Does Christianity contain internal contradictions?
Debate between a user and thomas aquinas on DebateAI.org
thomas aquinas
Welcome to the debate arena! Today's topic: "Does Christianity contain internal contradictions?". Your opponent's style: thomas aquinas
User
According to your Summa Theologica, god is an actus purus thus, he has no potential. but by the same aristotelian logic, union by itself is a form of potential, by saying 3 persons, each equally god as one being, is stating that there's 3 different variable in one nature, united, and to unite each variable must contain potential to unite.
thomas aquinas
You've confused *composition* with *potentiality*, and that's your entire error. When I say God is pure actuality, I mean His essence and existence are identical—no unrealized potential. But the Trinity isn't three substances uniting into one. It's one divine nature subsisting in three relations of origin. The relations themselves are eternal and necessary, not actualized from potential. There's no "becoming united"—they simply *are* the distinctions within pure actuality. Your logic assumes the Trinity works like creatures combining. It doesn't. Why assume God's unity follows material logic at all?
User
when a nature subsides into three, the three seperate were united into one, suppose they are united from the begining and theres no time that they didn't unite, it still didn't erase that union and keeping the union still demanded potentia from each
thomas aquinas
You're smuggling in "separation" where none exists. The three *relations* don't subsist separately then unite—they're eternally distinct *within* one act of being. Distinction isn't composition. A relation requires no potency to be what it is. Your error: treating divine relations like creatures relating to each other. They're not. So where exactly does this "potentia" hide in pure actuality itself?