The_H_C
Member
Again, how does mentioning 3, make them the same?
1 Timothy 5:21… they must be all the same; they’re mentioned together.
Defining the godhead - an open discussion on Unitarianism, Binitarianism and Trinitarianism
- Thread starter SteVen
- Start date
1 Timothy 5:21… they must be all the same; they’re mentioned together.
The_H_C
Member
So God is sending God down on God’s own head? (That might hurt)
Why not just accept that God sent His power down onto His Son? As the account implies.
To imply these other entities are God, would again contradict Jesus’ statement at John 17:3….
Jesus’ Father isn’t “the only true God”? There are others?
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I think your objection -- and it is an understandable one given that we all live in the physical world -- stems from your distinguishing entities by analogy to physical entities. That won't work well here. As long as you think of Father, Son and Holy Spirit as akin to three physically distinct, individual entities having mass, dimension, etc., it will be almost impossible to conceptualize Trinitarianism properly, and tritheism will be the result of considering Father, Son and Holy Spirit each as God -- as ONE God.
Trinitarians haven't done you any favors in trying to get you to move away from that kind of thinking. The rubric "three persons in one God" is actually a horrible way to put it, because "persons" immediately connotes physical human beings -- and suddenly it's like Moe, Larry and Curly in your mind's eye! The homoousion formulation adopted at Nicaea works better. But that will take some time to explain. For now, our common starting point will have to remain what the opening phrase of the Nicene Creed affirms: "We believe in ONE God, THE FATHER Almighty . . ." Yup, surprise, surprise, Trinitarians say there is ONE God, and they identify Who it is -- same as you do!
What follows in the Creed is a detour into Greek philosophy that I will do my best to explain if you want me to.
Trinitarians haven't done you any favors in trying to get you to move away from that kind of thinking. The rubric "three persons in one God" is actually a horrible way to put it, because "persons" immediately connotes physical human beings -- and suddenly it's like Moe, Larry and Curly in your mind's eye! The homoousion formulation adopted at Nicaea works better. But that will take some time to explain. For now, our common starting point will have to remain what the opening phrase of the Nicene Creed affirms: "We believe in ONE God, THE FATHER Almighty . . ." Yup, surprise, surprise, Trinitarians say there is ONE God, and they identify Who it is -- same as you do!
What follows in the Creed is a detour into Greek philosophy that I will do my best to explain if you want me to.
SteVen
Well-known member
Not in our earthly physical realm. Do the same laws apply to the spiritual realm?
Yes. Jesus has the authority to forgive sins. Only God can forgive sins.
Of all the gods (there are many) He is the "only true God". Maybe god shouldn't be capitalized? Since it is a comparative.
If our heavenly Father is the only true god, there must be other false gods.
I doesn't need to. You can call it a contradiction if you like.
You just presented a contradiction from the Bible. ???
/
SteVen
Well-known member
SteVen said:
Who was present at Jesus' baptism?
Matthew 3:16-17 NIV
As soon as Jesus was baptized, he went up out of the water.
At that moment heaven was opened, and he saw the Spirit of God descending like a dove and alighting on him.
17 And a voice from heaven said, “This is my Son, whom I love; with him I am well pleased.”
When God comes down on me... it's pure bliss.
1) The voice from heaven (God the Father) declared that Jesus was his Son.
2) The Spirit of God descended on God the Son.
3) God the Father spoke to his Son.
Who was in attendance at the meeting in the book of Job when Satan presented himself before God?
Also...
1 Corinthians 8:5 NIV
For even if there are so-called gods, whether in heaven or on earth
(as indeed there are many “gods” and many “lords”),
/
Who was present at Jesus' baptism?
Matthew 3:16-17 NIV
As soon as Jesus was baptized, he went up out of the water.
At that moment heaven was opened, and he saw the Spirit of God descending like a dove and alighting on him.
17 And a voice from heaven said, “This is my Son, whom I love; with him I am well pleased.”
LOL
When God comes down on me... it's pure bliss.
Three entities are clearly described here.
1) The voice from heaven (God the Father) declared that Jesus was his Son.
2) The Spirit of God descended on God the Son.
3) God the Father spoke to his Son.
Are there others?
Who was in attendance at the meeting in the book of Job when Satan presented himself before God?
Also...
1 Corinthians 8:5 NIV
For even if there are so-called gods, whether in heaven or on earth
(as indeed there are many “gods” and many “lords”),
/
SteVen
Well-known member
Great post, thanks!
The spiritual realm cannot be explained in physical terms, or understanding.
The "one God" designation is a comparative. It's not intended to quantify God.
]
Exactly.
The spiritual realm cannot be explained in physical terms, or understanding.
The "one God" designation is a comparative. It's not intended to quantify God.
That's interesting.
]
SteVen
Well-known member
You wrote earlier that you don't believe the Bible contradicts itself.
According to these two scriptures, who will send the Advocate?
- The Father?
- Or Jesus?
If they are the same God, that might explain it.
John 14:26 NIV
But the Advocate, the Holy Spirit, whom the Father will send in my name,
will teach you all things and will remind you of everything I have said to you.
John 15:26 NIV
“When the Advocate comes, whom I will send to you from the Father—
the Spirit of truth who goes out from the Father—he will testify about me.
]
Well, but it's pretty hard NOT to think that way when we have the resurrected Jesus eating fish with his disciples, ascending into heaven like a heat-seeking missile and the standard Christian portrayal of him walking around heaven shaking hands with believers. How does that work?
The Trinity just seems to me a largely unintelligible and unhelpful doctrine in search of a reason to exist. It's an attempt to "explain" attributes of Jesus that I strongly suspect weren't attributes of Jesus in the first place. A far more intelligible 'doctrine,' it seems to me is "Hey, I don't know how it works - but somehow, in a way satisfactory to God, Jesus bridged the estrangement between God and humanity."
The OT Jews accepted the personification of God's Word and Wisdom without any notion of a triune godhead. The Gnostics and other early sects pictured One True Unknowable God who revealed himself through various aeons or emanations. Those notions seem to me more intelligible and satisfactory than trying to put meat on the bones of the Trinity. Even John's Logos has its roots in Plato and Philo, was in response to a specific "heresy," and is not exactly a straight line to the Trinity.
I understand that if one's theology has "Jesus as fully God and fully human" as its foundation, one is pretty much forced to accept and perhaps try to make sense of the Trinity; I think it's the foundation itself that's flawed. I don't think Jesus was God or thought he was God - and I think he might be aghast at the notion that anyone now thinks he was.
I could, of course, be entirely wrong. But even if the Trinity were true, the notion of it as a litmus test for whether one is a "real" Christian and acceptable to God - a very prevalent view - strikes me as exceedingly far-fetched.
Joker
Active member
When I look at the historical background of the Arian controversy, I still don't understand why the whole thing was necessary - other than because Emperor Constantine wanted Arius and Alexander to knock it off with their mutual pissing contest. And then Santa Claus (St. Nicholas of Myra) punches out Arius during the Nicene debates gives the whole thing feeling of a Monty Python skit.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Arian_controversy#:~:text=The Arian controversy was a series of Christian,the Father and the substance of His Son.
The very statement of the doctrine is somewhat klunky and requires at least a basic understanding of Greek form-and-substance philosophy, and it seems to encourage (at least in modern believers) a conflation of the Persons of the Trinity. The only thing that makes sense to me is that it was necessary to support the claims of Christ's divinity made by the NT writers, especially in the book of John and Paul's letter to the Colossians, while maintaining classic Jewish monotheism.
The Bart Ehrman (boo! hiss!) series I just finished, "The Triumph of Christianity," makes the point that Constantine thought the entire controversy was silly and trivial (and he was right!).
(Not that anyone cares, but Ehrman attributes the triumph of Christianity not to Constantine's endorsement or anything of that sort but to Christianity being unique among all religions in being both exclusivist and proselytizing. He shows statistically how the triumph of Christianity was almost inevitable.)
I'm still waiting for someone to give me a convincing explanation as to how the fish-eating, resurrection-body, shaking-hands-in-heaven Jesus squares with "God is Spirit" or any sort of Trinitarian notion. If the Logos is now this Jesus, hasn't there been a fundamental change in the godhead?
I see it more or less the same way (excepting the apocryphal St. Nick haymaker). In fact, you've given a decent synopsis of my novel Heresy. I assume that's coincidental?
Joker
Active member
The movie version should have St. Nick of Myra in a red suit giving Arias a big roundhouse right. That should give the proceedings an appropriate air of gravity. Maybe Tim Allen can reprise his role from "The Santa Clause"?