Is the Father the Son?

[Praxeas]

Originally Posted by Believer

If the Father is NOT the Son, then the Father is not the same Person as the Son. The Son prays, eats, sleeps, laughs, talks. If this isn't the Father, then you have more than one "person." And, according to John, the Word (who is God) became flesh, He didn't simply indwell the flesh.

Joh 1:14 And the Word became flesh, and dwelt among us, and we saw His glory, glory as of the only begotten from the Father, full of grace and truth.

Please notice it doesn't say the Word indwelled, but actually became flesh and dwelt among us.




What we mean when we say "person"

What are the qualities and attributes of being a person?

A person exists and has identity.
A person is aware of his own existence and identity.
This precludes the condition of being unconscious.
A self aware person will use such a statement as "I am", "me", "mine", etc.
A person can recognize the existence of other persons.
This is true provided there were other persons around him or her.
Such recognition would include the use of such statements as "you are", "you", "yours", etc.
A person possesses a will.
A will is the capability of conscious choice, decision, intention, desire, and or purpose.
A single person cannot have two separate and distinct wills at the same time on the exact same subject.
Regarding the exact same subject, a person can desire/will one thing at one moment and another at a different moment.
Separate and simultaneous wills imply separate and simultaneous persons.
A person has the ability to communicate -- under normal conditions.
Persons do not need to have bodies.
God the Father possesses personhood without a body, as do the angels.
Biblically speaking, upon death we are "absent from the body and home with the Lord" (2 Cor. 5:8).
God qualifies as having personhood in that He exists, is self aware, has identity, uses terms such as "Me", "I AM", "My", and possesses a will.
The question now becomes whether or not there is more than one "person" in the Godhead.

http://www.carm.org/oneness/3persons.htm

Based on what you posted here and I embolded, can you comment on these quotes and explain them in relation to this post from CARM where will is an attribte of Person and not nature. Also, how many minds did the Son have? How many minds does the Trinity have? Are three three minds and wills or just one?

The heresy that there is only one will in in the incarnate Christ is called monothelitism and arose from the Monophysite heresy (which said that there was only one nature in Christ). Christ distinguishes his will from that of his Father in John 6:38, Matt 26:39, etc. Christ's relationship of obedience to the Father only makes sense if Christ has a human will.

Athanasius said in his treatise on the Incarnation in 365 AD, "And when [Christ] says, "Father, if it be possible, let this chalice pass from Me; yet, not My will be done, but Yours;" and "the spirit is ready, but the flesh is weak," He gives evidence therein of two wills, the one human, which is of the flesh, and the other divine, which is of God. That which is human, because of the weakness of the flesh, shrinks from suffering. That, however, which is divine, is ready. Then too, Peter, hearing about the passion, says, "Cheer up, Lord;" but the Lord, chiding him, says, "Get behind me Satan; you are a scandal to Me, because you are mindful not of the things of God but of the things of men." This too, then, is to be understood in the suffering; but being God and, in accord with the divine substance, really being not subject to suffering, He readily accepts suffering and death" (Quotation from Faith of the Early Fathers by William Jurgens). The Council of Chalcedon said, "Similarly we promulgate, according to the teaching of the Holy Fathers, that in Him are also two natural wills and two natural modes of working, unseparated, untransformed, undivided, unmixed; and these two natural wills are not opposed to each other as the impious heretics maintained." (Quoted from Ludwig Ott, "Fundamentals of Catholic Dogma," Denzinger 291)
http://www.columbia.edu/cu/augustine...t/monothel.htm

Monothelitism (a Greek loanword meaning "one will") is a particular teaching about how the divine and human relate in the person of Jesus, known as a Christological doctrine. Specifically, Monothelitism teaches that Jesus Christ had two natures but only one will. This is contrary to the orthodox interpretation of Christology, which teaches that Jesus Christ has two wills (human and divine) corresponding to his two natures. Monothelitism is a development of the Monophysite position in the Christological debates. It enjoyed considerable support in the 7th century before being rejected as heretical.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Monothelitism