Can You Be a Christian and Deny the Trinity?

[redleghunter]

That doesn't answer the question.

Yes it actually does. God progressively revealed Himself throughout the Scriptures.

 

[redleghunter]

Understanding the Blessed Trinity is different. Especially trying to define it as to how someone comprehends it.
The main thing is the acknowledging that the Trinity are 3 in 1.

Indeed and I already posted this for reference.

 

[Need answers]

What do the Scriptures reveal?

There is One God.

The Scriptures reveal:

The Father as God with attributes and titles of Deity.

The Son as God with attributes and titles of Deity.

The Holy Spirit as God with attributes and titles of Deity.

Biblically we have One Almighty God. The Father is God, the Son is God and the Holy Spirit is God. That is why we say our Triune God.

I would gather most misunderstandings about the Trinity stem from a general lack of knowledge of Christology or the Person, Nature and role of Jesus Christ.

More here: https://www.theopedia.com/hypostatic-union

Whats wrong with seeing them as separate people? Why does Jesus need to be the Father?

 

[Charlie24]

Understanding the Blessed Trinity is different. Especially trying to define it as to how someone comprehends it.
The main thing is the acknowledging that the Trinity are 3 in 1.

I agree.

Christians that I know don't deny the 3 in 1 as you put it, they deny the explanations that so many give and have no reference to scripture. In other words, the explanations are based on opinion.

 

[☦Marius☦]

To deny God is to deny salvation. The Holy Spirit proseeds from both the father and the son because he is the union of the first two persons. You see, in order for a perfect Unity the two must be fully separate and yet completely United. that is why reality is summed up in the primordial reality of the trinity. Perfect love must eternally unite and yet not destroy any. When a husband and a wife have been married for a long time they are in some ways as one person and yet they do not lose themselves.

And so salvation is the image of the trinity. just because Orthodox might be more traditionalistic than even the Catholic church... it does not mean that they are always right. Time and time again Jesus was battling with the religious of his day. What makes these prideful religious people think they did not fall into the same pit? You trust your councils of men more than you trust the Holy Spirit. You put your faith in The Works of your own hands just like Israel did.

"these prideful religious people" were battling a heresy that Christ was an evolved creature. Jesus was battling the religious hypocrites of his day, not the religious. Does not Paul claim to be a loyal Pharisee until the end keeping all of the law? The church Councils are trusted because the Councils are what the Apostles established as the way to form doctrine. See the council of Jerusalem in acts. We simply obey that system because they taught that the Holy Spirit was present at the council and determined the decisions, just as it did in the Ecumenical Councils. Look at the disunity among those who do not follow the Councils and how much they despise each other.

 

[martymonster]

What do you believe in?

This

Joh 10:30 I and my Father are one.

 

[☦Marius☦]

I dont see it. Here is the one i read.


Contemporary Version
I believe in God, the Father almighty,
creator of heaven and earth.

I believe in Jesus Christ, his only Son, our Lord.
He was conceived by the power of the Holy Spirit
and born of the Virgin Mary.
He suffered under Pontius Pilate,
was crucified, died, and was buried.
He descended to the dead.
On the third day he rose again.
He ascended into heaven,
and is seated at the right hand of the Father.
He will come again to judge the living and the dead.

I believe in the Holy Spirit,
the holy catholic Church*,
the communion of saints,
the forgiveness of sins,
the resurrection of the body,
and the life everlasting. Amen.

"It is remarkable that despite the fact that its founder and earliest protagonists were to a man monotheistic Jews, Christianity, while zealous to preserve Jewish monotheism, came to enunciate a non-Unitarian concept of God. On the Christian view God is not a single person, as traditionally conceived, but is tri-personal. There are three persons, denominated the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit, who deserve to be called God, and yet there is but one God, not three. This startling re-thinking of Jewish monotheism doubtless grew out of reflection on the radical self-understanding of Jesus of Nazareth himself and on the charismatic experience of the early Church. Although many New Testament critics have called into question the historical Jesus’ use of explicit Christological titles, a very strong historical case can be made for Jesus’ self-understanding as the Son of man (a divine-human eschatological figure in Daniel 7) and the unique Son of God (Matt. 11.27; Mk. 13.2; Lk. 20.9-16). Moreover, something of a consensus has emerged among New Testament critics that in his teachings and actions—such as his assertion of personal authority, his revising of the divinely given Mosaic Law, his proclamation of the in-breaking of God’s Reign or Kingdom into history in his person, his performing miracles and exorcisms as signs of the advent of that Kingdom, his Messianic pretensions to restore Israel, and his claim to forgive sins—in all these ways Jesus enunciated an implicit Christology whereby he put himself in God’s place. The German theologian Horst Georg Pöhlmann reports,

This unheard of claim to authority, as it comes to expression in the antitheses of the Sermon on the Mount, for example, is implicit Christology, since it presupposes a unity of Jesus with God that is deeper than that of all men, namely a unity of essence. This . . . claim to authority is explicable only from the side of his deity. This authority only God himself can claim. With regard to Jesus there are only two possible modes of behavior; either to believe that in him God encounters us or to nail him to the cross as a blasphemer. Tertium non datur. [1]

Moreover, the post-Easter church continued to experience the presence and power of Christ among them, despite his physical absence. Jesus himself had been a charismatic, imbued with the Spirit of God, and the Jesus movement which followed him was likewise a charismatic fellowship which experienced individually and corporately the supernatural filling and gifts of the Holy Spirit. The Spirit was thought to stand in the place of the risen and ascended Christ and to continue in his temporary absence his ministry to his people (Jn. 7.39; 14.16-17; 15.26; 16.7-16; Rom. 8.9, 10; Gal. 4.6).

In the pages of the New Testament, then, we find the raw data which the doctrine of the Trinity later sought to formulate in a systematic way. The New Testament church remained faithful to its heritage of Jewish monotheism in affirming that there is only one God (Mk 12.29; Rom. 3.29-30a; I Cor. 8.4; Jas. 2.19; I Tim. 2.5). In accord with the portrayal of God in the Old Testament (Is. 63.16) and the teaching of Jesus (Mt. 6.9), Christians also conceived of God as Father, a distinct person from Jesus His Son (Mt. 11.27; 26.39; Mk. 1.9-11; Jn. 17.5ff). Indeed, in New Testament usage, “God” (ho theos) typically refers to God the Father (e.g., Gal. 4.4-6). Now this occasioned a problem for the New Testament church: If “God” designates the Father, how can one affirm the deity of Christ without identifying him as the Father? In response to this difficulty the New Testament writers appropriated the word for God’s name (Yahweh) in the Old Testament as it appears in Greek translation in the Septuagint (kyrios = Lord) and called Jesus Lord, applying to him Old Testament proof-texts concerning Yahweh (e.g., Rom. 10.9, 13). Indeed, the confession “Jesus is Lord” was the central confession of the early church (I Cor. 12.3), and they addressed Jesus in prayer as Lord (I Cor. 16.22b). This difference-in-sameness can lead to odd locutions like Paul’s confession “we believe in one God, the Father, from whom are all things and for whom we exist, and one Lord, Jesus Christ, through whom are all things and through whom we exist” (I Cor. 8.6). Furthermore, as this passage intimates, the New Testament church, not content with use of divine nomenclature for Christ, also ascribed to him God’s role as the Creator and Sustainer of all reality apart from God (Col. 1. 15-20; Heb 1.1-3; Jn 1.1-3). In places restraint is thrown to the winds, and Jesus is explicitly affirmed to be (ho)theos (Jn. 1.1, 18; 20.28; Rom. 9.5; Heb. 1.8-12; Tit. 2.13; I Jn. 5.20). Noting that the oldest Christian sermon, the oldest account of a Christian martyr, the oldest pagan report of the church, and the oldest liturgical prayer (I Cor. 16.22) all refer to Christ as Lord and God, Jaroslav Pelikan, the great historian of Christian thought, concludes, “Clearly it was the message of what the church believed and taught that ‘God’ was an appropriate name for Jesus Christ.” [2]

Finally, the Holy Spirit, who is also identified as God (Acts 5.3-4) and the Spirit of God (Mt. 12.28; I Cor. 6.11), is conceived as personally distinct from both the Father and the Son (Mt. 28.19; Lk 11.13; Jn. 14.26; 15.26; Rom. 8. 26-27; II Cor. 13.14; I Pet. 1.1-2). As these and other passages make clear, the Holy Spirit is not an impersonal force, but a personal reality who teaches and intercedes for believers, who possesses a mind, who can be grieved and lied to, and who is ranked as an equal partner with the Father and the Son.

In short, the New Testament church was sure that only one God existed. But they also believed that the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit, while personally distinct, all deserved to be called God.

 

[☦Marius☦]

Whats wrong with seeing them as separate people? Why does Jesus need to be the Father?

Because that would be polytheism.

 

[redleghunter]

Whats wrong with seeing them as separate people? Why does Jesus need to be the Father?

Jesus is not the Father. The creeds do not teach this.

This may be informative:

Our Triune God

 

[HARK!]

Yes it actually does. God progressively revealed Himself throughout the Scriptures.

No, it actually doesn't. Again, how would Abraham have known?

 

[Need answers]

Jesus is not the Father. The creeds do not teach this.

This may be informative:

Our Triune God

I didn't think it did teach that. I thought that's what people mean when they say "one God".

 

[redleghunter]

Because that would be polytheism.

Or at least the Mormon version of tritheism.

 

[redleghunter]

No, it actually doesn't. Again, how would Abraham have known?

Abraham knew the One True God YHWH as YHWH revealed Himself to Abraham.

 

[redleghunter]

I didn't think it did teach that. I thought that's what people mean when they say "one God".

https://www.theopedia.com/trinity

 

[HARK!]

Abraham knew the One True God YHWH as YHWH revealed Himself to Abraham.

I would answer, "No." If you don’t believe in the Trinity, then you don’t understand who God is.

 

[redleghunter]

Now look at the title of the thread.

 

[Rescued One]

The God in the bible.

Separating the bible and the creeds is important.

From the creeds we get some anti-christian notions such as cursing people who don't believe what's written in said creeds.

Explaining the truth about the God Who created us, is not cursing the unbelievers. They are condemned already if they don't believe in the Only True God. John 3:18.

 

[Rescued One]

There is a reason for this.

What is Swedenborgianism? | GotQuestions.org

And all God's people say, "Amen!"

 

[☦Marius☦]

The God in the bible.

Separating the bible and the creeds is important.

From the creeds we get some anti-christian notions such as cursing people who don't believe what's written in said creeds.

The anathema originated with Paul, not the creeds

 

[☦Marius☦]

Im not Catholic. So this counts me out. Good thing i know the Lord personally.

The term "catholic" was coined by St. Ignatius of Antioch, who was one of the children who came to Christ during his ministry and was one of John's disciples, selected to be the third Elder of the Church of Antioch. He also wrote about Communion being the actual body and blood of Christ (before his Martyrdom).