Does Allah have the ability to love?
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This sounds an awful lot like he’s saying the trinity is something like a formal distinction.
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He's definitely somewhat of an "extreme" monotheist, always affirming unity above all multiplicity, even if it is ad intra
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Meanwhile, the cappadocian fathers say that the distinction between the persons is Real, & that the true nature of this distinction cannot be comprehended. “For as the Father has life in himself, so he has granted the Son also to have life in himself.” This seems very strange.
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Ah, but does this mean that the Son proceeds from the Father?
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Yes, but begotten rather than proceeds is the preferred term. The latter is used of the Spirit, to distinguish different manners of hypostatic origin from the Father. To be given life to have in yourself still seems a paradox. A paradox that I think the trinity restates.
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Surely, to me it seems that the Father has priority over the Son and those two over the Spirit, but this is obviously not the right doctrine, no?
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The Father has priority as He is the origin (eternally) of both Son & Spirit, & so He has the precedence in the relational structure of the trinity. The paradox of the Father giving the Son life in Himself implies the equality of essence that trinitarian theology talks of.
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You can see the relation in the gospels. The Father anoints the Son with the Spirit (Christ’s baptism), the Son then glorifies the Father, returning the Spirit by doing His will (Christ in the wilderness), Christ Himself is then glorified (angels came & ministered to Him).
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