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5 Planes of Existence
Introduction
Five Planes of Manifestation
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TRINITY, HOLY
A symbol of the Godhead in three aspects.
Father - Absolute, Unconditioned, Potential,
Unmanifest, Power.
Son - Conditioned, Actual, Active, Manifest, Love.
Spirit - Means of creation and sustentation,
Wisdom.
In Hindu terms, the Trinity is expressed in Paranatma, Atma, and
Buddhi.
"The Father uttered himself and all creatures in the Word, his Son,
and the return of the Father into himself includes the like return
of all creatures into the same Eternal Source. The logical genesis
of the Son furnishes a type of all evolution or creation; the Son is
the unity of all the works of God. . . . God is in all things, and
God is all things (Eckhart). - UEBERWEG, Hist. of Philos., Vol. I.
p. 475.
“"The difference between Father and Son is this- The Father' is to
express God-hidden, 'The Son' is God-manifest, and the Holy Ghost'
is the Knowledge or Spirit of Truth, proceeding from the experience
of both, as God hidden, and revealed." - JOHN WARD, Zion's Works,
Vol. VIII. p. 59.
"Does physical science imply the doctrine of the Trinity? Yes,
unquestionably it does. . . . Now, when we start thinking about
existence as a whole, and ourselves in particular, we are compelled
to assume the infinite, the finite, and the activity of the former
within the latter. In other words, we have to postulate God, the
universe, and God's operation within the universe. Look at these
three conceptions for a moment, and it will be seen that every one
of them implies the rest; they are a Trinity in unity. The
primordial Being must be innfiite, for there cannot be a finite
without something still beyond it. We know, too, that to our
experience the universe is finite; we can measure, weigh, and
analyse it. And yet, if we think of infinite and finite as two
entirely distinct and unrelated modes of existence, we find
ourselves in an impossible position. We are compelled to think of
the infinite as ever active within the finite, the source of change
and motion, the exhaustless power which makes possible the very idea
of development from simplicity to complexity. If the universe were
complete in itself, change would not occur, and a cosmic process,
evolutionary or otherwise, would be inconceivable." - R. J.
CAMPBELL, The New Theology, pp. 86, 87.
“Cosmos is God's Son; but things in Cosmos are by Cosmos. And
properly hath it been called Cosmos [Order]; for that it orders all
with their diversity of birth, with its not leaving aught without
its life, with the unweariedness of its activity, the speed of its
necessity, the composition of its elements, and order of its
creatures (Corpus Hermeticum, IX). - G. R. S. MEAD, T. G. Hermes,
Vol. II. p. 134.
“"The terms Father, Son, and Spirit are but symbols which stand for
three manifestations of God, three constituents of the Divine
nature, three relationships essential to the perfect life of Deity.
God goes forth from Himself in the eternal Son, returning to Himself
in the Eternal Spirit." - R. J. CAMPBELL, A Faith for To-day, p.
283.
"Mediæval theology generally distinguished the Three Persons as
Power, Wisdom, and Love, the Holy Ghost being the copula between the
Father and the Son. It is instructive to notice that to each of the
Three Persons is assigned all these attributes. . . . May we say not
further that Wisdom, Power and Love have been the Divine attributes
which the Greek Church, the Roman Church, and the Protestant bodies
respectively have been most ready to grasp ?-are all attributes of
each Person, and it is quite inadmissible to set them over against
each other, as is done in transactional theories of the Atonement."
- W. R. INGE, Paddock Lectures, p. 28.
"The two points which I wish to emphasise about the doctrine of the
Trinity are, first, that popular theology, when it thinks of the
Three Persons in one God, is usually much more tri-theistic than the
orthodox faith. This error has come about through the unfortunate
use of the word 'Person,' with its misleading associations. The
other is that the analogy between the 'Persons' of the Trinity and
our own complex nature is not an accidental or fanciful resemblance
but rests on the belief that man is really a microcosm, reproducing
in little the Creator in whose image he was made.” - Ibid., p. 30.
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