To add to what I have said. St. Epiphanius of Salamis, in his Panarion, speaks of the Word and uses exacly this term, 'autotheos' for Him: "He possessed all perfection in himself and was absolute perfection, absolute God (αὐτόθεος), absolute power, absolute light, and the Completer, or rather, Perfecter, both of the mind and of the whole body, and wrought our salvation in all things by his advent in the flesh." And again, the same St. Epiphanius says of the same in the same Panarion: "He is very God (αὐτόθεος) and has ascended into the heavens and taken his seat at the Father’s right hand in glory"
If there is one will, can the Son will to beget a son as well? This isn't a gotcha question, I am Orthodox and was asked this question by a Muslim. My answer was that willing is a property of nature, whereas begetting is a hypostatic property of the Father alone. Thoughts? Critiques?
I think that saying fatherhood is a unique property to the Father alone in the Trinity and sonship is a property unique to the Son alone in the Trinity is another good way of explaining it
@randomguy1453 the way the question was premised was that if there is one will in the Trinity and the Father wills to beget the Son, can the Son will to beget a Son. I think the question is flawed because it blurs the distinction between nature and person. The Father begets alone because the hypostatic property of the Father is to beget while will is proper to nature which is how there is one will in the Trinity.
This is a good answer. I would add that the one will of the Host Trinity is manifested hypostatically in a distinct way by the three Persons. Correct me if I’m wrong.
I was just thinking about that myself., the spirit proceeds from the father through the son, but the Bible never mentions the spirit as an image of either the father or the son.
I agree with you, but after some time, I think he means by "image of the Son" is that the Spirit reveals the Son to us like the "Word of the Son". It is like how we know the Father when we come the the Son in the Spirit. So if we are to come to the Son we have to be in the Spirit, but this is just what I think about it@@igbenkev4638
Jesus is the word of God, the holy spirit is the spirit of God. Because they communicate with God they aren't the same person. But because you can't separate God from his word or his spirit there is only one God.
The scriptures are written in a way that something new that was conveyed to the early congregations and in those early congregations were converts of jews so it was written in a way not to take away the will of one God but how God He himself was prophecied to be displayed in nature not to take away what is but to establish true God of true God. To imply a first then there is a second which makes the second not equal to the first and can imply indication of time when one was not ?....
Thank you. This is the only way I am able to understand the trinity. I’ve never been able to understand the Augustinian trinity where the father is not really a father, but he’s part of a triplets. They don’t believe the son was the son before he came to earth. So would you say that the Son is also Yahweh?
Very good. I may be at fault but I understand the Father as the Mind, the Son as the Word or Will, and the Holy Spirit as exactly that. In that, the idea of the Father's monarchy is preserved as He is the one who, or in whom, it all starts. His Will is the image of Him, the reflection of His Mind turned to works and the Holy Spirit is His essence which is carried from Him, through the Son into being(s). Being that this is God, His Mind, His Will and His Spirit are all separate persons with their own deity but all 3 are essential, and constitute the One, God. I would love to hear a comment, opinion on this. This is my understanding so far and I would honestly love to be corrected if wrong or this idea expanded upon if somewhat right. Thank you for your work!
Interesting take. I like to think of the Father as the source of the Word which is the full expression of the Father. And to speak this Word, there needs to be the breath of the Father which is the Holy Spirit. This is similar to the incarnation. The Father sent the Holy Spirit to overshadow Mary, and then the Word became flesh. This is also similar to creation. The Father willed to create. The Holy Spirit was hovering over the face of the waters. Then the Word came, "And God said...."
Hope this helps: Of what is contemplated in the Trinity, there is the Father existing without origin nor cause, for He is not from someone, for He has being in Himself. But the Son is not unoriginate, for He is from the Father, for the Father is the origin of the Son, as cause; but if you take origin [to refer to being] from time, He is also unoriginate; for the maker of time is not subject to time; [For He exists by] generation, but eternally and without intervals shining forth by the Father, as the radiance of glory and the figure of the paternal hypostasis. But the Holy Spirit having existence from the Father, not by generation, but by procession (ἐκ τοῦ Πατρὸς τὴν ὕπαρξιν ἔχον, οὐ γεννητῶς μὲν, ἀλλ᾽ ἐκπορευτῶς), is eternally contemplated with the Father and the Son, not unoriginate because of His procession from the Father; for His origin is the Father according to the reason of cause, but He is unoriginate according to time. St. Nikephoros I of Constantinople, Letter to Pope Leo III, PG 100, col. 184
Because the Logos of God is uncreated yet distinct from the Father. Don’t get caught up on the terms, our finite fallible human minds are attempting to rationalize the divine. It’s about what the terms mean is what is in question.
In my opinion the usage of the term 'autotheos' for the Father alone (which term is quite foreign to patristic terminology) can cause a lot of confusion and might even lead one to the Arian perdition. 'Autotheos' means 'God by Himself', 'God of Himself' or 'God in Himself', that is, its meaning is the same as that of 'very God'; it distinguishes being God by nature from being god by participation (sharing) in another's divine nature. Thus one who is 'autotheos' is Divinizer Himself and is not Himself divinized, is very Life and Life-Giver Himself and Fountain of Life and is not partaking of the life of another. The term 'autotheos' is general and universal and by no means particular, that is, it applies to the common divine nature ('theos') and is not particular to one or another of the divine hypostases. For this reason, it can be used equally for the Father, for the Son and for the Holy Spirit. Origen, the forerunner of Arius, allowed the term 'autotheos' to be used for the Father alone, and he did this precisely because he considered the Father alone to be true God while He considered the Son to be God by participation and not by nature. Thus speaks this heretic in his Commentary on the Gospel of John: "God on the one hand is Very God (Autotheos, God of Himself); and so the Saviour says in His prayer to the Father, “That they may know Thee the only true God;” but that all beyond the Very God is made God by participation in His divinity, and is not to be called simply God (with the article), but rather God (without article). And thus the first-born of all creation, who is the first to be with God, and to attract to Himself divinity, is a being of more exalted rank than the other gods beside Him, of whom God is the God, as it is written, “The God of gods, the Lord, hath spoken and called the earth.”" The Holy Church, contrary to Origen, confesses the Son to be true God, very Life, that is, Life by/of/in Himself and Life-giving and Fountain of Life and by no means a partaker of the Life which is the Father, though He was born of the Father before all ages and has the Father as His cause. Creation alone is partaker of Life, and by no means the Son or the Holy Spirit, who are not creatures but each one of them, by nature, God and thus Life and Fountain of Life as the Father also is. The Son, as a hypostasis, has life in Himself in the same way as the Father has life in Himself, being true independent Life and being by no means a partaker of the true independent Life which is the Father who begot Him - otherwise He would not be true God, but a creature, and the homoousion would be destroyed. This truth is undelined by St. Cyril of Alexandria in his Commentary on John's Gospel, who says: "Then who (tell me) will any longer endure the trifling of the heretics? or who will not justly cry out against their impiety, in daring to say that the Son is partaker of life from another, albeit the holy and God-inspired Scripture says no such thing of Him; but rather openly cries aloud, that He is both God by Nature, and Very, and the Fountain of Life, and again Life Eternal. For how will He be conceived of as Very God, who needs life from another, and is not rather Himself Life by Nature? or how will He any more be called Fountain of Life, if He is holpen by another's gifts to be able to live? [..] But if He have the Father the giver of His Own Life, manifestly He has no Life of His Own. For He borrows it of another, and is (as we said at first) a creature rather than Life, and of a nature subject to decay. How then does He call Himself Life? For either we too may safely say, I am the Life, or if this be no safe word (for it is not lawful for the creature to mount up to God-befitting dignities), the Son knows that He is by Nature Life: since how will He be the Impress of the Person of Him That begat Him, how the Image and accurate Likeness? or how was not Philip right in saying, Shew us the Father, and it sufficeth us? For in truth one ought to consider, that he that had seen the Son, had not yet seen the Father, since the One is by Nature Life, the Other participant of life from Him. For one will never see that which quickeneth in that which is quickened, Him That lacketh not in him that lacketh. Hence in another way too will He be untrue in saying, He that hath seen Me hath seen the Father. But he who loveth the pious doctrines of the Church sees what great absurdities will follow their pratings. Let him then turn from them, and pass away, as it is written, and let him make straight paths, and direct his ways, and look to the simple beauty of the truth, believing that God the Father is by Nature Life, the Son Begotten of Him Life too. For as He is said to be Light of Light, so too Life of Life: and as God the Father lighteneth things lacking Light by His Own Light, His Son, and gives wisdom to things recipient thereof, through His Own Wisdom, and strengthened things needing strength, through again His Own Strength, so too He quickeneth things whatever lack the Life from Him, by His Own Life which floweth forth from Him, His Son. When then He says, I live because of the Father, do not suppose that He confesses that He lives because He receives Life from the Father, but asserted that because He was begotten of a Living Father, that therefore He also lives. For it were impossible that He who is of a Living Father, should not live. As though any of us were to say, I am a reasonable man on account of my father, for I was born the child of a reasonable man: so do thou conceive in respect of the Only-Begotten also. I live (He says) because of the Father. For since the Father who begat Me is Life by Nature, and I am His Natural and Proper Offspring, I gain by Nature what is His, i. e., being Life: for this the Father too is. For since He is conceived to be and is One of One (for the Son is from the Father, even though He were with Him eternally); He with reason glories in the Natural Attributes of Him That begat Him, as His Own." It is one thing for the Son to have been begotten of the Father before all ages, thus having the Father as cause of His own existence and another thing for the Son to be dependent of the Father for His very Life. The former is truth, the later is heresy. To give an example closer to us, I was born of my father and so if my father would not have existed then I would not have existed either. But being born of him, I am not dependent of him for my very life, because I do not live through my father's life, but through my own. He does not continually grant me the power to live, but having been begotten from him who truly lives, as true man from true man, I also truly live through myself and not through him, in the same way as he also truly lives through himself and not through me. Likewise, in the case of the Holy Trinity, the issue of causation (in birth as well as in procession) has no bearing on the autotheos/very God/Life-in-Himself issue. The first issue pertains to the manner of being of the hypostases, the second pertains to the divine nature which is common to the Three Hypostases.
Jesus is the word of God, the holy spirit is the spirit of God. Because they communicate with God they aren't the same person. But because you can't separate God from his word or his spirit there is only one God.
@@dante-lj4ow I worded that in a weird way. Yes, the Son's (& Spirit's) hypostasis (personhood) is timelessly caused by the Father, but, the nature/essence/substance of the Father is shared w/ the Son (& Spirit) through or by virtue of the timeless generation, right? I'm trying to avoid the notion that the Son & Spirit where made God, predicatively, through a separate act apart from generation; which could be construed as tritheism by some.
its virtue of timeless generation to the Son and timeless procession to the Spirit. I wouldn't really say it could construed as tritheism because since the hypostasis of the Son is different to the Spirit, they can't be eternally brought into in the existence the same way. But it doesn't cause tritheism, only if they have different natures. @@InfinitelyManic
Jesus is the word of God, the holy spirit is the spirit of God. Because they communicate with God they aren't the same person. But because you can't separate God from his word or his spirit there is only one God.
God bless you from Ortodox Serbia!!!!
To add to what I have said.
St. Epiphanius of Salamis, in his Panarion, speaks of the Word and uses exacly this term, 'autotheos' for Him:
"He possessed all perfection in himself and was absolute perfection, absolute God (αὐτόθεος), absolute power, absolute light, and the Completer, or rather, Perfecter, both of the mind and of the whole body, and wrought our salvation in all things by his advent in the flesh."
And again, the same St. Epiphanius says of the same in the same Panarion:
"He is very God (αὐτόθεος) and has ascended into the heavens and taken his seat at the Father’s right hand in glory"
Good work brother thanks for your efforts
Awesome video, thank you. Sending to my Prot friends to help them do a learnin'
Based
thanks
If there is one will, can the Son will to beget a son as well? This isn't a gotcha question, I am Orthodox and was asked this question by a Muslim. My answer was that willing is a property of nature, whereas begetting is a hypostatic property of the Father alone. Thoughts? Critiques?
I think that saying fatherhood is a unique property to the Father alone in the Trinity and sonship is a property unique to the Son alone in the Trinity is another good way of explaining it
i'm not sure, but perhaps to “beget” is the property of the Father's hypostatic attribute, not his will, but to “create” is the property of his will..
@randomguy1453 the way the question was premised was that if there is one will in the Trinity and the Father wills to beget the Son, can the Son will to beget a Son. I think the question is flawed because it blurs the distinction between nature and person. The Father begets alone because the hypostatic property of the Father is to beget while will is proper to nature which is how there is one will in the Trinity.
@andys3035 that makes sense, very greatly worded!
This is a good answer. I would add that the one will of the Host Trinity is manifested hypostatically in a distinct way by the three Persons. Correct me if I’m wrong.
Good work. You helped me out a lot with The Trinity.👍
Excellent presentation!!
Can you further explain how the Spirit is the image of the Son?
I was just thinking about that myself., the spirit proceeds from the father through the son, but the Bible never mentions the spirit as an image of either the father or the son.
I agree with you, but after some time, I think he means by "image of the Son" is that the Spirit reveals the Son to us like the "Word of the Son". It is like how we know the Father when we come the the Son in the Spirit. So if we are to come to the Son we have to be in the Spirit, but this is just what I think about it@@igbenkev4638
Jesus is the word of God, the holy spirit is the spirit of God.
Because they communicate with God they aren't the same person.
But because you can't separate God from his word or his spirit there is only one God.
Hi David, is there a way to invite you on my channel?
Gold!
The scriptures are written in a way that something new that was conveyed to the early congregations and in those early congregations were converts of jews so it was written in a way not to take away the will of one God but how God He himself was prophecied to be displayed in nature not to take away what is but to establish true God of true God. To imply a first then there is a second which makes the second not equal to the first and can imply indication of time when one was not ?....
Thank you. This is the only way I am able to understand the trinity. I’ve never been able to understand the Augustinian trinity where the father is not really a father, but he’s part of a triplets. They don’t believe the son was the son before he came to earth. So would you say that the Son is also Yahweh?
Very good. I may be at fault but I understand the Father as the Mind, the Son as the Word or Will, and the Holy Spirit as exactly that. In that, the idea of the Father's monarchy is preserved as He is the one who, or in whom, it all starts. His Will is the image of Him, the reflection of His Mind turned to works and the Holy Spirit is His essence which is carried from Him, through the Son into being(s). Being that this is God, His Mind, His Will and His Spirit are all separate persons with their own deity but all 3 are essential, and constitute the One, God.
I would love to hear a comment, opinion on this. This is my understanding so far and I would honestly love to be corrected if wrong or this idea expanded upon if somewhat right.
Thank you for your work!
Interesting take. I like to think of the Father as the source of the Word which is the full expression of the Father. And to speak this Word, there needs to be the breath of the Father which is the Holy Spirit.
This is similar to the incarnation. The Father sent the Holy Spirit to overshadow Mary, and then the Word became flesh. This is also similar to creation. The Father willed to create. The Holy Spirit was hovering over the face of the waters. Then the Word came, "And God said...."
Why does being caused not mean your created
@@letsgo1153 good question. Apparently there's no good answer ... not even a bad one.
@letsgo1153 causation isnt the same as being created, in this case it’s an eternal generation. It’s talking about source.
Hope this helps:
Of what is contemplated in the Trinity, there is the Father existing without origin nor cause, for He is not from someone, for He has being in Himself. But the Son is not unoriginate, for He is from the Father, for the Father is the origin of the Son, as cause; but if you take origin [to refer to being] from time, He is also unoriginate; for the maker of time is not subject to time; [For He exists by] generation, but eternally and without intervals shining forth by the Father, as the radiance of glory and the figure of the paternal hypostasis. But the Holy Spirit having existence from the Father, not by generation, but by procession (ἐκ τοῦ Πατρὸς τὴν ὕπαρξιν ἔχον, οὐ γεννητῶς μὲν, ἀλλ᾽ ἐκπορευτῶς), is eternally contemplated with the Father and the Son, not unoriginate because of His procession from the Father; for His origin is the Father according to the reason of cause, but He is unoriginate according to time.
St. Nikephoros I of Constantinople, Letter to Pope Leo III, PG 100, col. 184
Because the Logos of God is uncreated yet distinct from the Father. Don’t get caught up on the terms, our finite fallible human minds are attempting to rationalize the divine. It’s about what the terms mean is what is in question.
@@TheBiggestJesusbecause the logos of God is uncreated and distinct from the Father. Are you arguing Jesus is created?
In my opinion the usage of the term 'autotheos' for the Father alone (which term is quite foreign to patristic terminology) can cause a lot of confusion and might even lead one to the Arian perdition.
'Autotheos' means 'God by Himself', 'God of Himself' or 'God in Himself', that is, its meaning is the same as that of 'very God'; it distinguishes being God by nature from being god by participation (sharing) in another's divine nature. Thus one who is 'autotheos' is Divinizer Himself and is not Himself divinized, is very Life and Life-Giver Himself and Fountain of Life and is not partaking of the life of another.
The term 'autotheos' is general and universal and by no means particular, that is, it applies to the common divine nature ('theos') and is not particular to one or another of the divine hypostases. For this reason, it can be used equally for the Father, for the Son and for the Holy Spirit.
Origen, the forerunner of Arius, allowed the term 'autotheos' to be used for the Father alone, and he did this precisely because he considered the Father alone to be true God while He considered the Son to be God by participation and not by nature. Thus speaks this heretic in his Commentary on the Gospel of John:
"God on the one hand is Very God (Autotheos, God of Himself); and so the Saviour says in His prayer to the Father, “That they may know Thee the only true God;” but that all beyond the Very God is made God by participation in His divinity, and is not to be called simply God (with the article), but rather God (without article). And thus the first-born of all creation, who is the first to be with God, and to attract to Himself divinity, is a being of more exalted rank than the other gods beside Him, of whom God is the God, as it is written, “The God of gods, the Lord, hath spoken and called the earth.”"
The Holy Church, contrary to Origen, confesses the Son to be true God, very Life, that is, Life by/of/in Himself and Life-giving and Fountain of Life and by no means a partaker of the Life which is the Father, though He was born of the Father before all ages and has the Father as His cause.
Creation alone is partaker of Life, and by no means the Son or the Holy Spirit, who are not creatures but each one of them, by nature, God and thus Life and Fountain of Life as the Father also is.
The Son, as a hypostasis, has life in Himself in the same way as the Father has life in Himself, being true independent Life and being by no means a partaker of the true independent Life which is the Father who begot Him - otherwise He would not be true God, but a creature, and the homoousion would be destroyed.
This truth is undelined by St. Cyril of Alexandria in his Commentary on John's Gospel, who says:
"Then who (tell me) will any longer endure the trifling of the heretics? or who will not justly cry out against their impiety, in daring to say that the Son is partaker of life from another, albeit the holy and God-inspired Scripture says no such thing of Him; but rather openly cries aloud, that He is both God by Nature, and Very, and the Fountain of Life, and again Life Eternal. For how will He be conceived of as Very God, who needs life from another, and is not rather Himself Life by Nature? or how will He any more be called Fountain of Life, if He is holpen by another's gifts to be able to live?
[..]
But if He have the Father the giver of His Own Life, manifestly He has no Life of His Own. For He borrows it of another, and is (as we said at first) a creature rather than Life, and of a nature subject to decay. How then does He call Himself Life? For either we too may safely say, I am the Life, or if this be no safe word (for it is not lawful for the creature to mount up to God-befitting dignities), the Son knows that He is by Nature Life: since how will He be the Impress of the Person of Him That begat Him, how the Image and accurate Likeness? or how was not Philip right in saying, Shew us the Father, and it sufficeth us? For in truth one ought to consider, that he that had seen the Son, had not yet seen the Father, since the One is by Nature Life, the Other participant of life from Him. For one will never see that which quickeneth in that which is quickened, Him That lacketh not in him that lacketh. Hence in another way too will He be untrue in saying, He that hath seen Me hath seen the Father.
But he who loveth the pious doctrines of the Church sees what great absurdities will follow their pratings. Let him then turn from them, and pass away, as it is written, and let him make straight paths, and direct his ways, and look to the simple beauty of the truth, believing that God the Father is by Nature Life, the Son Begotten of Him Life too. For as He is said to be Light of Light, so too Life of Life: and as God the Father lighteneth things lacking Light by His Own Light, His Son, and gives wisdom to things recipient thereof, through His Own Wisdom, and strengthened things needing strength, through again His Own Strength, so too He quickeneth things whatever lack the Life from Him, by His Own Life which floweth forth from Him, His Son. When then He says, I live because of the Father, do not suppose that He confesses that He lives because He receives Life from the Father, but asserted that because He was begotten of a Living Father, that therefore He also lives. For it were impossible that He who is of a Living Father, should not live. As though any of us were to say, I am a reasonable man on account of my father, for I was born the child of a reasonable man: so do thou conceive in respect of the Only-Begotten also. I live (He says) because of the Father. For since the Father who begat Me is Life by Nature, and I am His Natural and Proper Offspring, I gain by Nature what is His, i. e., being Life: for this the Father too is. For since He is conceived to be and is One of One (for the Son is from the Father, even though He were with Him eternally); He with reason glories in the Natural Attributes of Him That begat Him, as His Own."
It is one thing for the Son to have been begotten of the Father before all ages, thus having the Father as cause of His own existence and another thing for the Son to be dependent of the Father for His very Life. The former is truth, the later is heresy.
To give an example closer to us, I was born of my father and so if my father would not have existed then I would not have existed either. But being born of him, I am not dependent of him for my very life, because I do not live through my father's life, but through my own. He does not continually grant me the power to live, but having been begotten from him who truly lives, as true man from true man, I also truly live through myself and not through him, in the same way as he also truly lives through himself and not through me.
Likewise, in the case of the Holy Trinity, the issue of causation (in birth as well as in procession) has no bearing on the autotheos/very God/Life-in-Himself issue. The first issue pertains to the manner of being of the hypostases, the second pertains to the divine nature which is common to the Three Hypostases.
i think i understand what your saying. its just that if you were to ask me what to explain it i would just go uuuhhhhhhhh😂
Jesus is the word of God, the holy spirit is the spirit of God.
Because they communicate with God they aren't the same person.
But because you can't separate God from his word or his spirit there is only one God.
You mean the Son's hypostasis is from the Father, not the Son's essence, right?
No the Son's hypostasis is only to the Son's personhood. So his essence is derived from the Father but his personhood is only to himself.
@@dante-lj4ow I worded that in a weird way. Yes, the Son's (& Spirit's) hypostasis (personhood) is timelessly caused by the Father, but, the nature/essence/substance of the Father is shared w/ the Son (& Spirit) through or by virtue of the timeless generation, right? I'm trying to avoid the notion that the Son & Spirit where made God, predicatively, through a separate act apart from generation; which could be construed as tritheism by some.
its virtue of timeless generation to the Son and timeless procession to the Spirit. I wouldn't really say it could construed as tritheism because since the hypostasis of the Son is different to the Spirit, they can't be eternally brought into in the existence the same way. But it doesn't cause tritheism, only if they have different natures. @@InfinitelyManic
So, Does the Father exist before the Word/Son because The Father isn't begotten and the Word is eternally begotten from the Father?
@Orthodox_Knight Thank you, brother.
Jesus is the word of God, the holy spirit is the spirit of God.
Because they communicate with God they aren't the same person.
But because you can't separate God from his word or his spirit there is only one God.
False, heresy
Being an chad troll is truly a thankless job.
@@andrewpirr someone appreciates it
@@TheCondescendingRedditor appreciate you, bro
@@TheCondescendingRedditor Explain how its heresy? Its what the fathers teached
@@benk769 English please.
@redeemedzoomer