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Old 03-27-2007, 09:31 PM   #22 (permalink)
Halifax
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Quote:
Originally Posted by willravel
Why would a creature that needs nothing ask for worship?
Does He ask for our worship? Or is it due Him in accord with the existent order of things? I don't think God created us to merely to worship Him—not in the "slavish" sense of worship which some people have. He created us as a gratuitous expression of His love and glory. Only the superabundance of Goodness found in God could spur Him to a true creative act. We were created free because properly one may only enter into a loving relationship with a free creature.

Quote:
Originally Posted by willravel
I was following the idea that there are two types of perfection, dualistic and non-dualistic. If you're aware of a third, I'd like to learn.
The non-dualistic perfection you describe sounds essentially like the concept of "excellence" in the classical, Platonic/Aristotelian sense. It is relative and therefore contingent, as you say. Perhaps you can expand more on the meaning and sense of the first. I don't think the perfection I'm describing and which the argument concerns is a "third" option, but rather an ontological perfection—a perfection and self-sufficiency in being. This does not vary from person to person. Unles we're going to lapse into solipsism, being must be taken as common. That is, my experience of existing—not my personal or life experience, but merely my awareness of the fact of my existence, my being, my substance—is something which I share with all existent things and therefore the basis on which I can relate to any existent thing.

Quote:
Originally Posted by willravel
God is made of father, son and holy spirit; 3 ingredients in one god. A potato chip is made of potatoes, oil, and salt; 3 ingredients in one delicious snack.
Yum.

Seriously, though, I'm hesitant to even touch upon the Trinity in this discussion because, well...it's a whole other (long) complex discussion. Christianity is a monotheistic religion. There is one God, and God is one. ("Hear o' Israel..." etc.) Furthermore, and more importantly, perhaps, it is philosophically imperative that God be one. To introduce division into a fundamental, (or in this case the Fundamental), is to violate and deny its status as a fundamental.

God is not made of the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit. God is one, and each is in turn God. They are not modes, nor expressions, though the word "expression" comes closer than anything else I can think of to capturing the nature of the persons of the Trinity, (though no words may completely express their nature). Each person is fully God and represents a particular expression or mode of the Godhead, (but not, of course, in the sense of Modalism, the early heresy). The Father is the creator, the memory, the generating mind; the Son is the intellect or "word;" the Holy Spirit is the will. Yet in the proper operation of each of the persons, their actions are undertaken through modes proper to each of the other persons, (including its own person); i.e. the Father, in encompassing the whole of existence and Being, can be considered in terms of metaphysics, (the principles), which is proper to the Father, or in mathematics, (the image), which is proper to the Son, or in physics, (the instantiation, particular, or gift), which is proper to the Spirit.

Anyways...
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