16 Person in the Godhead: Being and Doing

Yoohoo! Remember! When I refer to person in the Godhead in any blog, I am referring either to singular person (one-of-three) or to the collective person (three-in-one) of the Triune.

Let’s get into being and doing in the Godhead.

It can authoritatively be derived from scripture that being and doing makes a person in the Godhead and that the principle source of being and doing in the Triune person is the soul. Further, it can similarly be derived that the principle machine of being and doing in the soul of the Triune person is the mind (evidence to that fact in later blogs).

But, oops, who can really know the mind of God? you should ask me. Scripture asks this question, too, rhetorically—implying that one cannot know the mind of God. And God Himself says that His ways are not our ways. And what scripture says is right!

Yet, I realized (and perhaps, conscientious reader, you can agree with me here) that there are basic features that form the terrain, so to speak, of God’s person. And this terrain, these features, can be explored, and much can be observed in the process and derived to our gain. For example, I note here that there is more to the soul of the Godhead than just the mind. In addition to the mind, scripture speaks of emotion, will, personality and life as components of soul in the Triune. And from this understanding I derived that these components compose the Power Features of the soul necessary for all Soul Processes in the Triune (you’ll see the evidence for this understanding in later blogs).

The idea of Soul Processes in the Triune is not just mine. And it’s not just I who proposes their existence. Without creating an outline to hand over to us, scripture speaks repeatedly of soul processes, giving examples that display their activity (specifics about this in later blogs). The principal soul processes alluded to include faculty, operations and product, and the interaction of all these components gives meaning and dimension and credibility to what I think of as Soul Power in the Triune.

To enlarge on this idea of mine (derived from scripture), consider that scriptural and word study reveals that the Soul Processes associated with the Power Features of the Triune can be defined by the aforementioned three parts of faculty, operations and product. First, Soul Processes can be defined as internal structure and organization which I call faculty. Secondly, Soul Processes can be defined as activities which produce structure and organize the invisible self and I call that operations. Both faculties and operations together give rise to the third Soul Process which I call product, or the outgrowth of faculties and operations. These dynamics, all combined, I thus term Soul Processes, or alternately, Power Functions. Rest assured, my exploration of these terms eventually took me much further back and deeper (C.S.Lewis) and I will relay these explorations in later blogs.

But let’s stick to the subject at hand, right now. I want you to note, dear reader, another glimpse of truth I noted from my first two diagrams. From the models in Blog#14, 15 and this one, it quickly became obvious to me that mind in the Godhead could never stand alone. Was never meant to stand alone. Without consciousness to captain the collective power features of the soul—specifically, without consciousness to captain the mind; without emotion, will, personality and life to complement, color, direct, diversify and dramatically enrich the mind, the mind was an empty opportunity.

The same truth held true for the remaining aspects of person in the Godhead. Spirit, name and works absolutely, but absolutely stood out in my mind as imperative components, of (and I say again) absolute necessity to map the terrain of person in the Godhead. Without them, without spirit to empower the mind’s processes; without name or character to anchor the mind’s abilities; without works to highlight its existence—the mind was truly, truly, truly an empty opportunity. All these things together were a must and a do to define Person in the Godhead: being and doing and are terms that have historically been used for thousands of years and are more than fair to use today, also.

To be continued . . .