From: Edward B. Connolly Sent: August 7, 2018 1:28 PM To: Darwin Bedford Subject: Re: factual error Dear Darwin: I appreciate your courteous reply. Obviously, you are a gentleman. So, at your invitation, please allow me to explain to you exactly what we Catholics believe about the particular matter I referenced in my email. Please understand, of course, that I can only skim the surface. The topic of what we Catholics believe about just "who and what Jesus is" and "where Jesus came from" is immensely deep. Countless volumes have been written about it over the past two thousand years. Also, please understand that I am accustomed to explaining such matters to my fellow-believers. I acknowledge, of course, that you are not one of my "fellow-believers", but you are my "fellow human being". So, just in case I come across to you as trying to convince you of my beliefs, please know that this is not intentional on my part. I am simply trying to tell you what I believe. You are free to believe or not, as you see fit. So, here goes! Let's start with the fundamental concept of what GOD is. God is the Supreme Being, the Uncreated First Cause of everything that exists. God is Pure Spirit, having no material components. God is Pure Mind, by which I mean that God is Pure Intellect and Pure Will. God is omniscient (knows all things past, present and future. God is omnipresent (present in all times and places). God is not confined by Time or Space, but, rather, is beyond Time and Space. God has no beginning and no end. Nobody created God. Nothing and no one came before God. There is one and only one God. What I have just said about God is (as far as I know) the fundamental concept held not simply by all authentic Catholics, but by all authentic Orthodox and Protestant Christians and also by all authentic Jews and Muslims. (I use the adjective "authentic" simply in order to distinguish "true believers" from persons for whom being Catholic or Orthodox or Protestant or Jewish or Muslim is simply a cultural attribute. As you probably know, there are many persons who identify themselves with a particular religion, but who do not personally believe it or practice it.) So far, so good? Okay. Let's get into a deeper subject. Who and what is Jesus? In order to answer that, I have to back up and explain a teaching (concept) that is distinctly Christian, shared by all Catholics, Orthodox and Protestants, but not shared by Jews and Muslims. We Christians believe that the one and only God is Three Persons. The most common designation for these Three Persons is: Father (First Person), Son (Second Person) and Holy Spirit (Third Person). Taking all three of these Persons together, we call them "The Holy Trinity". The word "Trinity" is a combination of "Tri-Unity", meaning, of course, "three in one". We believe that all three of these Persons are the one God. One of the difficulties we have in explaining this concept is that an objector might say, "That's ridiculous! First you're saying that there is only one God and now you're saying that there are three gods!" We answer by saying, "No we are not saying that there are three gods! We are saying that there is one (and only one) divine nature , but that there are three distinct persons who possess that one nature. Let me give an example. Suppose I were to ask you: "WHAT are you?" How would you respond? I presume you would respond by saying something like this: "I am a member of the species known as homo sapiens sapiens." Then you would recite to me all of the particulars that distinguish you from every other member of the species. You would tell me your gender, your age, your precise date of birth, your parents' names, your city of origin, your height, your weight, your blood type, your autobiographical information (in excruciating detail). You might even provide me with a readout of your DNA. In other words, you would be describing to me your particular human nature. But now suppose I were to ask you: "WHO are you?" How would you respond? I presume you would responds very simply by saying: "I am Darwin Bedford." If you have a middle name, I presume you would include that. So, what I am driving at is this: WHAT you are is your nature. WHO you are is your personhood. So, going back to God. If I were to interview the Three Persons of the Trinity, the conversation would go something like this: ME TO THE FIRST PERSON OF THE TRINITY: What are you? THE FIRST PERSON OF THE TRINITY TO ME: God. ME TO THE FIRST PERSON OF THE TRINITY: Who are you? THE FIRST PERSON OF THE TRINITY TO ME: God the Father. ME TO THE SECOND PERSON OF THE TRINITY: What are you? THE SECOND PERSON OF THE TRINITY TO ME: God. ME TO THE SECOND PERSON OF THE TRINITY: Who are you? THE SECOND PERSON OF THE TRINITY TO ME: God the Son. ME TO THE THIRD PERSON OF THE TRINITY: What are you? THE THIRD PERSON OF THE TRINITY TO ME: God. ME TO THE THIRD PERSON OF THE TRINITY: Who are you? THE THIRD PERSON OF THE TRINITY TO ME: God the Holy Spirit. We believe that God the Son and God the Holy Spirit are (fancy word alert!) consubstantial with God the Father. In other words, WHAT the Father is and WHAT the Son is and WHAT the Holy Spirit is are one and the same substance (nature). All three have the one and the same MIND, i.e. one and the same INTELLECT and one and the same WILL. So, bottom line: There is one and only one divine nature, but there are three and only three divine persons. Let me add one more thing about the Holy Trinity. You are, perhaps, familiar with the Scripture verse, "God is Love". If you think about it, you can't have "Love" without a Lover and you can't have a Lover without a Beloved. So, it might help if I were to put it this way: The First Person of the Trinity is the Uncreated and Eternal Lover. The Second Person of the Trinity is the Uncreated and Eternal Beloved. The Third Person of the Trinity is the Uncreated and Eternal Love. (I hope I am not making this too complicated!) Now, who and what is Jesus? Jesus is the one and only Second Person of the Trinity. He is God, but he is not God the Father or God the Holy Spirit. He is God the Son. As God, Jesus had no beginning. He has always existed, along with the Father and the Holy Spirit. No one created the Person we call Jesus. However (and here the plot thickens!), approximately 2,018 (give or take a year or two) the Second Divine Person became human. When we say that he became human, we mean that he took upon himself a particular human nature, but he did not become a human person. So, back to my interview shtick! If I were to interview Jesus of Nazareth, it would go something like this: ME TO JESUS: What are you? JESUS TO ME: God in human form (i.e. God with a human soul and a human body). ME TO JESUS: Who are you? JESUS TO ME: Jesus Christ, the only Son of God, the Eternal and Uncreated Beloved of God the Father. Jesus the Person is uncreated. The divine nature is uncreated. The human nature of Jesus was created. By whom was the human nature of Jesus created? It was created by the Holy Spirit and pro-created by Mary, the Mother of Jesus. Mary conceived Jesus in her womb by a direct action of the Holy Spirit, outside of the normal manner of human procreation, without any human man having relations with her. Okay. I had better wrap this up, lest I bore you to death! Remember, my friend, I have just been skimming the surface of this subject. Feel free to ask me for clarifications, if you wish. With kindest regards - Rev. Edward B. Connolly On Tue, Aug 7, 2018 at 12:01 PM Darwin wrote: Hello Edward, I am interested in what you’re saying. Could you please tell what Jesus did claim about his father? And could you please explain why many in the Christian community say that Jesus is god and is the only son of god? I’ve heard about the holy spirit part of the trinity but I still can’t comprehend it enough to truly understand it in I way that I can repeat it to another person without having to mumble “You just have to have faith” at the end. Perhaps you can help me with this. Darwin From: Edward B. Connolly Sent: August 7, 2018 4:52 AM To: darwin@atheists.net Subject: factual error Friends: The following statement appears on your website: Marching with this sign is an act of love for Christians. It is wrong to let people believe the idiocy of a man claiming he is a god that created himself as his only son and if you don’t believe him he’ll send you to a (non-existing) afterlife where you will burn for eternity (even though he claims to love you unconditionally). I have been a Catholic all of my life, ever since I was baptized in 1938, in addition to which I have been a priest (since 1966). I have studied (and taught) theology for many, many years. Please trust me when I tell you --- with absolute and unqualified certainty --- that it is no part of Christian theology that Jesus ever claimed that "he is a god that created himself as his only son". If I were to believe such a thing, I would deserve to be committed to the Asylum for the Terminally Illogical. No one can possibly create himself, let alone create himself as his own son! If you want me to explain this to you what we Catholics do believe about the Person and Natures of Jesus, I would be happy to do so, but I don't want to "impose" a discourse on you. I am being totally honest with you when I tell you that FACTUAL errors such as the one that I am pointing out to you leave you and your website open to ridicule. Respectfully, Rev. Edward B. Connolly