Non-Trinitarianism is unscriptural

Butch5 said:

A person is a being. An essence is abstract, it's not a thing. A divine essence needs a noun. It in and of itself is not a thing. A person has essence, a rock has an essence, etc. But an essence in and of itself is not a thing. You can say the Father has a divine essence or the Son of the Spirit. But you can't say that the "divine essence" is God.

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Indeed, and I do not say that. Nor do I suggest the essence is a "thing" in the sense that a thing might be regarded as finite, immanent, describable, bounded and mutable.

Butch5 said:

Let me ask you, you said you believe in one God. Is that God the Father, God the Son, God the Spirit, or is there a divine essence that is God?

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The Father, Son and Holy Ghost are God. They are distinct but not separated or divided persons who are of one divine essence. The person of the Son is also hypostatically united with humanity.

Butch5 said:

You have to have an object to have an essence. An essence doesn't just exist. It's not a concrete thing. It is the qualities or properties of a thing. Therefore you can't have a divine essence that consists of the Father, Son, and Spirit.

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The Father, Son and Spirit are God, and the divine essence could be said to be the qualities or properties of God to the extent that God can be said to have qualities or properties.

cgaviria said:

I was correct in the usage of alludes. Look it up on google. https://www.google.com/webhp?sourceid=chrome-instant&ion=1&espv=2&ie=UTF-8#q=alludes

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"Its [sic] alludes you" is not in fact correct; "It alludes to you" might be hypothetically, but in the context of:

cgaviria said:

Its alludes you and you are blind to it and you want to see things your way.

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It is fairly clear the word you were searching for was "eludes," as in "elusive."

cgaviria said:

You are making your own interpretation that "word" refers to ONLY OT prophecy and I am making the interpretation that "word" refers to the Genesis account because even in the very opening of John 1 it says "in the beginning", therefore it is referring to the Genesis account, not OT prophecy as you just erroneously stating. Its logical. You are reproaching me for making my own interpretation when you yourself are making your own interpretation as well. Who is correct in interpreting? Whoever can harmonize all the scriptures at once. So far I have harmonized them better than you and you are still rejecting them because you want to believe what you want to believe.

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On the contrary, nowhere did I say that "Word" refers only to prophecy, although there is in fact Christological prophecy in Genesis interestingly enough. Even less did I link it to the OT books of the Prophets (Ezekiel, Daniel, Malachi, Isaiah, et cetera). You have a tendency to indulge in unfounded inference.

cgaviria said:

And also at this point lets just agree to disagree because I am exhausted going around in circles with you concerning this topic. I am absolutely convinced about this topic, its actually not difficult to understand, but its clear you refuse to believe so lets just move on to another topic. I created a topic about the Spirit in another post and I'd be curious as to what your opinion about that is. Is trinity the only thing you know about and only defend? Id hope not.

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I never "agree to disagree;" I am not John Wesley. My objective in this thread was to show that non-Trinitarianism is not scriptural, and that its advocates cannot argue it without rejecting a literal eisegesis of John 1:1-14 and several other texts, and without resorting to arguments against Roman Catholicism or other red herrings. I believe that I have made my point with the assistance of other Nicene members very conclusively.

Regarding your other post; I will look into it. I am certainly not a doctrinal one trick pony, so if someone engages in pneumatological error of the sort I find it interesting to address, I will certainly do so.

Butch5 said:

It sounds to me that you lean towards Modalism which is not what the Nicene creed teaches. You said they're distinct but not separate. That doesn't make sense. If they are not separate then they are one. If they are one, one cannot be distinct from itself.

This is the fundamental problem with the Anthanasian creed. It seems to me that you hold the idea of the Trinity found in the Anthanasian creed, not the Nicene creed. When I asked you how you saw the Shema in light of the Nicene creed you said you believe in one God. I noticed that you stopped short of finishing that sentence from the Nicene creed, which says, "I believe in one God, the Father." Note that the authors of the Nicene creed acknkowledge Jesus as God and at the same time there said, "I believe in one God the Father." That means either they contradicted themselves or they meant something different by the phrase, " I believe in one God, the Father," than most Christians think.

I understand that Jesus is God and I agree with the creed which says, " I believe in one God, the Father."

The question that has to be answered is, how can Jesus be God and yet the statement, "I believe in one God, the Father," be true?

Now, you're back to three.

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On this point, what you are basically doing is attempting to sneak a semi-Arian interpretarion past the Nicene Creed through eisegesis, while explicitly accusing us of Sabellianism. In response to this, I urge you to read the Panarion of St. Epiphanius of Salamis, the fourth century Nicene father who addresses carefully these various errors (you will need both volumes). As far as your assumption that I prefer the Athanasian Creed to the Nicene, this is simply false, the Athanasian is wordy, pseudepipgraphical and in most if not all English renderings contains the filioque.

Now to clarify on the Modalist error of Sabellius, this is essentially the conceit that there is one person of the Trinity who functions variously as Father, Son and Holy Ghost deoending on context, age or dispensation. It is as grave an error as the Arian views which I have spent this thread addressing; in modern times it is chiefly associated with the Oneness Pentecostals.

Imagican said:

Yet the Bible informs us that WE TOO were created in the IMAGE of God.

Since we KNOW that the image isn't PHYSICAL, what's left?

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In fact, that is a Christological error. Our Lord is the icon of the Father, and is God, and we are created in His image. This is why Orthodox icons of saints tend to various degrees to resemble those of the Lord.

Imagican said:

So in essence, (no pun intended), aren't we too, at least in PART, of the same essence of that which created us 'in their image'? For we are told that we TOO can be 'sons of God'.

Think about this: The longer we exist on this planet, the CLOSER we become to 'creator'. I would imagine that IF we were capable of residing on this planet without interruption, LONG ENOUGH, eventually we will learn HOW to produce 'life itself'. We are getting closer and closer every day.

If we were capable of producing life, (ultimate 'creation'), would we THEN be GODS? I mean we are already becoming capable of altering and CONTROLLING life. The evidence is there whether one accepts it or not.

My point is essence. Isn't at least a PART of the essence that IS God or Christ a PART of us?

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This theological perspective is novel, interesting, vaguely evocative of Mormonism (although not Mormon) and entirely wrong. Humans can become gods according to energies, deification per Theosis, through obedience to God and the participation and cooperation with his energies (see Ss. Irenaeus, Athanasius, Basil, Gregory Palamas, Thomas Aquinas). What you describe is however an ontological ascent according to essence, which is basically polytheistic. It does not contradict your argument that God is somehow externally constrained, but it does contradict your belief, and my belief, that God is immutable, in that for humans to be Gods according to essence and ontology we should be immutable; also such an apotheosis as you describe would violate divine immutability.

What differentiates your view from the Mormon belief in apotheosis is that the Mormons unambiguously recognize the deity of Jesus Christ, whereas you seem to equivocate on this point. It seems rather like you want to view Jesus Christ as not God while laying a path for humans to be regarded as gods.

Imagican said:

And then consider that Christ stated that His wish for US is to be ONE with Him and God as They are ONE with each other. And obviously this isn't offering that His wish is for US to be a 'part of trinity'. That the 'oneness' mentioned has NOTHING to do with 'three persons that make up ONE God'. Otherwise, if WE TOO were ONE with Them, that would DESTROY 'trinity'.

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Not if we are united according to energies rather than essence. Theosis rather than apotheosis.

Imagican said:

I would offer that if we take ALL scripture into account, if there is ONE SINGLE LINE that refutes 'trinity', then John 1 is obviously MIStranslated by those that follow 'trinity'. I can offer dozens.

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By this same argument, as has been pointed out, "ONE SINGLE LINE" (a strange expression in relationship to the Bible) should be enough to disprove non-Trinitarianism. Of course, unlike some members, I do not do eisegesis. That said, my point in the OP that non-Trinitarianism is basically incompatible with John 1 is once again shown to be true, in that here, you propose that the literal reading of John 1:1 is inferior to a literal reading of other verses according to an implicit hierarchy. The fallacy of your position is shown by expressing it, sans rhetoric, as "If any verse contradicts the literal interpretation of John 1:1, then John 1:1 is misinterpreted, whereas if John 1:1 contradicts a literal interpretation of any other verse, then John 1:1 is wrong."

This entire post demonstrates the dangers of special pleading, eisegesis and logical inconsistency. It simply plays into my argument.

It will play into it even more if you intended to argue John 1:1 is mistranslated from the Greek, since not only is this false, but it also spectacularly proves my point that John 1:1 refutes non-Trinitarianism.