csuguy
Well-known member
I don't merely say so - its a fact that I have elucidated in some detail already.
This is some progress then - you admit that you can't defend the Trinity from scripture. However you insist upon this idea that God is divided into three personages - which you can't establish from scripture either.
You are moving the goal because you recognize you can't defend the position you took just a post earlier. But changing your position from arguing that the Trinity is biblical to this idea that God is Triune won't help - both are equally unsupported by scripture.
If you reject the Trinity doctrine and recognize that its indefensible, then that is fantastic! Great progress has been made. However, it also undermines your position that it's been the position of the church since the beginning; for you are admitting that by the fourth century the Catholic Church was formulating false Christology. I can't reasonably be sure what you mean by "Trinity" if you use and defend the term, claiming it's a core belief of Christianity since the beginning, and yet you can't point to anything historically that describes what you think is meant by the term.
"Eternally begotten" is more than simply not being created - it's the idea that Jesus is constantly in a state of being begotten, the Father constantly in a state of begetting the son. Since God is perfect and since - they say - God cannot change, then he could never have not been the Father. Nor could he have at one point begot the Son and the next not be begetting him - for that would mean that God changed in some sense, and thus challenge his perfection. A really dumb argument - but that's the Trinity for you.
As for for John 1, that can be interpreted a number of different ways. For example, one classic approach that Church Fathers have used is to assert that the Word = Wisdom in the Proverbs...
| Proverbs 8:22-31 The Lord created me at the beginning of his work,[a] the first of his acts of old. 23 Ages ago I was set up, at the first, before the beginning of the earth. 24 When there were no depths I was brought forth, when there were no springs abounding with water. 25 Before the mountains had been shaped, before the hills, I was brought forth; 26 before he had made the earth with its fields, or the first of the dust[c] of the world. 27 When he established the heavens, I was there, when he drew a circle on the face of the deep, 28 when he made firm the skies above, when he established[d] the fountains of the deep, 29 when he assigned to the sea its limit, so that the waters might not transgress his command, when he marked out the foundations of the earth, 30 then I was beside him, like a master workman;[e] and I was daily his[f] delight, rejoicing before him always, 31 rejoicing in his inhabited world and delighting in the sons of men. |
It's not hard to see the parallels between what is said of the Word in John and of the Wisdom is Proverbs. An important point here is that Wisdom is said to have been the very first of God's works - before all else, and the foundation through which all else was made.
Personally, I'm inclined to view both the Wisdom of Proverbs and the Word in John as being more poetic than literal. "The word became flesh" = the manifestation of God's Wisdom, his plan for creation since the beginning, in the birth of the man Jesus Christ.
Ok - on what basis then do you claim that God has always been the Father? If there never was a time when the Son was not - then he can't very well have originated from God.
Use your own words to define what you mean by God being three persons - because right now you are just throwing out a term belonging to a doctrine that you now claim to not hold. And then back-up your definition with scripture.
Many more individuals than those three are called God in scripture. Why isn't "Moses" to be counted among them? It's not sufficient to find individual's in scripture that have in one sense or another been addressed as God.
You will have to demonstrate this supposed context that demonstrates that when the Son is called God or the HS is called God that it means that literally as opposed to the precedent established in scripture as seen with Moses and the angels. Merely insisting upon it doesn't make your case.
| John 10:34-35 Jesus answered them, “Is it not written in your law, ‘I said, you are gods’? 35 If he called them gods to whom the word of God came (and scripture cannot be broken), |
Since scriptures call those to whom the word of God came gods - and there is only one God - where do they fit into your Triune God? As you said - they either are or aren't God, there's no in between - and as Jesus said, scripture cannot be broken.
1. Good for you for recognizing that the two aren't equal and further rejecting the Trinity doctrine in favor of scripture.
2. If the Son has a God above him, then he cannot be God Almighty.
It does not beg the question - if they are not equals then you have division and hierarchy among those individuals you claim to be one God. This is a contradiction - what you are really describing is polytheism.
That's not a valid argument - there is no capitalization in the underlying Hebrew and Greek
First of all, there is no "as" in the Hebrew. It literally renders: I have made you God to Pharaoh (https://biblehub.com/interlinear/exodus/7-1.htm). I do agree that he wasn't being literal, of course. The point is that between Moses and the angels, there is plenty of biblical precedent in the OT for addressing agent's of God as if they were God. That means not only do you need to find scriptures that call Jesus God, but you need to demonstrate how these verses are applying the term literally vs symbolically.
Read closer:
| Exodus 3:1-2 Now Moses was tending the flock of Jethro his father-in-law, the priest of Midian, and he led the flock to the far side of the wilderness and came to Horeb, the mountain of God. 2 There the angel of the Lord appeared to him in flames of fire from within a bush. Moses saw that though the bush was on fire it did not burn up. |
False, Christ was never an angel. Hebrews chapter 1 is very explicit on this point.
Hebrews 1:5-8 For to what angel did God ever say, “Thou art my Son, today I have begotten thee”? Or again, “I will be to him a father, and he shall be to me a son”? 6 And again, when he brings the first-born into the world, he says, “Let all God’s angels worship him.” 7 Of the angels he says, “Who makes his angels winds, and his servants flames of fire.” 8 But of the Son he says, “Thy throne, O God,[a] is for ever and ever,... |
A capital "G" has no significance; there's no capital letter in the underlying Greek & Hebrew scriptures. That's just the translators following convention.
They are and I've provided numerous examples
Insisting you are monotheistic while also declaring that there are multiple, distinct entities with a hierarchy that are each God Almighty is just contradictory gibberish. You can't expect to be taken seriously when you are constantly contradicting yourself.
First it's "Trinitarians are monotheistic. Please keep that in mind." Then it's "I don't hold to any particular Trinity doctrine." Make up your mind.
See my last post so I don't have to keep repeating myself.
Incorrect - I didn't simply state your position was absurd without reason. Go back and re-read what was said and try again.
If it's not explicit then it isn't recorded. You can try to extrapolate it - but you appear to have given up any attempt to defend the Trinity (or w/e you claim to believe now) via scripture.
I never suggested that we should just believe whatever theology is put forth by the Church Fathers. Once again - I'm referring to them as historical witnesses of what the early church actually taught and believed. This isn't difficult to understand.
Apparently your position is that God is triune because YOU say so, and without any other justification.
Neither is Jesus. There are numerous scriptures which differentiate Jesus from God and none which insist that when Jesus is called God that it is meant literally as opposed to how it is applied to God's other agents.
"Almost explicitly" lmao! Aka it doesn't - you are interpreting it that way without justification because that's what you want it to say. You haven't demonstrated from the context why we should interpret it any differently from when Moses or the angels and their words and deeds are referred to as if being God's. Unless you can demonstrate from scripture that this usage of the word "God" is distinct from how it has been applied throughout the OT to those who aren't themselves God Almighty, then biblical precedence is obviously the more objective interpretation.
No one denies that Jesus was unique - that does not establish that he was God. Least of all because he didn't claim to be God - but his Son. Believe what he says about himself rather than trying to redefine what "Son" means to suite your theology. Christ gave himself over to God completely, and chose to sacrifice himself for man of his own freewill - thus he was rewarded with being made King over the rest of creation (but not over God).
None of your examples make the argument that Christ had to be God. Your disbelief is not an argument.
As for worship, there is no prohibition against worship. Moses worshiped his father-in-law Jethro (Exodus 18:7); note that the same word in Hebrew translated as 'worship' is the same word used here that is translated as bowing down/prostrating. It is purely a product of our English translation that this fact is hidden - the translators, by convention, translate the word as 'worship' when applied to God but as 'bowing down' or 'prostrating' etc when applied to others.
You are forgetting that you need to substantiate your claims. You are engaging in an Argument form Ignorance - "you can't show the early church didn't secretly believe it, so there!"
Now you can't even get through two sentences without contradicting yourself ....
Scripture never treats God as a thing/substance. God is a WHO in scripture. But go ahead and try to argue from scripture that God is a mere substance - I'll go grab some popcorn.
Perhaps after this one; responding to these long posts is time consuming.
I've already explained this in detail. You need to stop and read all of what I wrote before replying.
God cannot be tempted, cannot sin, can never not do God's will. There's no freewill if you don't have a choice and you can't overcome temptation if you can't be tempted. Thus - if we adopt the Trinitarian position - all of Christ's suffering and trials were nothing more than a bit of theatrics.
I just gave you sufficient evidence.
Here's some more (and where I got the above chart from):
You haven't given sufficient evidence - as I addressed in detail in my last post. Perhaps if you questioned the resources you are citing before posting them, then you would understand why that chart is flat out wrong.
You have yet to define what you mean by "person" and "God" and to defend these definitions using scripture. Nor have you explained, logically, how three persons can be one God. You go back and forth on whether you even identify as a Trinitarian.
So at which point did God proper die? Or are you in fact walking back and denying that God ever died.
Then he wasn't God - for God cannot be tempted by evil.
