Trinity dilemma- Did God leave heaven for 33 years?

-- Langford Lloyd (langford.lloyd@attws.com), October 11, 2001

Answers

God the Son left heaven. God the Father & God the Holy Spirit remained in heaven. Someone correct me if I am wrong.

-- Wendy (weiskids@yahoo.com), October 11, 2001.

Since we say that one of God's perfections is "omnipresence" -- that he is everywhere -- we could say that all Persons of the Trinity have always been both in Heaven and on Earth (ever since our planet was created). So God did not have to leave Heaven to be present on Earth.

Still, Jesus said this very interesting thing to Nicodemus [John 3]:
"13: No one has ascended into heaven but he who descended from heaven, the Son of man."

In agreement with your comment, Wendy ... The verse from St. John says that the Son "descended" from heaven. He took on human nature. Yet the verse seems to say that he still remained in contact with the Trinity in heaven through a supernatural "ascension" (long before Ascension Thursday). It's a mystery!
JFG

-- (jfgecik@hotmail.com), October 12, 2001.

JFG-

Thanks for your response-

I sounds as though you have a dilemma similar to mine-

When we read the New Testament Jesus clearly is speaking to, referring to, praying to, his Father in Heaven. My heart tells me Jesus and God the Father are separate and distinct beings. A practical reading of the Saviors words in the bible simply infer this at every turn. The scriptures teach Jesus was the literal Son of God (not the Son of himself.) Consequently, I find myself refuting the doctrine of the Trinity that was introduced to the Church at the Council of Nicea in the fourth century and has perpetuated to current time.

How do you reconcile this major doctrinal conundrum?

Thanks for any correction, insight, and or mutual paradoxical feelings.

Langford

[NOTE: The above message was sent to my e-mail address on October 12. I requested and received Mr. Lloyd's permission to transfer it here, so that anyone may reply to him. JFG]

-- Langford Lloyd (langford.lloyd@attws.com), October 15, 2001.

We've all had to face the supercilious charges of non-Catholics who state boldly ''Mary was not the Mother of God. She was only the mother in the flesh of Jesus. Not of a Person in the Holy Trinity.'' --In this unwholesome separation of the Human and Divine natures (very clearly) co-existing in the ONE person of Jesus Christ, is much the same weakness Mr.Lloyd shows.

If Jesus is God, but His Father is God the Father and Creator, then Jesus is either created or begotten from all eternity. We know He stated He was with the Father from before the world existed. We must acknowledge He is God --with the Father; ''For God did not send His Son into the world in order to judge the world, but that the world might be saved through Him --'' (John 3 :17).

Yet, as Man He would pray, and even petition His Almighty Father. Only because it is fitting that MAN must worship God; and Jesus is True man as well as True God. There is no contradiction.

Does the Father then love only the divine nature of His only-begotten Son? But not the human nature-- Mary's nature; so separating them as unfaithful men do? NO! He loves the PERSON who is co-eternal in One God the Trinity, with the Holy Spirit as well-- and and also a Man, born of a virgin. The PERSON is each nature and yet One Person. Jesus Christ Our Lord. There can be no ''dilemma'' where there is faith. Faith admits of no puzzlement in the Holy Trinity, nor in the divinity of the Man Jesus Christ. It has been spoken by God, and the faithful receive His word without murmuring ''Why?''.

One last point; the Council of Nicea of the 4th century is not the source of this divine truth, and did not ''introduce'' it to the Church. The truth is in God. He reveals the truth in ways that we should not challenge. Some are clear from the beginning, as when Jesus spoke them. They are no less true if clarified in Council subsequently, in order to repudiate heretical opposition. Almighty God the Father and Jesus Christ the eternal Son, made Man-- with the Holy Spirit are not ''distinct beings'', as Mr. Lloyd suggests. Each is eternally distinct in Person, and One in Nature, and this is God.

-- eugene c. chavez (chavezec@pacbell.net), October 15, 2001.

Jmj

Hello, Langford.

I agree with everything Eugene has told you.
And I must say that you were mistaken in thinking that I experience any kind of "dilemma" about this. Rather I said that I knew it to be a "mystery." I didn't mean a "puzzle," as in the ordinary sense of the word "mystery." A theological "mystery" is a truth that we totally accept, through faith, but which is beyond the ability of finite human reason to fully understand. We may understand a mystery partially, and we can talk about it, but we believe it because the one who revealed it (God) is trustworthy.

Langford, you stated: "My heart tells me Jesus and God the Father are separate and distinct beings. A practical reading of the Saviors words in the bible simply infer this at every turn."

I'm afraid that I have to disagree with you.
Jesus said, "The Father and I are one."
Jesus said, "He who has seen me has seen the Father."
St. John opens his gospel by saying, "In the beginning was the Word [Jesus], and the Word was with God, and the Word was God."
I believe that a little more digging could uncover other passages that do not support your statement.

God bless you.
John

-- (jfgecik@hotmail.com), October 17, 2001.

Langford,

One of our biggest problems as lowly human beings is we try to make God fit what we think He should be like. I use the term "lowly" here to indicate how much lower we are than He is. We could never "think" what He is like as Triune God -- no matter how hard we might try.

But He has revealed certain facts about Himself. He is Truth. Therefore He cannot be deceived nor can He deceive. So His Revelation can be trusted totally.

He has revealed Himself as one God. As Being, that is as Life. As Spirit. And at the same time as three divine Persons, equal to one another. So if He is one Being, yet three Persons -- we cannot think what He is like. So what our hearts tell us isn't going to work in this situation. We can only accept what He revealed on the basis of Who revealed it. And He Who revealed it is Truth.

God cannot be divided. Therefore what one Person of the Trinity does, all three Persons do. The Persons of the Trinity differ only in their relationship to one another. And when we attribute one certain work of God to one of the Persons of the Trinity, we do so because that particular work fits His place in that relationship.

An example: The Father gives everything He has and is to the Son, except being Father. He retains His Personhood in relationship. When we make the Sign of the Cross, we are expressing those divine relationships. And again, at Baptism.

We humans tend to divide everything up into compartments. This won't work with God.

The Son, in obedient, loving submission to the Father's Plan of Salvation, took to Himself a human nature and lived and worked among men. We try then to divide the Trinity and separate the Son from the Father and Holy Spirit. But that is an error. The second Person of the Trinity, God the Son, was never divided from God the Father and God the Holy Spirit. The three Persons were always in perfect union.

So then, how to explain Bible passages? Like where Jesus said He didn't know certain things? And where He talked like a human being rather than like God? That's exactly what He was doing there -- talking like a human. Sometimes He held back His divine nature. You can tell the difference quite easily, by the type of comments He makes. One notable time is on the Cross when He cried out, "Why have You forsaken me?" That was His human nature feeling that separation, and His divine nature could only experience that through the feelings of the human nature. The same thing is true of His death. In Jesus Christ, God truly experienced death. Because the second Person of the Triune God experienced the separation of body and soul in the human nature, the same as all humans experience. In Christ Dandi

-- Dandi Kenoyer (hothamsound@hotmail.com), October 21, 2001.

Matthew 4:16,17. John 1:1,14 Jesus is the Word of God. God did not leave heaven but His Word.

-- genis misola (the4thgenesis@yahoo.com), November 28, 2001.