A Trinitarian Statement

[Praxeas]

Originally Posted by redeemedcynic84

The reason it is said like that is because Trinitarians believe in one God... They stick to the trinitarian terminology out of tradition...

The way to understand the trinity is to look back at Nicea when they adopted it and understand who/what they were fighting when they adopted it and why they adopted it...

The groups they were trying to eliminate were ones that were teaching that Jesus was not God at all, but the first created thing that then created the Holy Spirit and God gave Jesus all his god-powers who then gave the Holy Spirit all the god-powers, too... (Arians)

There were other groups saying that Jesus wasn't human but some sort of divine vision everyone saw but wasn't really there since God can't become part of the natural world because the natural world was evil and was actually created accidentally by demons (long story)... (Gnostics)

There was still another group that taught that Jesus' Father was not actually YHWH of the Old Testament but that YHWH was evil and a satan-like figure... (Marciuns)

These are the kinds of groups they were fighting in those early days... and they are the kinds of groups the Trinity was adopted to fight... Look at the basics of the Trinity:

1. The Father is God
2. The Son is God
3. The Holy Spirit is God
4. There is one God

that's the jist of it... everything else is just trying to make those 4 statements all be true and make sense...

thank you, but I still don't see how a personal pronoun can on the one hand refer to being and on the other refer to distinction in persons....

Originally Posted by Praxeas

thank you, but I still don't see how a personal pronoun can on the one hand refer to being and on the other refer to distinction in persons....

it doesn't make sense, it never was meant to make complete perfect sense in every way because it never did...

oneness doesn't make complete sense Biblically either if you honestly look at it....

If what we say about oneness is absolutely true, why does Paul refer to the Father & Son as seperate things?? Why does Jesus refer to His Father's plan as if it is something different than His own? Why does Jesus essentially beg for His life in Gethsemene? Why does Jesus say he'll send another in reference to the Holy Ghost??

The more I really look and study about what God is, the more I think we just need to shrug our shoulders and admit that we don't know, but that we do know a few things, and those few things are the 4 points I listed in my last post...

[A Cruce Salus]

We don't know everything? Seriously?!!

[Praxeas]

Originally Posted by redeemedcynic84

it doesn't make sense, it never was meant to make complete perfect sense in every way because it never did...

oneness doesn't make complete sense Biblically either if you honestly look at it....

If what we say about oneness is absolutely true, why does Paul refer to the Father & Son as seperate things?? Why does Jesus refer to His Father's plan as if it is something different than His own? Why does Jesus essentially beg for His life in Gethsemene? Why does Jesus say he'll send another in reference to the Holy Ghost??

The more I really look and study about what God is, the more I think we just need to shrug our shoulders and admit that we don't know, but that we do know a few things, and those few things are the 4 points I listed in my last post...

Im just trying to get to the bottem of this sort of Trinitarian view and wording, answering by stating what is wrong with Oneness is not helping. There are plenty of other threads already on Oneness and it has been stated ad nauseum that Oneness is not perfect either

Originally Posted by Praxeas

Im just trying to get to the bottem of this sort of Trinitarian view and wording, answering by stating what is wrong with Oneness is not helping. There are plenty of other threads already on Oneness and it has been stated ad nauseum that Oneness is not perfect either

my point isn't to rip on oneness...

My point is that I don't think it was really intended to make complete perfect sense... It doesn't, and isn't really suppose to...

I garuntee you that the people who put together this theory realized that it doesn't make a ton of sense... They just had no better explanation...

[Praxeas]

Originally Posted by redeemedcynic84

my point isn't to rip on oneness...

My point is that I don't think it was really intended to make complete perfect sense... It doesn't, and isn't really suppose to...

I garuntee you that the people who put together this theory realized that it doesn't make a ton of sense... They just had no better explanation...

Well Im not even bothering to say in principle or concept the Trinity is flawed, though I believe that to be true. My point is that such a way of a Trinitarian explaining their beliefs is self contradictory

Originally Posted by Praxeas

Well Im not even bothering to say in principle or concept the Trinity is flawed, though I believe that to be true. My point is that such a way of a Trinitarian explaining their beliefs is self contradictory

but anytime you try to refer to God in terms of humanity you are not going to be able to explain it on a sensible, logical, and non-contradictory level... There will always be flaws as long as we are trying to explain God in our terms...

but all we have is our terms... To say any view of the Godhead that maintains that there is just one God while confirming Christ's divinity, the Father's divinity, and the Holy Ghost's divinity is flawed is, in my opinion, a flawed view of God and the Bible....

[Darcie]

Originally Posted by Praxeas

Im gonna see if I can persuade Dan to take a quick pic or your knees

Prax, I'm glad to see this lighter side of you!

[mizpeh]

Originally Posted by redeemedcynic84

The reason it is said like that is because Trinitarians believe in one God... They stick to the trinitarian terminology out of tradition...

The way to understand the trinity is to look back at Nicea when they adopted it and understand who/what they were fighting when they adopted it and why they adopted it...

The groups they were trying to eliminate were ones that were teaching that Jesus was not God at all, but the first created thing that then created the Holy Spirit and God gave Jesus all his god-powers who then gave the Holy Spirit all the god-powers, too... (Arians)

There were other groups saying that Jesus wasn't human but some sort of divine vision everyone saw but wasn't really there since God can't become part of the natural world because the natural world was evil and was actually created accidentally by demons (long story)... (Gnostics)

There was still another group that taught that Jesus' Father was not actually YHWH of the Old Testament but that YHWH was evil and a satan-like figure... (Marciuns)

These are the kinds of groups they were fighting in those early days... and they are the kinds of groups the Trinity was adopted to fight... Look at the basics of the Trinity:

1. The Father is God
2. The Son is God
3. The Holy Spirit is God
4. There is one God

that's the jist of it... everything else is just trying to make those 4 statements all be true and make sense...

5. The Father is not the Son, the Son is not the Spirit, and the Spirit is not the Father. This is how Trinitarians attempt to make those statements true.

Oneness do not add anything else to those statements except that the Son is God in the form of a man.

Originally Posted by Praxeas

That seems like an equivocation fallacy though. On the one hand a personal pronoun, such as "he" designates a person. On the other hand it designates a being.

Let's stay on track here. That statement...do you as a Trinitarian agree with it? How do you explain the equivocation where a masculine personal pronoun indicates a person and then later it designates not a person but a being. I'm kinda confused as to how Trinitarians can refer to Father as a HE (person) but then refer to the Trinity as a whole as a He (Person?) or to the Being as a He that is revealed as three He's (persons).

it seems that to some degree Trinitarians see the Trinity as a person on one level that exists as persons on another level....

The question was answered, just not to your satisfaction. I’ll say it again, God is one Being. There isn’t anything wrong with using personal pronoun when speaking about God as one Being. I don't think Trinitarians care either way because it doesn't change the doctrine. I think the problem is that Oneness are using their own definition for the word "person" and not what it meant when it was first used to describe the distinctions. It was about the same time period that the terms “modes” were coined.