The Earliest Trinity Statements

by Amazing1914 86 Replies latest jw friends

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  Amazing1914

  Forscher,

  Thanks, I will take a look at the link. I do have most of the early Church Fathers writings from the first through 4th centuries. I have read a great portion, and in some cases, the entire body of writings be certain authors. They discussed a lot of issues besides the Trinity. They dealt with unity, and keeping the church together, among many topics. My focus for my paper is on the Holy Spirit, and so it is necessary to discuss the Trinity. PS: I went into the link you provided and examined how the site deals with early Church Father quotes, in Part 6, as highlighted. Sadly, the author highlights quotes in a way that makes them say things that they do not say. St. Clement, for example, clearly believed in the Trinity in no uncertain terms [See above quotes]. But, like the other early Fathers, when fighting heresies, resorted to strong over-statements to make his point [No, the Trinity is not an over-statement because it too clearly defines just who God is, and who the members of the Godhead are ... it is a "positive affirmation. Some early Fathers were fighting Gnostic views that Jesus was only her ein appearance, but was not human. So, the Fathers would go to great extremes to prove his humanity. Then, another group would challenge Jesus divinity, and the Fathers would go to extremes to prove his divinity. In these cases, the strong over-statements were "negative" affirmations designed to defeat the heresy. These are good classical argumentatioin styles. Clement and Irenaeus cleared up everything by showing that Jesus is both perfect God and perfect man ... a "positive" affirmation that is totally consistent with the Trinity.

  Thanks again for the link,

  Jim Whitney
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  Forscher

  Your welcome.
  Forscher
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  minimus

  Too many scriptures suggest there is no trinity. I'm sure, you could find others that could be called "Christians" from the first two centuries that would say Christ was not part of a godhead and that God did not actually die. Just saying that sounds ridiculous to me.
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  XBEHERE

  I am confused because there are also scriptures that prove that in the very least Jesus christ is diety. Somebody has to right about this, what I want to know is why the WT is the only "religion" to create its own bible of recent times that disagrees so much with other translations on this issue. John 1:1....... etc, etc.
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  minimus

  Johannes Greber agreed with the Society too and they quoted him on a number of occasions. Of course he was a spirit medium, too.
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  XBEHERE

  Its fairly obvious if one wants to see it that the NWT distorts many verses or adds words in brackets i.e. ..he crated all [other] things. Why so much effort to do this, why not let "god's" word stand on its own? Someone in the WT hierarchy is or was definitely "protesting too much.." about Jesus true identity.
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  XJW4EVR

  As far as totally exposing the blantant misrepresentation of scholarship, I suggest Angel Arrellano's book, Exposing Should You Believe in the Trinity.

  http://www.freeminds.org/sales/books.htm
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  Amazing1914

  XBEHERE,

  Somebody has to right about this, what I want to know is why the WT is the only "religion" to create its own bible of recent times that disagrees so much with other translations on this issue. John 1:1.

  If you look at the comments I quoted above from St. Clement, you will see that in the year 190 AD, he was applying John 1:1 to support Jesus divinity. Of course, the books didn't have numbered chapters and verses, but, the wording from John 1:1 is ovious.

  XJW4EVR,

  Thanks for the link. I will check it out. I know Randy fairly well, and visit his site fairly often. Somehow, I missed that particular article.

  Minimus,

  Too many scriptures suggest there is no trinity. I'm sure, you could find others that could be called "Christians" from the first two centuries that would say Christ was not part of a godhead and that God did not actually die. Just saying that sounds ridiculous to me.

  Not so. The scriptures that show Jesus to be in a subordinate position are dealing with his humanity. These scriptures were used by the early Fathers to fight against Gnostic heresies which claimed that Jesus was only divine and was never really human. Later on, the Fathers used other scriptures to show that Jesus is clearly part of the Trinity. The modern-day scriptural proof text used by JWs, and those who continue to support their notions are little more than misapplication and misinterpretation of what the early Church taught. Jesus divinity did not died. His humanity did. This is the problem with non-Trinitarian interpretations, they fail to take into consideration what the early Church taught, and how to honestly keep the separation between Jesus divinity and his humanity. It made perfect sense to the early church. Jim Whitney
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  minimus

  To suggest that GOD would be in any "subordinate" position because of humanity is absurd. That GOD could be persecuted, killed, etc. by mere humans is very ridiculous.To say that GOD was lower than angels for any period of time would surely take away from his almightiness. If GOD was really dead for 3 days, then GOD ceased to exist or at least a part of him.....Once again it makes no sense to me. I'm Arian, all the way, I guess.
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  Narkissos

  there was no question about Jesus' divinity but the question was whether Christ was really human. (If the early Church believed that Jesus was a mere human and that the deification of Christ was an add on later, one might think it would have occurred the other way around.)

  That is, if you except the so-called "Judeo-Christians" from the discussion. The big question is when the theories of Jesus as a simple human prophet, greater Moses, or Son of David enter the stage. Can they be traced back to a "historical Jesus" who would have been deified later, or are they a secondary reaction to the historicisation of the heavenly Son of God as a man (especially in the Gospels)? In the latter case, the argument for an originally divine Jesus is also a strong argument for an originally mythical Jesus.

  One interesting theory in this respect is adoptianism (or adoptionism): Jesus was originally a simple man but became Christ, or the Son of God, by adoption (at baptism, at the transfiguration, or at resurrection). This is compatible to an extent with the Synoptic Gospels, Acts (e.g. 2:36) or even Paul (Romans 1:4) and allows for various definitions of his second status (as fully divine or somewhat less than that). See http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Adoptionist

  As far as docetism (Jesus was only apparently human) is concerned, it may be traced back to Paul: God sent his Son "in the likeness of sinful flesh" (Romans 8:3); "taking the form of a slave, coming to be in human likeness. and being found in human form" (Philippians 2:7). In that case it doesn't rule out subordination -- not only of the man Jesus, but also of the heavenly Christ (1 Corinthians 11:3; 15:28)