a petitio principii
Ib.
These and such like are the manifest absurdities and contradictions of Transubstantiation; and we know that they are so, because we know the nature of a body, &c.
esse percipi
rem credimus, modum nescimus signum sub rei nomine
Ib. p. 6.
The proof of this comes to this one point, that we may have sufficient evidence of the being of a thing whose nature we cannot conceive and comprehend: he who will not own this, contradicts the sense and experience of mankind; and he who confesses this, and yet rejects the belief of that which he has good evidence for, merely because he cannot conceive it, is a very absurd and senseless infidel.
modus him you Личность, или самосознающее существо;
Или вещь;
Или качество, свойство или атрибут.
Либо вы понимаете под этим личность, в обычном смысле разумного или самосознающего существа; — или,
вещь с ее качествами и свойствами; — или,
определенные силы и атрибуты, включенные в слово «природа».
in toto quasi-Tritheism
Sect. II. p. 13.
For like as we are compelled by the Christian verity to acknowledge every Person by himself to be God and Lord;—
So are we forbidden by the Catholic religion to say, There are three Gods, or three Lords.
the light that lighteth every man that cometh into the world
Ib. p. 14.
This Creed (Athanasian) does not pretend to explain how there are three Persons, each of which is God, and yet but One God, (of which more hereafter,) but only asserts the thing, that thus it is, and thus it must be if we believe a Trinity in Unity; which should make all men, who would be thought neither Arians nor Socinians, more cautious how they express the least dislike of the Athanasian Creed, which must either argue, that they condemn it, before they understand it, or that they have some secret dislike to the doctrine of the Trinity.
acumen explicite
Ib. p. 18.
But the whole three Persons are co-eternal, and co-equal. And yet this we must acknowledge to be true, if we acknowledge all three Persons to be eternal, for in eternity there can be no afore, or after other.
minus none is greater or less than another My Father is greater than I ad libitum If 2 syllepsis
Sect. III. p. 23.
If what he says is true: He that errs in a question of faith, after having used reasonable diligence to be rightly informed, is in no fault at all; how comes an atheist, or an infidel, a Turk, or a Jew, to be in any fault? Does our author think that no atheist or infidel, no unbelieving Jew or heathen, ever used reasonable diligence to be rightly informed? * * * If you say, he confines this to such points as have always been controverted in the churches of God, I desire to know a reason why he thus confines it? For does not his reason equally extend to the Christian Faith itself, as to those points which have been controverted in Christian Churches?
totus fere mundus factus est Arianus
Ib. p. 26.
All Christians must confess, that there is no other name given under heaven whereby men can be saved, but only the name of Christ.
too too
Ib. p. 27.
Ib. p. 28.
Notes. By keeping this faith whole and undefiled, must be meant that a man should believe and profess it without adding to it or taking from it. * * * First, for adding. What if an honest plain man, because he is a Christian and a Protestant, should think it necessary to add this article to the Athanasian Creed;—I believe the Holy Scriptures of the Old and New Testament to be a divine, infallible and complete rule both for faith and manners. I hope no Protestant would think a man damned for such addition; and if so, then this Creed of Athanasius is at least an unnecessary rule of faith.
Answer. That is to say, it is an addition to the Catholic Faith to own the Scriptures to be the rule of faith; as if it were an addition to the laws of England to own the original records of them in the Tower.
fibs Symbolum Fidei Regula Canon ante Symbolum which faith
Sect. IV. p. 50.
We know not what the substance of an infinite mind is, nor how such substances as have no parts or extension can touch each other, or be thus externally united; but we know the unity of a mind or spirit reaches as far as its self-consciousness does, for that is one spirit, which knows and feels itself, and its own thoughts and motions, and if we mean this by circum-incession, three persons thus intimate to each other are numerically one.
Ib. p. 64.
St. Paul tells us, 1 Cor. ii. 10. That the Spirit searcheth all things, yea the deep things of God. So that the Holy Spirit knows all that is in God, even his most deep and secret counsels, which is an argument that he is very intimate with him; but this is not all: it is the manner of knowing, which must prove this consciousness of which I speak: and that the Apostle adds in the next verse, that the Spirit of God knows all that is in God, just as the spirit of a man knows all that is in man: that is, not by external revelation or communication of this knowledge, but by self-consciousness, by an internal sensation, which is owing to an essential unity. For what man knoweth the things of a man, save the spirit of a man which is in him; even so the things of God knoweth no man but the Spirit of God.
ergo principium sciendi principium essendi quoad objectum cognitum Logos logos Logos Logos logos realiter positum
Ib. p. 68.
Nor do we divide the substance, but unite these three Persons in one numerical essence: for we know nothing of the unity of the mind, but self-consciousness, as I showed before; and therefore as the self-consciousness of every Person to itself makes them distinct Persons, so the mutual consciousness of all three divine Persons to each other makes them all but one infinite God: as far as consciousness reaches, so far the unity of a spirit extends, for we know no other unity of a mind or spirit, but consciousness.
Ib. p. 72.
Even among men it is only knowledge that is power. Human power, and human knowledge, as that signifies a knowledge how to do anything, are commensurate; whatever human skill extends to, human power can effect: nay, every man can do what he knows how to do, if he has proper instruments and materials to do it with.
Ib.
For it is nothing but thought which moves our bodies, and all the members of them, which are the immediate instruments of all human force and power: excepting mechanical motions which do not depend upon our wills, such as the motion of the heart, the circulation of the blood, the concoction of our meat and the like. All voluntary motions are not only directed but caused by thought: and so indeed it must be, or there could be no motion in the world; for matter cannot move itself, and therefore some mind must be the first mover, which makes it very plain, that infinite truth and wisdom is infinite and almighty power.
Ib. p. 81.
There is no contradiction that three infinite minds should be absolutely perfect in wisdom, goodness, justice and power; for these are perfections which may be in more than one, as three men may all know the same things, and be equally just and good: but three such minds cannot be absolutely perfect without being mutually conscious to each other, as they are to themselves.
Ib. p. 88.
And yet if we consider these three divine Persons as containing each other in themselves, and essentially one by a mutual consciousness, this pretended contradiction vanishes: for then the Father is the one true God, because the Father has the Son and the Holy Spirit in himself: and the Son may he called the one true God, because the Son has the Father and the Holy Ghost in himself, &c.
Ib. p. 97.
But if these three distinct Persons are not separated, but essentially united unto one, each of them may be God, and all three but one God: for if these three Persons,—each of whom , as it is in the Creed, singly by himself, not separately from the other divine Persons, is God and Lord, are essentially united into one, there can be but one God and one Lord; and how each of these persons is God, and all of them but one God, by their mutual consciousness, I have already explained.
Ib. p. 98.
Thus each Divine Person is God, and all of them but the same one God; as I explained it before.
Ib. p. 98-9.
This one supreme God is Father, Son, and Holy Ghost, a Trinity in Unity, three Persons and one God. Now Father, Son, and Holy Ghost, with all their divine attributes and perfections (excepting their personal properties, which the Schools call the modi subsistendi, that one is the Father, the other the Son, and the other the Holy Ghost, which cannot be communicated to each other) are whole and entire in each Person by a mutual consciousness; each feels the other Persons in himself, all their essential wisdom, power, goodness, justice, as he feels himself, and this makes them essentially one, as I have proved at large.
modus subsistendi
Sect. V. p. 102.
St. Austin in his sixth book of the Trinity takes notice of a common argument used by the orthodox fathers against the Arians, to prove the co-eternity of the Son with the Father, that if the Son be the Wisdom and Power of God, as St. Paul teaches (1 Cor. i.) and God was never without his Wisdom and Power, the Son must he co-eternal with the Father. * * * But this acute Father discovers a great inconvenience in this argument, for it forces us to say that the Father is not wise, but by that Wisdom which he begot, not being himself Wisdom as the Father: and then we must consider whether the Son himself, as he is God of God, and Light of Light, may be said to be Wisdom of Wisdom, if God the Father be not Wisdom, but only begets Wisdom.
his
Ib. pp. 110-113.
But what makes St. Gregory dispute thus nicely, and oppose the common and ordinary forms of speech? Did he in good earnest believe that there is but one man in the world? No, no! he acknowledged as many men as we do; a great multitude who had the same human nature, and that every one who had a human nature was an individual man, distinguished and divided from all other individuals of the same nature. What makes him so zealous then against saying, that Peter, James and John are three men? Only this; that he says man is the name of nature, and therefore to say there are three men is the same as to say, there are three human natures of a different kind; for if there are three human natures, they must differ from each other, or they cannot be three; and so you deny Peter, James, and John to be or of the same nature; and for the same reason we must say that though the Father be God, the Son God, and the Holy Ghost God, yet there are not three Gods, but one Godhead and Divinity.
Ib. p. 115-16.
Gregory Nyssen tells us that is and , the inspector and governor of the world, that is, it is a name of energy, operation and power; and if this virtue, energy, and operation be the very same in all the Persons of the Trinity, Father, Son, and Holy Ghost, then they are but one God, but one power and energy. * * * The Father does nothing by himself, nor the Son by himself, nor the Holy Ghost by himself; but the whole energy and operation of the Deity relating to creatures begins with the Father, passes to the Son, and from Father and Son to the Holy Spirit; the Holy Spirit does not act anything separately; there are not three distinct operations, as there are three Persons, —but one motion and disposition of the good will, which passes through the whole Trinity from Father to Son, and to the Holy Ghost, and this is done without any distance of time, or propagating the motion from one to the other, but by one thought, as it is in one numerical mind and spirit, and therefore, though they are three Persons, they are but one numerical power and energy.
ergo
Ib. p. 117.
For I leave any man to judge, whether this , this one single motion of will, which is in the same instant in Father, Son, and Holy Ghost, can signify anything else but a mutual consciousness, which makes them numerically one, and as intimate to each other, as every man is to himself, as I have already explained it.
ergo
Отец — Сын — Святой Дух.
Сын — Отец — Святой Дух.
Святой Дух — Сын — Отец.
x y z
Ib. p. 120.
But however he might be mistaken in his philosophy, he was not in his divinity; for he asserts a numerical unity of the divine nature, not a mere specific unity, which is nothing but a logical notion, nor a collective unity, which is nothing but a company who are naturally many: but a true subsisting numerical unity of nature; and if the difficulty of explaining this, and his zeal to defend it, forced him upon some unintelligible niceties, to prove that the same numerical human nature too is but one in all men, it is hard to charge him with teaching, that there are three independent and co-ordinate Gods, because we think he has not proved that Peter, James, and John, are but one man. This will make very foul work with the Fathers, if we charge them with all those erroneous conceits about the Trinity, which we can fancy in their inconvenient ways of explaining that venerable mystery, especially when they compare that mysterious unity with any natural unions.
Victoria vice versa
Ib.
I am sure St. Gregory was so far from suspecting that he should be charged with Tritheism upon this account, that he fences against another charge of mixing and confounding the Hypostases or Persons, by denying any difference or diversity of nature,
which argues that he thought he had so fully asserted the unity of the divine essence, that some might suspect he had left but one Person, as well as one nature in God.
Ib. p. 121.
Secondly, to this homo-ousiotes the Fathers added a numerical unity of the divine essence. This Petavius has proved at large by numerous testimonies, even from those very Fathers, whom he before accused for making God only collectively one, as three men are one man; such as Gregory Nyssen, St. Cyril, Maximus, Damascen; which is a demonstration, that however he might mistake their explication of it, from the unity of human nature, they were far enough from Tritheism, or one collective God.
intention
Ib.
Petavius greatly commends Boethius's explication of this mystery, which is the very same he had before condemned in Gregory Nyssen, and those other Fathers.—That Father, Son, and Holy Ghost are one God, not three Gods: hujus conjunctionis ratio est indifferentia: that is, such a sameness of nature as admits of no difference or variety, or an exact homo-ousiotes, as he explains it. * * Those make a difference, who augment and diminish, as the Arians do; who distinguish the Trinity into different natures, as well as Persons, of different worth and excellency, and thus divide and multiply the Trinity into a plurality of Gods. Principium enim pluralitatis alteritas est. Præter alteritatem enim nec pluralitas quid sit intelligi potest.
Principium enim, &c.
Ib. p. 124.
That the Fathers universally acknowledged that the operation of the whole Trinity, ad extra, is but one, Petavius has proved beyond all contradiction; and hence they conclude the unity of the divine nature and essence; for every nature has a virtue and energy of its own; for nature is a principle of action, and if the energy and operation be but one, there can be but one nature; and if there be two distinct and divided operations, if either of them can act alone without the other, there must be two divided natures.
ad extra
Ib. p. 126.
But to do St. Austin right, though he do not name this consciousness, yet he explains this Trinity in Unity by examples of mutual consciousness. I named one of his similitudes before, of the unity of our understanding, memory, and will, which are all conscious to each other; that we remember what we understand and will; we understand what we remember and will; and what we will we remember and understand; and therefore all these three faculties do penetrate and comprehend each other.
Which man
Ib. p. 127.
He proceeds to shew that this unity is without all manner of confusion and mixture, * * for the mind that loves, is in the love. * * * And the knowledge of the mind which knows and loves itself, is in the mind, and in its love, because it loves itself, knowing, and knows itself loving: and thus also two are in each, for the mind which knows and loves itself, with its knowledge is in love, and with its love is in knowledge.
omni actioni præit sua propria passio; Deus autem est actus purissimus sine ulla potentialitate passio express Begotten
Ib. p. 133.
As for the Holy Ghost, whose nature is represented to be love, I do not indeed find in Scripture that it is any where said, that the Holy Ghost is that mutual love, wherewith Father and Son love each other: but this we know, that there is a mutual love between Father and Son: the Father loveth the Son, and hath given all things into his hands.—John iii. 35. And the Father loveth the Son, and sheweth him all things that himself doeth.-John v. 20; and our Saviour himself tells us, I love the Father.—John xiv. 31. And I shewed before, that love is a distinct act, and therefore in God must be a person: for there are no accidents nor faculties in God.
Sect. VI. pp. 147-8.
Yes; you'll say, that there should be three Persons, each of which is God, and yet but one God, is a contradiction: but what principle of natural reason does it contradict?
per se
per se
per se a se per se
Ib. p. 149.
For it is demonstrable that if there be three Persons and one God, each Person must be God, and yet there cannot be three distinct Gods, but one. For if each Person be not God, all three cannot be God, unless the Godhead have Persons in it which are not God.
Ib. p. 150.
I affirm, that natural reason is not the rule and measure of expounding Scripture, no more than it is of expounding any other writing. The true and only way to interpret any writing, even the Scriptures themselves, is to examine the use and propriety of words and phrases, the connexion, scope, and design of the text, its allusion to ancient customs and usages, or disputes. For there is no other good reason to be given for any exposition, but that the words signify so, and the circumstances of the place, and the apparent scope of the writer require it.