Should you believe in the Trinity?

by 1ofhissheep 61 Replies latest watchtower bible

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  nsrn

  IMHO, I have given up trying to understand the Trinity doctrine. I have read and reread and reread various references and explanations, and my current thought is, "I don't have to understand."

  The Borg has a definite company policy about EVERY doctrine (until new light comes along). But I think it's okay to just NOT UNDERSTAND. In my new relationship with God, I can admit that I don't have the right questions or answers, and that's okay. I've got the basics, and I'll trust God to handle his executive department without my help.

  I think it's great to study and think, but that's where I am at present. It's kind of fun to ride in the passenger seat and look out the window!
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  renando_stimpy

  Agreed nsrn.. We are not called to understand, just to believe...
• 

  jwfacts

  Welcome Ren and Stimpy, I almost called my two twin dogs that.

  I have to agree, who are we to understand the nature of God any more than we can understand the nature of time or implications of infinity. The JWs hold to the semi revealed Old Testament version of God, and attempt to ignore the NT statements that Jesus is Jehovah, is [a] god and should be worshipped.
• 

  LittleToe

  Terry:

  The Hebrew language is primitive.

  Oh?
• 

  Terry

  The Hebrew language is primitive.

  Oh?

  Because of its large disuse for centuries, Hebrew lacked many modern words. Several were adapted as neologisms from the Hebrew Bible or borrowed from other languages by Eliezer Ben-Yehuda. Modern Hebrew became an official language in British-ruled Palestine in 1921 (along with English and Arabic), and then in 1948 became an official language of the newly declared State of Israel.

  Aramaic displacing Hebrew as a spoken language

  By the early half of the 20th century, modern scholars reached a nearly unanimous opinion that Aramaic became a spoken language in the land of Israel by the start of Israel's Hellenistic Period in the 4th century BCE, and thus Hebrew ceased to function as a spoken language around the same time. However, during the latter half of the 20th century, accumulating archeological evidence and especially linguistic analysis of the Dead Sea Scrolls has qualified the previous consensus. Alongside Aramaic, Hebrew also flourished as a living spoken language. Hebrew flourished until near the end of the Roman Period, when it continued on as a literary language by the Byzantine Period in the 4th century CE.

  Language is a mirror to the intellectual needs of the people using it.

  Tribal people, agrarians, shepherds and nomads are "primitive" in technology, science and have no need of sophistication in their vocabulary.

  As an ethnic people of a specific language begin to rub shoulders with other nationalities a conflict arises. The strong drives out the weak. This is true of every facet of parlance; especially language.

  What is unusual about the religion of the Jews is that they were not inclined to be ecumenical. What seems to have preserved the Hebrew language in part is the rabid xenophobia of their monotheism.

  While the nation as a whole saw the gradual evaporation of Hebrew as lingua franca there was a stranglehold on religious literature due to the belief that it was God's natural languge.

  Aramaic and then Greek replaced Hebrew among the Jews at large because the world became more sophisticated in technologies, science and philosophy. Hebrew could not grow rapidly enough from its primitive vocabulary to accomodate the changes.

  In Genesis, we see metaphor stretched to the limit to accomodate matters beyond the knowledge or sophistication of the people employing Hebrew to explicate essentially a physics unknown.

  Why did I mention this? Because I think it is self-defeating to treat words like ELOHIM as though they are precise scientific descriptions which will yield untold atoms of specificity as evidence of God's nature or multiplicity.
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  Terry

  In my world, the simplest explanation serves well. We are dealing with imaginative concepts when we, as humans, arrange and populate our mind with characters whom we cannot see or touch or hear speak.

  Our concepts stem from things seen, tasted, touched, smelled and heard. All else is imaginative extrapolation. This is a fact. When we leave the world of our senses we enter a new realm which is almost entirely a step removed from all reality as such. It is a world of metaphor, intuition, conjecture, imagination and is in no way available to mathematics, science or logic.

  Why pretend supernatural matters are logical or ostensible when they most certainly are not?

  Why fool ourselves there can be a database of transcendance?

  These are two different vocabularies. You cannot use one to explore the other.

  Assertions about a Trinity are proof of false theorizing that the invisible and transcendant can be quantified.
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  XJW4EVR

  But I think it's okay to just NOT UNDERSTAND.

  This is so true. If God is totally comprehendable, then He would cease to be God.
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  LittleToe

  Terry:
  For the most part I agree with what you've written on this thread. Hebrew is far from primitive, however. The goatherds were pretty much illiterate, however the literate had quite a lot of interesting philosophy going on.

  After all, I know you know that the West didn't invent mathematics, etc...

  Language is a mirror to the intellectual needs of the people using it.

  Make us wonder about what the English language says about us all, doesn't it?
• 

  Qcmbr

  Aplogies - this is fairly long.
  
  (Old Testament | Isaiah 43:8 - 13)
  
  8 ¶ Bring forth the blind people that have eyes, and the deaf that have ears.
  9 Let all the nations be gathered together, and let the people be assembled: who among them can declare this, and shew us former things? let them bring forth their witnesses, that they may be justified: or let them hear, and say, It is truth.
  10 Ye are my witnesses, saith the LORD, and my servant whom I have chosen: that ye may know and believe me, and understand that I am he: before me there was no God formed, neither shall there be after me.
  11 I, even I, am the LORD; and beside me there is no saviour.
  12 I have declared, and have saved, and I have shewed, when there was no strange god among you: therefore ye are my witnesses, saith the LORD, that I am God.
  13 Yea, before the day was I am he; and there is none that can deliver out of my hand: I will work, and who shall let it?
  
  
  Isn't the key to this that Jesus is speaking and verse 11 identifies the context? - Israel would be given no other God - there was no other God to whom Israel looked nor would there be one thereafter as only one God (using the title), Jesus, would be the Saviour for Israel. God the Father cannot save Israel nor can God the Spirit since we are being saved from hell which is the punishment of God the Father for disobedience (not a punishment from Jesus or the Spirit.) So we have one God (the Father) who offers choice to mankind (which entails the possibility of punishment as well as reward), we have one God (Jesus) who acts in the sacrificial role to 'atone' for bad choices and heal the rift and we have one God (the Comforter or Holy Spirit) who testifies of truth and communicates to our Spiritual side (should we listen.)
  
  Together they are a trinity , a council a 'oneness' of purpose and aim all working on their part of the gospel plan. Israel, the family, the nation would have the singular honour and awful destiny to raise the only Begotten God (Jesus) as the sacrificial lamb and to act in the role of Priests to sacrifice Him. Their punishment has been severe and they have paid an unimaginable price for this and in their own way are saviours on Mount Zion (Jesus had to die and we must be glad our forefathers were not required to do this). The old testament ties Jesus closer to Israel and Israel closer to Him than we, as gentiles have any claim ((New Testament | Matthew 15:24) 24 But he answered and said, I am not sent but unto the lost sheep of the house of Israel. - (New Testament | Matthew 23:37) 37 O Jerusalem, Jerusalem, thou that killest the prophets, and stonest them which are sent unto thee, how often would I have gathered thy children together, even as a hen gathereth her chickens under her wings, and ye would not!)
  
  (Old Testament | Deuteronomy 6:4)
  
  4 Hear, O Israel: The LORD our God is one LORD:
  
  This backs up the idea that Jesus is NOT the trinity - he is not three Gods in one - he is one Lord not many Lords....
  
  (Old Testament | Isaiah 44:6 - 8)
  
  6 Thus saith the LORD the King of Israel, and his redeemer the LORD of hosts; I am the first, and I am the last; and beside me there is no God.
  7 And who, as I, shall call, and shall declare it, and set it in order for me, since I appointed the ancient people? and the things that are coming, and shall come, let them shew unto them.
  8 Fear ye not, neither be afraid: have not I told thee from that time, and have declared it? ye are even my witnesses. Is there a God beside me? yea, there is no God; I know not any.
  
  Jesus wasn't on the right hand of God at this point (nor was anyone else yet resurrected to godhood - oops LDS theology) - so in context I see no great problem with the above statement - in most cultures having someone beside you means you are equal and Jesus was not yet equal to His Father (LDS theology says this is becasue He needed a perfected resurrected body which Jesus did not yet have but does now.) Also no-one else was yet equal to Jesus (and no I'm not saying anyone else is yet.)
  
  (New Testament | 1 Timothy 2:5)
  
  5 For there is one God, and one mediator between God and men, the man Christ Jesus;
  
  Err this looks very like an argument against the trinity by my reading but it perfectly agrees with my interpretation of Isaiah 43:8 - 13. If we use 'God' as a title/role then Jesus played many roles throughout His earthly life and while on the earth He was not playing the role of God per se but the role of Messiah. As He said to Mary in the garden - touch me not I have not yet ascended to my Father. When Jesus comes to the world again it will be as King and God. God is a title not an absolute solo individual but this is perhaps the most difficult concept we have when dealing with the conceptualisation of God - non of us agree what it means.
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  LittleToe

  Q:
  You're not fooling anyone, ya know