Leolaia as far as I know (up to now) the standard Nicean trinitarian dogma equates the Father and the Son making them co equal in all respects. The Son can not be equal and subordinate at the same time, that doesn't fit reason.
I think what they are trying to do is to have their pie and eat to be able to hold on to and utilise to their own ends two mutually exclusive ideas. They will then justify this by saying that the trinity is not a concept that can be rationally understood. It can at times be absurd. When it so suits them they are equal and when it doesn't they are not equal. And nowhere in the apostolic writings will you find the co equality of Father and Son. Consistently the Father is the God of the Son.
As for them being homoousioi (of same substance), that doesn't make them co equal even in derivation or time. It means that the Son is of a divine nature unlike the angels or humans, and the only One of that nature hence monogenis = only begotten Son.
They should give up all this brain-dead philosophical mumble jumble and accept the apostolic scriptures as they were meant to be accepted ie at face value, and they are simple, straight forward, and easy to understand.
Regarding the holy Trinity
by kristiano1122 44 Replies latest watchtower bible
-
greendawn
-
zen nudist
I am not a christian any longer nor do I even Believe Jesus was a real person any more
but to look at the bible as any other story I am dumb struck by trinitarians seeing Jesus as God by only a few out of context verses and ignoring the vast majority of the story which shows he was not God at all.
point 1. I object to the trinity as being biblical because not one person in the bible ever teaches such a thing to anyone else in the bible, teh only examples of anyone teaching this doctrine come from outside the bible period.
point 2. I find no evidence Jews ever held a three part view of God and still don't and it seems to me that all early christians being jews could not simply have changed their view of God without a serious amount of mentioning it.
point 3. Paul is quite clear that to US [him and his fellow believers I assume] there is but ONE god, the father. [1 cor 8:6] Can't get much clearer than that.... not to mention when Paul told the greeks on mars hill that he came to proclaim what they called the Unknown God and his SON, a MAN, whom God established as judge, etc.... these were not jews and would have accepted a trinity better than Jews, yet paul never mentions anything like that.
point 4. there are 3 visions of heaven in the bible [daniel Acts and Revelations] and these three witnesses agree that there is but ONE who is seated upon the throne called THE ANCIENT OF DAYS, GOD, And THE LORD GOD ALMIGHTY, and this OTHER who is not called GOD by any of them, as the son of MAN, Jesus, and THE LION OF THE TRIBE OF JUDAH.... there is not a single visionary of view of heaven which presents God as a three person conspiracy. Revelations goes so far as to represent the holy spirit as seven, not one, but seven, impersonal bowls of fire and the actions of this holy spirit as represented by seven angels who are also called the eyes of God.
John 8:58 (NIV) "I tell you the truth," Jesus answered, "before Abraham was born, I am
how any one can take this as a reference to God with a straight face is beyond me.... the context was about the messiah and before Abraham existed, the messiah concept existed as well as the person who would fill those sandals, but no where does this indicate godhood... just superhuman nature. the link between I am and YHWH is completely laughable and totally ignorant as the jews who translated YHWH's self description into greek rendered it ego ami ho on, [I am ] THE ETERNAL, not I AM by itself.
Isaiah 7:14 (NIV) Therefore the Lord himself will give you a sign: The virgin will be with child and will give birth to a son, and will call him Immanuel.
If i am correct, "Immanuel" means "god" or god with us
as to this, the original context of this prophecy was aimed at a non-messiah, presumably Isaiah's own son, who would see the removal of the Assyrians before he learned to accept the good and reject the evil [before age 12].... and naming him Immanuel meaning God with us obviously was a statement of God being with us instead of against us, not being that child.
-
Leolaia
greendawn....My point is that the "standard" Nicene doctrine is not the only form of trinitarianism...and your criticism does not apply to trinitarianism per se but a particular form of it. I pointed to one form of trinitarian thought, that of Tertullian, which explicitly posits the Son as subordinate to the Father. Moreover, when you say "the Son can not be equal and subordinate at the same time, that doesn't fit reason," this does not appreciate the actual logic of trinitarian thinking, which distinguishes between equality in role from equality in nature. Thus the Father and Son can be equal in nature, while at the same time the Son can be subordinated in role. This is what Tertullian means when he says that the Son proceeds from the Father like a ray from the sun, such that the ray is not divided from the sun but is part of it and has the sun in it just as the Son has God in himself, but at the same time proceeds at the will of the Father and is derived from the Father, and yet the Son has just the SAME nature and deity as the Father just as a fire lit from another fire has the same power and glory and light as the original fire. Drawing on 1 Corinthians, some early trinitarians noted that woman is subject to man in role and yet both are equally "in the image of God" and have the same human nature. It is the distinction between role and nature that your characterization misses.
And nowhere in the apostolic writings will you find the co equality of Father and Son.
Well, there are texts that do refer to the Son as "equal with God" (John 5:18, Philippians 2:6), or as theos (cf. John 1:1, 20:28), or as "the exact representation of God's nature" (Hebrews 1:3), or as the one in whom "the fullness of Deity resides in bodily form" (Colossians 1:19, 2:9), or as the Lord God of the OT (cf. Acts 2:21, Romans 10:13, and countless other verses), or as the "First and the Last" (Revelation 1:17, 2:8, 22:13, who corresponds to Yahweh God exclusively in Deutero-Isaiah, cf. Isaiah 44:6, 48:12), etc. Of course, all of these are open to interpretation (tho a high christology is most probably shared by most), but my point is that these were the texts that contributed directly to these theological developments as a scriptural basis. The idea didn't come out of nowhere.
They should give up all this brain-dead philosophical mumble jumble and accept the apostolic scriptures as they were meant to be accepted ie at face value, and they are simple, straight forward, and easy to understand.
But that's the very point....they were accepting NT scriptures, but harmonized them in a different way than you do...privileging some texts over others when they constructed a single synthetic theology. You make the choice to not accord full Deity to Christ as Colossians 2:9 suggests, or treat him as the Lord God of the OT, or as the exact reflection of God's nature as Hebrews 1:3 implies, and interpret them in a way that harmonizes them with your view that Jesus is not God and not as divine as the Father. The early church fathers, on the other hand, accepted the high christology of these texts but underplayed other NT texts that took an adoptionist or low christology view of Jesus. Neither the trinity, nor your own christology, nor any other synthetic theology, corresponds to the totality of NT texts about Jesus because each represents an artificial attempt to integrate these texts (or ignore others) to construct a specific theory about who Jesus is and what his relation to God is supposed to be.
-
yaddayadda
Great points Zen-nudist. Even a non-Christian can see it makes more sense to reject the trinity.
-
Reluctant Buddha
Greetings. It has been my experience that believing in the trinity doctrine has the same effect as not believing in the trinity doctrine, and for that matter it is the same as never having heard of the trinity doctrine. No one has ever ceased suffering by believing in a trinity doctrine, no one has ever ceased suffering by not believing in a trinity doctrine, and no one has ever ceased suffering by never having heard of a trinity doctrine. Belief in metaphysical constructs that cannot be demonstrated to exist anywhere except in the minds of those who believe has no effect on reducing or eliminating one's suffering.
However, it is easy to demonstrate historically that belief in a trinity has brought great suffering and death to many, just as not believing in a trinity has brought great suffering and death to many. Wars of Christians, in which Christians kill other Christians for either believing or not believing in a trinity are very real, unlike the trinity dogma itself, which cannot be demonstrated to have an objective existence. One who wishes to reduce and eliminate suffering in their life would do well to not engage in constructing unproveable notions and then believing in the notion one has constructed, or was constructed by someone else.
Buddhism is not about a trinity or a lack of a trinity. Buddhism is about suffering. Buddhism is the path to cessation of suffering. Suffering is a fact of life, it is not an abstract construct as is a trinity. Certainly, though Americans of the USA have been sheltered from much of suffering, it cannot be escaped entirely. Even the youngest, healthiest, wealthiest among the Americans, they too know the reality of suffering. Or soon shall. It is inevitable.
I have never met a trinity, but suffering I know.
Reluctantly,
Buddha