cross. I do not know everything about God so in some sense I worship what I do not know entirely, like the Samaritan women, but that is entirely different from making a knowledge statement like it is false that God is Triune.
Paragraph 4: Actually some Protestants reject all of the traditional eternal metaphysical Necessary relations between the members of the trinity (for example Wayne Grudem and William Lane Craig). So there are more dogmatic divisions than you mentioned. But is this a problem for my argument? I do not really think so. For I could hold that there is some intuitive vagueness between whether or not Baptists, Eastern Orthodox, Reformed, and Catholics worship the same God. I happen to think they do worship the same God because it seems like they have a sufficient similarity in their God concepts, but there have been times where I have been agnostic about this fact. I would say it is really debatable whether open theist worship the same God as say a Calvinist like me, that is something that has been on the table in academic systematic theology for quite sometime. But seems pretty clear to me intuitively that modern Jews and Muslims do not worship the same God as I do, but it seems intuitive to say that baptist do worship the same God that I do. It seems also that Jesus thought that if someone reject him as God they would die in their sins and thus eternally perishing (8:24). Jesus made such a big deal about him being God that it seems to me those who say that those who reject that divinity of Jesus Christ are worshiping a different God than I.
God Bless,
NPT
NPT,
ReplyDeleteMy meaning was unclear. I apologize. Yet, you are certainly aware that it is a tenant of classical metaphysics that there can be only one eternal, infinite, and self-existent being?
So is it your view that Muslims worship another creator of the universe who is infinite and self-existent? Please explain how this can be.
While Judaism and Islam do not accept the revelation of God in Jesus Christ (at least not in the NT form of it), that is not the same as not recognizing the existence of a transcendent creator, who has revealed himself in nature and in the prophets of ancient Israel.
The point of my lesson on the Trinity was to expose the dogmatic basis for this very distinction. You wrote that “God is essentially Triune.” That is a careless statement. It is no more orthodox Christianity than the dogma of the Qu’ran. God is not essentially Triune. He is essentially one, perfect, infinite, powerful, just, wise, etc., but he is not essentially the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit.
The first chapter of Romans demonstrates the possibility of natural knowledge of God (though of course it makes no reference to the Trinity). Paul’s use of this knowledge, however, does not prevent religious worship from finding some foundation there (cf. Rom 2:7, 2:14 ‘How – per our other conversion – do Gentiles do the works of the law by nature if that does not include the greatest commandment?’; Acts 17:22-23).
The purpose of my mentioning the filioque was to give an example of another group who explicitly denies an aspect of the orthodox Christian doctrine of God. They are not unaware of the procession of the Holy Spirit from the Son, rather they refuse it, much like Muslims and Jews refuse the procession of the Holy Spirit from the Father. To be consistent, you ought to deny that the Orthodox worship the true god.
You, however, grant “sufficient similarity” (which you have not defined) to most Christian groups and the OT saints. And by means of an “intuition,” you deny worship of the true god to non-Christian monotheists. This all seems very imprecise to me in light of the fact that I have given you both philosophical and dogmatic reasons for the opposite view.
Hello again,
ReplyDeleteMy meaning was unclear. I apologize. Yet, you are certainly aware that it is a tenant of classical metaphysics that there can be only one eternal, infinite, and self-existent being?
Response: I am of course aware of that, but a classical tenant of classical metaphysics is not that if one has a different concept of God from other person that both those persons are worshiping the same God.
So is it your view that Muslims worship another creator of the universe who is infinite and self-existent? Please explain how this can be.
Response: Yes; they worship a non-triune eternal creator and we worship a triune eternal creator.
While Judaism and Islam do not accept the revelation of God in Jesus Christ (at least not in the NT form of it), that is not the same as not recognizing the existence of a transcendent creator, who has revealed himself in nature and in the prophets of ancient Israel.
Response: They recognize a transcendent creator’s existence, but that god’s existence is different from the triune God of scripture.
The point of my lesson on the Trinity was to expose the dogmatic basis for this very distinction. You wrote that “God is essentially Triune.” That is a careless statement. It is no more orthodox Christianity than the dogma of the Qu’ran. God is not essentially Triune. He is essentially one, perfect, infinite, powerful, just, wise, etc., but he is not essentially the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit.
Response: How is it a careless statement? And how is that no more orthodox than a Muslim rejecting the trinity? On your discourse on the trinity you never proved any of these points.
The first chapter of Romans demonstrates the possibility of natural knowledge of God (though of course it makes no reference to the Trinity). Paul’s use of this knowledge, however, does not prevent religious worship from finding some foundation there (cf. Rom 2:7, 2:14 ‘How – per our other conversion – do Gentiles do the works of the law by nature if that does not include the greatest commandment?’; Acts 17:22-23).
Response: Romans 1 does not give the possibility but rather the actual knowledge of general revelation. Romans 1 makes reference to unbelievers having knowledge of God’s nature, of which the three members personally subsist. Perhaps one can devise an argument, as Van Til has, that one can have a notion of God that is both unified and diverse. The Gentiles would have the same knowledge of God as say the Jews in the NT and the thief on the cross, but that does not mean that this knowledge would entail a rejection of the trinity.
The purpose of my mentioning the filioque was to give an example of another group who explicitly denies an aspect of the orthodox Christian doctrine of God. They are not unaware of the procession of the Holy Spirit from the Son, rather they refuse it, much like Muslims and Jews refuse the procession of the Holy Spirit from the Father. To be consistent, you ought to deny that the Orthodox worship the true god.
ReplyDeleteResponse: I disagree. I think that the Eastern Orthodox Concept of God is sufficiently similar to my concept of God, even if they do reject one aspect of the relations of the trinity and not the deity of each of its subsisting members.
You, however, grant “sufficient similarity” (which you have not defined) to most Christian groups and the OT saints. And by means of an “intuition,” you deny worship of the true god to non-Christian monotheists. This all seems very imprecise to me in light of the fact that I have given you both philosophical and dogmatic reasons for the opposite view.
Response: Sufficiently similar: This means that the *likeness is enough*. Your dogmatic and philosophical arguments have been refuted. And it seems like you have not really addressed my argumentation. Perhaps there is some epistemological vagueness as to whether Eastern Orthodox and Protestants worship the same God, but this is hardly the case for Islamic and Catholic conceptions of God, in fact it is quite clear that Islam worships a different God than that of Roman Catholicism.
God Bless,
NPT
NPT,
ReplyDeleteThank you for a general definition of “sufficiently similar.” What I was looking for, however, was a set of clear criteria as to what constitutes sufficient Trinitarian orthodoxy.
But more importantly, I think this conversation would be greatly aided if you would explain where you stand in relation to the patristic and conciliar definition of the Trinity, because my argument rests upon a clear articulation of the distinction between essence and hypostasis.
You have now written two statements that appear to weaken (if not confuse) this most important distinction (the first one I have already addressed). The second is:
"Romans 1 makes reference to unbelievers having knowledge of God’s nature, of which the three members personally subsist."
The hypostases – to be more exact – do not subsist in or of the nature (essence), a formulation which leads to modalist unitarianism; but rather the undivided essence subsists in the hypostases who are really distinct.
Your argument (aided as it is by not clearly observing this distinction) seems to be that it is not possible to know of the existence of God or to worship him without knowledge of the Trinitarian relations.
Let me illustrate what I mean. Of the following two descriptions (Moslem and Christian respectively), to which one must we attribute actual existence?:
A. Eternal, sovereign, self-existent creator. (Islam)
B. Eternal, sovereign, self-existent creator. (Christianity)
To anticipate your response, please allow me to assume that you will insist that the correct answer is 'b', but to avoid the obvious absurdity of choosing between two identical propositions you will point to the distinction of persons (unique to the Christian concept of God) as the distinguishing characteristic.
However, the dogmatic distinction between essence and hypostasis makes this last step unnecessary. Knowledge of the divine essence does not require knowledge of the distinction of persons. To use your own example, "power" (Rom 1:20) is not a personal distinction, but rather an essential attribute of the one essence which the hypostases share. The same is true of existence.
Thus knowledge of the essence does not require knowledge of the personal distinctions. And unless God's essence has changed somehow, that remains true even after the Incarnation (to say nothing of the 4th c. development of Trinitarian dogma).
Your argument would require that Muslims, who by your own account must know of the existence and nature of God via natural revelation, nevertheless attribute these known qualities of the divine nature to another deity in the exact same manner in which they exist in the true god (a situation different than that of Rom 1:23). Yet, within their consciousness (and that of non-Muslims) this is a distinction without a difference, and a scenario clearly in contradiction of Act. 17:23's "unknowing worship."
Hello Again,
ReplyDeleteThank you for a general definition of “sufficiently similar.” What I was looking for, however, was a set of clear criteria as to what constitutes sufficient Trinitarian orthodoxy.
Response: I would say what constitutes Trinitarian Orthodoxy is that there is one substance which is God in which there are three persons: Father, Son, and Holy Spirit, which are ontologically equal in value of divinity.
But more importantly, I think this conversation would be greatly aided if you would explain where you stand in relation to the patristic and conciliar definition of the Trinity, because my argument rests upon a clear articulation of the distinction between essence and hypostasis.
Response: Well I think that those statements only receive their validity ultimately from the word of God. Thus, I would agree with a certain interpretation of those statements, but perhaps a certain interpretation that you might disagree with me on. I do believe in the distinction between the persons and the substance in which they subsist. This is really irrelevant to the Catholic position on this.
You have now written two statements that appear to weaken (if not confuse) this most important distinction (the first one I have already addressed). The second is:
"Romans 1 makes reference to unbelievers having knowledge of God’s nature, of which the three members personally subsist."
The hypostases – to be more exact – do not subsist in or of the nature (essence), a formulation which leads to modalist unitarianism; but rather the undivided essence subsists in the hypostases who are really distinct.
Response: I would take the terms substance and essence to be synonymous. How would thinking that the members of the trinity personally subsisting in the Divine substance leads to the conclusion that there is not a real metaphysical distinction between: Father, Son, and Holy Spirit? Modalism is the view that there are different modes God reveals himself in Father, Son, and Holy Spirit and that these modes are not simultaneous? It is hard to see how my view entails Unitarianism. Please give clear arguments for your positions instead of just stating your conclusions. Let us look at the Catholic view of trinity which makes less of a distinction between the persons and the essence.
Your argument (aided as it is by not clearly observing this distinction) seems to be that it is not possible to know of the existence of God or to worship him without knowledge of the Trinitarian relations.
Response: I never said that. Read my previous clarifications more carefully on my previous responses.
Let me illustrate what I mean. Of the following two descriptions (Moslem and Christian respectively), to which one must we attribute actual existence?:
ReplyDeleteA. Eternal, sovereign, self-existent creator. (Islam)
B. Eternal, sovereign, self-existent creator. (Christianity)
To anticipate your response, please allow me to assume that you will insist that the correct answer is 'b', but to avoid the obvious absurdity of choosing between two identical propositions you will point to the distinction of persons (unique to the Christian concept of God) as the distinguishing characteristic.
Response: Yes, you are right.
However, the dogmatic distinction between essence and hypostasis makes this last step unnecessary. Knowledge of the divine essence does not require knowledge of the distinction of persons. To use your own example, "power" (Rom 1:20) is not a personal distinction, but rather an essential attribute of the one essence which the hypostases share. The same is true of existence.
Response: I would say the distinctions between the persons and the substance is much like the distinctions between properties and substances. Certainly the properties are parts of the substances but yet they are distinct because the properties are merely aspects or parts that make up the entire substance. So in knowing the substance you know its properties. I would say something similar to this obtains with respect to the persons of the trinity and their relations to the divine substance. Although I would not be entirely comfortable calling the persons properties or parts but property sets that instantiated in a substance and metaphysically encompass the entire divine substance. But this is really my nuanced view of it. Actually, to my knowledge Catholics tend to make less of a distinction between the essence and persons than I am doing. So your argument really seems to be striving at an eastern orthodox understanding of the trinity rather than the actual Catholic position, which the blog post is actually about.
Thus knowledge of the essence does not require knowledge of the personal distinctions. And unless God's essence has changed somehow, that remains true even after the Incarnation (to say nothing of the 4th c. development of Trinitarian dogma).
Response: Catholics would not agree with what you are saying but it seems to me Eastern folks would agree with what you are saying. But let us actually stay on topic and understand the Catholic view of trinity which does not make a ridged person/nature distinction as the Eastern Orthodox Church does.
Your argument would require that Muslims, who by your own account must know of the existence and nature of God via natural revelation, nevertheless attribute these known qualities of the divine nature to another deity in the exact same manner in which they exist in the true god (a situation different than that of Rom 1:23). Yet, within their consciousness (and that of non-Muslims) this is a distinction without a difference, and a scenario clearly in contradiction of Act. 17:23's "unknowing worship."
Response: This is hard to respond to because you are not actually addressing my position in this previous comment. It seems to me thus far this discussion involves repeating the same old misunderstandings of my position and then me clarifying them and you repeating the misunderstandings…so I would just encourage you to read what I have written recently. I would say that Muslims know God but they do not know God as in a personal relationship or worship the God they know. I would also say that people can know God in a general sense, knowing he is unified and diverse, among other things. There are even scenarios in which people do not know God fully and be worshiping the correct God…but as I have said over and over again: Not knowing something fully is different from rejecting one of the most important things about the Christian understanding of God.
God Bless,
NPT
Nathaniel,
ReplyDeleteWhat about God is knowable through natural law(revelation) and what is only knowable through revealed law(revelation)? I think Anonymous I would like to hear the answer to this.
From what I understand, Anonymous I has stated that through natural law(revelation) Yahweh, Allah, and the Trinitarians have the same belief and understanding. Where the 3 differ is on revealed law(revelation). If this is true, then it would be incorrect to say that Islam has a different "god"; no doubt that Islam does not understand revealed law the same, but what has been naturally revealed is identical. Also, one cannot say that Judasim has a different "god" for the same reasons, but also because Judaism is the precursor to the Christian Faith. One can say that both lack a true understaning of God because they do not understand properly what God has revealed about Himself, but you cannot say that it is different.
Paul had this very same discussion on Mars Hill and came to the conclusion that the "Unknown god" that was being worshipped was God Almighty Himself. Do we have any evidence that this god was Trinitarian?
Just to be clear, did you say that one can know that God is Trinity by natural law(revelation)?
Anonymous II
Hello,
ReplyDeleteWhat about God is knowable through natural law(revelation) and what is only knowable through revealed law(revelation)? I think Anonymous I would like to hear the answer to this.
Response: From scripture we can know all of the Divine attributes that are professed in tradition Western Protestant Christianity. Through General revelation we can know that God is unified and diverse...we can also know that he has every property that is better to have rather than lack. I would say that we can have something like a Anselmian conception of God through general revelation plus unity and diversity (which prevent someone from rejecting the trinity).
From what I understand, Anonymous I has stated that through natural law(revelation) Yahweh, Allah, and the Trinitarians have the same belief and understanding. Where the 3 differ is on revealed law(revelation). If this is true, then it would be incorrect to say that Islam has a different "god"; no doubt that Islam does not understand revealed law the same, but what has been naturally revealed is identical. Also, one cannot say that Judasim has a different "god" for the same reasons, but also because Judaism is the precursor to the Christian Faith. One can say that both lack a true understaning of God because they do not understand properly what God has revealed about Himself, but you cannot say that it is different.
Response: Well I would say it goes beyond revelation since the triunity of God would be true independent of God revealing himself. I have responded to these arguments above.
Paul had this very same discussion on Mars Hill and came to the conclusion that the "Unknown god" that was being worshipped was God Almighty Himself. Do we have any evidence that this god was Trinitarian?
Response: There is no evidence either way. But given Romans 1 they would have that conception.
Just to be clear, did you say that one can know that God is Trinity by natural law(revelation)?
Response: No. But I would say on the basis of General revelation one would not be able to reject the trinity.
God Bless,
NPT