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If A = x and B = x and C = x then why isn't A = B = C?

If the son is God (A=x) and the father is God (B=x) and the holy ghost is God (C=x), then why isn't the son = the father = the holy ghost = God (A=B=C=x)?

This is a logical fallacy

RandomUser
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Person and Godhead do not belong to the same genus.

This is your argument, and it makes use of the transitive property of identity: "Jesus is God, and the Father is God, therefore Jesus is the Father."

The problem is that "Jesus" is a person, and "God" is an essence or substance. Let's look at a similar argument: "Joe is human, and Martha is human, therefore Joe is Martha." This argument fails for much the same reason. Joe is not the same sort of thing as human, just as Jesus is not the same sort of thing as God. The transitive property of identity requires the same sort of things being compared.

zippy2006
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  • I am using the word God as reference to a single divine individual, i.e "the God". There are multiple humans but there is only one God – RandomUser Jul 20 '17 at 19:59
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    Then your premises are false. It is false to say, "The Son is the God." The Son is not "the God." He is not the single divine individual. There are multiple human persons and there are multiple divine persons. Now "Joe is human," and "Jesus is God" are not saying the exact same sort of thing theologically speaking, but it is close enough to see why the argument fails. – zippy2006 Jul 20 '17 at 20:01
  • If we have more than one divine individual then we have more than one God – RandomUser Jul 20 '17 at 20:04
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    @RandomUser It is not the case that the persons of the Trinity are "individuals" in the same sense that you and I are individuals. – Matt Gutting Jul 20 '17 at 20:05
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    "The Son is God" should be understood as meaning "The Son is of the same essence as the Father." You can not, in Trinitarian thought, add another premise that "There is only one person of the Father's essence. – bradimus Jul 20 '17 at 20:09
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    Alright, then we are using the word God as if it were a class/genus/substance; the question now is where do we draw the line as to whether this constitutes as polytheism or not? Let us ignore the power hierarchy between all the Greek deities and have them all be equal in capabilities yet keep them the same in relation to one another. How would it be any different to declare that you believe that Zeus, Athena, and Poseidon are all God (in essence) yet different in personality and purpose? If this is already becoming off topic then I will create another question – RandomUser Jul 20 '17 at 21:26
  • If Christians claimed the Father, Son and Spirit were 3 completely different beings with the divine essence, then yes this would be no different from the Greek gods. But the claim is that there is only one God. We might say that God has attributes of threeness and oneness at the same time, and those two attributes are in harmony with each other. I would say that Christian explorations of that claim are not attempts to explain it fully (we are talking about God after all). Rather, their aim is to show that the concept is coherent. It may be beyond reason, but it does not contradict reason. – Peter Kirkpatrick Jul 21 '17 at 05:30
  • Aquinas takes up your objection in Summa I, Q28, A3, Obj1 (http://www.newadvent.org/summa/1028.htm#article3). Although saying the Son is God is closer to identification than saying Joe is human, since the Son is the divine essence, it still holds that Fatherhood and Sonhood are distinct by way of opposed definitions. Thus the relation of Fatherhood in the Trinity is logically distinct from the relation of Sonhood in the Trinity (or that of the Spirit). They are both God and therefore have a kind of identity, but the relations that constitute the persons are distinct. – zippy2006 Jul 21 '17 at 20:26