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Do We believe in This??

gregorytheSinnergregorytheSinner
edited December 1969 in Faith Issues
http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/b/bc/Shield-Trinity-Scutum-Fidei-English.png


I found this interesting because this is what Most Western Churches believe
do we agree with this? Because from what i know the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit are all one???

Comments

  • Anglican
    Dear Gregory,

    Interesting, but it looks a little like Modalism to me - that is:

    a denial of the Trinity which states that God is a single person who, throughout biblical history, has revealed Himself in three modes, or forms.  Thus, God is a single person who first manifested himself in the mode of the Father in Old Testament times.  At the incarnation, the mode was the Son.  After Jesus' ascension, the mode is the Holy Spirit.  These modes are consecutive and never simultaneous.  In other words, the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit never all exist at the same time, only one after another.  Modalism denies the distinctiveness of the three persons in the Trinity even though it retains the divinity of Christ.

    It is a modern version of what was known as Sabellianism. We believe, as St. Athansius put it:

    "[The Trinity] is a Trinity not merely in name or in a figurative manner of speaking; rather, it is a Trinity in truth and in actual existence. Just as the Father is he that is, so also his Word is one that is and is God over all. And neither is the Holy Spirit nonexistent but actually exists and has true being. Less than these the Catholic Church does not hold, lest she sink to the level of the Jews of the present time, imitators of Caiaphas, or to the level of Sabellius" (Letters to Serapion 1:28 [A.D. 359]).

    "They [the Father and the Son] are one, not as one thing now divided into two, but really constituting only one, nor as one thing twice named, so that the same becomes at one time the Father and at another his own Son. This latter is what Sabellius held, and he was judged a heretic. On the contrary, they are two, because the Father is Father and is not his own Son, and the Son is Son and not his own Father" (Discourses Against the Arians 3:4 [A.D. 360]).

    I hope that helps.

    Anglian
  • stgeorgebrooklyn23stgeorgebrooklyn23
    Anglian is 100% correct, what the picutre says, is.. God is the The Father- God is the Son- God is the Holy Spirt, but The Father, The Son, and The Holy Spirit are not one. we beleive that it is 3 in one. "In the Name of the Father, The Son, and The Holy Spirit, one God, Amen."
  • ANDPOCANDPOC
    Think of it as a triangle, 3 parts make it up the Son, the Father, and the Holy Spirit and all sides are equal to one another but what is it all a part of? The triangle, 3 aspects 1 triangle.

    The uniqueness whenever you say Our Father is: In the name of the Fater, the Son, and the Holy Spirit, one God. Amen.

    Look at the creed, we say it every Sunday at mass but if you look closely it encompasses everything we believe in.
  • gregorytheSinnergregorytheSinner
    well ya i had no problem with that
    the only thing that kinda caused a problem was were it said
    God is not the Son who is not the Holy Spirit
  • stgeorgebrooklyn23stgeorgebrooklyn23
    never let anything on the internet or said by friends tempt you. whatever you believe in, that what you should know.
  • Anglican
    The diagram represents the Pentecostalist version of the old heresy of Modalism; it is not Orthodox.

    In Christ,

    Anglian
  • Christ4LifeChrist4Life
    [quote author=gregorytheSinner link=topic=5770.msg77292#msg77292 date=1190322611]
    well ya i had no problem with that
    the only thing that kinda caused a problem was were it said
    God is not the Son who is not the Holy Spirit


    I think you guys understood this wrong. It says God IS the Father, God IS the Son, and God IS the Holy Spirit, but the Father is not the Son and is not the Holy Spirit, which is true in the sense that they are three different persons. Its problem is that its not explained, so we are led to believe that they believe they are not one God but three... I think it depends on how you interpret it.
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