Prabhupāda: So what is the conception of God of the Christian?
Priest: As you said, it's impersonal, trans-personal, what we explain by that Trinity. It's a relationship. It's a pure relationship.
Prabhupāda: Yes, relationship means that He must be a person.
Priest: No.
Prabhupāda: Why? Otherwise how you can...
Priest: It is beyond a person.
Prabhupāda: Beyond the person... Just like we have got experience: when you call relation, then relation means we consider master and servant. This is also one relation.
Priest: Oh, yes.
Prabhupāda: So relation means two person—one master, one servant. Then relation, friendly relation, that is also person. Then relation, father and son, that is also relation. Then husband and wife, that is also relation. So relation cannot be used without person.
Priest: Yeah, but what we don't... We don't say that God is object of relation but He is the relation itself.
Prabhupāda: What is that, relation itself? Explain.
Priest: It's when you are two together, when the master...
Prabhupāda: Then two together means person. As soon as you...
Priest: Yes, but not God. God is beyond relation.
Prabhupāda: Why? Your experience of relation, as soon as a relation two, the two persons.
Priest: No.
Prabhupāda: No, why not? This is your practical experience. How you can say no?
Priest: You see, I have got relation...
Prabhupāda: We are two person.
Priest: ...with you. But I am not in relation with God, because God is relationship.
Prabhupāda: No, no, when you say relation, why not that relation as we have got relation?
Priest: Certainly.
Prabhupāda: As soon as you say relation, you cannot change it otherwise.
Priest: Yes, but I don't make God the object of relationship.
Prabhupāda: Then what...
Priest: Because I call my relationship God, not the object of relationship.
Bhagavān: A relation with who?
Priest: Relation with anything.
Bhagavān: That is God?
Priest: That is God.
Prabhupāda: What is that?
Bhagavān: He thinks relationship with anything means God.
Prabhupāda: Anything?
Bhagavān: Yes, anything.
Priest: Anything, anybody. When you are here, when I am (indistinct) relationship with you, then God is. You understand? But I cannot restrict God to a person with whom I could enter...
Prabhupāda: But in your Bible you say, "O Father." Relation is father and son. Why do you say in the Bible "O Father, give us our daily bread"? So that you make relation with God as father.
Priest: But...
Prabhupāda: But not anything, but father. As the father gives the maintenance, bread, so you go to God in that relationship, "Father, give us our daily bread." Just like the child asks the father, "Father, give me something to eat." So this is clear relationship father and son.
French Man: No, it's a very complicated system, the system for all these things in the (indistinct) of this country. There are two main conceptions—the Oriental conception of the Orthodox Church and the Western...
Prabhupāda: No, we are not talking of any particular church. We are just trying to understand the word relation. If you go to particular church, then another will give another church, another will give another church. But we are trying to understand the word relationship. So in the Bible it is clearly said, "O Father," so the relation is father and son.