The Nicene Creed

Open Heart

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All that would depend on "divinity" meaning Elohim, or something more.

I believe Yeshua was Elohim, but not the Father. John 14:28
Well that's the whole tricky thing, isn't it? We know that Jesus is divine, but what exactly is his relationship to the Father? If he is a completely seperate god, then you end up right back with good old pagan polytheism. If you opt for modalism and state that Jesus is the Father, you end up with a mess of problems like Jesus praying to himself. Only in Trinitarianism can you have Jesus being divine, there being just ONE God, and Jesus NOT being the Father.
 
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ContraMundum

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I am looking for proof from the creed or scriptures. I know what modern theology teaches.

Both ancient and modern theology got its proof from the scriptures....I don't understand your question anymore. Makes no sense.
 
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Well that would make sense, I think I read somewhere that none of the Jewish bishops were invited to attend?

I doubt that very much- sounds like it came off of the back of a Corn Flakes box. I'd like to know if there were any Jewish bishops around at the time.
 
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JeffTheLearner

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I believe this creed was designed to cause divisions where no required division was to be made, and is in direct defiance of Paul's commands in avoiding unnecessary schisms.

This whole deal was the pet project of the Bishop Alexander of Alexandria as an attempt to gain more political power for himself, and was adopted by the Romans to divide the more Jewish minded believers within the Eastern territories from the Roman nationalist minded believers in the Western territories of the Empire.

Many beforehand debated this issue whether The Son was created of The Father, or that if Messiah was a manifestation of The Father (I have my own bias) ...but the whole deal is that many of the head elders of the assemblies held the idea at the time of this schism, that no such restriction should be made on believers of either persuasion.

What as a result became of this was an infiltration of Roman Nationalist into the Church provoking and exploiting this brotherly dispute as an all out cause to remove a Heavenly Nationalism with much Jewish Roots ingrained, and morphing it into a system resembling more adherence to a Roman Nationalism.

Constantine had everything to gain in this, and seeing his father fruitlessly torment, and slaughter believers of his own kingdom to no avail, as did all the Roman Emperors beforehand ...it seems Constantine took the more crafty route and exploited the weakness within Messiahs assembly, and created a forum where the Church would devour itself.

If you don't believe me as to his intentions and character, then why would such a believer as Constantine first condemn such practices, exile many, and then in turn be baptized by one of the very people that he exiled who was opposed to this creed? Or even so, why would he have another one whom he exiled for opposing this creed read his eulogy at death, and also honoring such by having him appropriate his kingdom among his heirs?

This is not how someone acts among those whom they feel are heretical, and apostate of the Church ...this is how someone acts who does not care.

But anyways people cherry~pick this one "Council" when in reality there were 25 of them, TWENTY-FIVE! Of which only 7 of them were won to this Creed, and 15 were won to those who opposed this Creed, the rest being a draw.

You can thank the Tyrant Theodosius I, who exploited this dwindling mindset among the heartfelt Roman Nationalist who remained in Spain, and who also used this schism in their bias to pedestal his seat of power later inflicting tyranny in the Church and mass bloodshed among open dissenters. He is the reason why you are told what your faith should be today.
 
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pat34lee

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Both ancient and modern theology got its proof from the scriptures....I don't understand your question anymore. Makes no sense.

I responded, but my post got deleted. Once I can get this Nicene mess sorted, I'll repost it.
 
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I believe this creed was designed to cause divisions where no required division was to be made, and is in direct defiance of Paul's commands in avoiding unnecessary schisms.

This whole deal was the pet project of the Bishop Alexander of Alexandria as an attempt to gain more political power for himself, and was adopted by the Romans to divide the more Jewish minded believers within the Eastern territories from the Roman nationalist minded believers in the Western territories of the Empire.

Many beforehand debated this issue whether The Son was created of The Father, or that if Messiah was a manifestation of The Father (I have my own bias) ...but the whole deal is that many of the head elders of the assemblies held the idea at the time of this schism, that no such restriction should be made on believers of either persuasion.

What as a result became of this was an infiltration of Roman Nationalist into the Church provoking and exploiting this brotherly dispute as an all out cause to remove a Heavenly Nationalism with much Jewish Roots ingrained, and morphing it into a system resembling more adherence to a Roman Nationalism.

Constantine had everything to gain in this, and seeing his father fruitlessly torment, and slaughter believers of his own kingdom to no avail, as did all the Roman Emperors beforehand ...it seems Constantine took the more crafty route and exploited the weakness within Messiahs assembly, and created a forum where the Church would devour itself.

If you don't believe me as to his intentions and character, then why would such a believer as Constantine first condemn such practices, exile many, and then in turn be baptized by one of the very people that he exiled who was opposed to this creed? Or even so, why would he have another one whom he exiled for opposing this creed read his eulogy at death, and also honoring such by having him appropriate his kingdom among his heirs?

This is not how someone acts among those whom they feel are heretical, and apostate of the Church ...this is how someone acts who does not care.

But anyways people cherry~pick this one "Council" when in reality there were 25 of them, TWENTY-FIVE! Of which only 7 of them were won to this Creed, and 15 were won to those who opposed this Creed, the rest being a draw.

You can thank the Tyrant Theodosius I, who exploited this dwindling mindset among the heartfelt Roman Nationalist who remained in Spain, and who also used this schism in their bias to pedestal his seat of power later inflicting tyranny in the Church and mass bloodshed among open dissenters. He is the reason why you are told what your faith should be today.

Jeff....where did you get your information from?
 
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Dave-W

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I was talking to Stuart Dauermann one day about the Nicene Creed and he was of the opinion that while it was necessary for the Church, that Messianic Judaism was pre-Nicean in origin and not bound by the Creed. He felt that the whole Greek philosophical approach to understanding the divinity of Christ was foreign to Jews. He could imagine a day when the Rabbinical Council, while affirming the divinity of Christ, worked out its own wording as to the relationship of the Son to the Father along the lines of Jewish thinking. That is not to say he is anti-trinitarian.
Yeah that sounds right for Dauermann. (I was in a choir led by him once) On that point he and Juster agree. (they disagree on a lot of other points) I would love to see them sit down and hammer out a Jewish-friendly wording for the Creed.
 
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Dave-W

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We believe in one holy catholic and apostolic Church.
Some may try to tell you that the church mentioned above is the Roman Catholic Church, but in the creed, catholic just means universal.
I have joked with some Orthodox christians who recite this why they are paying homage to Rome.

Most protestant churches that recite it change "catholic" to "universal."
 
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JeffTheLearner

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Jeff....where did you get your information from?

From so many sources it's hard to just nail down a few, but I have a personal library consisting of many books on Church History specifically between 100AD and 400AD. I also have read a large amount of 16th through 18th century English books detailing much similar info ...not many people know this, but in England's colonial days they also did a huge amount of manuscript collecting, much around Arabia, North Africa, and also did much work with other European nation's in manuscript hunting. What this produced is a large amount of publications that you can find printed out in 16th/18th century English books, many of which you can find for free online on Google, or the Internet Archive.

But also following various books on Roman Emperors starting with Julius Ceasar and onward, and following the characters within the details will also rabbit trail you to mix in other info sources.

However you can find much of this info if you review all the "Council's" concerning the "Arain Controversy" there are 25 of them, also reading the Creeds of Arius, or of the "Arian Orthodoxy" post Theodosius I, for several of Constantines heirs were anti-Trinitarian, but also much of these details are listed in Eusebius of Caesarea Church History ...it don't take much research to find that he and his fellow brethren were exiled by Constantine, but also reading books about the Palestinian martyrs, and the books of the Syrian Church will render much additional info.

...I'm not the only one to come to such conclusions, but also many OLD-SCHOOL Unitarian's (not modern) have come to the same conclusions. It is a bit of a chaotic mess of info, but there is some order, you just have to understand many of these books about Arius were burned, and many zealous Romanist altered much, and slaughtered many. Not many people know, But Rome's Barbarian overthrow was Arian believers who before that time were seen as Roman, but ransacked Rome destroying many of it's pagan idol's. For this Charlemagne made sure to wipe them completely out of existence for this at a later date when Roman Empire became The Holy Roman Empire and was once again stabilized under monarchies, and it's state church.
 
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BukiRob

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Well that's the whole tricky thing, isn't it? We know that Jesus is divine, but what exactly is his relationship to the Father? If he is a completely seperate god, then you end up right back with good old pagan polytheism. If you opt for modalism and state that Jesus is the Father, you end up with a mess of problems like Jesus praying to himself. Only in Trinitarianism can you have Jesus being divine, there being just ONE God, and Jesus NOT being the Father.

I think we're not told and it is at best vague. To assume modalism is impossible is a bit arrogant and preassumes that we have a complete, total understanding of our universe and have a total understanding of time/space which we positively, absolutely do not possess.
 
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pat34lee

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Let's see if this gets erased again or if they got the message.

If you go by the wording of the Nicene Creed and scripture, is there anything that says Yeshua had divine powers as a human? IOW, was he 100% God and 100% man at the same time? Or did he lay aside his divinity to become 100% human for the duration of his life here?
 
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Open Heart

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I think we're not told and it is at best vague. To assume modalism is impossible is a bit arrogant and preassumes that we have a complete, total understanding of our universe and have a total understanding of time/space which we positively, absolutely do not possess.
Certainly it would be untrue to say that all the Bible verses line up with Trinitarianism and none of them support Modalism. However, the most honest position is to say that the bulk of scripture lines up better with Trinitarianism than with Modalism. It's quite convenient too, as with Modalism you are left with having to explain why the gates of hell prevailed against the Church in its universal acceptance of Trinitarianism.
 
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pat34lee

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Certainly it would be untrue to say that all the Bible verses line up with Trinitarianism and none of them support Modalism. However, the most honest position is to say that the bulk of scripture lines up better with Trinitarianism than with Modalism. It's quite convenient too, as with Modalism you are left with having to explain why the gates of hell prevailed against the Church in its universal acceptance of Trinitarianism.

That is one pebble in a mountain of false doctrines and traditions in the church system.
 
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Certainly it would be untrue to say that all the Bible verses line up with Trinitarianism and none of them support Modalism. However, the most honest position is to say that the bulk of scripture lines up better with Trinitarianism than with Modalism. It's quite convenient too, as with Modalism you are left with having to explain why the gates of hell prevailed against the Church in its universal acceptance of Trinitarianism.

There are problems with both stances and that is a fact. Neither you, I or anyone alive has an adequate understanding of time and of space/time to know that answer completely.

Here is what I do know for certain. ONLY Gd can forgive sin. Yeshua forgave sin of those who did not sin against him directly. Only Gd can do that. Not man.
 
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Open Heart

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Here is what I do know for certain. ONLY Gd can forgive sin. Yeshua forgave sin of those who did not sin against him directly. Only Gd can do that. Not man.
You can't stop at saying Jesus is divine. It begs too many questions and allows for too many horrible alternative explanations.
 
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ContraMundum

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From so many sources it's hard to just nail down a few, but I have a personal library consisting of many books on Church History specifically between 100AD and 400AD. I also have read a large amount of 16th through 18th century English books detailing much similar info ...not many people know this, but in England's colonial days they also did a huge amount of manuscript collecting, much around Arabia, North Africa, and also did much work with other European nation's in manuscript hunting. What this produced is a large amount of publications that you can find printed out in 16th/18th century English books, many of which you can find for free online on Google, or the Internet Archive.

But also following various books on Roman Emperors starting with Julius Ceasar and onward, and following the characters within the details will also rabbit trail you to mix in other info sources.

However you can find much of this info if you review all the "Council's" concerning the "Arain Controversy" there are 25 of them, also reading the Creeds of Arius, or of the "Arian Orthodoxy" post Theodosius I, for several of Constantines heirs were anti-Trinitarian, but also much of these details are listed in Eusebius of Caesarea Church History ...it don't take much research to find that he and his fellow brethren were exiled by Constantine, but also reading books about the Palestinian martyrs, and the books of the Syrian Church will render much additional info.

...I'm not the only one to come to such conclusions, but also many OLD-SCHOOL Unitarian's (not modern) have come to the same conclusions. It is a bit of a chaotic mess of info, but there is some order, you just have to understand many of these books about Arius were burned, and many zealous Romanist altered much, and slaughtered many. Not many people know, But Rome's Barbarian overthrow was Arian believers who before that time were seen as Roman, but ransacked Rome destroying many of it's pagan idol's. For this Charlemagne made sure to wipe them completely out of existence for this at a later date when Roman Empire became The Holy Roman Empire and was once again stabilized under monarchies, and it's state church.

I know the sources well. I was more interested in what led you to that particular interpretation of history. I get it now.
 
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