Because the Word was before all things (Colossians 1:17) and he created all things (John 1:3; Colossians 1:16), it excludes His being created. He is the source of all creation, the active force.
jonathan dough
JoinedPosts by jonathan dough
-
204
Examining Scripture to see if Jesus was, and is, God.
by jonathan dough ini'll start with john 14:8-10. .
scriptural support for the triune nature of god, and the gradual recognition that jesus christ, the word incarnate (john 1:1), was and is god, can be found throughout the bible.
the evidence is abundant and unfolds like a flower, foreshadowed in the old testament and revealed in the new testament.
-
-
-
204
Examining Scripture to see if Jesus was, and is, God.
by jonathan dough ini'll start with john 14:8-10. .
scriptural support for the triune nature of god, and the gradual recognition that jesus christ, the word incarnate (john 1:1), was and is god, can be found throughout the bible.
the evidence is abundant and unfolds like a flower, foreshadowed in the old testament and revealed in the new testament.
-
-
jonathan dough
It is done in one part through the wording on Essence. The Trinity's assertions of the things that make Jesus God inadvertently make it true of everything even while asserting it is a unique feature of Jesus.
But that wouldn't prove that Jesus is NOT God but that everything else IS God, according to your theoretical extrapolation.
There is a bit of extraordinary confabulation to say God is everywhere but is not in everything.
No confabulation here. To interpret essence as meaning God is IN everyting in a pantheistic fashion actually conscribes God, limits him, and that is why omnipresence is interpreted to refer to presence, place, and not being IN creation.
-
204
Examining Scripture to see if Jesus was, and is, God.
by jonathan dough ini'll start with john 14:8-10. .
scriptural support for the triune nature of god, and the gradual recognition that jesus christ, the word incarnate (john 1:1), was and is god, can be found throughout the bible.
the evidence is abundant and unfolds like a flower, foreshadowed in the old testament and revealed in the new testament.
-
-
jonathan dough
Yes, and another reason why Jesus was, and is, God.
Philippians 2:6 says that the Word existed in the form (Greek morphe) of God prior to His incarnation. Here, form (morphe) means nature or essence, but not in the abstract, subsisting in the individual (Strong and Vine’s, 167). “It includes the whole nature and essence of deity” (ibid.). And at 2 Corinthians 4:4, the “image of God” means that Christ is “essentially and absolutely the perfect expression of the Archtype, God the Father” (Strong and Vine’s, 77).
[I]n Colossians 1:15, “the image of the invisible God “gives the additional thought suggested by the word “invisible,” that Christ is the visible representation and manifestation of God to created beings; (5c) the likeness expressed in this manifestation is involved in the essential relations in the Godhead and is therefore unique and perfect; “he that hath seen me hath seen the Father,” John 14:9. (ibid., 77)
-
204
Examining Scripture to see if Jesus was, and is, God.
by jonathan dough ini'll start with john 14:8-10. .
scriptural support for the triune nature of god, and the gradual recognition that jesus christ, the word incarnate (john 1:1), was and is god, can be found throughout the bible.
the evidence is abundant and unfolds like a flower, foreshadowed in the old testament and revealed in the new testament.
-
-
jonathan dough
What I was proposing was that the Trinity inadvertantly, even as it claims not to venture into pantheism, does so by its very wording on 'Essence' and the definition it gives to Jesus as the God/Son. Read the formal theological writings you have posted from an objective stance and it jumps out rather demonstrably.
You're assuming I'm not reading this objectively, but so be it. Your reading would make Satan God. I don't think Trinitarians believe or teach that. And let's not forget that most "formal theological writings" never made it into official church doctrine.
Even if, for the sake of argument, you are right, can you explain how your theory proves that Jesus was/is NOT God? Isn't that the issue here?
-
43
Question regarding Holy Spirit...
by tenyearsafter ini am still muddling my way through both sides of the trinity argument, but i would be very interested in hearing the explanation for the nontrinitarian view of the holy spirit and what it is in light of ephesians 4:29-32 where it speaks about "grieving the holy spirit".
if the holy spirit is just god's active force, as we were taught as jw's, how can we grieve it?
grieving would indicate a personality or feelings that could be "grieved".
-
-
jonathan dough
Why would God make an understanding of his character so complex?
Many things are complex. Physics, math, medicine. It's not as difficult as you might think, and grasping the complexity in all of its many facets is not required for salvation. You want to talk about complex, try to reconcile the JW Jesus/man/angel theory with the proof texts that Jesus was and is God.
Immanent Trinity is easy. We're dealing with Spirit. It's God, Son and Holy Spirit before creation. God in Himself. It is not the creature Jesus born to Mary.
I guess I still have a problem grasping the difference between seperate "persons" and that they can be both an "it" and a "he", as in a force and a person.
The persons aren't separate. I wouldn't get hung up on the semantics of "it" and "he." There are more important defining issues. God is a force and a person. Jesus is a force and a person. See Romans chapter 8. And Person is not a person like you or I. Read this short section:
-
43
Question regarding Holy Spirit...
by tenyearsafter ini am still muddling my way through both sides of the trinity argument, but i would be very interested in hearing the explanation for the nontrinitarian view of the holy spirit and what it is in light of ephesians 4:29-32 where it speaks about "grieving the holy spirit".
if the holy spirit is just god's active force, as we were taught as jw's, how can we grieve it?
grieving would indicate a personality or feelings that could be "grieved".
-
-
jonathan dough
The problem with the trinitarian view is that they take the spirit and separate it from it's Owner and make it into an 'equal' 'person'.
No it doesn't. The Trinity doctrine does not teach that the Holy Spirit is separate from it's owner. The three Persons of the Trinity are inseparable. This is a common misunderstanding.
In most formularies the doctrine is stated by saying that God is one in His essential being, but that in this being there are three Persons, yet so as not to form separate and distinct individuals. They are three modes or forms in which the divine essence exists. ‘Person’ is, however, an imperfect expression of the truth in as much as the term denotes to us a separate rational and moral individual. But in the being of God there are not three individuals, but only three personal self-distinctions within the one divine essence. (New Bible Dictionary, 1299, 1300)
-
204
Examining Scripture to see if Jesus was, and is, God.
by jonathan dough ini'll start with john 14:8-10. .
scriptural support for the triune nature of god, and the gradual recognition that jesus christ, the word incarnate (john 1:1), was and is god, can be found throughout the bible.
the evidence is abundant and unfolds like a flower, foreshadowed in the old testament and revealed in the new testament.
-
-
jonathan dough
YOU: in the last two paragraphs you quoted above you can see the author undoing what he hoped to define as a distinction between the Trinity and Pantheism. The Essence of God is being as much of the God-ness thing as anything else of God's. Or to apply the 'essence' analogy to Jesus or to the Holy Spirit, what is being claimed in the Trinity is that these are God because they are filled with the God thing, so by that standard the 'Essence' of God which has just been admitted as pervading creation/universe should also be fully God....and by extension of logic creation then becomes pantheistic.
ME: I think you're stretching the logic again, inverting it, and almost begging the question. You're claiming creation becomes pantheistic (God is "in" everything) because the God thing fills the Trinity and Jesus and is everywhere because God is omnipresent, but I see three weaknesses here. First, the church is decidedly non-pantheisitic; God's omnipresence does not mean He is IN everything, but EVERYWHERE.
"God is everywhere, say theologians and philosophers, by his power, his essence, and his knowledge. By his infinite power he is everywhere because he gives existence to all things. He is everywhere by his essence because what God is (his essence) isn't separable from what he can do (his power). God is everywhere by his knowledge because he knows all things at all times." http://www.catholic.com/thisrock/quickquestions/keyword/prayer/page11
Secondly, your statement: "to apply the 'essence' analogy to Jesus or to the Holy Spirit, what is being claimed in the Trinity is that these are God because they are filled with the God thing," is an inaccurate description of the Trinity. With respect to immanent Trinity, the one triune God is not God because He is FILLED with the God thing, or essence, as though it were some container. It IS the God thing. Neither are the three Persons filled with the God thing. Nor do each of the Persons fill each other. They are the consubstantial essence, inseparably, because each is God, so there can't be a proper analogy with pantheism where God is seen as filling something and being IN all things.
Third, as mentioned, the hypostatic nature of Christ, that He was/is God-man does not mean that the God part filled the creature flesh part like the pantheistic God who is seen to be IN all things.
“If the pivotal assertion of the New Testament, “The Word was made flesh” (Jn 1.14), means anything, it signifies that two, the divine and the human, became somehow uniquely one in Jesus of Nazareth; that in Him was achieved a union, elsewhere unparalleled of God with man” (ibid., 918)." "The Church believes that Jesus Christ is true God, Son of God made man, the Second person of the Trinity, who took unto Himself a human nature and so exists not only in the divine but also in a human nature: one divine Person in two natures. The man who in His earthly life was known as Jesus of Nazareth was not a human person made one, as Nestorius said, in a unique way of moral unity, with the Person of the Son of God. He was God, Son of the Father, made man for men’s salvation. (ibid., 932) “His human nature, perfect and complete, was not a human person distinct from the Divine person of the Word … it was the human nature of a Divine Person."Remember, the creature Jesus, the created humanity who was not the Almighty, did not become God because God filled the flesh with the God thing. The Almighty did not insert Himself in the flesh in order to make the flesh God. That is not proper Trinity teaching. So I t
-
204
Examining Scripture to see if Jesus was, and is, God.
by jonathan dough ini'll start with john 14:8-10. .
scriptural support for the triune nature of god, and the gradual recognition that jesus christ, the word incarnate (john 1:1), was and is god, can be found throughout the bible.
the evidence is abundant and unfolds like a flower, foreshadowed in the old testament and revealed in the new testament.
-
-
jonathan dough
There is an excellent chapter in the book 'The Book Of Jewish Knowledge' on how the early Christian community split early on between the Jewish Christians and the Gentile Church and how similar the Gentile Church was to the philosphies and the trinities of Egypt under Ptolemy I and the Hellenization he brought to his realm. Read also the Dead Sea Scroll chapter 11Q13 for a comparison between the Jewish Christians and the Messianic Jews of this community.
You don't have to convince me of the difference between the Jewish and Gentile Christians. It's the JWs who argue of their similarities, that it was one organization that ruled and is the justification for the Governing Body. Sounds like an interesting read, though.
-
43
Question regarding Holy Spirit...
by tenyearsafter ini am still muddling my way through both sides of the trinity argument, but i would be very interested in hearing the explanation for the nontrinitarian view of the holy spirit and what it is in light of ephesians 4:29-32 where it speaks about "grieving the holy spirit".
if the holy spirit is just god's active force, as we were taught as jw's, how can we grieve it?
grieving would indicate a personality or feelings that could be "grieved".
-
-
jonathan dough
The only problem I see with holy spirit being a seperate personage rather than 'active force' is.....
NWT: (Matthew 1:18) . . .But the birth of Jesus Christ was in this way. During the time his mother Mary was promised in marriage to Joseph, she was found to be pregnant by holy spirit before they were united. . .
I checked other translations and they too say similar..... so if hs is a seperate 'person' then isn't Jesus the son of hs rather than God the Father.
It is not one or the other. The HS is not the third person of the Trinity or an active force. It is both:
It is true that in the Old Testament God’s Spirit is primarily referred to as a power used to create and influence men’s souls and minds like Moses, David or the prophets either temporarily or permanently (Catholic Encyclopedia, 574). It would teach, guide and eventually affect a moral transformation of mankind under the future New Covenant (ibid.). “The OT clearly does not envisage God’s spirit as a person, neither in the strictly philosophical sense, nor in the Semitic sense. God’s spirit is simply God’s power” (ibid.).
In the New Testament, however, the Spirit of God is both a power and a Person (ibid., 575). The Jehovah's Witnesses regard the supporting verses as mutually exclusive - the Spirit must be either a power or a person, and since it can’t be a person it must be a power. However, Scripture read together cannot accept one meaning at the expense of another, so, as indicated in Strong and Vine’s the power is the “Power of the Holy Spirit” (at 162), which is the Spirit of God (Romans 9:8-11 RSV), and Jehovah (or Lord RSV) is the Spirit (2 Corinthians 3:17 NWT). The Holy Spirit is not simply an inert unthinking electrical current flowing from Jehovah God. It is a powerful spirit Person.
-
43
Question regarding Holy Spirit...
by tenyearsafter ini am still muddling my way through both sides of the trinity argument, but i would be very interested in hearing the explanation for the nontrinitarian view of the holy spirit and what it is in light of ephesians 4:29-32 where it speaks about "grieving the holy spirit".
if the holy spirit is just god's active force, as we were taught as jw's, how can we grieve it?
grieving would indicate a personality or feelings that could be "grieved".
-
-
jonathan dough
Here's the JW position:
Jesus spoke of the holy spirit as a “helper,” and he said it would teach, guide, and speak. (John 14:16, 26; 16:13) The Greek word he used for helper (pa-ra’kle-tos) is in the masculine gender. So when Jesus referred to what the helper would do, he used masculine personal pronouns. (John 16:7, 8) On the other hand, when the neuter Greek word for spirit (pneumatic) is used, the neuter pronoun “it” is properly employed.
Most Trinitarian translators hide this fact, as the Catholic New American Bible admits regarding John 14:17: “The Greek word for ‘Spirit’ is neuter, and while we use personal pronouns in English (‘he,’ ‘his,’ ‘him’), most Greek MSS [manuscripts] employ ‘it.’
So, when the Bible uses masculine personal pronouns in connection with pa-ra-kle-tos at John 16:7, 8, it is conforming to rules of grammar, not expressing a doctrine. (Should You Believe, Chapter 8)
Which is wrong as per: http://www.144000.110mb.com/trinity/index-8.html#38