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Defining the godhead - an open discussion on Unitarianism, Binitarianism and Trinitarianism

RedFan said:
I'll enjoy watching you two discuss these. When you get to post #307 I'll probably weigh in on that one.
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Sounds good, thanks.
I believe all three views are both biblical and debatable.

They are not compatible though.
Unitarianism denies the deity of Christ and the person of the Holy Spirit.
Binitarianism denies the person of the Holy Spirit.
Trinitarianism agrees that there is one God, but in three persons.

Personally I question the pre-existence of Jesus as God.
The Logos was God and the Logos became flesh. (Jesus)
Logos = God
Jesus = Flesh (set his deity aside) Did that make Him NOT God?

]
 
SteVen said:
Sounds good, thanks.
I believe all three views are both biblical and debatable.

They are not compatible though.
Unitarianism denies the deity of Christ and the person of the Holy Spirit.
Binitarianism denies the person of the Holy Spirit.
Trinitarianism agrees that there is one God, but in three persons.

Personally I question the pre-existence of Jesus as God.
The Logos was God and the Logos became flesh. (Jesus)
Logos = God
Jesus = Flesh (set his deity aside) Did that make Him NOT God?

]
Click to expand...
In the series with Bart Ehrman I just completed, he argues that the Christian position on Jesus as divine clearly evolved from (1) divine after the resurrection to (2) divine at his baptism to (3) divine at his miraculous birth to (4) divine preexistence, either as the firstborn of creation or as part of a triune godhead.

I always find it a bit odd - and have raised the topic without success on several forums - that prior to the incarnation the Logos was the mysterious Second Person of the Trinity. But then Mr. Logos incarnated as Jesus - quite different from the Second Person of the Trinity because many of the divine attributes were limited and the incarnation was also fully human. But wait, Jesus then ascended to heaven in his resurrection body, which clearly still had human aspects and was certainly not pure spirit. So the Second Person of the Trinity seemingly has evolved - changed (eek!)? - from Mr. Logos to the resurrected Jesus.

How is this even comprehensible? I'm surprised it never seems to trouble commentators on the Trinity. They just picture Jesus and the "spiritual persons" of the Father and Spirit sitting around a heavenly campfire, cooking heavenly weenies.

To me, the big analytical difficulty is the distinction between Jesus as "divine" (which, as a I said is true of the "royal" son of an earthly king) and Jesus as "deity," God. For some reason, for most Christians this "deity" aspect is a line in the sand, a litmus test, even though it has weak biblical support and is incomprehensible to the point of being useless. BUT YA GOTTA BELIEVE IT!!!
 
O'Darby III said:
I always find it a bit odd - and have raised the topic without success on several forums - that prior to the incarnation the Logos was the mysterious Second Person of the Trinity. But then Mr. Logos incarnated as Jesus - quite different from the Second Person of the Trinity because many of the divine attributes were limited and the incarnation was also fully human. But wait, Jesus then ascended to heaven in his resurrection body, which clearly still had human aspects and was certainly not pure spirit. So the Second Person of the Trinity seemingly has evolved - changed (eek!)? - from Mr. Logos to the resurrected Jesus.
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Glad we can discuss it here. Thanks to our gracious host @Mr E

I recall a couple of "except God alone" statements from the Gospel accounts that really make me wonder about all this.

“Why do you call me good?” Jesus answered. “No one is good—except God alone. - Mark 10:18 NIV

6 Now some teachers of the law were sitting there, thinking to themselves,
7 “Why does this fellow talk like that? He’s blaspheming! Who can forgive sins but God alone?”
8 Immediately Jesus knew in his spirit that this was what they were thinking in their hearts,
and he said to them, “Why are you thinking these things?
9 Which is easier: to say to this paralyzed man,
‘Your sins are forgiven,’ or to say, ‘Get up, take your mat and walk’?
10 But I want you to know that the Son of Man has authority on earth to forgive sins.”
So he said to the man,
11 “I tell you, get up, take your mat and go home.” - Mark 2:6-11 NIV


O'Darby III said:
How is this even comprehensible? I'm surprised it never seems to trouble commentators on the Trinity. They just picture Jesus and the "spiritual persons" of the Father and Spirit sitting around a heavenly campfire, cooking heavenly weenies.
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Oh, my...
I had always pictured them making S'mores, not weenies. - LOL

When it comes to God, I always want smore. Those who don't are the weenies. - LOL

]
 
SteVen said:
Glad we can discuss it here. Thanks to our gracious host @Mr E

I recall a couple of "except God alone" statements from the Gospel accounts that really make me wonder about all this.

“Why do you call me good?” Jesus answered. “No one is good—except God alone. - Mark 10:18 NIV

6 Now some teachers of the law were sitting there, thinking to themselves,
7 “Why does this fellow talk like that? He’s blaspheming! Who can forgive sins but God alone?”
8 Immediately Jesus knew in his spirit that this was what they were thinking in their hearts,
and he said to them, “Why are you thinking these things?
9 Which is easier: to say to this paralyzed man,
‘Your sins are forgiven,’ or to say, ‘Get up, take your mat and walk’?
10 But I want you to know that the Son of Man has authority on earth to forgive sins.”
So he said to the man,
11 “I tell you, get up, take your mat and go home.” - Mark 2:6-11 NIV



Oh, my...
I had always pictured them making S'mores, not weenies. - LOL

When it comes to God, I always want smore. Those who don't are the weenies. - LOL

]
Click to expand...
I see the Trinity as fundamentally backwards in the sense that it was not driven by anything Jesus actually said or anything clearly stated in the Bible. It was driven by a raging controversy over who Jesus actually was and how he fit into the overall doctrinal picture. "How do we get our minds around this?" He wasn't the Messiah anyone was expecting, and his crucifixion was the antithesis of what any Jew was expecting of the Messiah, but his resurrection required a complete rethinking. The resurrection showed he was certainly Something Pretty Big in God's plan. So who was he, and how did it work? The controversy raged for centuries. The Trinitaian solution, incomprehensible as it may be, was really more of an effort to make Jesus fit other doctrines.

It wasn't "Well, Jesus and the Bible clearly teach a Trinitarian godhead, so what doctrines flow from that?" It was more, "We need an understanding of Jesus that fits established doctrines and will shut up those whose understandings of Jesus pose a challenge to established doctrines." Doctrinally driven rather than evidentially driven, so to speak. Or so it seems to me.

Could it be true? Sure. So could the nonexistence of any God. Does it make sense to me - is it believable at a visceral, intuitive level? Do I think Jesus believed it? Do I really think it adds anything useful or should serve as a litmus test? Uh, no.
 
O'Darby III said:
I see the Trinity as fundamentally backwards in the sense that it was not driven by anything Jesus actually said or anything clearly stated in the Bible. It was driven by a raging controversy over who Jesus actually was and how he fit into the overall doctrinal picture. "How do we get our minds around this?" He wasn't the Messiah anyone was expecting, and his crucifixion was the antithesis of what any Jew was expecting of the Messiah, but his resurrection required a complete rethinking. The resurrection showed he was certainly Something Pretty Big in God's plan. So who was he, and how did it work? The controversy raged for centuries. The Trinitaian solution, incomprehensible as it may be, was really more of an effort to make Jesus fit other doctrines.

It wasn't "Well, Jesus and the Bible clearly teach a Trinitarian godhead, so what doctrines flow from that?" It was more, "We need an understanding of Jesus that fits established doctrines and will shut up those whose understandings of Jesus pose a challenge to established doctrines." Doctrinally driven rather than evidentially driven, so to speak. Or so it seems to me.

Could it be true? Sure. So could the nonexistence of any God. Does it make sense to me - is it believable at a visceral, intuitive level? Do I think Jesus believed it? Do I really think it adds anything useful or should serve as a litmus test? Uh, no.
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Yes. And this is why I see doctrines as man-made. Our attempt to explain the unexplainable.

As I have said before, I want to place a big label over the title on the cover of my "Holy Bible" that reads:

Here's what we think
happened here.

]
 
SteVen said:
Yes. And this is why I see doctrines as man-made. Our attempt to explain the unexplainable.

As I have said before, I want to place a big label over the title on the cover of my "Holy Bible" that reads:

Here's what we think
happened here.

]
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Which may lead me to start the thread I've started on literally every Christian forum: What are the absolute, bottom-line Christian essentials?

It never goes well, and my "essentials" never look very "Christian" to most people. I think my last list of essentials was something like 80 words, and I'd now probably disavow 40 of those.

1. God exists.
2. Humans are mysteriously estranged from God.
3. Jesus somehow mysteriously bridged the gap.
4. Recogize #'s 2 and 3 and do your best to follow Jesus.
5. Everything will be OK in the end, for you and quite possibly everyone else.

Still 37 words. Surely I can do better.
 
O'Darby III said:
Which may lead me to start the thread I've started on literally every Christian forum: What are the absolute, bottom-line Christian essentials?
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That would be a good topic.

My mantra is: "There is no consensus."

A topic like that would demonstrate this. I suppose that's why we have the Creeds.
Something we SHOULD all be able to agree on. But do we? (nope)

]
 
SteVen said:
That would be a good topic.

My mantra is: "There is no consensus."

A topic like that would demonstrate this. I suppose that's why we have the Creeds.
Something we SHOULD all be able to agree on. But do we? (nope)

]
Click to expand...
The thread that caused me to be banned at christianforums.net pointed out the comical difference between the Nicean Creed and Apostles' Creed on the one hand and the forum's Statement of Faith and assorted other SOF (or the Westminster Confession, https://www.ligonier.org/learn/articles/westminster-confession-faith) on the other hand. The two ancient creeds, whch are considerably more detailed than the O'Darbian Essentials, don't even MENTION the Bible, let alone whether it is "inerrant and infallible, yada yada yada." Christianity has become increasingly exclusivist and divisive as "what you MUST believe" becomes more and more extensive and detailed.
 
O'Darby III said:
I see the Trinity as fundamentally backwards in the sense that it was not driven by anything Jesus actually said or anything clearly stated in the Bible. It was driven by a raging controversy over who Jesus actually was and how he fit into the overall doctrinal picture. "How do we get our minds around this?" He wasn't the Messiah anyone was expecting, and his crucifixion was the antithesis of what any Jew was expecting of the Messiah, but his resurrection required a complete rethinking. The resurrection showed he was certainly Something Pretty Big in God's plan. So who was he, and how did it work? The controversy raged for centuries. The Trinitaian solution, incomprehensible as it may be, was really more of an effort to make Jesus fit other doctrines.

It wasn't "Well, Jesus and the Bible clearly teach a Trinitarian godhead, so what doctrines flow from that?" It was more, "We need an understanding of Jesus that fits established doctrines and will shut up those whose understandings of Jesus pose a challenge to established doctrines." Doctrinally driven rather than evidentially driven, so to speak. Or so it seems to me.

Could it be true? Sure. So could the nonexistence of any God. Does it make sense to me - is it believable at a visceral, intuitive level? Do I think Jesus believed it? Do I really think it adds anything useful or should serve as a litmus test? Uh, no.
Click to expand...
While I certainly agree that Biblical support for the Trinity is equivocal, that's not the end of the matter for me. It doesn't really surprise me that one who "emptied himself" (to paraphrase Paul) of at least some attributes of Deity during his 30-odd years in the flesh could make statements like those the non-Trinitarians harp on ad nauseam to support their thesis. The pre-incarnate Son (I guess we can't call him "Jesus" at that point) could have been a "part" (tough word, I know) of the Deity, as could the post-ascension Son, yet still make such statements during that interstitial period 2,000 years ago.
 
RedFan said:
While I certainly agree that Biblical support for the Trinity is equivocal, that's not the end of the matter for me. It doesn't really surprise me that one who "emptied himself" (to paraphrase Paul) of at least some attributes of Deity during his 30-odd years in the flesh could make statements like those the non-Trinitarians harp on ad nauseam to support their thesis. The pre-incarnate Son (I guess we can't call him "Jesus" at that point) could have been a "part" (tough word, I know) of the Deity, as could the post-ascension Son, yet still make such statements during that interstitial period 2,000 years ago.
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Sure.

I watched William Lane Craig's entire 12-part "Defenders" series on the Trinity. I was astounded to hear him say there was no Father-Son-Spirit relationship before the incarnation. The First Person we now call Father could have chosen to incarnate, whereupon he would have been the Son and the Second Person would've been the Father (or maybe the Spirit). What, huh, who? This "Trinity stuff," even if true, mostly just makes my head hurt.

My thinking is that if God were not One but Three, this would have been such novel and staggeringly important news to the Jews that Jesus, the Gospel authors and Paul would have stated it clearly and unequivocally in multiple places. To me the issue is not so much the verses that non-Trinitarians harp on but the absence of verses that clearly establish the doctrine.
 
O'Darby III said:
The thread that caused me to be banned at christianforums.net pointed out the comical difference between the Nicean Creed and Apostles' Creed on the one hand and the forum's Statement of Faith and assorted other SOF (or the Westminster Confession, https://www.ligonier.org/learn/articles/westminster-confession-faith) on the other hand. The two ancient creeds, whch are considerably more detailed than the O'Darbian Essentials, don't even MENTION the Bible, let alone whether it is "inerrant and infallible, yada yada yada." Christianity has become increasingly exclusivist and divisive as "what you MUST believe" becomes more and more extensive and detailed.
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The later creeds remind me of the "A camel is a horse built by committee." statement. - LOL
Everyone wanted to tack something on that "we forgot".

Same thing happened with biblical manuscript copies. Margin notes. I think some ended up in the translation.

]
 
SteVen said:
Did Jesus say this?

Matthew 28:19 RSVue
Go therefore and make disciples of all nations,
baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit

]
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So three entities are mentioned together. That doesn’t make them the same, does it?

And “…in the name of” is a reference meaning “in behalf of” or “in the authority of”, such as “…in the name of the law.”

At John 17, when Jesus prayed to His Father and called Him, “the only true God”(vs.3), what does only mean to you?

Isn’t trying to include another as God, contradicting Jesus’ statement, that His Father is the “only true God”?

The Bible doesn’t contradict itself, IMO.
 
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