Trinity and Love

[T.A.G.]

If someone states that God cannot be love unless he is trinity, for how would God receive and give love before creation unless He existed with multi persons etc.

If someone rejected and responded, how would God show His attribute of mercy even if He existed as Trinity? Saying this in an attempt to prove you do not have to be existing in multi persons to be a certain attribute.

How would you respond?

I understand that the attribute of mercy stems from God's love, so it is interconnected and apart of that attribute with it.
I also understand that personality and love, if these two attributes define you than they require dependency for survival or completion unlike mercy.

What else would you say?

 

[chbrooking]

Mercy isn't an attribute of God for just that reason. Mercy is one of the ways God's goodness and love manifests itself, but isn't itself an attribute. By definition, attributes of the eternal God must have eternal inter-trinitarian manifestation. I'm not sure what to say beyond that, since that, to my mind, answers it sufficiently.

 

[T.A.G.]

yeah thats what I told them, wonderful

thanks

 

[jwright82]

Also the three persons of the Trinity are one in essence so they have a communion one with another that goes to their very oneness in being. All of our concepts are based on the way God thinks about things. So love is not some attribute that is out abstractly, our concept of love is a reflection of the communion between the three persons of the Trinity. I really don't like speculating too much on God's being because it is beyond our comprehension. All of our knowledge of God in the bible takes on an analogical nature, meaning that he "condescends" in His revealation to use our concepts and ideas to communicate information about Himself. I hope that helps.

 

[larryjf]

Rather than focusing on God's love i would focus on the fact that God is a personal God. If He's a personal God and He wasn't a triune God with 3 persons, then He would have made creation out of necessity so that He could have a personal relationship with other persons.

 

[chbrooking]

That's an interesting take. I'm not arguing so much as asking: Is relationship at the heart of what it means to be "personal"? I always thought it had more to do with self-awareness. I'm sure someone here on the PB can fill us in on what all is meant by the terms "person" and "personal". I'd be grateful if they'd do so.

 

[jwright82]

Here is a definition of person from the an online dictionary of philosophy.
Philosophical Dictionary: Pascal-Phenomenon.
It basically stresses that a person is someone with a moral sense.

I think that in the sense of this thread it makes more sense to expand upon the definition a bit. At one time it would have been defined as any being with attributes that are exclusivly human: reason, morality, emotions, etc. With the onslaught of darwin's theories into every realm of thought and the popularity of animal rights and conservationism as a philosophy, this has changed. Now scientists and thinkers are trying to destroy the whole notion of humanity having any kind of superior status. I have seen tests done that supposedly prove that other creatures are more intelegant, they simply changed what intelligence used to mean to a more darwinian one. Darwinianism redefines practically everything.

So the definition of person is being expanded to try to include any and all sentient beings, we christians must be aware of this trend and combat it in the realm of apologetics. The definition of personal might be more along the lines of individual attributes. Laying may not be a personal attribute because rocks lay too, but love is certianly a personal attribute because it is done by and between persons. I hope this helps, if not than ask me to elaborate on anything and I will try.

 

[Prufrock]

Clark, I cannot speak for contemporary usage of the term "person" or "personal," but in the historic discussion, a good synthesis of the various definitions put forth by Reformed theologians is that a person is mode of subsisting which pertains to the very essence, such that it is an "individual intellectual suppositum, which is neither a part of nor sustained by another." The last part, of not being sustained by another, was added to ensure that the human nature of Christ could not be considered a separate person. From what I can gather, the more pyschological concept of a center of consciousness or awareness is a more recent conception of personhood. For brief discussions of the historical development of the term "person," Turretin provides a good discussion and Richard Muller gives a good overview in vol. 4 of PRRD. Also, I recall John McGuckin, providing a very worthwhile discussion of the term in its historic import in his work St. Cyril of Alexandria: The Christological Controversy, Its History, Theology and Texts, which work has been discussed here on the PB before.

 

[T.A.G.]

A response from an article I wrote

I think the argument rests on the proposition, 'there is no such thing as self-love". I would like to hear how this is proven... Can a unitarian god not love his own attributes and delight in his own happiness?

Again, I have a couple thoughts but I would like to here any suggestions on answering this mans question

 

[jwithnell]

First, if I might add to the discussion of personal: it seems that it is also used in antithesis to a deistic worldview. To some extent, a deistic God could exist in any form or number of persons because what does he (she it?) have to do with the ongoing world?

Relationship within the trinity is tricky because we don't have a lot revealed in scripture. We do have examples of Jesus submitting Himself to His Father, and we certainly see in His time alone and in prayer a deep love and devotion toward the first person of the trinity. I keep coming back to the thought that we love because he first loved us. So that love must have had origin in God somehow.

As to whether or not a unitarian god could know self love, I think most people (even non-believers) would instinctively see that as self-centeredness, not the kind of love that would put others above self. As I write, my mind keeps wandering back to Christ in the garden of Gethsemane. "Not my will but yours." What love, what trust, what intimacy is displayed in that statement!

 

[jwright82]

A response from an article I wrote

I think the argument rests on the proposition, 'there is no such thing as self-love". I would like to hear how this is proven... Can a unitarian god not love his own attributes and delight in his own happiness?

Again, I have a couple thoughts but I would like to here any suggestions on answering this mans question

One of the problems here is that it seems as thought the concept of love is being abstracted into some kind of independent metaphysical thing. But love for its very being and definition depends on context to make it what it is. This context is between two things or poeple, I love my books or I love my daughter. Another context is within the worldview it is spoken in. For instance we as christians speak with a definantly high regard for love but what would love mean to a darwinian materialist? I think it is obvious here that the worldview context of a concept like love can change its meaning.

 

[chbrooking]

Matt 22:39 would argue against the assertion that there is no such thing as self-love. But let me suggest a different approach. It's not quite as 'easy', but I think it is more faithful to the true issue. Love is a unifying abstraction. This goes to the heart of the one and the many quest of philosophy. Only the trinity can provide for the unity and diversity necessary to understand the very statement that "God is love".

All material members of a group named by abstraction will vary from the abstract form. This is as true of a circle as it is of love. A circle is a geometric figure whose boundary consists of points equidistant from a fixed center point. But you cannot make a material point, and measurement can never be perfect; it can only get more and more precise. Similarly, God is the archetype of love. Creaturely love will approximate this to a greater or lesser degree, but can never attain to the level of divine love. Nevertheless, we know love truly because we think God's thoughts after him. Our notion and approximations of love only make sense against the divine original. And that divine original contains within it not only an abstraction of individual instances, but an abstraction of perfect individual instantiations. And that requires (or, I should say presupposes) trinity.

So it's not so much that God can't love himself. He does. And so do we. But it's more a matter of the predication "God is love" not making sense apart from the trinity grounding both the abstraction and the instantiations. At least that's my take. But I've been in apologetic discussions on the PB before. I'm sure there is a dissenting view from that I proposed here.

 

[jwright82]

Just to clarify on a darwinian view of things. When philosophers say that darwin has had a heavy influence on things they are right. A case in point is something like intellegence, to the darwinian such concept must be redefined away from its old hunancentric one into one that fits into a darwinian worldview. The old definition of intellegence included things that are exclusivly human, creativity, IQ, moral sense, etc. In the wake of darwin though all concepts in the evolutionary worldview must be redefined into a natural selection or survival of the fittest mold. So now intellegence is reduced to a definition of whatever helps a species survive to pass on genetic information. Notice how the definition reduces what we previously thought.

Previously humans were viewed as unique among all creatures, now we are reduced to being just like one of the animals no real difference. So like morality must have a natural survival element to it to explain why we humans started caring about it. An example of this is the TV show on History Channel "7 Deadly Sins: Lust". In this show they are dealing with the history and phenomanon of lust. First they go through a religious view on the matter which is no more than a bad straw man argument, and ridicule it. They never really critiqued the straw man religious view they just brought people on to make fun of it basically. Next they brought on all these excited scientists who were so happy because they beleived that evolutionary theory may be able to explain this moral issue. They came up with a couple of theories as to why monogomy was introduced to stop adultery, their excitmant was noticable, and that was that. These theories were purely naturalistic explinaitions.

At the end of it though I noticed two things:
1. Their theories reduced all morality to fit into a survival of the fittest mold. This is dangerous because any cruel and evil act could theorized away as good in this scheme of things.
2. They gave no reason why you should not commit adultery. Since lust can destroy a marriage through something like adultery they tried to give a natural explination as to why people started to demand monogomy. This only explianed why this arrangement occured not why you should be faithful. You cannot move from is to ought.

This is only part of the dark truth of the naturalistic, in this case darwinian form, worldview. My greatest line of argumentation against a naturalistic worldview of any kind is to focus on its reductionism. Since nothing but natural things and proccesses may exsist there can be no higher meaning for anything but a natural one. Words like love lose all their meaning, since there is no real difference between saying you love your spouse and you love ice cream (the same or simlier chemichals in the brain are involved). Since all love is is a chemical reaction in our brains that is stimulated by an external thing, like spouse or ice cream, than that is all love is. But ask yourself this is there a difference in your mind between loving ice cream, or insert favorate food, and loving your spouse, or family or someone dear to you?

We need to show the world that if they accept a naturalistic worldview than everything gets reduced down to nature. Take any realy meaningful thing you want, anything that most people would agree is meaningful, and describe why it is meaningful on a piece of paper but you may only use natural things and proccesses to describe it. You will quickly see that naturalism can only rob everything of its real meaning. Lets look at a work of art. We may describe its meaning as being beautiful but all beauty may mean is that the particular arrangment of paint molecules on a canvas stimulates some part of your brain to give you the fuzzies when you see or think about it, that is it nothing more. I like this line of argumentation so much is because not only is it logical but it is existential as well. It grips what is most important to a person. Any average person means something more than just pure natural things and proccesses when they use words like love or beauty. So this forces the proponent of this worldview to either scramble to give some natural explinaition as to why his or her worldview makes things more meaningful, but anytime reductionism is involved than this is impossible, or admit that their worldview can't.

It is simple arithmatic at this point. Since I mean more than just chemical proccesses in the brain when I say I love my daughter than my explinaition for why love is more meaningful than theirs. Since they reduce the meaningfulness of love down to only chemical proccesses in the brain than their explinaition is less meaningful than mine.

 

[T.A.G.]

ok i am still waiting on a reply from someone but I will go ahead and give a thought or two on this subject...
men like Van Til, Frame, Schaeffer...Bahnsen? all used this argument, very smart men, smarter then I will ever be. Thus, they understood the self love argument that one could use. I am not sure how each one dealt with it, though I do wish I could read what they would say about it.

What was previously mentioned, I believe is the answer.
The context of saying love is the key in answering this objection.
What is love? How can we make intelligible the concept of love? Before any creation what was? If simply a unitarian god, could we derive a definition of love, By simply existing alone? Love always implies a relational aspect. Even according to webster for what ever that is worth Love - Definition and More from the Free Merriam-Webster Dictionary. Love is an action
4Love is patient, love is kind. It does not envy, it does not boast, it is not proud. 5It is not rude, it is not self-seeking, it is not easily angered, it keeps no record of wrongs. 6Love does not delight in evil but rejoices with the truth. 7It always protects, always trusts, always hopes, always perseveres.

God has given us a frame work in our daily lives to understand love in our everyday experience. Do you think in that experience we can make intelligible self-love, specifically if love is an action? Only with a universal god may we have a universal concept for love. If there is only a unitarian god, then we could not make relationship love intelligible. For all love would be, self love. Relational love could have many different shapes and forms, with no universal right. We would only have a universal picture that love is, loving ones self.
I believe self love is more of an idiom to express self centered or valuing ones own life etc. Though even if we did give weight to there being such thing as self love, one would still have to distinguish between self love and relational love. Even in our basic understanding of human experience we make a distinction. How could a unitarian god love relationally before creation, if his very nature was to love relationally, he would of had to create something to fulfill his needs (which is not a God) or his nature is not to love relationally.
Love in the sense of a relationship and communitive aspect. a unitarian god cannot be love if by love we are stating a relationship definition of love.

Theres some more things I want to add but I can not figure out how to express it, will cogitate on it some more...

 

[chbrooking]

I'm not disagreeing with you entirely. I think you nailed it when you said, "The context of saying love is the key in answering this objection." I'm just pointing out that self-love is not inherently a bad thing. And I do think it is intelligible as an action. It is a commitment of the will. It is why I eat (well, aside from the fact that I like food ... particularly MEAT). But I wouldn't disagree with your point that there is a legitimate distinction between self-love and relational love. And surely God is archetype of the latter as well as the former. But perhaps instead of the simple form of the argument: God is love, therefore there is a plurality in the Godhead --, perhaps a more nuanced form of the argument is needed, a form that conveys the relational perspective of the love in view.

I'm not competent to go toe to toe with the names you cited. If they liked the argument, I'll revisit it. But from where I currently sit, I don't see its persuasive force. That is, I see it as one of any number of predications, any one of which would require the trinity to be made sense of. But surely I'm missing something. I'll cogitate a bit more as well.

 

[T.A.G.]

I agree this is also a very strong argument, but I do believe that our fathers before us thought the love one is a very strong argument as well.

 

[cih1355]

Love requires an object. Love is directed towards someone or something. God can love Himself so He doesn't have to exist as a Trinity in order to be loving.

---------- Post added at 05:13 AM ---------- Previous post was at 05:08 AM ----------

If someone states that God cannot be love unless he is trinity, for how would God receive and give love before creation unless He existed with multi persons etc.

The above argument would be stronger if it can be proven that God takes more delight in loving Himself and others than loving Himself alone.

 

[Ask Mr. Religion]

On the issue of self-love, I would note that the first great commandment our Lord gives is teaching we are to love God in a specifically designed fashion. Attempting to connect that to the second commandment from our Lord is where many fall into error. The second great commandment commands us to love our neighbors "as yourself", in a very potentially different fashion as described the first commandment. Attempting to connect these two commandments ignores that the first is directed towards our behavior to God, while the second is directed towards our behavior towards our neighbors. As Matthew 22:40 notes, these are two logically independent commandments.

Scriptural love is directing, setting your preferences on another, e.g., the expression of such love that is seen in God's election. True love's goal is to preserve the object of that love. When we read the passage, teaching us to love God as we love ourselves, it really means we are directed to preserve our relationship with God, as we naturally (though by design) and unconsciously seek to preserve our own selves.

This is not the modernistic notion of "self-love" where man is esteemed above everything else. Rather, the image of God imprinted on us comes with an innate dignity and we are to love that image of God within us. Hence the kind of love of in the passage is not some sinful "self-love", in modernistic parlance, but an actual element of our design. Within the view of the sense of self-preservation we all possess, we are given a command here to preserve others (setting their needs above our own), to preserve, strengthen our relationship with the Creator. Some would say we should devote some of the energies we direct to our own self-preservation to the preservation of others!

AMR