From: nlt@gboro.glassboro.edu (N. L. Tinkham)
Subject: The Trinity (and Incarnation)
Organization: Computer Science Department, Rowan College of New Jersey
Date: Sat, 21 Nov 1992 21:00:41 GMT

Tom Thorpe asks several questions about the Trinity.

> 	1. How many Spirits are there? GOD the Father is a Spirit, (Jn.4:24)
> The LORD JESUS is a spirit, (2Cor.3:17) The Holy Spirit is Spirit is Spirit
> by definition. Yet there is one spirit. (1Cor. 12:13, Eph. 4:4)

A spirit is simply a non-physical being, or the non-physical component of a
being.  By this definition, there are lots of spirits spoken of in the Bible
-- God, human spirits, angels, demons, and so on.

I Cor 12:13 and Eph 4:4 aren't asserting that there is only one spirit that
has ever existed; rather, they assert that there is one Spirit who has
united Christians in baptism (and that Christians should, accordingly, live
in love rather than in strife).  I understand Paul to be referring to the
Holy Spirit in these two verses.


The remaining questions deal not so much with the Trinity as with the
Incarnation.  Traditional Christianity does not assert that Jesus was simply
and identically the Second Person of the Trinity.  Rather, Jesus was the
* incarnation * of the Second Person of the Trinity.  By this is meant that
Jesus was both a human being and God.  Thus, through Jesus, God lived among
us, and in Jesus we see God revealed.  But it is also true (and importantly
true) that Jesus lived a full human life, with a human body, mind, emotions,
and so on.

> 	2. If Father and Son are co-equal persons, Why did JESUS pray to the
> Father? (Mat. 11:25) Can GOD pray to GOD?

Jesus, living a human life, prayed to God as all other humans do (or as we
should do).

> 	3. Similarly, How can the son not know as much as the father?
> 	(Matt. 24:36, Mk. 13:32)

Jesus as a human would not have had the full, unlimited knowledge that God
does, any more than other humans have full omniscience.

> 	4. Similarly, How can the son not have any Power except what the
> father gives him? (Jn.5:19,30, 6:38)

Jesus was dependent on God as all humans are.

> 	5. What about other verses of scripture indicating the inequality
> of the son and the Father? Jn. 8:42, 14:28, 1Cor.11:3

These are probably referring to the subordination of the human Jesus to the
divine Father.  Alternatively, some commentators understand some of these
passages to be referring to the relationship among the Persons of the
Trinity -- that, although all three Persons are equally God, the Son and
Spirit submit to the Father.  (I believe this view is more common in Eastern
Christianity than in Western Christianity.)

> 	6. Did "God the son" die? The bible says the son died, Rom. 5:10, 
> If so can God die? can Part of God die?

Jesus, as a human, can certainly die.  Because of the union of God and man
in Jesus, we can say that God also experienced death (though somewhat
indirectly, since it was by means of the Incarnation).

> 	7. If the son is eternal and existed at creation, who was his
> mother at that time? We know the son was made of woman. Gal,4:4

Galatians 4:4 (and similar passages) refer to the birth of Jesus from his
mother Mary.  God in Himself does not have (or need) a mother; but the human
Jesus was born from a human mother as we all are.

_____________________________________________________________________________

                                              Nancy Tinkham
                                              nlt@gboro.glassboro.edu
Comments: Gated by NETNEWS@AUVM.AMERICAN.EDU