Oh boy, don't get all bent out of shape, the post was fine. I agreed with it until you made the clam the WT believes in the trinity. your points show the WT doesn't believe what they print, however you have not show the WT believes in the trinity. It's a shame you chose to respond to butalbee question with hostility and ignored my direct responds to your posts content.
WT says 'Church Fathers were leading teachers'
by youdontknowhim 31 Replies latest watchtower beliefs
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Sangdigger
WHY CANT WE ALL JUST GET ALONG???
Youdontknowhim, that was alot of research, and shows once again the WTS only quotes what is favorable to them. When i read your post, it reminded me of a discussion i had with my dad on predestination. He is still a JW, and in reply to a lengthy letter i sent him, he responded by sending me a back issue of the Watchtower, that had an article refuting the doctrine, mostly by quoting Catholic priests. Since when did the WTS start warming up to the Catholics? If there is any religion bashed the most by the WTS, its the Catholics. Not that i disagree with that in particular, but its the same pattern. Quoting from someone as if THAT INDIVIDUAL OR GROUP OF INDIVIDUALS are the express AUTHORITY, then bashing them when it suits their agenda.
Ahhhhh life goes on.....
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RevJohn
YOUDONTKNOWHIM Writes:
I sincerely apologize for being a little repugnant or if I displayed any aversion.
Several years ago my message was posted on AOLs message board and the comprehension for everyone on the board seems to think it was free from obscurity or any ambiguity.
Now, I am in no fashion whatsoever giving any implication that anyone here has some kind of illiteracy problem or has the inability to comprehend simple sentence structure.
My posts are written so the average mind can easily grasp content. Perhaps I should expand with slight elaborations on my sentence structure so the feebleminded individuals will not have any complications of comprehending and grasping the nature of my message.
If I choose this style of writing, it is possible the majority will not understand a DARN WORD I JUST SAID.
SHALL I MAINTAIN MY ORIGINAL WRITING STYLE OR DO YOU WISH FOR ME TO CONTINUE WRITING CRAP LIKE THE CRAP YOU JUST READ ABOVE??
ROFL. Hey YOUDONTKNOW, have a little more enervation. Don't become discombobulated from the criticisms. In other words, relax, take it easy.
Continue writing the crap if you wish.
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Rev BII
youdontknowhim,
I dont know or care that much about the other guys you mention, but I do care about your wrong presentation of Justin Martyrs beliefs. Trinitarians and JWs alike misinterpret Justin.
Notice what you quote yourself:
"He is the Son of the true God Himself, and holding Him in the second place, and the prophetic Spirit in the third, we will prove"
SO Jesus is not the true God. Do trinitarians agree? Yes or no?
Read hard the following statements from Justin:
"150 AD Justin Martyr "God begot before all creatures a Beginning, who was a certain rational power from himself and whom the Holy Spirit calls . . . sometimes the Son, . . . sometimes Lord and Word ... We see things happen similarly among ourselves, for whenever we utter some word, we beget a word, yet not by any cutting off, which would diminish the word in us when we utter it. We see a similar occurrence when one fire enkindles another. It is not diminished through the enkindling of the other, but remains as it was" (Dialogue with Trypho the Jew 61)."
" "Then Trypho said, "We do not perceive this from the passage quoted by you, but [only this], that it was an angel who appeared in the flame of fire, but God who conversed with Moses; so that there were really two persons in company with each other, an angel and God, that appeared in that vision."
I again replied, "Even if this were so, my friends, that an angel and God were together in the vision seen by Moses, yet, as has already been proved to you by the passages previously quoted, it will not be the Creator of all things that is the God that said to Moses that He was the God of Abraham, and the God of Isaac, and the God of Jacob, but it will be He who has been proved to you to have appeared to Abraham, ministering to the will of the Maker of all things, and likewise carrying into execution His counsel in the judgment of Sodom; so that, even though it be as you say, that there were two-an angel and God-he who has but the smallest intelligence will not venture to assert that the Maker and Father of all things, having left all supercelestial matters, was visible on a little portion of the earth." (Dialogue 2 with Trypho the Jew Chapter LX)."
Justin never calls Jesus the true God. Justin does not consider Jesus the Creator of all things. But he does not consider him a created being either. Jesus was made like a word you or I speak, or if we were a fire, that we by our flame started another fire. They are of the same substance, yet they are seperate. Jesus is another God, a lower subordinate God, yet Justin see no problem in calling him God just as the Bible calls men and angels God or gods a few places. God was simply a very common word back then. Great kings/emperors were called God, so how more fitting Jesus. It is no problem for Justin to worship Jesus, because worship held a much wider definition both in the Bible and in Justins world.
Justin believed Jesus to have had a real physical beginning - "he formed a beginning", not the indefinite beginning of modern philosophy.Yet he was uncreate, because his substance was the Father's, he proceeded from the Father as when as if I was a fire, I started a little fire, and became a being on his own. Thus he had a tangible beginning. Here we have the core of Justin's unreasonable philosophy.
As for the Holy Spirit, it is a grey arrear with Justin. Sometimes he says the Spirit is 3 rd , while he mentions the angels before the Holy Spirit in another wellknown Justin quote. I dont think it is possible out of the dialogs to determine whether he believed this Spirit to be an actual person. I know some trinitarians who will fight hard to claim that Justin believed Jesus to be very God, but that he was a binitarian, not the a trinitarian, thus he did not consider the Holy Spirit to be a person according to them.
Justins reasoning contains a number of problems and logic errors. I can very much understand that people dont understand what Justin believed Jesus to be. Thus his beliefs did not last, therefore the new light of the church had to change them. How knowledgable he was of the Bible is hard to tell, of cause he knew a lot of verses etc, but we know that he did not have access to all the NT books we have today.
Justins theories seem to be somewhere inbetween trinitarian and JW but in fact they are quit different than both of them.
But.. people that seem so interested in what the churchfathers with all their Greek philosophy etc had to say, forget this quote from Paul:
Acts 20:25 And now, behold, I know that ye all, among whom I have gone preaching the kingdom of God, shall see my face no more. 26 Wherefore I take you to record this day, that I am pure from the blood of all men. 27 For I have not shunned to declare unto you all the counsel of God. 28 Take heed therefore unto yourselves, and to all the flock, over the which the Holy Ghost hath made you overseers, to feed the church of God, which he hath purchased with the blood of his own. 29 For I know this, that after my departing shall grievous wolves enter in among you, not sparing the flock. 30 Also of your own selves shall men arise, speaking perverse things, to draw away disciples after them. 31 Therefore watch, and remember, that by the space of three years I ceased not to warn every one night and day with tears.
So men of power would bring in destruction.
God Bless
Edited by - Rev BII on 9 August 2002 9:59:0
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Rev BII
Sangdigger,
I know their refutation too. I remember their "Reasoning from the Scriptures" where they argued that God did not know Adam and Eve would sin and mankind be brought in misery before they actually did it!
Simple quote against that:
1 Peter 1:19 But with the precious blood of Christ, as of a lamb without blemish and without spot: 20 Who verily was foreordained before the foundation of the world, but was manifest in these last times for you,
God Bless
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barry
The church fathers all beleived in a type of trinity, eg Origen beleived in a three tired trinity it didnt become clear until it was thrashed at the ecumical councils. Arius a priest from Egypt lived at the beginning of the fourth centry didnt beleive in the trinity he beleived the same as the present day witnesses and the witnesses and others who dont beleive the trinity are called Arians because the teaching originated with Arius.
Barry -
Sangdigger
Rev Bill, yes, thats exactly what i did, in fact there are about 5 or 6 scriptures talking about "The foundation of the world," in fact 2Tim 1:9 says he called and chose us before the world BEGAN.
All these scriptures i quoted were to no avail. The WTS already etched in stone that God didnt know (because he chose not to know)the outcome of Adam and Eve, because if he knew the outcome before he created them, that would make him cruel. Because he would have had to forsee all the suffering down through the ages. (That was in the Watchtower article he sent me)
What blew my mind was the scripture they use to explain the "Foundation of the world" I dont have my bible handy, but i know it was in Luke. Jesus is talking to the pharisees, and he tells them they are responsible for the blood of the phrophets (and righteous men)wich was shed from the foundation of the world. And since Abel was the first one murdered, then the foundation of the world started with him.
In other words, the foundation of the world started with cain killing abel, and unrighteous men. So God chose Jesus to redeem us after cain killed abel. I argued to my father that nothing takes God by surprise, that he knows the ending from the beginning. All to no avail. My arguments fell on deaf ears.
I tried to tell him that the point being made in Luke, was not WHEN the foundation of the world was, but that their ancestors were murdering righteous men since the world began, or shortly thereafter.
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TTWSYF
The best part about the early church fathers is that they heard the real deal from the apostles themselves or from those who heard it from the apostles themselves.
Great opening to the topic that has been forgotten about in a system that promotes having a short memory…😉
ttwsyf
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Phizzy
Has the Org. said anything in recent years about the Church Fathers ? Of course they selectively chose quotes that suited their own Interpretation of Scripture and ignored all that did not agree with "Present Truth" as they call it.
Quote Mining like that , while seemingly approving all that the the Church Fathers said, is dangerous once a person reads the Church Fathers for themselves.
Those guys supposedly heard what they taught and believed from someone who supposedly knew the Apostles, but modern Scholarship has put those claims in doubt, and the fact that one Church Father will diametrically oppose what another teaches would mean the Apostles themselves were divided as to what was true.
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TTWSYF
Those guys supposedly heard what they taught and believed from someone who supposedly knew the Apostles, but modern Scholarship has put those claims in doubt,
Hey Phizzy, I’ve never heard of that. What source/s of modern scholarship cast doubt?
There are literally thousands and thousands of pages of these historical documents.
tywsyf