<\/p>
TF Torrance ( The Christian Doctrine of God <\/em> ) writes that \u201cHuman beings do not exist within one another, but this is precisely what the divine Persons of the Holy Trinity do.\u201d A page later he explained that since the Persons dwell in and with one another so intimately, \u201ctheir individual characteristics instead of dividing them from one another unite them indivisibly together.\u201d <\/p>\n I\u2019d suggest a closer analogy between human and divine persons, from two directions. <\/p>\n Second, human persons are united by their \u201cindividual characteristics\u201d in a way analogous to divine persons. \u201cFather\u201d is one of my individual characteristics, but that is a characteristic that necessarily unites me to my children. Or, we can think of the \u201cindividual\u201d gifts of the Spirit, which are given in order to be employed for the common good of the whole. An individual member\u2019s individuality is an individuality that unites him with other members; an eye\u2019s eyeness makes him a useful part of the body. <\/p>\n There is a disanalogy: Human beings can deploy their individual characteristics in ways that divide them from one another, which the Triune Persons are incapable of doing. But individuality-as- separation is, it seems, a product of sin, and not an ontological necessity for humans. <\/p>\n<\/body><\/html>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" TF Torrance ( The Christian Doctrine of God ) writes that \u201cHuman beings do not exist within one another, but this is precisely what the divine Persons of the Holy Trinity do.\u201d A page later he explained that since the Persons dwell in and with one another so intimately, \u201ctheir individual characteristics instead of dividing […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3021,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[10],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-2320","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-theology-trinity"],"yoast_head":"\n
First, the notion that the individual particularities of the divine Persons unites instead of divides is only half of the truth; because it\u2019s precisely their \u201cindividual characteristics\u201d (the Father\u2019s fatherness, eg) that makes them distinguishable at all. (Of course, the Father is Father only in relation to Son, so we are immediately back to relation; but the Father is distinguished from the Son because the Father is the Father of the Son and the Son is not His own Father.) <\/p>\n