“In Jesus humanity does not exist in itself, but it is the Son who exists as man through his human nature. Jesus gives back his whole divine self to the Father on the cross in and through his humanity (Fundamentals of Christology, 320).
jonathan dough
JoinedPosts by jonathan dough
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124
Lets Debate the Trinity
by UnDisfellowshipped income on everyone, let us reason on the trinity doctrine using the bible!.
you know there has to be at least 3 big long trinity threads on here per month... so i figured i'd go ahead and start one for november.. the bible says that there is only one true god who is god by nature, the only god who deserves our worship and prayer.
jesus taught that his father is god.
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124
Lets Debate the Trinity
by UnDisfellowshipped income on everyone, let us reason on the trinity doctrine using the bible!.
you know there has to be at least 3 big long trinity threads on here per month... so i figured i'd go ahead and start one for november.. the bible says that there is only one true god who is god by nature, the only god who deserves our worship and prayer.
jesus taught that his father is god.
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jonathan dough
Jonathan said: It is important that you understand this.
Secondly, and more important, the doctrine of the Trinity teaches that “The humanity of Christ is a creature, it is not God” (ibid., 922). Christ’s full and complete humanity was a necessity, but a humanity that was without sin.
DD REPLIED: You are stating here, that there is a part of Jesus that is not God.
The humanity of Christ is and always will be God.
First of all, it is the Catholic and Protestant churches who claim this; it is a direct quote from the Encyclopedia, and I didn't come up with this idea. Are you claiming that they are wrong? Do you deny the hypostatic union? You obviously are from your statement. If by your statement "The humanity of Christ is and always will be God" you mean that the church is wrong when it writes “The humanity of Christ is a creature, it is not God,” then whatever version of the Trinity you ascribe to is not one recognized by the vast majority of Christendom. If you are saying that the churches are wrong and that the humanity of Christ is not a creature, and is God Almighty, then there is no need for the hypostatic union, no need for it to refer to God-man. There would be no God-man, but even the Chalcedonean confession concedes the hypostatic union. Your theory plays right into the JWs' hands.
Now, the manner in which the God-man union occurs is a matter of faith. We don't know how that somehow happens, but faith is a good thing, not a bad thing. We don't know how our spirits and flesh join together or are merged, but they do we still exist and take it on faith. Once again, Jesus was a divine person who assumed a human nature as explained on my website. I'll post some of it again for you and others.
The Hypostatic Union: Jesus is fully God and fully man. This God-man is both divine and human, a divine Person who assumed a human nature.
The dual nature of Christ, that he was, and is, God and man, illustrates the Jehovah's Witnesses’ confusion with respect to Christ’s temptation by the devil. The Jehovah's Witnesses incorrectly teach that Trinitarians believe that Jesus was not human and did not have his own human will, stating:
The temptation of Jesus would make sense only if he was, not God, but a separate individual who had his own free will, one who could have been disloyal had he chosen to be, such as an angel or a human. (Should You Believe, Chapter 6)
This is completely false and misleading. First, by virtue of the hypostatic union, Jesus is a divine person with a human nature, God and man, and the man, Jesus, did have his own free will:
Just as there are two complete and perfect natures in Christ, one divine, the other human, there are two wills in Christ, one divine, the other human. (Catholic Encyclopedia, 947)
Trinitarianism teaches that Jesus was not only true God, but true man. “[I]n his body Christ thus expresses humanly the divine ways of the Trinity.”
The Son of God … worked with human hands; he thought with a human mind. He acted with a human will and with a human heart he loved. Born of the Virgin Mary, he was truly been made one of us, like to us in all things except sin. (Catechism of the Catholic Church [New York, Image-Doubleday, 1994], 132) (Catholic Catechism)
Though not infinite, and therefore not omnipotent, because His humanity is finite, [His theandric power] extends to effects that are beyond purely human or created causality. (Catholic Encyclopedia, 943)
It is important that you understand this.
Secondly, and more important, the doctrine of the Trinity teaches that “The humanity of Christ is a creature, it is not God” (ibid., 922). Christ’s full and complete humanity was a necessity, but a humanity that was without sin.
Third, “In Jesus humanity does not exist in itself, but it is the Son who exists as man through his human nature. Jesus gives back his whole divine self to the Father on the cross in and through his humanity (Fundamentals of Christology, 320).
With this in mind, the weaknesses in the Jehovah's Witnesses’ arguments become clear. They falsely teach, implicitly and explicitly, that Trinitarians believe that the humanity of Christ the creature is God the Almighty, the Godhead. But nothing could be further from the truth. When they claim that Trinitarians believe that “Jesus is God” they don’t disclose despite centuries of evidence, that “Jesus” in this Trinitarian context refers to the divine Person who assumed a human nature, not the created humanity of Jesus that is not God.
This particular distortion, and scant reference or explanation of the hypostatic union of Christ the God-man, has enabled the Jehovah's Witnesses to compose pages of unwarranted attacks on the Trinity by taking advantage of the readers’ lack of understanding with regard to what the Trinity doctrine really means.
Fourth, Trinitarians are fully aware that the created humanity of Jesus was inferior to God, that He was not equal to God in every way. The created humanity of Jesus knew that the Father was his superior.
Existence and Nature of Human Will. Moreover, works of honor are attributed to Christ, such as prayer, obedience, merit, which cannot proceed from the divine will, since they are manifested to a superior. They can proceed only from a created will. In His Incarnation the son of God assumed a perfect human nature, at the same time retaining His perfect divine nature. (Catholic Encyclopedia, 948)
Thus, when the created humanity of Jesus prayed to his Father, he was not praying to himself as the Jehovah's Witnesses mistakenly claim. He was praying to the infinitely superior God, His Father.
The Holy Spirit is not considered inferior to the Father and the Son in the way in which the Son, because of the human nature which he has assumed, testifies that he is inferior to the Father and the Holy Spirit (Denz 527)…. (Catholic Encyclopedia, 96)
When you think of it, Christ’s dual nature is not so far fetched; after all, a human is a material being endowed with a spirit, a union of the material and spiritual, yet considered one.
Fifth, with the above in mind, and considering the many proofs that follow, John 1:14 was not meant to be read literally. It states, “And the Word became flesh,” but this does not mean that the Word made a complete transformation from a spirit angel to only flesh, which is a type of heretical modalism condemned by the church in the first centuries. Rather, the divine Person of Christ assumed a human nature. Jesus was a divine Person with a human nature. That is the only acceptable interpretation of John 1:14 because the divinity of Christ - that he was and is God - in an undeniable Biblical truth, and without His divinity redemption is not possible. It was necessary for Jesus to be a God-man for the sake of mankind’s salvation. Therefore He could not be “mere flesh” under any circumstances.
Besides, since “Jesus Christ is the same yesterday, and today, and forever” (Hebrews 13:8 NWT) He cannot have been a preexistent angel who changed completely into mere flesh, and then reverted back to heaven as an angel. There is no such radical change in the Trinitarian Christian world where the Word was God the Son, remained God the Son during His sojourn, and continued as God the Son after His resurrection and ascension.
Sixth, the practical implications of the union is that “Jesus sometimes spoke as man, sometimes as God; sometimes as Godman” (M. O’Carroll, Trinitas: A Theological Encyclopedia of the Holy Trinity [Wilmington, Delaware, Michael Glazier, Inc., 1987], 186) (Trinitas).
I continue with more on the hypostatic union here:
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124
Lets Debate the Trinity
by UnDisfellowshipped income on everyone, let us reason on the trinity doctrine using the bible!.
you know there has to be at least 3 big long trinity threads on here per month... so i figured i'd go ahead and start one for november.. the bible says that there is only one true god who is god by nature, the only god who deserves our worship and prayer.
jesus taught that his father is god.
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jonathan dough
Only-begotten, to be acknowledged in two natures, inconfusedly, unchangeably, indivisibly, inseparably; the distinction of natures being by no means taken away by the union, but rather the property of each nature being preserved, and concurring in one Person and one Subsistence, not parted or divided into two persons, but one and the same Son, and only begotten, God the Word, the Lord Jesus Christ, as the prophets from the beginning have declared concerning him, and the Lord Jesus Christ himself taught us, and the Creed of the holy Fathers has handed down to us.
What is your point, DD? This confirms what I presented.
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need lawyerly advice about DA
by Watkins inhaven't been around for a while - nice to see so many still around, alive an' kickin'!
here's what's bothering me - i want to request the return of any records bearing my name at my former kh.
i want it to be like i was never even there, call me 'casper', lol.
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jonathan dough
Try asking for some free legal advice on the legal message boards. They can be quite helpful.
They might destroy any evidence that could get them sued. If you are thinking of litigation (in the USA) then don't tip them off. Let a sharp lawyer use the discovery process after you file the complaint.
They might claim the records belong to the organization. Prickly legal issues here. If you do decide to sue you don't want them to get rid of anything related to you. You want that paper trail. They will probably keep copies of anything they gave you. I suspect there are electronic copies buried somewhere as well.
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124
Lets Debate the Trinity
by UnDisfellowshipped income on everyone, let us reason on the trinity doctrine using the bible!.
you know there has to be at least 3 big long trinity threads on here per month... so i figured i'd go ahead and start one for november.. the bible says that there is only one true god who is god by nature, the only god who deserves our worship and prayer.
jesus taught that his father is god.
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jonathan dough
This is not true. You're making the hypostatic union sound like a 50% 50% mix (A form of Gnosticism or Apollinarianism). Jesus is 100% God and 100% man.
No, I'm not. I go to great lengths so specifically explain in my treatiese that this is not what the doctrine teaches. Far from it. I also stated clearly that Jesus was/is a divine person that ASSUMED a human nature, not a 50-50 mix. Maybe you should go back and read up on the hypostatic union.
http://144000.110mb.com/trinity/index.html#5
God incorporated human nature into His eternal being. In the incarnation humanity has been permanently incorporated into the Godhead. God is now a man in addition to being God.
What you quoted is what it means when I said He was a divine person who assumed a human nature.
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124
Lets Debate the Trinity
by UnDisfellowshipped income on everyone, let us reason on the trinity doctrine using the bible!.
you know there has to be at least 3 big long trinity threads on here per month... so i figured i'd go ahead and start one for november.. the bible says that there is only one true god who is god by nature, the only god who deserves our worship and prayer.
jesus taught that his father is god.
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jonathan dough
DD, study your Church History and the language of the Church of Rome's Mass, study Luther's homelies and Calvin's views against the Jews.
You're as ignorant as they come about this vile doctrine that has been rallying cry to murder millions of innocent people over the centuries.
You can't blame that on a theory defining the nature of God. The church, sure, but that's like equating God with the Arryan nation just because they carry around a Bible and rally around it. That somehow God approves of lynchings because some people do it in his name.
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124
Lets Debate the Trinity
by UnDisfellowshipped income on everyone, let us reason on the trinity doctrine using the bible!.
you know there has to be at least 3 big long trinity threads on here per month... so i figured i'd go ahead and start one for november.. the bible says that there is only one true god who is god by nature, the only god who deserves our worship and prayer.
jesus taught that his father is god.
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jonathan dough
Hmm, maybe that's the problem. You're putting your faith in a church. I want to put my faith in God. So could you please quote a few verses from scripture that teach that the "economic aspect of the Trinity includes the created humanity of Jesus, who was not God". I can quote verses all day that say otherwise.
I'm not aware of a single Protestant denomination that would stand behind that statement. It's not the "economic aspect of the Trinity" that I have a problem with, it's the "the created humanity of Jesus, who was not God" that I have a problem with.
DD, that is what the hypostatic union refers to, God-MAN, and since the vast majority of Protestant denominations believe in the hypostatic union, they believe that the "man" part was not God. It solves a lot of problems. And determining how Jesus was human became one of the more vexing issues they wrestled with centuries ago, not his deity. Remember that the Trinity doctrine, which includes the hypostatic nature of Christ, was adopted virtually in its entirety by the reformed churches, the Protestants. “Although a few distinct doctrinal changes were eventually made, the Trinitarian concept emerged relatively unchanged. “The Reformers,” states the New Schaff-Herzog Encyclopedia of Religious Knowledge, “stood upon the ground of the Church catholic” in this matter. That would include such statements one finds, for instance, in the Catholic Encyclopedia, “The humanity of Christ is a creature, it is not God” (ibid., 922). This is where Economic Trinity comes in. Futhermore, Scripture is clear that Jesus HAD to be fully human, and I don't need to cite to you the many referrences in the Bible to Jesus in the flesh because you already know them. But He was not just flesh, and he was not just God. He was a divine person who assumed a human nature, God-man.
So you have to reconcile all the verses that prove Jesus was and is God, and those that clearly show He was human, which he had to be to effectuate redemption. And what they came up with is the hypostatic union, God-MAN.
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Revelation isn't for the "Great Crowd" either?? sheesh!
by AuntBee ini just saw in the revelation book, that revelation is also not addressed directly to the great crowd.
holy cow!!
is there any scripture at all that the great crowd can claim as its very own??
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jonathan dough
There is no such thing as the JW Great Crowd as they imagine it.
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124
Lets Debate the Trinity
by UnDisfellowshipped income on everyone, let us reason on the trinity doctrine using the bible!.
you know there has to be at least 3 big long trinity threads on here per month... so i figured i'd go ahead and start one for november.. the bible says that there is only one true god who is god by nature, the only god who deserves our worship and prayer.
jesus taught that his father is god.
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jonathan dough
Could you help out a fellow trinitarian? I'd like to at least understand you.
I wish I could believe you, but I can't. We've gone at it before and you come across as petty and insincere. And if it is just too difficult for you to grasp, if you just can't get your mind around it, there is not much more I can add to make your job easier. Maybe it's just over your head, but it is all there in black and white. And the sheer weight of the Roman Catholic Church and virtually all Protestant denominations stands behind these doctrines.
http://144000.110mb.com/trinity/index-2.html#8
At the outset it is crucial to understand two key concepts. You must distinguish between immanent Trinity (theological Trinity) and economic trinity, and understand how they relate to each other. This is not difficult. The Jehovah's Witnesses fail to separate them and erroneously combine the two concepts. This error lies at the root of the Jehovah's Witnesses’ harsh attacks on the Trinity and allows them to get away with distorting Trinitarian teaching. It is the means by which they are able to convince many people, who otherwise would know better, that the Trinity is utterly illogical and false when it is true and reasonable, even if certain aspects are grounded upon a measure of faith.
Immanent (theological) Trinitarianism, refers to the essence of God the Almighty, his hypostatic three-fold nature and his absolute and perfect being, before creation. It deals with the “infinite, blessed communion of the divine Persons among themselves, without reference to creation,” (B. Brobrinskoy, The Mystery of the Trinity [New York, St. Vladimir's Seminary Press, 1999], 2, 3) (Mystery). It is the triune God as he is in himself (J. Moltmann, The Trinity and the Kingdom of God [Munich, Germany, SCM Press, Ltd., 1981], 151) (Trinity and the Kingdom).
This should not be confused with economic Trinitarianism (God for us), the concerted activity of the three Persons in creation as they “maintain and restore the created world to a state of well-being and communion with God” (ibid., 2). “Economic” refers to “divine management of earthly affairs” (The Encyclopedia of Religion [New York, Macmillan Publishing Company, 1987], 54) (Encyclopedia of Religion). “It is oriented to the concrete history of creation and redemption: God initiates a covenant with Israel, God speaks through the prophets, God takes on flesh in Christ, God dwells within as Spirit” (ibid., 54). It is also called revelatory Trinity because the triune God reveals himself through his dispensation of salvation (Trinity and the Kingdom, 151).
Accordingly, much Trinitarian theological discussions about the “One God in three Persons” deals with immanent Trinity, not economic Trinity. The economic aspect of the Trinity includes the created humanity of Jesus, who was not God (The New Catholic Encyclopedia [Washington D.C., The Catholic University of America, 1967], 943) (Catholic Encyclopedia) and not part of the immanent Trinity. But that is precisely where the Jehovah's Witnesses mistakenly inject him resulting in a great deal of unnecessary confusion.
They argue, to take one illustration, that Jesus could not be God yet be with God; and he could not be the Father whom he prayed to (Should You Believe in the Trinity? [New York, Watchtower Bible and Tract Society, 1989; http://www.watchtower.org/e/ti/index.htm], Chapter 7) (Should You Believe). But this is a classic example of the Jehovah’s Witnesses mixing apples and oranges. The man of the God-man Jesus, the created humanity who was not God (Catholic Encyclopedia, 943), could rightfully pray to God the Father and did regard himself as inferior; this He performed in the context of economic Trinity.
The idea that the preexistent Word (God the Son) was with God stems from John 1:1:
In the beginning was the Word,
And the Word was with God,
And the Word was God.Even though John 1:1 speaks in the context of pre-creation immanent Trinity, the Jehovah’s Witnesses have swapped out God the Son, the preexistent Word, with the created humanity of Jesus. This is not accurate Bible teaching nor does it properly reflect the doctrine of the Trinity. John 1:1 does not claim to say that the created humanity of Jesus was God or was with God in the beginning.
If you keep this distinction in mind you will be in a much better position to navigate the Jehovah's Witnesses’ maze of misleading tactics and come to a better understanding of what the Trinity doctrine actually means.
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124
Lets Debate the Trinity
by UnDisfellowshipped income on everyone, let us reason on the trinity doctrine using the bible!.
you know there has to be at least 3 big long trinity threads on here per month... so i figured i'd go ahead and start one for november.. the bible says that there is only one true god who is god by nature, the only god who deserves our worship and prayer.
jesus taught that his father is god.
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jonathan dough
John 8:58
Jesus said to them, "Truly, truly, I say to you, before Abraham was born, I am."
Romans 9:5
To them belong the patriarchs, and from their race, according to the flesh, is the Christ who is God over all, blessed forever. Amen.
You haven't explained your point very well, and you are oblivious to the hypostatic union, and based on the points you raise it is quite evident you haven't read what I wrote because if you had this would make sense to you. Sometimes Jesus spoke as God, sometimes as the man; Jesus was/is a divine person who assumed a human nature. When Jesus took on the divine title "I AM" at John 8:58 he was speaking from the position of God, not the creature who was not the Almighty.
As to Romans 9:5, you are reading too much into it. It does not say that the flesh, standing alone, was God Almighty, and that is NOT what the Trinity teaches. "According to the flesh" means he was a Jew, and some Bibles such as the Catholic NAB don't tie the Messiah with the last four words, but separate it saying, "... according to the flesh is the Messiah. God, who is over all be blessed forever." Other translations do equate the Messiah with God, but Christianity teaches that is not referring to the creature, the created humanity. It doesn't mean mere flesh is the Almighty.