With what regard do the Catholics hold him? What is thought about his thoughts/philosophy?

-- JBC (JRA@JRA-ARCHITECTS.COM), December 23, 1998

Answers

Response to Aristotle ??

Dear Jamey,
Aristotle himself doesn't have any official standing. He wrote some good, basic metaphysics, though (that there's a real world, wih real objects and causes, etc.), and so, much of this basic metaphysics was incorporated by St. Thomas Aquinas into Catholic theology. Catholics would disagree with Aristotle's idea of a distant God contemplating only himself, and several other things. He simply provided a very powerful conceptual framework for the discussion of interelationships between concepts, such as characteristic, substance, being, potential, actuality, etc. One thing Aquinas said (from considering Aristotle) that I always found interesting is that the world here is in states of potentiality and actuality, in varying ways and degrees. God alone is pure actuality, with no potentiality at all. Not that I understand what that means. . . Yours in Christ,
Chris B

-- Chris B -- December 23, 1998.

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Response to Aristotle ??

My opinion of Potentiality/Actuality:

God has no potential. He is as He says in the OT Exodus 3:14 (NIV) 14 God said to Moses, "I AM WHO I AM. This is what you are to say to the Israelites: `I AM has sent me to you.'" He causes to become. He is all knowing, all present, all everything. Pure Actuality.

His creations are the only beings that have potential. When the human ones that are chosen for eternal life become such, they will have achieved actuality but not pure as the Father because He was, is and always will be PURE. And, when the New Heavens and New Earth are established then they also will be Pure. As it stands now with sin involved and the devil still able to do his thing , we fluctuate between what we have now and the striving to become (potential) Pure.

-- JBC (JRA@JRA-ARCHITECTS.COM), December 23, 1998.

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You say that you object to the Trinity because you have never seen a three-in-one in nature. When have you ever seen a purely actual being, without any potential at all, in nature?

-- chris B -- February 12, 1999.

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I don't "recall" saying that I've never "seen", but only have never heard of (correct me).

But, I don't understand your question? Jamey

-- Jamey (jra@jra-architects.com), February 13, 1999.

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You've objected to the Trinity because you say it is not in accord with the laws of nature. (You said you grew up on a farm and that has taught you how to view things, and that there is no three-in-one in nature). Surely there is no purely actual being within our immediate experience in nature, and so this particular objection should be dropped. Your disagrement with the Trinity, at this point, should be purely on biblical grounds.

In Christ's love, Chris

-- chris B -- February 13, 1999.

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The "Laws" of Nature are just part of my objection. Respectfully, there is no Scriptural bases for the trinity. Again, it's not mentioned. Only overlayed.

Jamey

-- Jamey (jra@jra-architects.com), February 13, 1999.

-- The Thread Restorer (Thread@Restoration.com), November 30, 2003

Answers

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-- - (.@...), May 07, 2004.

The trinity is as real and plain as the doctrine of Christ's deity.

John 1:1 In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God and the Word was God.

John 1:14 And the Word became flesh and tabernacled among us (and we beheld His glory, glory as of the only begotten from the Father), full of grace and reality.

Thomas called Jesus "My Lord and my God"

The OT and NT state clearly that there is one God.

The OT also says that God alone is Holy. The Holy Spirit is God.

Finite man can't comprehend the infinite God, so He tries to stick God in a box because He can't understand how God can be one, revealed in three coexisting, coeternal persons.

We Christians believe the scripture and what it teaches. If it says that God is one, we say Amen. If the scripture shows that the Father is God, the Son is God, and the Holy Spirit is God we say amen.

They are forever organically joined in a divine and mystical union as one God.

Praise Him !

-- Oliver Fischer (spicenut@excite.com), May 13, 2004.