Sin, Life & Death

[jfrog]

Originally Posted by mfblume

Right. But GOD is in the equation here. The Son is deity as well as the Father, although the Son involves humanity while the Father does not. So a DIVINE PERSON is involved. That immediately removes all possibilities of saying God must be two persons in order for Son to talk to Father, since we can only see huamnity being two persons if a similar thing happens with us.

God does not need to be two persons for the Son to talk to the Father. I am not trying to assert this. I am trying to assert that in this oneness view, Jesus prayed to Jesus. This does not disprove oneness, but it is a logical consequence of oneness doctrine.

I am also asserting that if you do not confess this to be true that Jesus prayed to Jesus, then your only option to deny it is you must be dividing Christ into one human person and one divine person... (which would be a contradiction to your view that Jesus is fully man and fully God, since Jesus would no longer be a singular person)

Originally Posted by mfblume

No, you still miss the point I made. God caused the incarnation. So God is the issue here. What God can and cannot do as one person is simply UNKNOWN to us, really. In this light, to say He must be more than one person in order for Son to pray to Father is simply irrational, I think.

You are the one missing my whole point... IF Jesus is both the Father and man, THEN Jesus prayed to Jesus. That is all I am saying. I am not saying this proves oneness is untrue, but I'm saying that logically following from your conception of oneness, Jesus prayed to Jesus.

Originally Posted by mfblume

I never said a nature prays. I said a HUMAN BEING is praying to GOD, and since God is both the incarnation as a human being as well as God, we cannot presume He must be two persons just because Son prays to Father. Such a presumption, again, is based upon conisidering what huamns must be in order for two humans to do the same thing.

Okay then, since a nature does not pray then my point is proven. Since a nature does not pray then a person prays. Jesus the "person" prayed to the Father, but since the "person" Jesus is the Father THEN Jesus the "person" prayed to Jesus the "person". Again this does not disprove oneness, it is just a logical consequence of it.

Originally Posted by mfblume

I gave a picture of what I am trying to say before, and I was not sure if it was you with whom I spoke about it or not. It must not have been you.

So, let me explain. Imagine a martian is discovered on Mars. It's species is quite different from that of human beings. This creature has two mouths with which to speak simultaneously in two totally different conversations. Its brain is created to be able to do that. But it is one "person" of it species. If we were to look at that, we would reason that since we can only carry on two totally different conversations at the same time by there being TWO HUMAN PERSONS, we might wish to consider this creature as two persons. However, we are talking about a different species. It can do things we cannot do.

As crude as that picture is, I think it adequately explains what I am trying to say. I do not like to call God a species, but to get my point across, He is a different SPECIES than us. Although He is the only One of His kind. And it is error to say He must be more than one person when we see Him do things that would require more than one human person to do. And whether we realize it or not, we ARE comparing God to human beings and our abilities when we reason He is two persons at least. We have no other basis than that upon which to say God is more than one person.

As for your example, you are not asserting that God spoke to God, or even that God prayed to God. You assert that there is no other God for God to speak to. You assert that man prayed to God. In your example you are asserting that one of those mouths was a man and one of those mouths was the Father. This also supports my position. You said there was one person, Christ (of that two mouthed species) and that one mouth was a man and the other mouth was the Father. If the mouth that was a man spoke to the mouth that was the Father, would we not say that Christ spoke to Christ, that the two mouthed creature spoke to itself?