Quote:
Originally Posted by Praxeas
Im just informing you of what Oneness is and is not. Do I really need to rehash all that again?
Let's start with the OT that teaches God is one HE.
The Son is that same God, so the Son is that same HE. Really..haven't we done this before?
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Yes we have which is why I'm trying to tread lightly. You say God is one HE. I am with you so far. You say the Son is that same God and so is the same HE. I'm still with you so far.
Except there's verses like
John 5:26:
For as the Father hath life in himself; so hath he given to the Son to have life in himself;
Now, hear me out. I'm not saying your oneness doctrine cannot explain this verse. I'm not going to bring that up because we've already discussed that to many times. I get it I really do. Your oneness doctrine works.
My contention this time isn't whether it works. My contention is whether your oneness explanation is the only viable explanation for the relationships between Jesus, the Father and God. I think there is more than one solution for the problem at hand.
That is why I ask how you were certain there was only 1 doer of actions? I don't think there is any way you can be certain and to prove that I want to submit an alternate theory.
Instead of starting with the foundation that God is one person and interpreting all other events from that perspective I'm going to start with a different foundation.
My foundation is going to be that in
John 5:26 and all throughout the new testament Jesus and the Father are distunguished from each other and yet both are shown to be God. I'm going to choose to call them manifestations for my new doctrine. So Jesus and the Father are two different manifestations that are each God. However we read in the old testament that there is only one God. OPPS! It almost sounds like we have two gods since we have two manifestations that are each God. So the next step in my doctrine is to explain that God is a single person and manifests himself in different manifestations (sometimes even at the same time) and that's how both Jesus and the Father are both God and appear and interact with each other.
I think this sounds pretty parallel to your doctrine so far. It's just my starting point and terms are a little different but the meaning between our two explanation is basically the same. Wouldn't you agree?
Now with this established I want to make a small change in terminology. Instead of saying God is a person, I'm instead going to refer to God as a being and let everything else be the same. I have a being that manifests himself in different manifestations. I think you'll agree that this change isn't really a problem as long as I change my definition of being to be similiar to what my definition of person previously meant. If I make that change then everything is still essentially the same, I'm just using different terms to explain the same concept.
Now I want to make one more minor change. Instead of calling Jesus and the Father manifestations, I am going to change my term to person. Jesus and the Father are both persons. As long as my new term persons means something similiar to what I previously meant by manifestation then I've still not really changed anything.
Now I have a doctrine that is essentially the same as Prax's except I use slightly different terminology (I just tie different meanings to my terms than Prax does). Why would I rather use person for Jesus and the Father instead of being? The biggest reason is because Jesus and the Father have personal relationships with each other and so it only seems fair in my mind to denote them as different or distinct persons.
And there is my case that Prax's oneness view and the trinity both carry the same meaning.
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