Interesting Trinitarian Statement - trithestic?

[Nahum]

Originally Posted by JTULLOCK

That is not what your first post said though. We can not cast someone into the saved and unsaved catagories. I am not arguing symantics. I am arguing that your argument has no foot to stand on. The devil can use confusion to draw people away. But to say that the Devil uses the "trinity" is ubsurd. That is a false argument. Some people baptism a certain way because of Matthew 28:19, some see it differently because of Acts. The truth is that there is only one true Biblical form, but to say the Devil uses Matthew 28:19 to send people to hell....that is really, really a shaky argument.

Let me say that I find it odd that you will not recognize the truth that Ferd has very rudimentarily posted here. That truth is that the devil has always used untruths to mislead humanity. It is what he does. The idea of a trinity hacks away at the very foundation of what and who God is. Of course the devil wants to bring confusion and misinformation into the doctrine of the Godhead. Tritheism acccomplishes this goal in a magnificant way.

Here, we have taken the most simple of biblical truths, which is laced throughout the entire canon, and twisted it into a mangled mess of theological confusion. The Shemah is the foundational truth of Judeo-Christian belief. Our God is ONE. Any attempt to divide His nature into categories defined as persons is futile and akin to blasphemy. There is only one person in God - the man Christ Jesus.

"Hath God said" is the most powerful weapon in the devil's aresnal. It places doubt in the heart of a believer. Doubt in God's word and doubt as to His very nature. The trinity is a "hath God said" issue. It asks the question "Is God who He says He is?" Do we believe His repeated claim of "no other beside me" or do we allow unbelief to crowd that Truth from our minds?

So of course the trinity is a damnable heresy. Of course the devil wants that doctrine propagated. How best to strike at the heart of the humanity/divinity relationship than to confuse humanity as to who God really is?

[Nahum]

Originally Posted by J-Roc

The bible clearly demonstrates that the "name" is referring to authority, not to the utterance of "Jesus" as if it were an incantation.....abracadabra...


The police officer that says "Stop in the name of the law" is not saying to stop based on his utterance of the word "law"....but rather, stop by the authority he possesses as an enforcer of law....

This is a very old, yet slick, argument.

Using your worldly analogy let's consider baptism with any "incantation" uttered. For the sake of discussion, I will assume that you believe that baptism is not effecacious. I will then assume that you believe the commandment to be baptized is an important Christian rite and ordinance to be partaken of by every believer.

With that in mind, why are any words necessary at all during the baptism process? Why do trinitarians hold tightly to an "incantation" of the magical words of "Father, Son, and Holy Ghost"? I mean if the words themselves have no meaning, what's the difference?

I could say "I baptize you into the gospel". Or, "I baptize you into the body".
Truly, in your view it would not matter because there is no menaing or authority in the words or Name spoken at baptism.

Your logic is faulty at best.

[Coonskinner]

I preach a message sometimes called "Three Things the Devil Hates."

This is the text:


Act 5:27 And when they had brought them, they set [them] before the council: and the high priest asked them,


Act 5:28 Saying, Did not we straitly command you that ye should not teach in this name? and, behold, ye have filled Jerusalem with your doctrine, and intend to bring this man's blood upon us.

The devil hates the Name, the Doctrine, and the Blood.

Maybe that's why I love preaching all three so much.

You folks that de-emphasize the importance of speaking that Name are aligning yourselves with the other team.

He don't like it either.

[vrblackwell]

Originally Posted by Coonskinner

I preach a message sometimes called "Three Things the Devil Hates."

This is the text:


Act 5:27 And when they had brought them, they set [them] before the council: and the high priest asked them,


Act 5:28 Saying, Did not we straitly command you that ye should not teach in this name? and, behold, ye have filled Jerusalem with your doctrine, and intend to bring this man's blood upon us.

The devil hates the Name, the Doctrine, and the Blood.

Maybe that's why I love preaching all three so much.

You folks that de-emphasize the importance of speaking that Name are aligning yourselves with the other team.



He don't like it either.

Very good coonskinner. Jesus gave a command to the disciples to baptize in the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit.

Peter and the others preached that you were to be baptized in the name of Jesus. One can only conclude that Jesus is the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit, or that Peter and the other disciples are false teachers. And we know better then that.

You have a serious problem if you do not want to speak the name as opposed to titles. If you are ashamed of his name, he will be ashamed of you.

Those who want to take Christ out of school and government are not opposed to you praying using the title God, Father, Son and such. But they are deathly opposed to you using the name of Jesus. There is a reason for that. There is no other name given under heaven that we can be saved by, it is Jesus, period.

[Praxeas]

Originally Posted by ManOfWord

I was going through some files today, cleaning out my desk and happened upon this article from Robert M. Bowman Jr. Many of you are probably familiar with him as he is/was part of the CRI, that I think Walter Martin was a part of. As I perused the article, I read the statement below. The article is an outline of "The Biblical Basis of the Doctrine of the Trinity."




"Over 7000 times God speaks or is spoken of with singular pronouns (I, He, etc.); but this is proper because God is a single individual being; thus these singular forms do not disprove that God exists as three "persons" as long as these persons are NOT separate beings."




I know that many trinitarians are confused, but I thought that this was a very interesting statement.

This is interesting as I hear Trinitarians do this quite often. One the one hand plural pronouns prove three persons in their view yet singular pronouns shows singular being...what a contradiction! Either there is One person/being and some other explanation for the plural pronouns OR there are three beings/persons and thus tritheism.

So too they use singular personal pronouns to show or prove singular persons communicating with another singular person in a singular being/Godhead...so one the one hand it shows the trinity persons speaking to each other and on the other it does not but shows a singular being that is tri-personal.

You can't get more contradictory than that and this shows one reason why the pronoun argument is flawed.

[Praxeas]

Originally Posted by ManOfWord

I was going through some files today, cleaning out my desk and happened upon this article from Robert M. Bowman Jr. Many of you are probably familiar with him as he is/was part of the CRI, that I think Walter Martin was a part of. As I perused the article, I read the statement below. The article is an outline of "The Biblical Basis of the Doctrine of the Trinity."




"Over 7000 times God speaks or is spoken of with singular pronouns (I, He, etc.); but this is proper because God is a single individual being; thus these singular forms do not disprove that God exists as three "persons" as long as these persons are NOT separate beings."




I know that many trinitarians are confused, but I thought that this was a very interesting statement.

BTW I might be able to get RB to come here if anyone wants to tackle with him, but I warn you he speaks better greek then he does english (kidding).l

[Praxeas]

Originally Posted by Daniel Alicea

When we try explain the Godhead to a monotheistic Jew or Muslim ... whether we use the word MANIFESTATION OR PERSON ... both Trinitarians and Oneness Christians sound like they are dividing God.

The Jew or Muslim has no tolerance for these type of nuances ...

We keep on playing this game of semantics .... and it makes us feel so proud that we UNDERSTAND it ALL .... yet, its simple, both believe in ONE GOD ... there has never been any debate about this point.

DISAGREE! it really depends on the 'we' that is speaking. There is no explaining to a Muslim to begin with because there is no son of God...not Adam nor angels or the Messiah. 2 there is no multifacedness of God either, nor theophany nor any such thing.

But Jews have believed in the Logos/Memra. And they have believed in manifestations of God and they have believed in a God that is multifaceted, if not personal. They might not all believe that but many have and do.

Jews believe in Yahweh. Jews believe in the Ruach of Yahweh. Jews believe in the Memra of Yahweh. Jews believe in the Yahweh that is transcendent and yet believe in the Yahweh that appeared to Abraham and rained fire down on Sodom out of Yahweh from heaven.

Islam is a whole different ball of turkish coffee

[Praxeas]

Originally Posted by Michael The Disciple

Trins say the SECOND PERSON of God came in the flesh. This is error.

Yes but classical Trinitarianism would confess that was GOD incarnate since one can not separate person from Deity as far as they are concerned. I believe many Trinitarians have fallen into error (Trinity) and away from their own classical historical teachings by the mere fact that they have tried to come up with great sounding arguments against other groups like Oneness

[Praxeas]

Originally Posted by H2H

Can't speak for other oneness here, but I for one certainly believe God existed outside and apart from (or in addition to) the incarnation.

What you just said is a contradiction in terms. What is it? God existed apart from or in addition to?

It's one thing to say God existed as incarnate man AND continues to exist external to the incarnation and another to say apart from. Apart is separation, not merely distinction.

Let me give an analogy. Take an empty bottle and put it in a pond and then take it to your house...that water is now separated and divided from the pond.

Take same bottle and drop it into the pond. The water is inside the bottem and outside the bottle and is not separated or disconnected.

That is an analogy only, not meant to be an example.

Another example might be a balloon. The air fills the balloon and permeates the skin of the balloon and exists outside of the balloon

[Praxeas]

Originally Posted by H2H

The Trinitarians choose to explain God and the distinctions between the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit as persons. While Oneness recognizes the same distinctions they do not use the same language. I am not comfortable with "persons".

I strongly disagree. It's not merely a matter of what words one is using for preference. We do NOT believe in the same distinctions. We DO believe in distinctions but they are NOT distinct for the same reasons. Trinitarians believe that distinction is one of Person or Hypostasis and if we believe in the same distinction we might as well say persons