Q:

A Catholic uncertain of the trinity

I struggle with my church's (Catholic Church's) teaching of the Trinity.  I have no doubt that Jesus is the Son of God sent to bring us to the Father and to atone for the sin that separates us from the Father.  But I am uncertain that Jesus is God, and in fact tend to believe he's not.  I love him and revere him and believe he sits at the right hand of the Father, but have troubles with things he said that would suggest he isn't God:
I'll give just one or two from the RSVCE:
Mark 10, 17-18: 17 And as he was setting out on his journey, a man ran up and knelt before him, and asked him, “Good Teacher, what must I do to inherit eternal life?” 18 And Jesus said to him, “Why do you call me good? No one is good but God alone.
John 20, 16-17: 16 Jesus said to her, “Mary.” She turned and said to him in Hebrew, “Rab-bo′ni!” (which means Teacher). 17 Jesus said to her, “Do not hold me, for I have not yet ascended to the Father; but go to my brethren and say to them, I am ascending to my Father and your Father, to my God and your God.”
Now I know the first chapter of John "In the beginning was the word, and the word was with God and the word was God...the word became flesh and dwelt among us..."
But here's my thing, the last Gospel (John 1) says that the "word was in the world, and the world was made by him, and the world knew him not" before speaking of the word becoming flesh.  This seems to me to be presenting scripture as the Word too.  The Old Testament, as the Word, was an account of God's divine plan through which all was created.  And so I believe that Jesus, as the incarnation of the word, is God in the sense that scripture is God, and not in a literal sense.  I have to reconcile the last Gospel and Jesus' constant assertions that place the Father above himself "the father is greater than I" and the quotes I provided (Trinitarian teaching is that the "three persons of God are co-equal).  I can only reconcile the Last Gospel with Jesus' words if I come to the conclusion that the Messiah is the Son of God, and brings God to the world, as scripture does, but is not literally YHWH.  Can you help me understand how Jesus' words reconcile with a belief in the Trinity?

A:

Orthodox explanations of this apparant paradox centre on drawing a subtle distinction between the attributes manifested by the incarnated Christ versus the inherant attributes of the glorified eternal Son of God. According to the creeds, they are one and the same person - there is no distinction in their essential nature - however, the scriptures tell us:

5 Have this mind among yourselves, which was in Christ Jesus, 6 who, though he was in the form of God, did not count equality with God a thing to be grasped, 7 but emptied himself, taking the form of a servant, being born in the likeness of men. 8 And being found in human form he humbled himself and became obedient unto death, even death on a cross. - Philippians 2:5-8 RSVCE

The key to the dilemma is the nature of this emptying process: We need to understand that during the incarnation there was a voluntary limitation by the Son, in order that he be

...not a high priest who is unable to sympathize with our weaknesses, but one who in every respect has been tempted as we are, yet without sinning. - Hebrews 4:15 RSVCE

This doesn't mean that he stopped being God in terms of the essence of his nature, but he did voluntarily limit the expression of His divine attributes in order to fully identify with humanity and to suffer and die as the lamb of God who takes away the sin of the world. A direct example of His mindset to refuse the exercise of his power is seen in:

"53 Do you think that I cannot appeal to my Father, and he will at once send me more than twelve legions of angels? 54 But how then should the scriptures be fulfilled, that it must be so?” - Matthew 26:53-54 RSVCE

(cf. also Matthew 4:3-4 & John 2:3-4) One of the consequences of this is that Jesus could say in truth "the father is greater than I" during his incarnation; however the Philippians passage goes on to say:

9 Therefore God has highly exalted him and bestowed on him the name which is above every name, 10 that at the name of Jesus every knee should bow, in heaven and on earth and under the earth, 11 and every tongue confess that Jesus Christ is Lord, to the glory of God the Father. - Philippians 2:9-11 RSVCE

Which very much brings us back to the co-equality of the Persons of the Trinity.

