@aqwsed,
You should have stopped after your second paragraph. You read and responded to my post well before the 30 minute edit time expired. And you did so with a large post. You type very quickly... very quickly.
It is telling that in every serious debate on the Trinity—or any essential Christian doctrine—the discussion quickly reveals that the real issue is not simply about one verse or another, but about the methods we use to interpret Scripture, the weight we give to context, and the very nature of Christian revelation itself.
Yeah. Thats why I was starting with common definitions. We haven't really gotten into that too much. But try for short, concise.
You mockingly reduce the debate to “wiggling and squinting” on both sides, as if Trinitarians and Unitarians alike are simply “forcing” their views onto the text. But this is a shallow caricature, not an argument.
Both sides spit out scriptures. You are putting out walls of text. Both sides have fundamentally different views of foundational concepts, even language.
What you label as “wiggling” is, in fact, the work of centuries of rigorous engagement with the totality of divine revelation, always seeking to avoid the fatal error of proof-texting.
And to people just reading the Bible, that looks a lot like reading your meaning into the scriptures.
Catholic theology rejects the notion that a doctrine should—or even could—stand or fall on an isolated verse.
Right. Take a look at my first post in the thread. I was sarcastically attempting to convey this very thought ..