The Trinitarian creed obligates Christians to believe x=y= z but x not does equal z. [The Father= God= Son but Father does not equal the Son.]
Christians could try to solve this with predicates, but predicates have problems. I forget who noticed this but the idea was that adjectives on God if you make them somehow part of God they have to be onto-logically first. This makes again problems with Divine simplicity.
See Boethius in his book On the Trinity. He tries to use predicates and he does use divine substance. But Jewish people do not believe that God has any substance or form. Not even spiritual substance. Or infinitely spiritual substance. God has no substance nor form. Even what is called the Infinite light the Sefer Yetzira calls "created light." That is even the light of God is a creation.
There is also the problem of assigning Divinity to a human being.
But I didn't think that assigning divinity to a human was much of a problem because we find this in the Talmud in Sanhedrin with the barber that gave to Sennacherib a haircut.
And we know it means it literally because it says if not for the verse then it would be impossible to say. If it was not literal then it would be possible to say. So it has to be literal.
But then I mentioned why Christians were forced into this quandary. They want to absorb the Son into the Godhead so as to preserve monotheism. They don't want a fluid boundary between God and his creation. Creaton has to be ex nihilo. They don't want anything to be God except God -- the one and only simple unity. The problem you get when you have neo-Platonic things like emanation is the boundary becomes blurred. And that is characteristic of polytheism.
This provides a defense at least for how Christians were forced into an untenable position. They could also resort to Kant and thus not be worried about contradictions in unconditioned realities. When pure reason enters into unconditioned realities it encounters self contradictions because unconditioned reality is not a place where reason can go and still be valid.
So there is a defense of Christianity. Still to me it simply makes more sense to drop the Trinity. Why makes such claims? Can't they just follow someone without making him into a god?
The problem is than anyone that follows a certain human leader tends to get into the problem of Creation ex nihilo.They may not say so but they tend to.
The best approach I think is straightforward Monotheism. God is a simple one. He is not a composite. And he made the world something from nothing. And he is not the world and the world is not him. And no person is God or a part of God. There can be holy people whom it is good and important to follow but it is best not to assign "divinity" to them. That is I think Christians bit off more than they can chew. But I am sympathetic. I realize that for human beings to be decent takes enormous effort. If anyone less than God Himself says be decent humans will always find some reason to be animals. So when they ascribe Divinity to the Son then I say fine if that it what it takes in order to listen to his advice then so be it. [The Alter of Slobadka in the beginning of his book out kindness as the most important principle of Torah. Rabbainu Yerucham of the Mir said the same. So I figure what ever it takes to get people to be decent is good.]
I realize to some people Jewsih identity is the main thing in life and they must look afoul of what I write here in defense of Christians. And I can see their point to some degree. But I concentrate more on Torah and it is vastly more important than Jewish identity.
Christians could try to solve this with predicates, but predicates have problems. I forget who noticed this but the idea was that adjectives on God if you make them somehow part of God they have to be onto-logically first. This makes again problems with Divine simplicity.
See Boethius in his book On the Trinity. He tries to use predicates and he does use divine substance. But Jewish people do not believe that God has any substance or form. Not even spiritual substance. Or infinitely spiritual substance. God has no substance nor form. Even what is called the Infinite light the Sefer Yetzira calls "created light." That is even the light of God is a creation.
There is also the problem of assigning Divinity to a human being.
But I didn't think that assigning divinity to a human was much of a problem because we find this in the Talmud in Sanhedrin with the barber that gave to Sennacherib a haircut.
And we know it means it literally because it says if not for the verse then it would be impossible to say. If it was not literal then it would be possible to say. So it has to be literal.
But then I mentioned why Christians were forced into this quandary. They want to absorb the Son into the Godhead so as to preserve monotheism. They don't want a fluid boundary between God and his creation. Creaton has to be ex nihilo. They don't want anything to be God except God -- the one and only simple unity. The problem you get when you have neo-Platonic things like emanation is the boundary becomes blurred. And that is characteristic of polytheism.
This provides a defense at least for how Christians were forced into an untenable position. They could also resort to Kant and thus not be worried about contradictions in unconditioned realities. When pure reason enters into unconditioned realities it encounters self contradictions because unconditioned reality is not a place where reason can go and still be valid.
So there is a defense of Christianity. Still to me it simply makes more sense to drop the Trinity. Why makes such claims? Can't they just follow someone without making him into a god?
The problem is than anyone that follows a certain human leader tends to get into the problem of Creation ex nihilo.They may not say so but they tend to.
The best approach I think is straightforward Monotheism. God is a simple one. He is not a composite. And he made the world something from nothing. And he is not the world and the world is not him. And no person is God or a part of God. There can be holy people whom it is good and important to follow but it is best not to assign "divinity" to them. That is I think Christians bit off more than they can chew. But I am sympathetic. I realize that for human beings to be decent takes enormous effort. If anyone less than God Himself says be decent humans will always find some reason to be animals. So when they ascribe Divinity to the Son then I say fine if that it what it takes in order to listen to his advice then so be it. [The Alter of Slobadka in the beginning of his book out kindness as the most important principle of Torah. Rabbainu Yerucham of the Mir said the same. So I figure what ever it takes to get people to be decent is good.]
I realize to some people Jewsih identity is the main thing in life and they must look afoul of what I write here in defense of Christians. And I can see their point to some degree. But I concentrate more on Torah and it is vastly more important than Jewish identity.
