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	Comments on: The Trinity, Re-Revisited.	</title>
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		By: Nathan		</title>
		<link>https://nathanshumate.com/the-trinity-re-revisited/#comment-8764</link>

		<dc:creator><![CDATA[Nathan]]></dc:creator>
		<pubDate>Mon, 22 Jun 2026 13:02:15 +0000</pubDate>
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					<description><![CDATA[So are you alleging, along with my correspondent there, that they ARE the same &quot;person?&quot; That the Athanasian creed&#039;s warning against blending or confounding the persons, that the standard Trinitarian formulation of &quot;one God in three persons,&quot; and basically all of Trinitarian thought for two millennia, are wrong?

It seems you&#039;re straying close to &quot;modalism,&quot; which I&#039;m told is a heresy.]]></description>
			<content:encoded><![CDATA[<p>So are you alleging, along with my correspondent there, that they ARE the same &#8220;person?&#8221; That the Athanasian creed&#8217;s warning against blending or confounding the persons, that the standard Trinitarian formulation of &#8220;one God in three persons,&#8221; and basically all of Trinitarian thought for two millennia, are wrong?</p>
<p>It seems you&#8217;re straying close to &#8220;modalism,&#8221; which I&#8217;m told is a heresy.</p>
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		By: RK		</title>
		<link>https://nathanshumate.com/the-trinity-re-revisited/#comment-8762</link>

		<dc:creator><![CDATA[RK]]></dc:creator>
		<pubDate>Mon, 22 Jun 2026 03:51:14 +0000</pubDate>
		<guid isPermaLink="false">https://nathanshumate.com/?p=55586#comment-8762</guid>

					<description><![CDATA[Actually, every single verse you quoted there with the identifications adjusted to clarify that everyone mentioned is in fact the same God is &lt;i&gt;quite&lt;/i&gt; comprehensible, though that adjustment does make the statements sound awfully redundant and a bit egotistical. As one of my professors in college (who was also a theologian and Sunday School teacher at one of the local churches) taught in a particular lesson I still recall now some two decades later, there&#039;s a fair amount in the Old and New Testaments alike about God loving and being pleased with and glorifying Him&lt;i&gt;self&lt;/i&gt;; what keeps these verses from being &quot;egotistical&quot; in the way we commonly use that word nowadays is that an &quot;egotist&quot; assesses himself to be greater (in various ways) than he truly is, whereas our eternal God really &lt;i&gt;is&lt;/i&gt; infinitely great. The egotist&#039;s self-assessment is arrogant because it is inaccurate, whereas God&#039;s self-assessment is entirely accurate and therefore only &lt;i&gt;looks&lt;/i&gt; arrogant to those who doubt and dispute its veracity (e.g. the late Christopher Hitchens).

Concerning a few of those verses which would speak of God sending Himself and being greater than Himself and being beside Himself, these are among some of the mind-bendingly impressive feats of which the eternal and infinite God who &lt;i&gt;created&lt;/i&gt; time and space and logic and (effectively) reality itself is capable. God continuing to be His infinite self is something easily understood; descending from that eternal infinity and imposing the limitations of &lt;i&gt;finite&lt;/i&gt; time and space and (particularly) human biology (such as our brain&#039;s limited memory and processing power, particularly in the years between our conception and adulthood) on Himself while &lt;i&gt;still&lt;/i&gt; being that infinite self (&quot;Before Abraham was, &lt;i&gt;I am&lt;/i&gt;!&quot; remember?) is a lot more difficult to comprehend, and yet that&#039;s what God did when coming to us as Jesus. Such is the aspect of God&#039;s being eternal and infinite known as omnipresence: being simultaneously in not only more than one place (and time) but in &lt;i&gt;all&lt;/i&gt; times and places while filling &lt;i&gt;none&lt;/i&gt; of them, a feat so impressive that our very words in any language struggle to describe it (such as my using &quot;simultaneously&quot; meaning &quot;at the same &lt;i&gt;time&lt;/i&gt;&quot; just now to describe something &lt;i&gt;eternal&lt;/i&gt; which is by definition beyond time&#039;s constraints). On the other hand, given that even some of our greater authors (e.g. C.S. Lewis) have written works of &quot;self-insert&quot; fiction deploying themselves into their fictional worlds as an author avatar (e.g. Professor Digory Kirke in the &lt;i&gt;Narnia Chronicles&lt;/i&gt;), is it really so difficult to comprehend that an author can in some sense both &lt;i&gt;be&lt;/i&gt; his avatar and yet be &lt;i&gt;greater&lt;/i&gt; than his avatar?

Also, given that said author avatar ascended body and soul into our eternal Author and Creator&#039;s eternal Heaven with Him in Acts 1:9 (which is where the analogy to human authors ultimately meets its limit—e.g. Lewis didn&#039;t have the power to bring Kirke out of his books and into our world), is it so difficult to understand how God can be enthroned next to Himself in eternity? Contrary to your previous claim in your now-closed comments section, the concept of eternity is &lt;i&gt;not&lt;/i&gt; some Greek innovation on the Hebrew concept of our &quot;everlasting&quot; God: in fact, a lot of the Greeks (Aristotle, for one) believed our world to be un-created and co-eternal with God (to the extent they could be said to believe in one unified God; Aristotle had his concept of a Prime Mover on which Thomas Aquinas would later base his own philosophy) whereas the Hebrews already knew God exists &quot;from everlasting to everlasting&quot; (Psalm 90:2 and &lt;a href=&quot;https://www.biblegateway.com/quicksearch/?quicksearch=%22everlasting+to+everlasting%22&#038;resultspp=250&#038;version=NIV&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow ugc&quot;&gt;at least six other places&lt;/a&gt;) and yet the heavens and earth were doomed to &quot;wear out like a garment&quot; and be replaced accordingly (Psalm 102:25-26, and this was also later reaffirmed in Isaiah 51:6). That our world has a beginning and ending (contrary to &quot;Dust In The Wind&quot; by Kansas, &lt;i&gt;not even the earth and sky&lt;/i&gt; last forever) but God does not was already known; and on the rare occasions where they applied the term &quot;everlasting&quot; to decidedly more temporal things like the hills (Deuteronomy 33:15) and foundations of the earth (Micah 6:2), the term was used generally the way we mean when we say &quot;indefinitely&quot; now, i.e. &quot;until someone [God, in the Hebrews&#039; case] determines otherwise.&quot; I can live with the description of God as being &quot;from everlasting to everlasting&quot; being alternatively translated as &quot;from indefinite to indefinite&quot; in regard to the Hebrews&#039; struggle to describe God&#039;s being eternal.

Of course, as with many arguments about the Trinity, whether all of this makes God the Father, God the Son, and God the Holy Spirit all one &quot;person&quot; or three &quot;distinct persons&quot; depends on how you&#039;re defining terms like &quot;distinct&quot; and &quot;person&quot; there. Really, such pedantry (as some would think of it) is the origin of the entire debate. No matter how much one parses such terms (along with others like &quot;essence&quot; and &quot;divinity&quot;) in debate, however, the Scriptures you cite still make each God out to be the same God as stated to Israel all the way back in Deuteronomy 6:4 with its paradoxical use of the plural &lt;i&gt;Eloheinu&lt;/i&gt; (&quot;our Gods&quot;) with the singular syntax of &lt;i&gt;echad&lt;/i&gt; (&quot;is one&quot;).]]></description>
			<content:encoded><![CDATA[<p>Actually, every single verse you quoted there with the identifications adjusted to clarify that everyone mentioned is in fact the same God is <i>quite</i> comprehensible, though that adjustment does make the statements sound awfully redundant and a bit egotistical. As one of my professors in college (who was also a theologian and Sunday School teacher at one of the local churches) taught in a particular lesson I still recall now some two decades later, there&#8217;s a fair amount in the Old and New Testaments alike about God loving and being pleased with and glorifying Him<i>self</i>; what keeps these verses from being &#8220;egotistical&#8221; in the way we commonly use that word nowadays is that an &#8220;egotist&#8221; assesses himself to be greater (in various ways) than he truly is, whereas our eternal God really <i>is</i> infinitely great. The egotist&#8217;s self-assessment is arrogant because it is inaccurate, whereas God&#8217;s self-assessment is entirely accurate and therefore only <i>looks</i> arrogant to those who doubt and dispute its veracity (e.g. the late Christopher Hitchens).</p>
<p>Concerning a few of those verses which would speak of God sending Himself and being greater than Himself and being beside Himself, these are among some of the mind-bendingly impressive feats of which the eternal and infinite God who <i>created</i> time and space and logic and (effectively) reality itself is capable. God continuing to be His infinite self is something easily understood; descending from that eternal infinity and imposing the limitations of <i>finite</i> time and space and (particularly) human biology (such as our brain&#8217;s limited memory and processing power, particularly in the years between our conception and adulthood) on Himself while <i>still</i> being that infinite self (&#8220;Before Abraham was, <i>I am</i>!&#8221; remember?) is a lot more difficult to comprehend, and yet that&#8217;s what God did when coming to us as Jesus. Such is the aspect of God&#8217;s being eternal and infinite known as omnipresence: being simultaneously in not only more than one place (and time) but in <i>all</i> times and places while filling <i>none</i> of them, a feat so impressive that our very words in any language struggle to describe it (such as my using &#8220;simultaneously&#8221; meaning &#8220;at the same <i>time</i>&#8221; just now to describe something <i>eternal</i> which is by definition beyond time&#8217;s constraints). On the other hand, given that even some of our greater authors (e.g. C.S. Lewis) have written works of &#8220;self-insert&#8221; fiction deploying themselves into their fictional worlds as an author avatar (e.g. Professor Digory Kirke in the <i>Narnia Chronicles</i>), is it really so difficult to comprehend that an author can in some sense both <i>be</i> his avatar and yet be <i>greater</i> than his avatar?</p>
<p>Also, given that said author avatar ascended body and soul into our eternal Author and Creator&#8217;s eternal Heaven with Him in Acts 1:9 (which is where the analogy to human authors ultimately meets its limit—e.g. Lewis didn&#8217;t have the power to bring Kirke out of his books and into our world), is it so difficult to understand how God can be enthroned next to Himself in eternity? Contrary to your previous claim in your now-closed comments section, the concept of eternity is <i>not</i> some Greek innovation on the Hebrew concept of our &#8220;everlasting&#8221; God: in fact, a lot of the Greeks (Aristotle, for one) believed our world to be un-created and co-eternal with God (to the extent they could be said to believe in one unified God; Aristotle had his concept of a Prime Mover on which Thomas Aquinas would later base his own philosophy) whereas the Hebrews already knew God exists &#8220;from everlasting to everlasting&#8221; (Psalm 90:2 and <a href="https://www.biblegateway.com/quicksearch/?quicksearch=%22everlasting+to+everlasting%22&amp;resultspp=250&amp;version=NIV" rel="nofollow ugc">at least six other places</a>) and yet the heavens and earth were doomed to &#8220;wear out like a garment&#8221; and be replaced accordingly (Psalm 102:25-26, and this was also later reaffirmed in Isaiah 51:6). That our world has a beginning and ending (contrary to &#8220;Dust In The Wind&#8221; by Kansas, <i>not even the earth and sky</i> last forever) but God does not was already known; and on the rare occasions where they applied the term &#8220;everlasting&#8221; to decidedly more temporal things like the hills (Deuteronomy 33:15) and foundations of the earth (Micah 6:2), the term was used generally the way we mean when we say &#8220;indefinitely&#8221; now, i.e. &#8220;until someone [God, in the Hebrews&#8217; case] determines otherwise.&#8221; I can live with the description of God as being &#8220;from everlasting to everlasting&#8221; being alternatively translated as &#8220;from indefinite to indefinite&#8221; in regard to the Hebrews&#8217; struggle to describe God&#8217;s being eternal.</p>
<p>Of course, as with many arguments about the Trinity, whether all of this makes God the Father, God the Son, and God the Holy Spirit all one &#8220;person&#8221; or three &#8220;distinct persons&#8221; depends on how you&#8217;re defining terms like &#8220;distinct&#8221; and &#8220;person&#8221; there. Really, such pedantry (as some would think of it) is the origin of the entire debate. No matter how much one parses such terms (along with others like &#8220;essence&#8221; and &#8220;divinity&#8221;) in debate, however, the Scriptures you cite still make each God out to be the same God as stated to Israel all the way back in Deuteronomy 6:4 with its paradoxical use of the plural <i>Eloheinu</i> (&#8220;our Gods&#8221;) with the singular syntax of <i>echad</i> (&#8220;is one&#8221;).</p>
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