Please keep in mind that I am integrating the religions, therefore, I need to explain Christianity that does not offend a Muslim.
OK. I presume we can also say in a way that does not offend a Christian?
OK
The problem is that Muslims think that Christians think Christ is a separate God than Allaah.
I know. We're accused of either polytheism or tritheism. But it is not the case, the doctrine is quite clear on that.
My only observation is that Christians (Protestants) think Christ as God, more than the Father as God.
I think if we're going to have a meaningful discussion, then one's views have to be shaped by scholarship, and not populist opinion. What many think of Islam today is not the view I hold of that Tradition, but I must admit that's founded more on informed discussions on comparative religion than on what the media or the man in the street thinks.
I never learned any of this in childhood, so you have a real neophyte here. I like this hierarchy. It is one I have experienced.
I found this for myself, even though I had a Catholic education! It's implicit in Scripture, and it was axiomatic for the Early Church. It's one of those things that later denominations lost sight of.
It is both external and internal, to my way of thinking. It starts of external then it inverts.
I would argue otherwise, as that's not what the doctrine says. There is no internal distinction in God. The Trinity is an analogous doctrine based on Revelation, but the more you go into it, the more it unfolds.
There is no distinction between who and what God is (Father), and what and who God thinks Himself to be (Son) and more than there is yourself, and your own self-awareness. In man, of course, both self-being and self-knowing are finite and contingent, but in God, they are not.
So the Son knows the Father as the Father knows Himself, not, as in the case of man, in which a son knows his father as someone other than himself.
So:
The whole Son and the whole Spirit are wholly and absolutely in the Father;
The whole Father and the whole Spirit are wholly and absolutely in the Son;
The whole Father and the whole Son are wholly and absolutely in the Spirit;
When we talk of relations between the Three Persons of the Trinity the term used is Perichoresis (Gk) or Circuminsession (Lt). An easier term might be 'indwelling'.
Sorry, but you're wrong on this point. The Church in Corinth was riven by politics at the time, with factions within the community.
especially with the corollaries in Islam.
What corollaries?
I think it is a spiritual meaning...
Oh, there's always a spiritual reading — in fact there is a fourfold reading — but then there is always the literal ... that's fundamental to the reality of the Christian Mysteries.
It is a mystery that will be solved to illumine the connection between Judaism, Christianity and Islam.
That sounds quite inventive!
God bless,
Thomas
