Trinity doctrine vs. 4th Century Trinity Doctrine ....

by ithinkisee 16 Replies latest watchtower bible

  • Leolaia
    Leolaia
    I have read in some places that the Trinity doctrine as presented by the WT publications for dissection is not really the Trinity doctrine but actually is an apostate doctrine from the original Trinity doctrine.

    Maybe you are thinking of modalism, which is what the WTS sometimes mistakes the Trinity doctrine to be. This is the claim that the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit are all God, but as one person in different functions or roles. There is some incipient modalism in Ignatius and probably elsewhere in early Christianity (e.g. the Pauline equivalence between the Holy Spirit and a pneumatic Christ), but explicit modalism was rejected by orthodoxy in the second century. BTW, the Trinity doctrine favored by Tertullian and some other second-century apologists involved an economical tri-unity and thus lacked the concept of the persons being co-eternal and co-equal, as it is formulated in the Nicene creed and in apologists in the third century onward....

  • jimakazi
    jimakazi

    My kids go to a catholic school and they teach it alright - my son thinks the teachers are mad - trinity is crap - and has now decided that if they lie about that then god doesn't exist. Not bad for an 8 year old.

  • Kenneson
    Kenneson

    Jim,

    So why do you send him to Catholic school?

  • the_classicist
    the_classicist
    Jim,

    So why do you send him to Catholic school?

    Kenneson, People like sending their kids to the relative prestige of a Catholic school, it happens a lot. I know a Muslim who lied about being a Christian to get into St. Thomas More Collegiate, they just want to say they went to a private school (of course, I wouldn't go to STMC, bad school really; St. George's, non-Catholic, is better, and Point Grey is one of the best).

  • hamsterbait
    hamsterbait


    As far as I can see, the teaching of the trinity is an attempt to explain how an incomprehensible being reveals himself to us by playing three different roles.

    For instance, a man may be married with children.

    With his elderly parents, he is a supportive helpful son.

    In bed with his wife he is a sexual partner.

    With his children he is a gentle loving father.

    Three different ways of being, same man.

    HB

  • Narkissos
    Narkissos

    Hamsterbait,

    Your example is a classic example of modalism, which was rejected as heretical by the Catholic Church.

    See for instance http://www.newadvent.org/cathen/10448a.htm

  • hamsterbait
    hamsterbait

    Ah yes! Modalism.

    Another way of looking at it is that water exists as vapour, liquid and a solid. Same substance, three different forms.

    Makes you wonder that if those taught by the apostles couldn't explain what it all meant why a murderer of his relatives like Constantine would be chosen by God to decide on the explanation.

    I got so sick of the homousos v homousios debates as a JW. But at the end of the day his own children killed and massacred and slaughtered in his name and lied and twisted things that didn't suit them.

    It only amazes me that God allows something so crucial to salvation to be so partisanised.

    Do I really believe any of it?

    HB

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