trinity is controversial?

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Nov 15, 2023
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One would think there should be no controversy over the idea of the trinity seeing that many ancient cultures had trinity gods before the New Testament days happened.

One of the most common beliefs among Pagan cultures was in a trinity of gods. We find this among the Egyptians, Indians (of India), Japanese, Sumarians, Chaldeans, and of course, the Babylonians, to where historians trace the roots of trinitarism.

It's been an obvious idealism for 5,000 years.
The Trinity, implied by the word itself, is three Persons in ONE God. How many of those triple gods were three AND one? The reason I ask is that the one God of the Bible is three Persons, a Mystery that cannot be discovered through logic and reasoning. Therefore, that Tri-une God of the Gospel of John had to have revealed himself to the biblical writer, because no one could have dreamed or thought him up.
 

FollowerofShiloh

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The Trinity, implied by the word itself, is three Persons in ONE God. How many of those triple gods were three AND one? The reason I ask is that the one God of the Bible is three Persons, a Mystery that cannot be discovered through logic and reasoning. Therefore, that Tri-une God of the Gospel of John had to have revealed himself to the biblical writer, because no one could have dreamed or thought him up.
God is most assuredly triune in Nature.
But Peter twice says the Holy Spirit is the Spirit of the Lord.
It doesn't matter to me because the modern day definition does not match the Nicene Creed and the Nicene Creed does not match the earliest (John's Disciples) Church Fathers. We just know the Divinity within Christ is Father-WORD-Holy Spirit.
 

bluto

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Aug 4, 2016
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The Trinity, implied by the word itself, is three Persons in ONE God. How many of those triple gods were three AND one? The reason I ask is that the one God of the Bible is three Persons, a Mystery that cannot be discovered through logic and reasoning. Therefore, that Tri-une God of the Gospel of John had to have revealed himself to the biblical writer, because no one could have dreamed or thought him up.
Please read my post #59 where I explain the Trinity with reason and logic. If you think about it God wants us to know all about Him. Now, granted there are mysteries within God and like He said, "His ways are not our ways."

IN GOD THE SON,
bluto
 

posthuman

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Jul 31, 2013
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It's mainly an issue for two reasons: 1) The word "trinity" itself isn't found in scripture; 2) The idea of the "trinity" seems to have originated with Catholicism, so it's automatically suspect. I'm no fan of Catholicism but I have no problem with the trinity. Jesus Himself spoke of it in Matthew 28:19, "Go, therefore, and make disciples of all the nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit,"
people often confuse 'catholicism' with the theology of the original church.

there were several centers of the church from the beginning, Antioch, Jerusalem, Alexandria, Rome, etc. no one disagreed with the Trinity, only there were discussions about carefully defining it.

it was not until many hundreds of years later, after the capital of the Roman empire moved to Constantinople, that the Roman bishopric became apostate and full of crap theology. But the Trinity far predates that.

a lack of knowledge of church history is severely detrimental to understanding of these things. in early writings the word "catholic" is used but it means simply "universal" - - that is, the church writ large, that all believers are members of and which beliefs all hold. this is absolutely not synonymous with the modern RCC or even the RCC of the 10th century.

you should not reject things only on the basis that 2,000 years ago they were called 'catholic' doctrine.
 

posthuman

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It doesn't matter to me because the modern day definition does not match the Nicene Creed and the Nicene Creed does not match the earliest (John's Disciples) Church Fathers
Please explain what is different between the Nicene creed and the modern belief and whatever it is you mean by "the earliest church fathers"...?
 

FollowerofShiloh

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Please explain what is different between the Nicene creed and the modern belief and whatever it is you mean by "the earliest church fathers"...?
I don't read in the Church Father's definitions God the Father, God the Son, God the Holy Spirit like modern vernacular uses. Church Fathers actually said it like the Bible reads.
 

posthuman

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I don't read in the Church Father's definitions God the Father, God the Son, God the Holy Spirit like modern vernacular uses. Church Fathers actually said it like the Bible reads.
Do you find that they didn't believe in the deity of the Son or the Spirit?
 

posthuman

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I don't read in the Church Father's definitions God the Father, God the Son, God the Holy Spirit like modern vernacular uses. Church Fathers actually said it like the Bible reads.
Didachē (viz. “The Teachings of the Twelve Apostles”; c. A.D. 70):​
After the foregoing instructions, baptize in the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit, in living [running] water. . . . If you have neither, pour water three times on the head, in the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit (7.1).​

Do you read this and see any rejection of the divinity of Christ?
Do you think this is polytheism?

Not understanding why you would think the early church wasn't trinitarian. It was not "invented" at Nicea, it was "cemented" - - which was the whole point of the council. Constantine wanted the church to firmly reject heresy, for the sake of peace in his empire. he himself imposed no doctrine but just organized it, and the trinity was not a matter of debate at all - - everyone accepted it.

that is, every Christian believed it until oneness pentacostalism in the 1800's came along and revived the ancient modalism heresy.
 

FollowerofShiloh

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Didachē (viz. “The Teachings of the Twelve Apostles”; c. A.D. 70):​
After the foregoing instructions, baptize in the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit, in living [running] water. . . . If you have neither, pour water three times on the head, in the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit (7.1).​

Do you read this and see any rejection of the divinity of Christ?
The Didache has been proven to be written by someone unknown yet claiming it comes from the Apostles. I think it's RCC garbage.
 

FollowerofShiloh

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Just so you know I believe that Jesus is like Paul claimed, Our Great God.

13 waiting for our blessed hope, the appearing of the glory of our great God and Savior Jesus Christ



I am just pointing what Peter said in Acts to Ananias and his wife.

3 But Peter said, “Ananias, why has Satan filled your heart to lie to the Holy Spirit

4 You have not lied to man but to God

9 But Peter said to her, “How is it that you have agreed together (Ananias/the Wife) to test the Spirit of the Lord?
 

posthuman

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Just so you know I believe that Jesus is like Paul claimed, Our Great God.
I am just pointing what Peter said in Acts to Ananias and his wife.

3 But Peter said, “Ananias, why has Satan filled your heart to lie to the Holy Spirit

4 You have not lied to man but to God

9 But Peter said to her, “How is it that you have agreed together to test the Spirit of the Lord?
This is 100% trinitarian

the Son is God, the Spirit is God.
 

FollowerofShiloh

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The didache is 600yrs older than the RCC
Didache, Especially important are two Greek fragments, Papyrus Oxyrhynchus 1782, dated to the "late fourth century"

Not 600 years before RCC maybe less than 150 years before.
 

posthuman

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Not at all. I think they see the Son as the Deity holding the entire Godhead.
There is one Physician who is possessed both of flesh and spirit; both made and not made [agennētos]; God existing in flesh; true life in death; both of Mary and of God; first possible and then impossible, even Jesus Christ our Lord (Polycarp, Letter to the Ephesians, 7).​
Polycarp obviously sees Christ as being divine yet individual from God the Father - - a wholly trinitarian view 100% incompatible with modalist oneness heresy.
 

posthuman

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Didache, Especially important are two Greek fragments, Papyrus Oxyrhynchus 1782, dated to the "late fourth century"

Not 600 years before RCC maybe less than 150 years before.
That's just the particular copy that dates 4th century.

Do your homework.
 

posthuman

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I never said it was.
Maybe you just don't understand how I type or English.
You said you don't think the early church fathers or the modern church were aligned with what was codified at Nicea. You haven't demonstrated or specified any difference yet.
 

posthuman

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Didache, Especially important are two Greek fragments, Papyrus Oxyrhynchus 1782, dated to the "late fourth century"

Not 600 years before RCC maybe less than 150 years before.
In any case hundreds of years before the RCC became distinct from orthodox Christian theology, so your assertion that the didache is 'RCC garbage' has zero support.

The RCC didn't even exist when the didache was written. Your position on it is clearly without basis and incorrect.