God and his Prophet have to act in unity no doubt. Of course Muhammad never claimed that because he isnt God.
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Again what im saying is the verses that are not clear and can have different interpretations. Yes in islam there are different interpretations to minor issues but the major beliefs are clear like One God, prophethood etc.
U can chill because no religion is free from sects. Even if Quran is clear on not associating any partners with Allah still people pray to dead bodies and humans etc. Some Christians pray to saints so sects is really a useless discussion
Jews were there and they deny it. Witness is not a proof. U admit books in bible have unknown authors
Basic foundation of religion should have no two interpretations
Im not saying the words need to be exact. What i mean is they should not be ambiguous
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I responded to Your misquotation of my post.
A paradox isn’t a contradiction there’s a difference, God knowing everything before we do it and us having free will is a paradox, in fact Qadr which you believe in is a paradox, yet you believe in it. Firstly God is not a math equation and since we don’t believe God is one and three in the same respect, your argument of 1+1+1=1 fails. Also why in the world would math and science be applied to theology? Philosophy and theology are intertwined so you celsrly don’t know what your talking about. Pretty much everyone here knows who is Augustine. We can’t understand Allah in his essence or his attributes either does that invalidate them? Also I already showed that your misquoting Saint Augustine. I don’t care what 90% of lay Christians in the world say, I care what theologians and the Fathers of the Church say. Any Christian theologian or even a lay person who actually reads about the trinity like me can refute your assertions.
This is form Saint Gregory Thaumaturgus who died probably 55 years or more before the Council of Nicaea:
There is one God, the Father of the living Word, who is His subsistent Wisdom and Power and Eternal Image: perfect Begetter of the perfect Begotten, Father of the only-begotten Son. There is one Lord, Only of the Only, God of God, Image and Likeness of Deity, Efficient Word, Wisdom comprehensive of the constitution of all things, and Power formative of the whole creation, trueSon of true Father, Invisible of Invisible, and Incorruptible of Incorruptible, and Immortal of Immortal and Eternal of Eternal. And there is One Holy Spirit, having His subsistence from God, and being made manifest by the Son, to wit to men: Image of the Son, Perfect Image of the Perfect; Life, the Cause of the living; Holy Fount; Sanctity, the Supplier, or Leader, of Sanctification; in whom is manifested God the Father, who is above all and in all, and God the Son, who is through all. There is a perfect Trinity, in glory and eternity and sovereignty, neither divided nor estranged. Wherefore there is nothing either created or in servitude in the Trinity; nor anything superinduced, as if at some former period it was non-existent, and at some later period it was introduced. And thus neither was the Son ever wanting to the Father, nor the Spirit to the Son; but without variation and without change, the same Trinity abides ever.
CHURCH FATHERS: A Declaration of Faith (St. Gregory Thaumaturgus)
Exactly the same understanding as displayed in 325 CE at Nicaea, let’s go back even further and let’s see if there’s any difference, I give you Saint Theophilus of Antioch:
“It is the attribute of God, of the most high and almighty and of the living God, not only to be everywhere, but also to see and hear all; for he can in no way be contained in a place. . . . The three days before the luminaries were created are types of the Trinity: God, his Word, and his Wisdom” (To Autolycus 2:15 [A.D. 181]).
Notice any difference between Gregory Thaumaturgus and Theophilus of Antioch’s view of the trinity, the only difference is the terminology used to describe it, however it’s rhe exact same doctrine.
So you ignored everything your own theologians say in Qadr because it refuted your own position, that the trinity is illogical because Christians say it’s inner workings are a mystery. Any neutral member can see that your misquoting Saint Augustine to make it seem the trinity is illogical so you don’t have to actually argue against it theologically and philosophically, because you obviously don’t even know what your talking about.
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So the prophets do everything God does?
Truly, truly, I tell you, the Son can do nothing by Himself, unless He sees the Father doing it. For whatever the Father does, the Son also does. The Father loves the Son and shows Him all He does. And to your amazement, He will show Him even greater works than these. For just as the Father raises the dead and gives them life, so also the Son gives life to whom He wishes. Furthermore, the Father judges no one, but has assigned all judgment to the Son, so that all may honor the Son just as they honor the Father. Whoever does not honor the Son does not honor the Father who sent Him. Truly, truly, I tell you, whoever hears My word and believes Him who sent Me has eternal life and will not come under judgment. Indeed, he has crossed over from death to life. Truly, truly, I tell you, the hour is coming and has now come when the dead will hear the voice of the Son of God, and those who hear will live. For as the Father has life in Himself, so also He has granted the Son to have life in Himself. And He has given Him authority to execute judgment, because He is the Son of Man. Do not be amazed at this, for the hour is coming when all who are in their graves will hear His voice and come out—those who have done good to the resurrection of life, and those who have done evil to the resurrection of judgment.I can do nothing by Myself; I judge only as I hear. And My judgment is just, because I do not seek My own will, but the will of Him who sent Me.
John 5:19-30
Father’s name testify on My behalf. But because you are not My sheep, you refuse to believe. My sheep listen to My voice; I know them, and they follow Me. I give them eternal life, and they will never perish. No one can snatch them out of My hand. My Father who has given them to Me is greater than all. No one can snatch them out of My Father’s hand. I and the Father are one.”
John 10:25-30
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No they aren’t, Sunnis and Shi’a’s are different to the point where they can barely be considered the same religion, this goes from the preservation of the Quran, to the concept of the Imamah, or divinely appointed semi-divine imams from Mohammed’s household or bloodline, Sunnis would reject that while Shia sources state your Kaafir and go to hell if you reject the Imamah, so basically every Sunni is going to be in hell according to authentic Shia sources and vice versa. Might I also add that Shi’a Muslims also hold to Mu’tazilite theology in that the Quran is created while Sunnis reject this view to the point where they consider it takes you out of the fold of Islam and makes you Kaafir.
Did you forget that Shias and some forms of Sunni Islam pray to Ahl Al Bayt. Also no Christian worships dead bodies or humans, Christians ask living saints in heaven to pray for them here on Earth.
What Jews, are you serious, you don’t even care what Jews believe in, not to mention they believe in traditional authorship of the Old Testament. Theres no proof Bible was written by unknown authors.
Then fix your religion.
Your saying they are ambiguous, only everytime I ask you to explain how it’s ambiguous you don’t answer.
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So Jesus is always dependent on the father?
There are so many heretical sects in Christianity too but thats not my point. Not even one sect claim to have a proper understanding of the trinity. Even u claim to not fully understand it. All say its a mystery and cannot be grasped by human mind
Yes Christians pray to dead saints. While u call them living is no different than so called Muslims who pray to dead who are also considered living.
There are so many. Let me ask u this. Tell me authors of these books
Book of Samuel 1st & 2nd
Kings 1,2
Esther
Job
Jonah
Book of hebrews
Deuteronomy
Lol, its you who admitted to not have proper understanding of the trinity
Already did
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If we assume that these writings are genuine not fabricated or altered:
- These philosophical thoughts "proto-Orthodox", It's one view of many, it was one form of Christianity of many. It wasn't the main stream. It wasn't the thoughts of majority
- These philosophical thoughts are not biblical, nothing absolutely nothing quoted to Jesus in Gospels
- If these thoughts were dominant
- and majority sees it Orthodoxy
- then:
- Arius wouldn't say a word, he wouldn't find someone to listen even
- There would be no absolute need for Nicaea council at all
- There wouldn't be a need for Nicaea creed
- You know, that Nicaea creed doesn't include Holy Spirit, Holy Spirit is added in 381 CE council after Nicaea by approximately 60 years:
- Why Holy spirit is not added in Nicaea ?
- then:
- and majority sees it Orthodoxy
- It was not a dominant belief
- It was one of the many belief
- Even at Nicaea didn't accept Trinity belief, It decreed only two equal persons not 3
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dzheremi
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You so clearly do not know anything about any of the topics you are bringing up, Limo.
If Christian doctrine were decided by a simple majority, then the entire Church would've fallen to Arianism in the time of HH St. Athanasius the Apostolic, yet that's not what happened at all.
And that dumb non-point about Nicaea ignores that the Pneumatomachi (those who denied the divinity of the Holy Spirit) were not around until the second half of the 4th century (their founder, Macedonius, was not inserted into the See of Constantinople until 342 AD), which was obviously after Nicaea in 325. So there was nothing defending the Holy Spirit in the 325 version because that particular heresy had not yet arisen. This is in line with how councils work, being called in response to widespread heresies, not to get together to come up with new 'stuff' that people have to believe.
The non-point about Arius is just stupid. It's akin to saying "If Islam was true, there wouldn't have been a split into Sunni and Shia after Muhammad's death [or the Ridda wars, or whatever other early Islamic controversy you prefer], because everyone would have just known what the right answer was, because Islam is so clear and true and obviously guided by God." How can you take the later history of a religion and use it against its earlier history, as though it should be predicated on the idea of men (be they your Muhammad or our saints) should be able to know the future and anticipate the coming of specific heresies or other troubles in their community after they have died? Though I'm too disinterested in your religion to bother looking it up right now, I am vaguely aware of some hadith in which Muhammad supposedly predicted that his community would eventually fragment into some number of sects or competing camps, and probably the pious Muslim would tout that as a 'miracle' of Muhammad because that is what happened, but in reality it is no more miraculous than when the Bible says the same thing about the coming of false teachers and doctrines (e.g., Matthew 24:24), knowing that this is bound to happen due to the human tendency towards disagreeableness and tribalism. And probably no Muslim would call the Bible's warning of that a 'miracle', but instead some sort of evidence of 'corruption' of Christianity, when in reality your religion has also suffered historically and still suffers today from sectarianism.
So as always, clean your own house before you tell another how dirty his is.
If Christian doctrine were decided by a simple majority, then the entire Church would've fallen to Arianism in the time of HH St. Athanasius the Apostolic, yet that's not what happened at all.
And that dumb non-point about Nicaea ignores that the Pneumatomachi (those who denied the divinity of the Holy Spirit) were not around until the second half of the 4th century (their founder, Macedonius, was not inserted into the See of Constantinople until 342 AD), which was obviously after Nicaea in 325. So there was nothing defending the Holy Spirit in the 325 version because that particular heresy had not yet arisen. This is in line with how councils work, being called in response to widespread heresies, not to get together to come up with new 'stuff' that people have to believe.
The non-point about Arius is just stupid. It's akin to saying "If Islam was true, there wouldn't have been a split into Sunni and Shia after Muhammad's death [or the Ridda wars, or whatever other early Islamic controversy you prefer], because everyone would have just known what the right answer was, because Islam is so clear and true and obviously guided by God." How can you take the later history of a religion and use it against its earlier history, as though it should be predicated on the idea of men (be they your Muhammad or our saints) should be able to know the future and anticipate the coming of specific heresies or other troubles in their community after they have died? Though I'm too disinterested in your religion to bother looking it up right now, I am vaguely aware of some hadith in which Muhammad supposedly predicted that his community would eventually fragment into some number of sects or competing camps, and probably the pious Muslim would tout that as a 'miracle' of Muhammad because that is what happened, but in reality it is no more miraculous than when the Bible says the same thing about the coming of false teachers and doctrines (e.g., Matthew 24:24), knowing that this is bound to happen due to the human tendency towards disagreeableness and tribalism. And probably no Muslim would call the Bible's warning of that a 'miracle', but instead some sort of evidence of 'corruption' of Christianity, when in reality your religion has also suffered historically and still suffers today from sectarianism.
So as always, clean your own house before you tell another how dirty his is.
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He isn’t dependent on the Father in the reality of his divine essence, Christ acts in unity with the Father, while Christ was incarnate on earth he limited himself to rely on his Father. But as I said before he’s not simply waiting for the Father to help him all the time, he does what he sees the Father doing which is anything God does.
There’s a lot of heretical sects in Islam, so what? How is that an argument, your arguing against yourself, of course there’s going to be more sects a religion has depending on its size, the larger the religion and the more it grows the more schisms and sects it’s going to give birth to, while the smaller it stays the less likely it is to form schisms or encounter heresies. I claimed that we don’t know the inner workings of the trinity, why should we? If we can fully grasp the essence of the divine in the finite human mind, then its no longer divine. Also I never said it’s illogics and is just a mystery everyone just has to accept, rather I said that we don’t know how God has more then one Hypostasis or Person within the singular divine Ousia or essence, that said I already explained that the doctrine doesn’t contradict logic and can be formulated in logical terms or terms we can grasp to a point. And when we really break down the doctrine in its details we see it isn’t illogical or can’t be true.
We don’t pray to dead saints, the Bible says they are living in the presence of God, offering their prayers to him:
When He had taken the scroll, the four living creatures and the twenty-four elders fell down before the Lamb. Each one had a harp, and they were holding golden bowls full of incense, which are the prayers of the saints.
Revelation 5:8
1st and 2nd Samuel: Samuel most likely wrote the majority of the books, with the prophets Nathan and Gad completing the remainder of them.
1st and 2nd Kings: probably Jeremiah considering the similarities with Jeremiah 52.
Esther: Either Nehemiah or Mordecai.
Job: Job himself, Elihu, or any other acquaintance of Job.
Jonah: Jonah himself is the only real option in this case.
Letter to the Hebrews: Any of Paul’s many disciples or perhaps Barnabas.
Deuteronomy: Moses was the authors, perhaps Joshua wrote the part recording the death of Moses and onwards.
Again, that’s not what I said, also I repeatedly proved to you that Al Qadr can’t be properly understood in Islamic theology, yet you as a Mohammadan have to believe in it regardless of it being a mystery, so there goes your argument against the trinity.
No, you didn’t.
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Not dealing with anything I said as usual, the quote of Saint Gregory Thaumaturgus pretty much is enough to refute this entire post of yours, but @dzheremi has already given you a proper response, so no need to waste my time here. Also just some information the creeds are meant to give organized statements on an already existing faith and doctrine, the creeds restate those beliefs in an organized matter and declare them final because this was forced on the Church by heresy and schism from within the Church itself. The Creeds don’t make up new beliefs as they go along, also if it wants the dominant belief it wouldn’t have succeeded in the first place. Arius in fact barely had anyone to listen to Church wise, the only thing he did have was the ear of Eusebius of Caesarea who in turn had the ear of Emperor Constantine, without imperial backing and support from friends in high places Arius would have been excommunicated rather quickly and exiled to some desert somewhere. I’m all Saint Athanasius, but I don’t particularly think Arians would have swallowed the world without him, Arius’s success relied on imperial backing, while not even his own Bishop Alexander took his side in the Church and declared him a heretic for teaching Christ is a created god. So please re-educate yourself.
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Anonymous authors is when we don’t know who the authors are at all, I say probably, because there are multiple candidates for authorship and most of them are contemporaries to the events. It seems that you don’t even know your own point.Man u just proved my point. Thanks for that
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@Godistruth1 This is all you do, leave the discussion once you’ve been refuted, instead of reflecting on this you come back and start posting more nonsense. This isn’t a game it’s a matter of salvation, something you should start thinking about because they won’t teach you anything about that or how to get there in the Mosque.
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As our friends here don't address questions, I'll answer:
The Nicaea Creed 325: "We believe in one God, the Father Almighty, Maker of all things visible and invisible.......And in the Holy Ghost."
There is nothing about Holy Ghost divinity. Nicaea is about 2 persons god.
First Council of Constantinople (381) : "We believe in one God, the Father Almighty, Maker of heaven and earth, and of all things visible and invisible.And in one Lord Jesus Christ, the only-begotten Son of God, begotten of the Father before all worlds ....And in the Holy Ghost, the Lord and Giver of life, who proceedeth from the Father, who with the Father and the Son together is worshiped and glorified, who spake by the prophets.
So, Holy Spirit was there in Nicaea creed as someone to believe in his existence but after 60 years the divine became 3 and all are to be worshiped.
Trinity belief was praised and condemned based on Empires wish. Trinity belief was developed step by step, it existed as one of the theology beleifs among many existed before 381 but only accepted in fully by the state in 381 CE
Regards
- Trinity belief is not Biblical, neither Jesus nor apostles knew it
- Trinity belief is a developed step by step philosophy
- After Nicaea 325 CE. in 335 CE Constantine himself called Arius to honor but they've poisoned Arius
- Constantius II who is successor of Constantine was was sympathetic to the Arians
- During Constantius II There were several councils, the praised Arianism and condemned Nicaea creed
- A series of councils praised Arianism and condemned Nicaea
- Again Theodosius I empire condemned Arianism and called for 381 Second Ecumenical Council in 381 condemned Arius and extended Nicaea creed to include the Holy Spirit
The Nicaea Creed 325: "We believe in one God, the Father Almighty, Maker of all things visible and invisible.......And in the Holy Ghost."
There is nothing about Holy Ghost divinity. Nicaea is about 2 persons god.
First Council of Constantinople (381) : "We believe in one God, the Father Almighty, Maker of heaven and earth, and of all things visible and invisible.And in one Lord Jesus Christ, the only-begotten Son of God, begotten of the Father before all worlds ....And in the Holy Ghost, the Lord and Giver of life, who proceedeth from the Father, who with the Father and the Son together is worshiped and glorified, who spake by the prophets.
So, Holy Spirit was there in Nicaea creed as someone to believe in his existence but after 60 years the divine became 3 and all are to be worshiped.
Trinity belief was praised and condemned based on Empires wish. Trinity belief was developed step by step, it existed as one of the theology beleifs among many existed before 381 but only accepted in fully by the state in 381 CE
Regards
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dzheremi
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No, you'll lie about what others have said (your points have been answered; you just don't like the answers, so you claim we aren't answering you), and inject Muslim presuppositions into your warped view of Christian history and theology. Christians will continue to answer your wrong ideas, because the disbelief of the Muslim does not and cannot stand in place for the true Christian faith, which is greater than anything in your religion.
- Trinity belief is not Biblical, neither Jesus nor apostles knew it[/quote]
These are all within the time when the Bible itself is being written, since the last of the writers to die (St. John, the only one who was not martyred) wouldn't do so until the turn of the century. So where do you get this idea that the Trinity is later than the first century just because the words "the Trinity" don't appear in the Biblical text? That's ridiculous.
I should also point out that the Qur'an was not codified by Uthman until about 20 years after the death of Muhammad, which is comparable to the estimated arrival dates of the apostles in the lands they would evangelize, so it would be very hypocritical of you, as a Muslim who believes in the Qur'an, to say anything against the pristine transmission of Christian doctrine such that a 20 year gap between Christ's time and, say, St. Thomas' arrival in India (53 AD) would make it so impossible to remain uncorrupted and not submit the same level of dismissal of your Qur'an, as the same time gap between the death of the founding figure and the establishment of the text exists with regard to your religion. So, tell me: Why is Christianity so instantly corrupted with the 'invention' of the Trinity in every place the apostles went within 20-40 years of Christ (to give a range that would cover the establishment of every apostolic church), but the same doesn't apply to the Qur'an? Because God cares so much about a text, but comparatively little for the establishment of doctrine by preaching before establishing the text -- you know, the very thing that happened in the case of your religion, too?
I don't see how Christianity would be basically instantly corrupted from the time of the Apostles to their successors (who, again, they chose after having taught them themselves) in a way that would make Islam immune from the same thing. But I'm sure you'll come up with something. "Allah willed it" or whatever.
The explicitness and exact vocabulary changes in response to the need to combat heresies, but the doctrine itself is the same. I can read the Didache (1st century) and find my faith in it just as I can read On the Incarnation of the Word of God (4th century), the Catechism of St. Gregory the Illuminator (5th century), or any other work of Christian Orthodoxy from any age down to the present and find my faith in them. There is no separation.
Constantine is the emperor of the Empire, not the head of the Church. Constantine himself was baptized by an Arian, and that did not make Arianism any more acceptable. It does not matter that Constantine "called Arius to honor", whatever that means. Arianism was already condemned at Nicaea, and none of the churches accepted the Arian interlopers inserted into their sees.
Again, none of this matters. The Arians had their own councils (their own churches, too), and these were not accepted then, and are not accepted now, and will never be accepted.
I could make the same analogy I made earlier to the Ridda Wars or the succession crisis after Muhammad's death: did the fact that not everyone acted the same or made the same decisions say anything about the truth of Islam? No, right? That's not how things are decided in either of our respective religions. The fact that some people are in the wrong while also claiming to be Christians doesn't mean anything. The same was true in the Bible itself, such as when St. Paul rebuked St. Peter to his face for his conduct with those who had come to attempt to force Jewish practices on the new Christian converts. What matters is what the Church actually did (it decided that Gentiles did not need to become Jews in order to join Christianity), not the fact that various groups that didn't agree with each other existed.
As was right to do, because again by that point the Pneumatomachi/Macedonians had arisen, so the Creed was added to in order to clarify what the Church believes, over and against their heresy.
Orthodoxy and heterodoxy, yes. What is wrong with this, exactly?
No, Nicaea was called in response to the heresy of Arius and those of his party, which was a heretical belief about the relation of Christ to the Father. It simply didn't include the Holy Spirit, hence the Church's belief about the Holy Spirit was not elaborated upon until later, when those who would challenge His divinity arose. I don't know why this is being presented in a negative light, but anyway it was certainly not saying that the Holy Spirit is somehow not part of the Trinity. God forbid!
This is so stupid, I can't even believe that anyone would seriously make such an argument. Let me make a similar statement with comparable logic behind it so that you can see how stupid it is: Since the Quran was not codified until the time of Uthman (c. 650 AD), and the Qur'an tells you the correct belief in Allah (in the Muslim view, of course), nobody before c. 650 AD had the correct belief in Allah. Not Muhammad or any of his companions or anyone before Uthman established the Quran. Because apparently things are not believed in until someone makes them 'official' by writing them down in some official capacity, right? This is what you are trying to claim by saying "after 60 years the divine became 3".
If you think my statements above about your religion are ridiculous -- and you should, because I purposely made them that way -- then you should realize that this is how your statements about Christian history sound to Christians on this website. They're based in an erroneous premise that does not make sense in the context of the religion, even if they make sense to use as a non-believer. It sounds very foolish and silly, and betrays your obvious ignorance regarding these topics.
Again, it does not matter what the Empire does; it matters what the Church believes and does. The Church stood against Arianism even when it was far more popular than Nicene Christianity. This is the great legacy of our father HH St. Athanasius the Apostolic and others following in his line. This is why the popular saying is Athanasius Contra Mundum, which is Latin for "Athanasius against the world" because he stood up for the Creed of Nicaea and the Nicene faith in a time when doing so was extremely unpopular with the Arian-sympathizing emperors, resulting in many years in exile due to the false charges of the Arians.
You will never understand any bit of Christian history until you learn to separate the Roman Empire from Christianity, as Christianity itself always has (don't misunderstand me, please; they are certainly related, as Christianity was eventually the religion of the empire, but they are ultimately separate from one another; Christianity does not have a complete melding of the state with the religion, as Islam does). Consider also the fact that there were other communities of Christians either partially or completely outside of the Roman Empire, some in the Persian Empire which was the Roman Empire's direct opponent (like the Church of the East/Nestorians and some of the Armenians and Orthodox Syrians), some in the Axumite Empire in East Africa (the people who are today the Ethiopians and Eritreans), some in India (the St. Thomas Christians), etc. If the belief in the Holy Trinity and the acceptance of the doctrine about God is so dependent on the vacillating beliefs of emperors within the Roman Empire, what possible reason would Christian in any of these places have to believe in the Holy Trinity, as they all do? These Christians didn't have a Roman Emperor to look up to or listen to in religious matters, and in some cases like the Persian Empire had leaders who were instead often quite hostile to Christians in their own territories. This is one of the reasons why the Church of the East held its Synod of Dadisho' in 424 AD; their patriarchs and priests were routinely abused and imprisoned by the government on the suspicion that they were collaborating with the Romans, since they had the same religion, so that synod declared their Church officially independent of the churches of the Roman Empire in an effort to stop the maltreatment. What reason then would they have to believe in the Trinity, when they were actively trying to distance themselves from the other churches? Yet the Nestorians have always been Trinitarian. (Their Christology is heretical, but they are strongly Trinitarian.)
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Tell me Mr. honest when I ask a question, you should write in a form Q&A not poem.
I assure you "Christian history and theology" I learnt it from western sources only. What I'm asking here is not innovative ideas or something I invent, this is your history. This is in formal websites of Catholic, Orthodox,,, formal websites.
The questions are mine but the history is yours.
It's your history and current. I'd be more that happy if you mark a single historical mistake.
My questions that you didn't answer are:
- Is Trinity Biblical ?
- Where in Bible Jesus or apostles said Trinity ?
- Were there many other theologies other than Trinity ?
- Were believer in Trinity majority in all time ?
- How and when Trinity believe became dominant ?
So, you're saying Trinity is not in Bible but Trinity is TRUE because It's written 20 years after Jesus.
So, while apostles were writing the bible, some of their students had to define Trinity but apostles didn't write any. That's really ridiculous!!
So, Neither Jesus nor Apostles feel any importance to write the Trinity belief.
Jesus and Apostles didn't see a need to write the most important theologian belief which is:
- The opposite of Judaism belief (Jesus and Apostles were 100 % Jews) believed in one god as in old testimony till they gone
- The cause of all the fragmentation and division in Christianity history
This western christian discussed most of these names and their sayings in video and text.
The Trinity before Nicea
The difference is simple, Uthman didn't bring something new. Quran was written in Prophet's life in many fragments but hundreds were memorizing Quran. One complete copy was created in Abobakr after one year but also Quran was memorized by hundreds. Uthman created 6 master copies to Makka, Madina, Egypt, Iraq, Yemn, and Syria but was memorized by thousands.I should also point out that the Qur'an was not codified by Uthman until about 20 years after the death of Muhammad, which is comparable to the estimated arrival dates of the apostles in the lands they would evangelize, so it would be very hypocritical of you, as a Muslim who believes in the Qur'an, to say anything against the pristine transmission of Christian doctrine such that a 20 year gap between Christ's time and, say, St. Thomas' arrival in India (53 AD) would make it so impossible to remain uncorrupted and not submit the same level of dismissal of your Qur'an, as the same time gap between the death of the founding figure and the establishment of the text exists with regard to your religion. So, tell me: Why is Christianity so instantly corrupted with the 'invention' of the Trinity in every place the apostles went within 20-40 years of Christ (to give a range that would cover the establishment of every apostolic church), but the same doesn't apply to the Qur'an? Because God cares so much about a text, but comparatively little for the establishment of doctrine by preaching before establishing the text -- you know, the very thing that happened in the case of your religion, too?
I don't see how Christianity would be basically instantly corrupted from the time of the Apostles to their successors (who, again, they chose after having taught them themselves) in a way that would make Islam immune from the same thing. But I'm sure you'll come up with something. "Allah willed it" or whatever.
Look in the other side, Jesus and Apostles were Jews monotheistic lived practicing the Jewish law till their last day.
But from no where one of the groups (Christianities) were impacted by pagan theology Trinity.
By the way Christianity was not corrupted in 20 years or even hundred year.
There were multiple Christianities, Trianterian was one of them.
How do you say "it does not matter what the Empire does; it matters what the Church believes and does".
It wasn't church.
It's the pagan emperor who liked the paganism idea of having God the Son as in his believe, he who thought it's right believe because simply he liked it.
It's the pagan emperor who condemned Arius.
It's the pagan emperor who creed-ed : death to whoever uses Arius books
Why becuase:
- The council continued for 2 months without agreement till Constantine supported Alexander
- Eusebius of Nicomedia who signed the creed said that I've too
- Even Constantine changed his mind after 10 years
- After Nicaea Eusebius of Nicomedia baptized Constantine
- Constantine's son condemned Nicaea and Nicene bishops and exiled them
- Agains the next emperor did the opposite, condemned Arianism and exiled its bishops
If Arianism won, you would now defend Arianism.
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I can mark countless mistakes, you learned about “Christian theology,” from Islamic Apologetic books and websites. Not from the actual sources. Quote me one formal website or source from any of the three major sects of Christianity, Protestant, Catholic, or Orthodox, that supports any of your claims. The questions your asking don’t address my history, they address what you think is my history. I think by now we’ve answered all five of your questions.
I’m going to be responding to this post and I’ll leave the rest to @dzheremi. The Apostles were trinitarian in nature and not Unitarian, we can discuss all the texts of the New Testament one by one and show how they aren’t Unitarian. The only way for you to interpret it as Unitarian is to force the Unitarian interpretation into the text or change it to suit your needs which is what Jehovah’s Witness did. Who says Trinitarian don’t believe in One God. Also just to destroy your argument trying to appeal to Jewish belief, did you know that many Jews of the second temple period believe in a multi-personal God, infact Alan F. Seal a Orthodox Jewish scholar wrote a whole book on the subject detailing the origins of trinitarianism back to second temple Judaism where many Jews held to a view of two powers or even three powers of heaven in the case of (the early Christians), another good example would be Philo of Alexandria who couldn’t contemplate the idea of God existing as a single Hypostasis or two Hypostases, God and his Word. Ideas similar to trinitarianism were common among the Jews of Christ’s day, so again go back to school. The most common division in Christianity atleast in my view technically speaking is the nature of authority in the Church which was the cause for most of the schisms, if the trinity was the cause for all the divisions then it wouldn’t be the common ground all Christians have with each other, all of Christendom holds to a trinity and it’s quite possibly the biggest thing uniting every denomination.
As for the video, the person in it is a Unitarian heretic not a Christian. As for the video itself I watched it and just as I said there’s no dealing with the actual text, there’s nonly attempts to throw in a Unitarian interpretation which is hilarious considering that he completely ignores the sections on the Church Father’s detailing the pre- existence of Christ. Unitarians are always forced to reinterpret the text since it obiusly doesn’t support their claims. Try using the bogus arguments used in the video yourself, they won’t actually work when we read the texts as they are instead of reading them with a Unitarian lense.
Uthman burned all the Quran’s they didn’t agree with the one he had, the fact he had to burn them means that there were major differences and different readings going on everywhere, the thousands of people memorizing the Quran at the time of Uthman were al, reading it in what ever way they liked, especially since you had non Arabs converting to Islam at the time and there’s the fact that Arabic and the Quran itself didn’t contain vowel or diacritical marks, the only way to know if a reading was correct or wrong is for you to bring someone who heard the Quran and memorized it exactly as it was from Mohammed and send him over to Egypt, Syria, Iraq, or Persia, and hope he himself memorized it correctly. And when all this was happening people were complaining that each area was reading the Quran in whatever way they liked which forced Uthman to forcibly standardize the text by burning any that disagree with his reading, there’s no actual way to know how many changes occurred, Muslims accept the Uthmanic text and say Uthman did a good job based on the fact he was a venerated and good Sahabai. By the way if Uthman didn’t bring anything new then why did other Sahaba object to his new version of the Quran:
`Abdullah, Hudaifa and Abu Musa were on the roof of Abu Musa's house. `Abdullah said, 'I hear you say such-and-such.' Hudaifa said, 'Yes, I deplore folk talking about this one's reading and that one's reading. They are differing like non-Muslims.' Hudaifa continued, '`Abdullah b. Qais, you were sent to the Basrans as governor and teacher. THEY HAVE ADOPTED YOUR ADAB, YOUR DIALECT AND YOUR TEXT.'
To b. Mas`ud he said, 'You were sent to the Kufans as their teacher and THEY HAVE ADOPTED YOUR ADAB, YOUR DIALECT AND YOUR READING.'
'In that case,' retorted b. Mas`ud, 'I have not misled them. There is no verse in the Book of God but that I know where and in what connection it was revealed. Did I know of anyone more learned than myself on the subject I should go to him.' (Burton, p. 147, Abu Bakr `Abdullah b. abi Da'ud, "K. al Masahif", ed. A. Jeffery, Cairo, 1936/1355, p. 14; bold emphasis ours)
According to the Islamic sources Uthman’s version omitted parts of the Quran:
According to Ibn Umar and Aisha, Muhammad’s wife, one chapter, Surah al-Ahzab [33] had 200 verses in Muhammad’s time. Yet, once Uthman was finished only 73 verses remained, eliminating nearly 140 verses. This tradition is also confirmed by Ubay b. Kabb. (True Guidance, p. 61– citing Al-Suyuti’s al-Itqan fii ulum al-Qur'an on nasikh wa mansukh and Darwaza’s al-Qur'an Al-Majid)
You can read more here:
The Compilation and Textual Veracity of the Quran
If you’d actually read the amount of editing and revisions Muslim’s would do to the Quranic text, then you’d see the Quran is a complete joke. I’m quite surprised it’s even still around.
I think I’ve addrssed the first few statements. Prove to us that a trinity exactly as described in the Nicene Creed, One God with One Ousia in three Hypostases all possessing one Will, being, and are all Co-Equal and Co-eternal. I challenge you to find me one pagan religion that has a concept event remotely similar to the Christian trinity as defined in the Ecumenical Councils. The trinity in its origins goes back to Second Temple Judaism and its philosophy and the many debates that went on on whether there was multiplicity in the divine essence, we need to go no further then quote Philo of Alexandria a Jewish monotheist, to see where the idea of the Trinity was coming from. Correction to your statement, there were many heresies, however we see a continuity when we read the Church Father’s and their trinitarian theology and it’s relation to the scriptures, particularly the New Testament.
If it mattered what the emperor said and what the empire chose to enact, then @dzheremi would be a Chalcedonian right now and the Eastern Orthodox Church would be Iconoclastic, and the Papacy probably wouldn’t exist. The Church didn’t care what the Emperor said or did, the Church might have been submissive at times due to threats of violence on behalf of the Emperors or kings that ruled over it, however in doctrinal issues the Church would frequently defy the Emperor, anyone that reads even a little bit on Christian history will see all the conflicts between the Church and monarchy or Church and state, the two did not have an easy relationship or one where the Emperor could do whatever he pleased. There’s absolutely no proof Constantine was a pagan throughout the time he legalized Christianity, considering he signed Paganism’s death sentence in the Roman Empire by paving the way for Christianity to become the dominant religion and putting paganism into the history books by closing temples and building a capital in the Christian East where the Church was stronger, where he also banned the practice of Paganism in. This city was Constantinople.
Constantine never condemned Arius, the only thing he ever did to Arius was exile him along with Athanasius the champion of the trinity. Infact there’s evidence to suggest Constantine favored Arius over Athanasius, Eusebius of Caesarea an ally of Arius and close friend of Emperor Constantine constantly vouched for Arius and even got Emperor Constantine to try and force the Church to allow him back in and renounce its excommunication of him, this would have worked had God not stuck down the heretic Arius in his steps. Arius’s theology was also very much influenced by Paganism and Neo-Platonism, in which you have Christ as a secondary deity or created deity seperate from the Father which he used to create everything, you also have the idea of a creature being a creator in Arian theology and the idea of worshipping a creature which probably would have been more appealing to emperor Constantine at the time, it’s Arianism that’s taken from Paganism and not Trinitarianism. Constantine never took part in any of the Councils he only attended and presided over it, however he as I said previously always favored Arius slightly more due to the influence of Eusebius of Caesarea in his court. Constantine was someone who wanted unity in the empire, Nicaea solved the Arian dispute, it never technically achieved unity in the empire though, this enraged Constantine. Also by the way Constantine being baptize by an Arian, doesn’t make him one, since there was no separate Arian Church, Arians were heretics within the Catholic Orthodox Church of the Empire, so it was still a valid baptism. Both Constantine and his successor even more so supported Arianism and persecuted the Orthodox faith of the Church, both never affected the actual Orthodox creed of the faith. We’re still here and still Trinitarian and Orthodox. Heresy can’t beat Orthodoxy.
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dzheremi
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I don't know what this means. If you don't like the way I answer, then don't read my answers.
That could be a problem, since many in the west have a strange fascination with heresies and rehabilitating them in a way that has really warped their understanding of early Christianity (if the westerness of the sources are so important to you, see, e.g., Kostenberger and Kruger's The Heresy of Orthodoxy for an in depth explanation of why this is, and a refutation of it), but even then I don't see any evidence of you actually consulting any Christian sources on anything. Finding some western guy or gal who will say whatever nonsense about the history of Christianity or the Bible or whatever is neither surprising nor definitive. Plenty of very famous names like Ehrman, Pagels, and so on have made very famous and lucrative careers out of doing this. That doesn't make them Christian leaders or whatever.
I agree that your positions are in no way innovative (they're quite old and worn out by now), but they're not Christian history.
I don't know why I should have to do this again (I think the fact that you are being told over and over "No, this is not how things actually happened", and "No, this is not what this event means" would be evidence enough of your mistakes, but maybe you don't understand the replies you are getting), but here are but two:
"So, Holy Spirit was there in Nicaea creed as someone to believe in his existence but after 60 years the divine became 3 and all are to be worshiped."
As has already been explained, the three did not 'become' divine. The three were always divine, and it wasn't until the rise of the Pneumatomachi in the latter half of the 4th century -- after Nicaea -- that there was any recognized movement that denied the divinity of the Holy Spirit. So that's why the Creed developed as it did: in response to heresy, as I already pointed out.
And again, what the 'empire wished' does not matter, so pointing out that sometimes different parties enjoyed different levels of support is insinuating a change in the doctrine of the Church that simply did not happen. At various times, the Arians held sway over the emperor and his court, and yet that did not change the Church's stance, the exiles of HH St. Athanasius the Apostolic bearing witness. You would have a point if, for instance, the Church had accepted the various Arians that tried to claim the sees, but instead the Arians and Semi-Arians like Paulinus, Stephanus, or Meletius (to name three who tried to occupy the See of Antioch) were all rejected and deposed, sometimes leading to quite lengthy schisms (the Meletian Schism lasted from 381 to 415). Crucially, Meletius was deposed during the time of Emperor Valens, and despite the emperor's personal support of another Arian as his replacement, Euzoius, the bishop recognized by the other churches was Paulinus II, who was a strict upholder of Nicaea. This is indisputable proof that the Church never bore the relationship to the Emperor and the Empire that you claim it did. If the Church is to be conflated with whatever the Empire was doing, then why did they recognize Paulinus II, the Nicaean claimant to Antioch, and not Euzoius, the Arian claimant who was the Emperor's choice?
Similar examples can be made of other territories wholly within the Empire at other points in time (e.g., Egypt after Chalcedon), because it has never been the case that the Church follows as a matter of course what the Empire or the majority of people within it happen to agree with at any given time. That's not Christianity.
So there you go. Two quite obvious historical mistakes, rooted in your misinterpretation of how councils work and what it means that individuals and ideas were treated as they were.
Yes. Orthodox Trinitarianism is the only theology that has been accepted in the Biblical churches (those founded by the authors of the NT).
Again, if your standard is in exact wording -- i.e., where did Jesus or the Apostles use the words "the Trinity" in the Biblical text -- then it is not in the Bible. But if you want to know how it is that we find the Holy Trinity professed throughout the Biblical text, then there are a great many writers of antiquity who make exactly that point, which you should be familiar with if you are going to be asking this type of question. I don't really have the energy to provide you with an education that you are clearly not interested in having, but the letters of HH St. Athanasius the Apostolic (his letters to Serapion would be especially useful), the already-mentioned homilies of St. Gregory, and the writings of the Cappadocian Fathers would provide a good background, if you ever actually want to learn.
Of course there were non-Trinitarian theological positions. We don't have synods and councils for no reason.
No. The Arians were in the majority for some time, and even succeeded so well among some people in Western Europe that they managed to be the political elite in entire kingdoms that lasted until long after Nicaea, as in Visigothic Spain (the Spanish court would not embrace Nicaean Christianity until the time of Reccared I in 587, though Spain's common people and Church had been Nicaean for centuries; Hosius of Cordoba was present at Nicaea and defended its Creed, and he later presided over the Council of Serdica in 343 which rejected the deposition of HH St. Athanasius by the Arians).
Numerically? I would think that it took some time, as the history we have already gone over shows. I don't know if there is an exact year, since again as the above example shows its acceptance was uneven throughout the Empire and it was resisted for quite a long time in some places. Some peoples like the Goths (proto-Germanic people) were first evangelized by Arians, and some people remained out of Christianity entirely for much longer than others (e.g., the Rus' -- proto-East Slavs -- were not converted as a whole until the 9th century, and the Baltic people even later).
No, that's not what I'm saying. I'm saying even if we take seriously your idea that it has to be written down in the Bible in exactly the words you would prefer it to be, its absence in those words does not mean that it was not understood by the very same people who would succeed the apostles, as their own chosen bishops. In other words, the history of Christianity is not confined to the text of the Bible, and certainly not to what a non-believer thinks should be in the text of the Bible, and when we look at the history of what actually happened (with men such as HH St. Ignatius explicitly affirming Christ's divinity in his epistles and having been taught by the apostles themselves), it is clear that belief in the Holy Trinity was integral to the Church in the first century itself. Unless, again, you want to believe that the Holy Trinity was invented by the men who succeeded the apostles in the first century itself (who invented this idea that was the opposite of what they had been taught by the apostles and was unknown in the Church for what reason, exactly?), which you're going to have to find an awful lot of heretofore unknown evidence for, seeing as we have the evidence already in the writings of HH St. Ignatius, St. Polycarp, the first Epistle of St. Clement, and the other 1st-2nd century writings.
Think whatever you want. If you're not going to bother to read what I actually wrote, why should I waste my time answering your mischaracterization of it? I answered regarding the point I was actually making above.
Neither Jesus nor the apostles wrote to specifically answer the subsequent schisms following Ephesus, Chalcedon, or the events of 1054, either. What's your point?
OH MY GOSH! I HADN'T CONSIDERED THAT! OH THANK YOU, MUSLIM, FOR ENLIGHTENING ME ON THE VERY POINT THAT MY OWN RELIGION IS BASED ON!
Would you care to point out to me where exactly in the Qur'an your Allah answers unambiguously which of the two parties -- Sunni or Shia -- is correct regarding the succession crisis that happened after Muhammad's death, which is "the cause of all the fragmentation and division in Islamic history"?
If you can't do that, maybe you should shut up about Christianity lest your hypocritical double standards be made all the more obvious.
Indeed no need to repeat it here, as I am not interested in some video by some no-name unitarian heretic.
How would you know if he did or didn't when he burned all the manuscripts he could find in the process of canonization?
And how many died at the Battle of Yamama or other places? And how do you know that the memories of those who had memorized were accurate? Particularly in light of the evidence of missing parts from both Islamic sources (the verses of stoning mentioned in sahih al Bukhari; note that even as this Islamic page claims that it is obvious that the recitation was abrogated rather than lost, the actual form of the quote from Umar says "I am afraid that after a long time has passed, people may say, 'We do not find the Verses of the Rajam (stoning to death) in the Holy Book', meaning that in the future it wouldn't be there; this is an odd choice of words if it was already missing in Umar's time...I guess Umar's 'emotion' makes him forget that "in the holy book" is not the same as "this verse has been abrogated but its ruling still remains in effect", as the defense of the Quran's integrity tries to claim based on Muhammad's answer that it should be obvious enough without the verse, according to al Asqalani who lived so many centuries after Muhammad himself
) and Christian ones (as found in the writings of John of Damascus on Islam).
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dzheremi
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Where are Uthman's copies now? All the copies claimed to be these show some unacceptable degree of variation, either in content or in paleography or in some other way. Like the Qur'an said to be Uthman's in Samarkand is incomplete (it begins in the middle of the verse 7 of the second surah), while the other major contender for an 'Uthmanic copy' in Topkapi palace in Turkey is too late.
Blahblahblahblah.
You and all other Muslims get to be taken seriously on your charges of Christianity being impacted/corrupted by paganism when you stop kissing a black stone in the center of a re-purposed pagan shrine, as your prophet Muhammad did according to sahih hadith, and walking around the hills of Safa and Marwa again as the pagans did, and doing all the other things that your religion took from the pagans and incorporated into its supposed pure monotheism.
Until then, vacuous responses such as this one deserve no serious reply whatsoever.
Again, so what? Since when does the mere existence of other beliefs mean that no one belief can be correct? Does the existence of people like Mu'awiya, Abu Lahab, and others from Muhammad's own time who did not believe in what he claimed to have received from God mean that Islam by default must be wrong? We would have to conclude that, if we treated Islam in the same way that you are treating Christianity.
As usual, you demand a different standard for your own religion, because your religion can't meet the one you put forth for others'. That's really, really weak. You have no integrity in your argumentation at all.
I dealt with this already.
You were the one who earlier were trying to make what I presume was the opposite point with whatever you meant by the Emperor "called Arius to honor". Maybe decide what you're trying to argue first, and then argue it.
Which pagan emperor was that? Constantine, who was baptized by an Arian? His successors, who were swayed by the Arians to exile the supporters of Nicaea many times?
Again, as the example of the Visigothic Kingdom in Spain showed, the Arian controversy continued on much longer than the council did. In fact, we could even say that so long as non-Trinitarian parasitic assemblies that claim Christianity like Mormonism and Oneness Pentecostalism exist in our own time, the fight against this same demotion of the Son continues (though Oneness Pentecostalism is clearly more akin to Sabellianism than to Arianism, there are many who express a kind of semi-Arianism and call themselves Pentecostals, or even more mainstream kinds of Protestants).
As much as I would love to believe that the Council settled the matter such that none of these things would keep resurfacing, I know that this is not the case.
And the Church either found itself in alignment with the Emperor/Empire or it didn't.
Which is it -- is it "by chance" or is it because the Emperor/Empire declared it so? You can't even keep straight your own claims! And you're wrong anyway, for all the reasons I've already written about.
I think even the most ardent defender of my Church would have a hard time categorizing the post-Chalcedon history of Christianity (and especially post-518, when Antioch definitively split; Egypt took a little longer) as being one in which we "won", if by that it is meant that the numerical majority remained on our side with regard to the rupture at the Council of Chalcedon, and yet you don't see me defending the Tome of Leo or Chalcedon more generally as a result (God forbid).
So no. No I wouldn't. (And neither would the Chalcedonians, I would imagine.)
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