hooberus,
You should call yourself "humourous."
All my life Trinitarians have used Isaiah 9:5 to show me that the "child born unto us" became not merely "Mighty God," but "Almighty God." Some have, in sincerity, relished telling the following story:
An Irish man talking with his Jewish friend: ?Saul did you hear the great news? My son Patty has become a priest!?
?No, so what?s the big deal about that, John?? Saul asked.
?It?s a very big deal, Saul. As a priest he can one day become a Bishop!? John responded.
?So what?s the big deal about that?? Saul again asked.
?Saul, as Bishop, Patty can one day become a Cardinal. Imagine my son the Cardinal!? John was getting excited now.
?No?, Saul repeated, ?but what?s the big deal about that, John??.
John sputtered out, ? Saul, my friend, as Cardinal, Patty can be...Oh, be still my heart?he can become Pope!!?
And Saul again asks, ?So now, what?s the big deal about that, John??
Now impatient, John demands, ?So what do you expect, for him to become God!?
Almost triumphantly, Saul says, ?And why not, one of our boys made it!?
Various works of Trinitarian theology describe how a human became God under articles or chapters on "Becoming Like God," "Deification," "Divinization," "Formula Concordi," "Hypostasis," "Ousia," "Regeneration," "Theosis," and "Trinity."
The following statements appear in random orthodox publications:
- Through the resurrection of Jesus, His humanity was generated, or begotten, in divinity: Man became God; His humanity became divine.
- The terminology of deification which is employed by Eastern Fathers is borrowed from the Platonic tradition, while the doctrine itself has biblical roots.
- Thus through a divine-human encounter, God became man and man became God.
- We find the idea of the deification of the human person the incarnate Word of God as early as in Irenaeus. According to him, the Word ?became what we are in order to make us what He is?. ?The Word (became) man?, says Irenaeus, ?and the Son of God (became) son of man so that man... might become a son of God?. In other words, through the Incarnation of the Word, the human person becomes by adoption what the Son of God is by nature. This theme was developed by Clement and Origen. In the fourth century it found particular attention on the part of Nicene theologians in their polemic with Arianism. St Athanasius made the formula of Irenaeus even more concise: ?God became man in order that we may become gods?.
- Thus God became Man and Man became God in one Person. That Jehovah God became Man, and Man became God in one Person, follows as a conclusion from all the preceding propositions of this chapter, especially from these two: that Jehovah the Creator of the universe descended and assumed a Human that He might redeem and save men, and that the Lord by the acts of redemption united Himself to the Father, and the Father united Himself to Him, thus reciprocally and mutually. From that reciprocal union it is very evident that God became Man and Man became God in one Person; and from the union of the two as being a union like that of soul and body, the same conclusion follows. That this is in accordance with the faith of the church at this day, as derived from the Athanasian Creed, may be seen above; that it is also in accordance with the faith of the Evangelical churches may be seen in that chief of their orthodox books, called the Formula Concordi where it is firmly established, both from Sacred Scripture and from the Fathers, as also by rational arguments, that the human nature of Christ was exalted to Divine majesty, omnipotence and omnipresence, and that in Christ Man is God, and God is Man.
So my illustrations are not misleading in the least. Your vehemence illustrates how uninformed the average Trinitarian is concerning his own stated beliefs.
"I for one am tired of your misleading [verbal] illustrations" of what the Bible teaches.
herk
