Binitarianism

tampasteve

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No. In the past there were anti-trinitarians and bitarians in the SDA and other Adventist groups. Now the SDA are more or less mainstream in the Trinity belief. From the SDA website:

"There is one God: Father, Son, and Holy Spirit, a unity of three coeternal Persons. God is immortal, all-powerful, all-knowing, above all, and ever present. He is infinite and beyond human comprehension, yet known through His self-revelation. God, who is love, is forever worthy of worship, adoration, and service by the whole creation. "
Trinity :: The Official Site of the Seventh-day Adventist world church
 
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Not David

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I founded this on the Wikipedia page on binitarianism:
After Ellen White gained influence in the American Adventist movement, in 1858 the binitarian Church of God (Seventh Day) was founded in the U.S. mid-western states of Michigan and Iowa having split from those Adventists who in 1863 founded the Seventh-day Adventist Church. Later, in 1897, Ellen White published a pamphlet declaring the Holy Spirit "the third person of the Godhead". Andrews University, an Adventist institution for higher learning, suggests that the Seventh-day Adventists were inclined towards binitarianism before this, which Gerhard Pfandl terms "Semi-Arian."
 
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yeshuaslavejeff

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My information is that Adventists are Binitarian. That is they do not consider the Holy Spirit a person. Is this still true?
It is written that Yahuweh is not a person, so why would the Holy Spirit, the Ruach HaKodesh, be a person ?
 
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tampasteve

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It is written that Yahuweh is not a person, so why would the Holy Spirit, the Ruach HaKodesh, be a person ?
There are three "persons" in the Trinity - God the Father, Jesus the son, and the Holy Spirit. The Holy Spirit is a person, but does not have a body of course.
 
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AlexDTX

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Many do hold that Jesus and Michael (archangel) are the same person, but I don't think that is a dogmatic belief.
Interesting. I knew that the Jehovah Witness believed Jesus was Michael, but did not know that some 7th Day Adventists believed that, too.
 
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AlexDTX

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There are three "persons" in the Trinity - God the Father, Jesus the son, and the Holy Spirit. The Holy Spirit is a person, but does not have a body of course.
Also interesting. Are you saying 7thDA believe that the Father and Son have bodies?
 
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tampasteve

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Interesting. I knew that the Jehovah Witness believed Jesus was Michael, but did not know that some 7th Day Adventists believed that, too.
I am honestly not sure exactly how prevalent it is among SDA, but I know Doug Batchelor (a very popular and influential SDA minister) has a book on it and I have heard him preach on that topic.
 
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tampasteve

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Also interesting. Are you saying 7thDA believe that the Father and Son have bodies?
No, I do not think so. That would be LDS beliefs. All I meant was to counter the statement that "why would the Holy Spirit, the Ruach HaKodesh, be a person ?" to say that the holy spirit is a person but does not have a body, I did not mean to imply that the Father also has a body - he does not. I was just pointing out that a "person" does not necessarily have a body. I think I am explaining it ok..... ;)
 
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AlexDTX

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I am honestly not sure exactly how prevalent it is among SDA, but I know Doug Batchelor (a very popular and influential SDA minister) has a book on it and I have heard him preach on that topic.
Perhaps it is similar to the LDS. There are still Mormons who believe in polygamy, even tho it has been banned by the LDS. Perhaps these are 7thDA "purists" who believe the doctrine needs to remain.
 
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AlexDTX

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No, I do not think so. That would be LDS beliefs. All I meant was to counter the statement that "why would the Holy Spirit, the Ruach HaKodesh, be a person ?" to say that the holy spirit is a person but does not have a body, I did not mean to imply that the Father also has a body - he does not. I was just pointing out that a "person" does not necessarily have a body. I think I am explaining it ok..... ;)
Sounds like a good argument for person-hood of fetus. It is not the body that makes a person but the life of the person.
 
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bekkilyn

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Interesting. I knew that the Jehovah Witness believed Jesus was Michael, but did not know that some 7th Day Adventists believed that, too.

I have SDA friends and have been to church services and bible studies with them. It was part of their teaching that Michael was Jesus' name before he was born as a human being and named "Jesus".

Also interesting. Are you saying 7thDA believe that the Father and Son have bodies?

"Person" in the sense of the Trinity does not mean "has a physical body" but is similar to an individual part of a whole. If you look at that hymn, "Holy, Holy, Holy" it goes like this (first verse):

Holy, Holy, Holy Lord God, Almighty
Early in the morning, our song shall rise to Thee
Holy, Holy, Holy, merciful and mighty
God in three persons, blessed Trinity

It's not an SDA thing. It's just traditional teaching concerning the Trinity. Person does not mean that God is divided up into three different gods, but just three different aspects of ONE God, each one fully and completely God and fully equal to one another.
 
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Not David

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Sounds like a good argument for person-hood of fetus. It is not the body that makes a person but the life of the person.
There is a difference between divine person and human person.
 
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AlexDTX

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I have SDA friends and have been to church services and bible studies with them. It was part of their teaching that Michael was Jesus' name before he was born as a human being and named "Jesus".



"Person" in the sense of the Trinity does not mean "has a physical body" but is similar to an individual part of a whole. If you look at that hymn, "Holy, Holy, Holy" it goes like this (first verse):

Holy, Holy, Holy Lord God, Almighty
Early in the morning, our song shall rise to Thee
Holy, Holy, Holy, merciful and mighty
God in three persons, blessed Trinity

It's not an SDA thing. It's just traditional teaching concerning the Trinity. Person does not mean that God is divided up into three different gods, but just three different aspects of ONE God, each one fully and completely God and fully equal to one another.

Regarding the body, I was trying to understand what Tampasteve had said. "The Holy Spirit is a person, but does not have a body of course."

He answered my question this way.
"...to say that the holy spirit is a person but does not have a body, I did not mean to imply that the Father also has a body - he does not. I was just pointing out that a "person" does not necessarily have a body. "

It was merely an awkward sentence on his part.
 
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AlexDTX

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There is a difference between divine person and human person.
Most certainly. His thoughts are not our thoughts and his ways are not our ways. He is infinite and we are finite. He is eternal with no beginning nor end, whereas we have a beginning and an end.

But what we have in common with the divine is a spirit. Ours is a created spirit, of course, and His is immutable. And our person-hood, in my opinion, is in our spirits and not our bodies.
 
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AlexDTX

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Can we please not make this thread into another abortion argument? Thank you. :)
Abortion was not my point. My point is that our person-hood is in our spirits, not our bodies. So even a zygote is still a person because the spirit of that person is in the zygote directing the cell division. At least, that is my opinion.
 
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bekkilyn

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Abortion was not my point. My point is that our person-hood is in our spirits, not our bodies. So even a zygote is still a person because the spirit of that person is in the zygote directing the cell division. At least, that is my opinion.

However, others believe that the spirit is not put into a body until the moment of birth, so even IF it was universally agreed that the spirit alone is the person, it would not be a cut and dry argument concerning a physical body.

Different denominations also differ on what makes a person. Some would insist that it is some combination of spirit and body, and then there are arguments over what a "soul" is and if it is the same as a person's spirit or if the spirit in a person is really just the breath of God that is removed and goes back to him upon the death of the body.

See, it all can get very, very complicated, but even still, it really doesn't compare to the "personhood" of the God-head because "person" in the Trinitarian sense is just a word used to more easily describe that the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit are not three separate gods, but still One God. The "personhood" of a human being (or other living being, or corporation) are all very different things.
 
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Pavel Mosko

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My information is that Adventists are Binitarian. That is they do not consider the Holy Spirit a person. Is this still true?

One interesting tid bit for people who are interested in the historical development of doctrine etc. (I learned this on doing lots of research on the antecedents of Trinitarianism). There was an early belief in Second temple Judaism called "The Two Heavenly powers" that seems like a precursor to both Trinitarianism, but especially was a kind of Proto- Arianism.


(Christianity borrowing the Stoic concept of Trinity to resolve/ harmonize the paradox of how God can be both 1, and three persons seems like the main origin).

The Two Powers in Heaven - Dr. Michael Heiser
 
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