Tertullian said there was a time when the Son didn’t exist and that God wasn’t a Father previous to the Son. How much clearer can you get? You can’t. If a JW said exactly those same words you’d say it was heresy plain and simple, but because Tertullian said it you somehow feel obligated to argue that he didn’t really mean what he said.
slimboyfat
JoinedPosts by slimboyfat
-
107
The point of existence and how it refutes the Trinity
by slimboyfat inrowan williams, the former archbishop of canterbury gave an interesting answer to the somewhat stark question, what’s the point of us existing?
as a christian, my starting point is that we exist because the most fundamental form of activity, energy, call it what you like, that is there, is love.
that is, it’s a willingness that the other should be.
-
-
-
107
The point of existence and how it refutes the Trinity
by slimboyfat inrowan williams, the former archbishop of canterbury gave an interesting answer to the somewhat stark question, what’s the point of us existing?
as a christian, my starting point is that we exist because the most fundamental form of activity, energy, call it what you like, that is there, is love.
that is, it’s a willingness that the other should be.
-
-
slimboyfat
What Tertullian said about the subject (for some reason you avoid quoting the passage directly) was the following:
Because God is in like manner a Father, and He is also a Judge; but He has not always been Father and Judge, merely on the ground of His having always been God. For He could not have been the Father previous to the Son, nor a Judge previous to sin. There was, however, a time when neither sin existed with Him, nor the Son; the former of which was to constitute the Lord a Judge, and the latter a Father. In this way He was not Lord previous to those things of which He was to be the Lord. But He was only to become Lord at some future time: just as He became the Father by the Son, and a Judge by sin, so also did He become Lord by means of those things which He had made, in order that they might serve Him. Against Hermogenes 3
Who does Tertullian sound like here, someone who believes Jesus came into existence or a Trinitarian? If we’re being honest I think the answer is very obvious.
-
107
The point of existence and how it refutes the Trinity
by slimboyfat inrowan williams, the former archbishop of canterbury gave an interesting answer to the somewhat stark question, what’s the point of us existing?
as a christian, my starting point is that we exist because the most fundamental form of activity, energy, call it what you like, that is there, is love.
that is, it’s a willingness that the other should be.
-
-
slimboyfat
Yes I agree, Halcon, 1 Cor 11.3 is a good verse. It clearly shows that Jesus is subject to God. If I remember correctly the Greek word “head” can also involve the sense of “foundation”, and some ancient authors took it that way, which would also obviously make sense as God is the origin of Jesus (as creator), Jesus is the origin of man (as the one through whom God created everything), and man is the origin of woman (as woman was taken from the side of man in the Genesis story).
I also agree that we cannot extrapolate from human understanding of personhood and consciousness to say that God can’t do this or that, such as be alone.
JWs also have a particular explanation (I don’t know if others share the same view) for verses that say God finds things out, is disappointed, regrets and so on. They believe that, while God can of course in principle know everything in the future, Jehovah has selectively chosen not to know the outcome of human choices in order to leave room for free will.
-
107
The point of existence and how it refutes the Trinity
by slimboyfat inrowan williams, the former archbishop of canterbury gave an interesting answer to the somewhat stark question, what’s the point of us existing?
as a christian, my starting point is that we exist because the most fundamental form of activity, energy, call it what you like, that is there, is love.
that is, it’s a willingness that the other should be.
-
-
slimboyfat
Ah ChatGPT enters the thread …
To respond to the earlier point about God’s attributes: early Christian writers expressed different views on this. Some early writers (I think Tertullian) said that there was a time when God wasn’t Father because he didn’t become Father until the only begotten son came into existence. Later Trinitarians would turn this on its head and argue that God must always have been Father and therefore in fact the Son didn’t come into existence. Intuition, common sense, and the language of scripture indicates (to me at least) that the first position advocated by Tertullian makes more sense. One of the fundamental attributes of fathers is that they are older than their sons, and scripture talks about Wisdom being begotten long ago as the first of God’s acts of creation (Prov 8.22), that the Word was “in the beginning” (John 1.1), that Jesus lives “because of the Father” (John 5.67), is “the firstborn of all creation” (Col 1.15), and is “the beginning of the creation of God” (Rev 3.14). If all those expressions are not meant to convey that Jesus is God’s first creation then it’s an odd choice of language. No wonder a majority of ordinary Christians when polled agree with JWs that Jesus is God’s first creation. It takes a lot of strained argumentation from Trinitarian apologists committed to Nicene orthodoxy to convince a person otherwise.
-
107
The point of existence and how it refutes the Trinity
by slimboyfat inrowan williams, the former archbishop of canterbury gave an interesting answer to the somewhat stark question, what’s the point of us existing?
as a christian, my starting point is that we exist because the most fundamental form of activity, energy, call it what you like, that is there, is love.
that is, it’s a willingness that the other should be.
-
-
slimboyfat
Rowan Williams is an impressive thinker. He has thought deeply about the issues of God’s existence, suffering, and meaning, and is sincere in sharing his conclusions. He wrote a significant book on Arius and, while Williams is obviously a Trinitarian, he presents a fair account of Arianism. He acknowledges that in the fourth century Christological debate it was Arius who was the theological conservative standing up for the traditional teaching that Jesus is subordinate to God. And he was such a good Archbishop of Canterbury compared with the latest scumbag Welby who never had a significant thought for anything other than himself.
-
107
The point of existence and how it refutes the Trinity
by slimboyfat inrowan williams, the former archbishop of canterbury gave an interesting answer to the somewhat stark question, what’s the point of us existing?
as a christian, my starting point is that we exist because the most fundamental form of activity, energy, call it what you like, that is there, is love.
that is, it’s a willingness that the other should be.
-
-
slimboyfat
As Williams explains, God is not an additional thing in the universe that requires explanation. He is the explanation. To insist on the question of what caused God is not an argument against God, it's simply another way of saying that you don't believe in God. Because if there was an answer to the question "what caused God", then that God wouldn't be God, because God by definition doesn't have a cause. It initially seems like a clever question, "what caused God" , but it rather misses the point.
-
107
The point of existence and how it refutes the Trinity
by slimboyfat inrowan williams, the former archbishop of canterbury gave an interesting answer to the somewhat stark question, what’s the point of us existing?
as a christian, my starting point is that we exist because the most fundamental form of activity, energy, call it what you like, that is there, is love.
that is, it’s a willingness that the other should be.
-
-
slimboyfat
God is sufficient in himself. He doesn't require another, but he chooses to create others as an expression of love, that's the point. If God had the experience of others regardless of his will then it couldn't be said to be a choice or an expression of love to share existence with others. Anything we say about God is obviously tentative, but among the things we can say it seems to make more sense that God shared existence by an active choice and that it was motivated by love. Asking if God had love before that doesn't seem like a defeater because it's not clear that "before" means anything to God if he created time at the creation. Or even if his expression of love was preceded by a period (if period means something here) of intention before action, that seems preferable to saying that God had no choice in the matter and was compelled to share existence as a necessary state of affairs.
-
107
The point of existence and how it refutes the Trinity
by slimboyfat inrowan williams, the former archbishop of canterbury gave an interesting answer to the somewhat stark question, what’s the point of us existing?
as a christian, my starting point is that we exist because the most fundamental form of activity, energy, call it what you like, that is there, is love.
that is, it’s a willingness that the other should be.
-
-
slimboyfat
Rowan Williams, the former Archbishop of Canterbury gave an interesting answer to the somewhat stark question, what’s the point of us existing?
He said:
As a Christian, my starting point is that we exist because the most fundamental form of activity, energy, call it what you like, that is there, is love. That is, it’s a willingness that the other should be. The world exists because God desires that there be an other, and so love is fundamental to that.
If bringing others into existence is an expression of love, then it makes sense that God loves his “so much” (John 3.16) as the first one he called into existence. God was alone and completely sufficient in himself, and he did not need any other person in order to make himself complete, but it was an active choice, prompted by love, that moved him to create other beings to share existence with. If God had always existed as three persons, as Trinitarians claim, then it was no choice, or expression of love, to share existence, but an eternal fact. The Trinity therefore undermines the initial act of love by God in sharing existence, first with his firstborn son, and then with the angels and humans.
Rowan Williams’ comments are at 2.45 in this video
-
33
What is this?
by Achille inthis image is from "the watchtower" july 2024 (study edition):i can't figure out what that object is that is between the sleeping apostles.wath is it?
a stick, a scroll of the scriptures?
....
-
-
slimboyfat
Ah, found it now.
Yeah that depiction is no accident. It can’t be. It takes a long time to produce an image like that and a lot of people are involved in the process. So WTF is going on?
-
33
What is this?
by Achille inthis image is from "the watchtower" july 2024 (study edition):i can't figure out what that object is that is between the sleeping apostles.wath is it?
a stick, a scroll of the scriptures?
....
-
-
slimboyfat
July magazine isn’t up on the website yet. Where did this come from?