toldailytopic: Does the doctrine of Trinity matter? If so why?
- Thread starter Nathon Detroit
- Start date
Most who deny the Trinity do so because they believe Jesus isn't divine.
The only others I've known to deny the Trinity are those who believe it is only Jesus.
rainee
New member
I have been a believer for ummmm years. My ideas and even my relationship to the concept of the trinity has gone through change and development over the years.
In the beginning I started trying to work with it to understand it but couldn't.
After a year or two I think I quit trying.
Then tried again some 10 years (or 7?) later and went for some help to a deacon since it was starting to make me frustrated and crazy, he told me it was better to accept what I saw was true than to try to make sense out of it and understand it for it could make you crazy if you tried.. he said he had gone round and round.
It is a weird thing to know something is true because you read the NT, but can't really wrap your fingers around it and hold i tin your hand.
The last great thing(ha) I thought was true before the most recent great things
is the idea the trinity was there to protect the deity of the Lord Jesus.
I really loved that!
I thought that was true to some extent even as I started really working with some scriptures.
Now I am amazed at how the early believers took those verses and were able to work the trinity concept - it is inspired, I think. I mean really, they couldn't have done that unless God helped them. I think what is to come will show how important it was for us for there to be what we call the trinity.
In the beginning I started trying to work with it to understand it but couldn't.
After a year or two I think I quit trying.
Then tried again some 10 years (or 7?) later and went for some help to a deacon since it was starting to make me frustrated and crazy, he told me it was better to accept what I saw was true than to try to make sense out of it and understand it for it could make you crazy if you tried.. he said he had gone round and round.
It is a weird thing to know something is true because you read the NT, but can't really wrap your fingers around it and hold i tin your hand.
The last great thing(ha) I thought was true before the most recent great things
is the idea the trinity was there to protect the deity of the Lord Jesus.
I really loved that!
I thought that was true to some extent even as I started really working with some scriptures.
Now I am amazed at how the early believers took those verses and were able to work the trinity concept - it is inspired, I think. I mean really, they couldn't have done that unless God helped them. I think what is to come will show how important it was for us for there to be what we call the trinity.
While that is interesting. I have a teaching that I haven't done yet that says that since the beginning of time believers believed in a Triune God. I think the teaching goes into how it is a Rabbinical teaching and not something that was a "concept" devised and enhanced by "early NT believers". The Triune God was expected and it was never a "concept" but a truth. There is a difference.
bucksplasher
New member
Do planets love?
Do galaxies love?
The only creations that, love, are angels and men...maybe some animals.
The rest of creation created by the "word" of God was created so that He could love us and we in return love him.
Christ, God's word, sent to express the "way" this love works.
It seems simple to me. tWINs
Do galaxies love?
The only creations that, love, are angels and men...maybe some animals.
The rest of creation created by the "word" of God was created so that He could love us and we in return love him.
Christ, God's word, sent to express the "way" this love works.
It seems simple to me. tWINs
If it matters to God, it should matter to you.
Lon
Well-known member
Again, if Jesus isn't "God indwelling you" who is He? If He isn't indwelling you, are you saved?
rainee
New member
Dear Sky,
Hi and welcome back so glad to see you!
I appreciate you found that interesting but have a teaching that says since the beginning of time believers believed in a Triune God.
Here is what I am saying and I hope I am saying it prayerfully enough so that I don't totally screw up. Remember what I said about the Trinity there to protect the Deity of Christ? Well, I do think it does reinforce that reality but I don't believe now the Deity of The Lord needs the Trinity to stand, it can be established with OT Scriptures. I believe The Trinity is about more than The Lord's Advent and Who and What He is and was and will be (and certainly much of that is still the mystery we work on.)
I believe The Trinity may be evident in retrospect in the OT but have to ask you, did the major religious deceptions in the ancient world have one god or more than one?
Would it be too far to go if I wondered if they had one god that could mean the evil one may have been trying to mimic The God of Israel?
But if the ancient religions had more than one god then was the evil one attacking One God Who is complex? I am just wondering.
It could be the job of Scripture to reveal things that were not obvious
in retrospect but in the past it may have been more important for One God to be known? Just asking.
csuguy
Well-known member
Nope - would why any man made doctrine be important to salvation? It is perhaps important, however, to bring to light the lies surrounding the Trinity - like that it is what Christians have believed and preached since day 1. Those who say such things have clearly not objectively looked at the evidence - the writings of the Church Fathers & scripture - and are instead just propigating their indoctrination. This also gives fuel to people such as Ehrman and other anti-Christians who do take the little bit of time to study such issues and present the facts in such a way as to destroy the faith of others.
Lon
Well-known member
Here's the 23 year old kid who opposed his father's religion to his face when he was in his late teens. What a blessed child he must have been.
Yeah, we should listen to what he says :doh:
"Thinking themselves wise, they became..."
csuguy
Well-known member
Lon - please stop acting like you know me or my relationship to my father. I didn't oppose my dad's "religion to his face" - both of us enjoy theological debate and we treated it as such. I have always been on good terms with my father, and we more or less agree on most things. Furthermore, my father does not consider the Trinity to be salvific.
Lon
Well-known member
Show him what I wrote and see if he agrees with me? How can one be saved if Jesus isn't indwelling Him?
Thanks for the correction. You had said before you went to school how you argued with your dad about this so I had connected dots that I thought were there. Please forgive that over-extrapolation, it was not intentional but I yet think you too big for those young britches and unteachable.
glorydaz
Well-known member
Nang
TOL Subscriber
". . Experience also teaches that where one generation departs from the Confession and is indifferent to orthodoxy, the sons break with the Scriptures, and the grandsons, with Christ. Also in this is displayed the visiting of the sins of the fathers upon the children." Wilhelm Geesink
Nang
csuguy
Well-known member
One is not of the Body of Christ without the HS, but that is another matter entirely and has nothing to do with the acceptance of the Trinity. Or show me where scripture says you must proclaim God to be one divine substance which composes three distinct personages in order to receive the HS or be saved?
I am very teachable - but I do not just accept what anyone has to say, which would be foolish. Rather, I will evaluate what you say and if it is logical and inline with the scriptures then I will adopt it. If I thought I knew everything and didn't need to learn, I would not bother studying. As it is - you will find few who study these things more than I do. I have read through the Ante-Nicene Father Series and now I have begun to read through the Nicene and Post Nicene Fathers, starting with Augustine's confessions.
If you speak lovingly and in truth, and allow me to explore the topic in depth with you, then I will listen and adopt what seems good. If you speak hatefully, spreading evils about me as you have been prone to do, and refuse to discuss anything, but demand that I recognize you as an authority figure that should just be accepted - then no, I am not likely to accept anything from you.
csuguy
Well-known member
And this is the phenomenon you see inside of the so-called orthodox churches - who blindly accept the church dogma and expect their members to do likewise. On the other hand, when you are raised to seek the truth rather than blindly follow others - you find it.
You and so many others blindly accept the Trinity because that's what you were taught by the church - but it is not to be found in scripture. Nor, if you bothered to study the Church Fathers, would you find that it is the historical belief of the church - but rather it is something that developed over a long period of time, and which ultimately "won" because one of the Roman emperor's got tired of the debates and its divisive affects and demanded that all accept the Trinity or die.
See here: http://www.theologyonline.com/forums/attachment.php?attachmentid=17593&d=1352180412
Source? Proof? Which emperor was that?
keypurr
Well-known member
csuguy, stay on course. You are doing just fine. Now I am from the older generation and I believe that the false trinity doctrine distorts truth. We have one God, the same one that Jesus Christ has. Man has twisted his words to fit their traditions. Churches were run by men, not God. The state took over the church in the fourth century. Yet folks do not wish to deal with it.
csuguy, I bet your Dad is very proud of you, I would be. God has blessed you my friend.
csuguy, I bet your Dad is very proud of you, I would be. God has blessed you my friend.