And thanks for yours! I'm enjoying our conversation.
The Bible does, in fact, say that the Father and the Son are "one God." Is that self-explanatory and clear-cut? Maybe, but maybe not.
All my life, I've known boys who were part of The Boy Scouts of America. My husband was a scoutmaster of Troop 781 in Salt Lake City for quite some time. That "troop" is an organizational unit comprised of perhaps 15 individual boys. That's the only way I interpreted the word "troop." It was an accurate, but incomplete, way of understanding the word. I can remember the first time I ever really paid any attention to the news, where it was stated that a certain number of American troops were going to be sent to somewhere in the world, such as Iraq or Iran or Afghanistan. The numbers were almost always in the tens of thousands. Based upon what I knew about the boy scouts, I assumed that a "troop" was a group of soldiers. As funny as that seems to me now, I didn't realize that 50,000 troops meant 50,000 soldiers. When I stopped to consider the number of boys in my husband's scout troop, I assumed that 50,000 troops meant something more along the lines of 750,000 solders.
Most Christians say that the Father, the Son and the Holy Ghost are "one substance" or "one essence," and the creeds talk about "neither confounding the persons nor dividing the substance." The word "one," however, does not need to be referring to the numeral '1'. It can also mean "united," as in the following examples:
Exodus 24:3 says, "And Moses came and told the people all the words of the LORD, and all the judgments: and all the people answered with
one voice, and said, All the words which the LORD hath said will we do."
2 Corinthians 13:11 says, "Finally, brethren, farewell. Be perfect, be of good comfort, be of
one mind, live in peace; and the God of love and peace shall be with you."
Acts 4:32 states, "And the multitude of them that believed were of
one heart and of
one soul: neither said any of them that ought of the things which he possessed was his own; but they had all things common."
Obviously, many people could not conceivably have "one voice." Many brethren could not have "one mind." And a multitude could not have "one heart" or "one soul." In each of these examples, the word "one" is used to describe a
unity that has nothing to do with the value of the numeral "1". It's a unity of will and purpose. It's agreement, not contention, between more than one entity.
He is called, even more specifically, the Only Begotten Son of God. I agree, though, with everything you have said. Jesus, the human, did not exist prior to conception. But Jesus, as God, did.
Hmmm. I've got to disagree with you there, but let's hold off discussing it for a while. We have enough on our plate already.
Yes, He can. He did, and He does.
Well, that certainly makes two of us. I do have a few other thoughts that I'm going to have to hold off on. I'll see if I can finish up saying what I'd like to say tomorrow.
