Hello everyone and welcome back to Deeper Waters where we are diving into the Ocean of Truth. We’ve gone through the Bible and seen the doctrine of the Trinity. Now we’re seeing the outworking. I’m thinking tomorrow unless things change I could begin going through the doctrine of God and as my guide, be using the Summa Theologica of Thomas Aquinas so be prepared to dive even deeper. First, I give my prayer requests for you. I ask for prayers for my Christlikeness. I’m noticing how many problems in my life are actually self-fulfilling prophecies. Well it’s all part of God shaping me to be the man that I need to be. I also ask for prayers concerning my financial situation. Finally, I ask for prayers in a third related area of my life. For now, let’s study the Trinity and the Father.
Most of us can see how we need to understand the doctrine of the Son and the doctrine of the Spirit in relation to the Trinity. After all, that’s where our disagreement is with the heretics. Everyone agrees when they approach the Scripture that the Father is God. What can we learn however about the Father by studying the doctrine of the Trinity?
For one thing, we learn that the Father has always been the Father by studying the doctrine of the Trinity. It was not essential to the nature of the Father that he create. Being creator is not a necessary attribute of God, although we could say having the power to create would be a necessary attribute. Because God has an ability it does not mean that he has to act on that ability for it to be there.
Being a creator is an attribute that is describing how God relates to the creation and not how he is in himself. It is not essential to the existence of the Father that he be the creator of the Deeper Waters blogger. Since, however, I exist, he does have some relation to me and one such relation is that of the Deeper Waters blogger.
What about being Father? Is that essential to God? If we have just the Father, then it is not. Now we could say the Son is created, but it is at that point that either God becomes relational or else God was relational and he had a lack within himself that needed to be filled and if he had a lack, I see no reason why we should think of him as God.
Without that love going on, God would have many attributes, but he could not be seen as a loving Father. It is because there has always been a Son that the Father has always been the Father. If we do not have an eternal Son, then we do not have an eternal Father. To deny the Son is in essence then, as John says, to deny the Father.
If we change our doctrine of the Son, it follows that our doctrine of the Father will change. Naturally, if we have a good doctrine of the Father, we will have a good doctrine of the Son. You either accept the Trinity then or you reject God as he is entirely. Your choice.
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