[quote]mse2us wrote:
[quote]KingKai25 wrote:
[quote]JoabSonOfZeruiah wrote:
You should stick around on this forum because I think you can contribute significantly with what you know. I think this clip may contribute to what you are trying to say.
Edit: Before any misunderstandings happen I don’t agree with everything written here but I do think he brought up several crucial points that Christians shouldn’t dwell in ignorance on and we should know why we believe what we do.
For example I do believe what the Athanasian Creed says about the trinity and believe that it does ultimately does derive from the scriptures themselves. However would I expect the early Christians to have the same nuanced understanding of the trinity as presented in the creed when it took the first few centuries to hammer it out although the truths it presents has been believed since the beginning?[/quote]
To be clear, I am not attacking the doctrine of the Trinity as unbiblical. However, I do think we need to recognize the distinction, as our Catholic brethren do, between those beliefs or views explicitly supported in Scripture and those which are consistent with Scripture. The notion of three co-equal, co-eternal “persons” (hypostases) sharing one “substance” (ousia), while not explicitly expounded in Scripture, can nevertheless be understood as a faithful explanation or conceptualization of the relation between Father, Son, and Spirit. Do the Scriptures describe the intra-Trinitarian relationships in terms of “three co-equal, co-eternal “persons” (hypostases) sharing one “substance” (ousia)?” No, but Scripture does present Father, Son, and Spirit as all one God, and the Trinitarian formulation, while not derived from Scripture, is a way of faithfully expressing how such intra-Trinitarian relations can exist. In short, the Scriptures do not supply us with an explanation of how Father, Son, and Spirit can all be distinct persons and yet all share the identity of God; the church’s later Trinitarian formulations attempt to provide a faithful account of how such a relationship is possible. Such an account is consistent with Scripture, but since the Scriptures do not explicitly explain the intra-Trinitarian relationships, we cannot rightly say that the church’s account derives from Scripture. You cannot derive an account of something from a source that doesn’t provide an account haha!
As the great N.T. Wright noted in his interview, certain aspects of the doctrine of the Trinity were believed from the beginning (the inclusion of Father, Son, and Holy Spirit in the identity of the one, true God of Israel), but it wasn’t until later that a systematic account of the intra-Trinitarian relationships were provided. I am not disputing the legitimacy of the later church’s systematic account; I am simply saying that the account reflects countless hours of assiduous, erudite, synthetic reflection on the witness of the Scriptures, not the simple recognition of what the Scriptures explicitly say about intra-Trinitarian relations.
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KingKai25 you’re right when you say that the trinity is not explained in the Bible but what is clearly explained is the relationship of God and Jesus. There are dozens of scriptures that explicitly mention both God and Jesus and then go on to distinguish between the two and clearly state who is greater. Jesus himself said this at John 14:28 when he said “the father is greater than I am.” And at John 20:17 Jesus tells Mary: "Jesus said to her: “Stop clinging to me. For I have not yet ascended to the Father. But be on your way to my brothers and say to them, ‘I am ascending to my Father and your Father and to my God and your God.’”
Jesus clearly states that he is ascending to his Father who he calls his God and states that the father he is ascending to is the same God and Father of Mary and his spiritual brothers. Jesus makes it clear that he is not ascending to heaven to be God Almighty but to be with God. Jesus explains what is role will be when he gets to heaven to be with his God and Father at Matthew 26:64: “From henceforth you will see the Son of man sitting at the right hand of power and coming on the clouds of heaven.” Again, Jesus clearly states that he is going to be at the right hand of God which is a subordinate position. Jesus being at the right hand of God is mention over ten times in Bible (Mark 14:62, Acts 2:33, Romans 8:34, Colossians 3:1, Hebrews 1:3). Before Stephen was stoned he caught a glimpse of heaven and he confirms what Jesus states at Matthew 26:64. At Acts 7:55 it clearly states that Stephen “being full of holy spirit, gazed into heaven and caught sight of God’s glory and of Jesus standing at God’s right hand.” Again, clear scripture that shows the relationship of Jesus and God. When Stephen saw heaven he saw to distinct individuals 1)God Almighty and 2)Jesus the son of God standing at God’s right hand. There was no mention of a third individual. None of the scriptures I listed above make any mention to a third being standing with God and Jesus. The holy spirit being a individual is never mentioned anywhere in the Bible as being equal to God and Jesus and standing next to God and Jesus.
Athanasian Creed has been mentioned in several peoples post. The trinity was defined more fully in the Athanasian Creed. Athanasius was a fourth century clergyman who sided with emperor Constantine during the Counsel of Nicea. Well-informed scholars agree, however, that Athanasius did not compose this creed. The New Encyclopedia Britannica comments: “The creed was unknown to the Eastern Church until the 12th century. Since the 17th century, scholars have generally agreed that the Athanasian Creed was not written by Athanasius (died 373) but was probably composed in southern France during the 5th century. . . . The creed’s influence seems to have been primarily in southern France and Spain in the 6th and 7th centuries. It was used in the liturgy of the church in Germany in the 9th century and somewhat later in Rome.” As you stated, it took centuries from the time of Jesus before the trinity was widely excepted in Christendom. During the Counsel of Nicea only the nature of Jesus was debated. Constantine who was a sun worshiper and had no understanding of the Bible and sided with the bishops that believed God and Jesus was the same. He wanted to resolve this issue quickly because he feared that this split in the church would threaten his empire so he used his influence to pressure the bishops who believed that God and Jesus was separate to side with him. At this time the holy spirit was not even mentioned in the debate and was later added to the doctrine about 100 years later.
God’s worshiped in triad’s or three did not originate with Christianity - it originated with pagans. Throughout the ancient world, as far back as Babylonia, the worship of pagan gods grouped in threes, or triads, was common. That influence was also prevalent in Egypt, Greece, and Rome in the centuries before, during, and after Christ. And after the death of the apostles, such pagan beliefs began to invade Christianity. Historian Will Durant observed: “Christianity did not destroy paganism; it adopted it. . . . From Egypt came the ideas of a divine trinity.” And in the book Egyptian Religion, Siegfried Morenz notes: “The trinity was a major preoccupation of Egyptian theologians. . . Three gods are combined and treated as a single being, addressed in the singular. In this way the spiritual force of Egyptian religion shows a direct link with Christian theology.”
In the preface to Edward Gibbon’s History of Christianity, it states: “If Paganism was conquered by Christianity, it is equally true that Christianity was corrupted by Paganism. The pure Deism of the first Christians. . . was changed, by the Church of Rome, into the incomprehensible dogma of the trinity. Many of the pagan tenets, invented by the Egyptians and idealized by Plato, were retained as being worthy of belief.”
The Trinity fits in with what Jesus and his apostles foretold would follow their time. They said that there would be an apostasy, a deviation, a falling away from true worship until Christ’s return, when true worship would be restored before God’s day of destruction of this system of things. Regarding that “day,” the apostle Paul said at 2 Thessalonians 2:3, 7: “It will not come unless the apostasy comes first and the man of lawlessness gets revealed.” Later, he foretold at Acts 20:29, 30: “When I have gone fierce wolves will invade you and will have no mercy on the flock. Even from your own ranks there will be men coming forward with a travesty of the truth on their lips to induce the disciples to follow them.” Paul also wrote at 2 Timothy 4:3,4:“The time is sure to come when, far from being content with sound teaching, people will be avid for the latest novelty and collect themselves a whole series of teachers according to their own tastes; and then, instead of listening to the truth, they will turn to myths.”
Knowing the history of the trinity, the fact that it originated with pagans, the fact that the first-century Christians did not teach the trinity, the fact that the Bible explicitly explains the relationship of God and Jesus by specifically mentioning both God and Jesus in the same passage and then stating who is greater is more than enough to disprove the trinity teaching. God being greater and separate from Jesus in consistently taught in the scriptures. In fact John wrote the book of John for one reason which is stated at John 20:30, 31: To be sure, Jesus performed many other signs also before the disciples, which are not written down in this scroll. 31 But these have been written down that you may believe that Jesus is the Christ the Son of God, and that, because of believing, you may have life by means of his name." John wanted all to know that Jesus is the SON of God not God Almighty himself.[/quote]
mse2us, two quick things.
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You didn’t quote a single scholar without heavy biases against christianity to support you. Gibbon, Morenz, and Durant were all known as opponents of Christianity in general. Moreover, even beyond their evident biases, none of these guys represents modern scholarship. They all wrote their works decades ago! We had to read Durant’s volume on Rome and Christianity in a high school history class, and it was outdated even then! And Gibbon? He’s been dead for more than two centuries, certainly not the type of person to rely on for accurate information about Christianity or Roman history. His works are a joke; no historian today takes them seriously. Consequently, if you are going to make a historical argument, you need much better sources.
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The fundamental issue - aside from all the biblical evidence supporting Jesus’ divinity (including the fact that the early Christians called Jesus KURIOS, the word used to translate Yahweh in the Septuagint), the fact remains that around the time of the apostle John’s death, the early Christians were calling Jesus God. See Ignatius for evidence. You really expect us to believe that the disciple of John the apostle was leading people astray about Jesus’ nature before the apostle WHO TAUGHT HIM was even in the grave?
