What is this rule called, and who originated it?
“A particular substance/example is in its own category that contains/subsumes the categories of every property it can and does (so, not latent property) demonstrate in action/exemplification of its character (substance + demonstrated, not latent, property).”
If the originator said it differently, please give a direct quote and reference.
Thank you!
It sounds like Spinoza, but I’m not sure. I’ll need to search for it..
I found this, is it the same?
I can’t find a specific quote with reference in what I scanned, but what I scanned seems to harmonize with the rule in the OP. To be clear… he is not a pantheist, from what I scanned. He’s a panentheist. He sees triunity demonstrated/revealed/appeared in nature. Correct me if I’m wrong.
Oh. I was going to suggest Descartes as well.. I’m off to have a look for others..
Descartes comes up in the Spinoza article.
By the way (although somewhat of a tangent, but not really), I forgot Spinoza was Jewish, and the Jewish lead-up to the Trinity finalized after Jesus’ incarnation. Quoting Brian Ervin (member of a Facebook group I belong to)…
Well, perhaps I over-promised a bit by “takes care of itself,” but just establishing those basic definitions and categories does much of the heavy lifting for us.
For instance, on Monotheism, as it is properly defined – with God being wholly Other than nature and nature being contingent upon Him, this provides the background consideration for the ancient Jewish theology that was later finalized in the doctrine of the Trinity.
Have you heard of the “Two Powers in Heaven” controversy within Judaism in the 1st-2nd centuries?
Jews recognized that there were two distinct figures in the Scriptures referred to as “Yahweh”: Yahweh Himself, and the Angel of Yahweh, of whom God often spoke in the third-Person, and who likewise spoke of God in the third-Person.
Philosophers and theologians like Philo of Alexandria explained this by recognizing that aforementioned distinction between God and creation: God Himself precedes and is totally separate from creation, and all of the properties of persons that make it possible to intertact with them are created properties. Energy and matter, form and substance, light and sound, time and space (i.e., mass) … these are all part of creation – properties that did not exist until God created them. God transcends all of them – He transcends time itself, space itself. So how is it that created beings can interact with Him at all? God isn’t limited by this – He can manifest within creation in a physical form through which to appear to mortals and speak with us. But that isn’t *God* in the primary, ultimate sense, but an avatar. He has God’s Name/Identity and is God in *status* and Personhood, but is distinct from God, because God (in His ultimate, primary sense) is invisible, incorporeal, eternal, etc.
This was *Jewish* teaching, BTW, and it’s all over Second Temple-Period Jewish writings, like 1 Enoch (the Book of Jubilees is all about the Messiah and regards him as God Himself, yet distinct from God, just as Daniel 7 depicts him). It wasn’t until Christianity emerged and they rejected Jesus as the Messiah that they rejected the “Two Powers” theology. Modern Jews claim that they reject Jesus as the Messiah because Trinitarian theology is a violation of Jewish monotheism, but that is a lie. It’s the other way around. They rejected that theology only because they rejected Jesus as the Messiah.
But, I digress … the bottom line is that the essential claims of monotheism lend themselves to a sort of plurality within the Godhead, by necessity of God’s transcendence from nature. And, God is also immanent – omnipresent within nature, while still distinct from it. This is God’s Spirit within and throughout nature. And, God isn’t limited from directly revealing Himself to mortals through the properties of nature (in time and space, through form and substance). This is the aspect of God that Philo of Alexandria called “the Logos” of God – i.e., the Word of God, because He is God’s Self-expression.
And, to reiterate, this trinitarian understanding of God came about entirely independently of Christianity. All they did was inherit the doctrine of the Trinity and rightly apply it to Jesus. It existed already because Jewish theologians reasoned it out from the basic elements of monotheism.
…
If it helps, this is a more comprehensive explanation of the Trinity, as I can best understand it:
Also relevant:
http://www.tektonics.org/jesusclaims/trinitydefense.php
The word/wisdom “before” uttered is co-eternal attribute of God the Father, not something added (ontological equality, though distinct persons), and “after” uttered is incarnate Son of God (functional subordination). Unless co-eternal means omnitemporal (beginning whole)…neither the Father, Son, nor Holy Spirit are ontologically co-eternal.
“the distinction between functional subordination and ontological equality.
We speak of Christ as the “Word” of God, God’s “speech” in living form. In Hebrew and Ancient Near Eastern thought, words were not merely sounds, or letters on a page; words were things that “had an independent existence and which actually did things.”
“Throughout the Old Testament and in the Jewish intertestamental Wisdom literature, the power of God’s spoken word is emphasized (Ps. 33:6, 107:20; Is. 55:11; Jer. 23:29; 2 Esd. 6:38; Wisdom 9:1). “Judaism understood God’s Word to have almost autonomous powers and substance once spoken; to be, in fact, ‘a concrete reality, a veritable cause.’” (Richard N. Longenecker, The Christology of Early Jewish Christianity , 145.)
“But a word did not need to be uttered or written to be alive. A word was defined as “an articulate unit of thought, capable of intelligible utterance.” (C. H. Dodd, Interpretation of the Fourth Gospel, 263. It cannot therefore be argued that Christ attained existence as the Word only “after” he was “uttered” by God. Some of the second-century church apologists followed a similar line of thinking, supposing that Christ the Word was unrealized potential within the mind of the Father prior to Creation.)
This agrees with Christ’s identity as God’s living Word, and points to Christ’s functional subordination (just as our words and speech are subordinate to ourselves) and his ontological equality (just as our words represent our authority and our essential nature) with the Father. A subordination in roles is within acceptable Biblical and creedal parameters, but a subordination in position or essence (the “ontological” aspect) is a heretical view called subordinationism.”