thread: 2007-01-04 : Self-identification vs. Membership
On 2007-01-09, Sydney Freedberg wrote:
Argh. The Saint Paul thing again. Everyone, read the Gospel of John—attributed to followers of the Disciple John, not to Paul: its first line states explicitly, "in the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God." The Word (Logos) being Jesus.
Joshua:
Sydney, why didn't the Universe stop functioning when God was incarnate, then?
Why do you keep being able to hear when you look at something?
The Trinity idea in mainline Christianity that so many people find baffling boils down, for me, into the idea that God is one being with many functions—the Father underlying reality, the Spirit moving within it, and the Son as a kind of divine spotlight focused on a single point within creation. All of which are equally and entirely God in the way that each and every one of my cells contains a complete and identical set of my DNA. The difference between my internal organs all being me and the Trinity is that God exists on such a higher level that each of His three "functions" has a complex identity which we humans would associate with a whole person.
