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Posted: Sun Apr 10, 2005 1:12 am
by Anonymous
The three persons thing sounds highly polytheistic plus if its the case, I would imagine it would be made clear in the NT and OT, however its not.
Also God dying would be like saying God could make something indestructible. God simple cannot do something that would contradict his nature.
Posted: Sun Apr 10, 2005 12:00 pm
by Felgar
vvart wrote:Also God dying would be like saying God could make something indestructible. God simple cannot do something that would contradict his nature.
Jesus was seperated from the Father, which given that the Father is the source of life, is dying. But it's not like He ceased to exist. I believe it's the same manner of death that awaits those who are not saved. Jesus being seperated from the Father also ties in with Jesus saying "“My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?"
It's not polytheistic, it's the basic theology of the Trinity. If you reject the concept of the Trinity there are quite a few things that make no sense.
Posted: Sun Apr 10, 2005 12:52 pm
by Anonymous
What doesn't make sense than...God can't separate himself from himself, that just makes no sense.
Look if the Father and Jesus are one, you can't make em two.
It's for these very reasons i've always struggled with the Trinity, it just sounds polytheistic.
Posted: Sun Apr 10, 2005 2:36 pm
by Mastermind
vvart wrote:What doesn't make sense than...God can't separate himself from himself, that just makes no sense.
Look if the Father and Jesus are one, you can't make em two.
It's for these very reasons i've always struggled with the Trinity, it just sounds polytheistic.
Of course it does, and depending on your definition of God, it could be polytheistic. The fact remains that there are 3 different persons(that we know of
) that make up the trinity, and they have many properties we may not understand.
Posted: Sun Apr 10, 2005 5:10 pm
by Anonymous
How do we know the Trinity exists, sounds like we just assume that it does and move from there. The part where Jesus say's Baptize in the name of the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit, doesn't mean its a Trinity!
The theme of the Scriptures is that there is One God, however with the Trinity it sounds like there are three Gods which are connected and formed of the same substance or nature. You would think something so important would be given more consideration by the Disciples and Prophets, but its not.
Posted: Mon Apr 11, 2005 7:12 am
by entity
vvart: "The theme of the Scriptures is that there is One God"
I agree. God commands that only he be worshipped. That we have no other gods before him. So if Jesus was not God, then he should not allow himself to be worshipped. But look at the scriptures.
John 20:28
28Thomas said to him, “My Lord and my God!”
John 13:13
13“You call me 'Teacher' and 'Lord,' and rightly so, for that is what I am.
Philippians 2:10
10that at the name of Jesus every knee should bow,in heaven and on earth and under the earth,
John 10:30
30I and the Father are one.”
Jesus let himself be worshiped, plus calls himself one (equal) with God.
Posted: Mon Apr 11, 2005 8:13 am
by Felgar
So we're left with a debate about the Trinity, once again.
We've had some other very good threads about it also. No sense repeating what we've covered in them.
what if
Posted: Thu Apr 28, 2005 2:34 am
by Anonymous
i was just reading through this forum when I decided I had something to say about all this....
earlier on christian2 stated about the oneness movement...occording to what they believe, it brings sensible answers to all that was being argued earlier..surprisingly, the Trinity itself is not a biblical doctrine but it was only developed later on...in fact, the term "trinity" or "three persons" has never been used in the bible. so if we see it the way oneness pentecostals see it...it would be much easier to understand cinsidering that the Almighty God, the LORD (Yahweh) of the Old testament manifested in the flesh...God Himself came down...as the man Jesus Christ..
for all we know, the Trinity itself might not be 100% accurate...there are many different ideas by different ppl concerning this topic...so we should rely solely on the bible, and not anything else because that is the only this that we can fully trust...not in man's taechings, writings or even the early church fathers.
maybe it would be a good idea if we look at things from a fresh perspective...it would be pretty difficult trying to imagine God as three seperate persons because that would sound polytheistic.
________________________________
pls tell me if im wrong
Posted: Thu Apr 28, 2005 2:57 am
by Anonymous
How do we know the Trinity exists, sounds like we just assume that it does and move from there. The part where Jesus say's Baptize in the name of the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit, doesn't mean its a Trinity!
The theme of the Scriptures is that there is One God, however with the Trinity it sounds like there are three Gods which are connected and formed of the same substance or nature. You would think something so important would be given more consideration by the Disciples and Prophets, but its not.
what vvaart says here is very true..the bible talks many times (especially in isaiah) about God being alone the only One, none BESIDE, etc....
by the way, all record of baptism in the bible is in the name of Jesus..im sure the diciples well understood Jesus' words and they definitely cannot be wrong - if they are than the bible itself has to be questioned-
then we can conclude that the name of the Father the Son and the Holy Spirit to refer to one God, who is Jesus. the same way, one can be a husband to his wife, a son to his parents, and a father to his children but still be the the same person...
so how do we know?
like i said..the bible is the final answer...we shld put the bible above all else
Posted: Thu Apr 28, 2005 8:07 am
by Kurieuo
vvart wrote:How do we know the Trinity exists, sounds like we just assume that it does and move from there.
The same way you believe that the Israel's God is the one true God. A Trinitarian view of God, like the God you supposedly advocate, essentially belongs to a special revealed theology rather than natural. The NT which Christians accept as authoritative reveal Christ, the Father, and Holy Spirit as each being God.
Analogous perhaps to the mythical
Cerberus who is three or one ???
Now there is a positive logical argument for affirming a trinitarian concept of God over a unitarian concept. To quote philosophers J.P. Moreland and William Craig:
God is by definition the greatest conceivable being. As the greatest conceivable being, God must be perfect. Now a perfect being must be a loving being. For love is a moral perfection; it is better for a person to be loving rather than unloving. God therefore must be a perfectly loving being. Now it is of the very nature of love to give oneself away. Love reaches out to another person rather than centering wholly in oneself. So if God is perfectly loving by his very nature, he must be giving himself in love to another. But who is that other? It cannot be any created person, since creation is a result of God's free will, not a result of his nature. It belongs to God's very essence to love, but it does not belong to his essence to create. So we can imagine a possible world in which God is perfectly loving and yet no created persons exist. So created persons cannot sufficiently explain whom God loves. Moreover, contemporary cosmology makes it plausible that created persons have not always exists. But God is eternally loving. So again created persons alone are insufficient to account for God's being perfectly loving. It therefore follows that the other to whom God's love is necessarily directed must be internal to God himself.
J. P. Moreland and William Lane Craig,
Philosophical Foundations for a Christian Worldview. (Downers Grove, IL: InterVarsity Press, 2003), 594-595.
Kurieuo.