Should you believe in the trinity II

[2ducklow]

While I see your point, it IS a good analogy for what trinitarians believe. It fails for you because you don't believe it, but it does fairly represent their belief. Does it help you to better understand where they are coming from? What they are taught?

I disagree, the egg analogy fails for the reasons of logic that I stated. Logic is independant of ones theological doctrine. the same logic that I applied to the egg analogy I would apply to any analogy for my doctrine. The test of logic, or if it makes sense, is applicable to any doctrine.


And no it doesn't help me or anyone understand the doctrine of the trinity, Trinity is not understandable because it is a contradiction. Namely that 3 gods are one god. Course they get around this, they think, by claiming that if you add the 3 individuals up you gotta call um persons of god , but if you are talking about the 3 gods that they have individually , then you call them each god, so long as you don't add them up when you call each one god. Which is just plain nonsense. Anyone who has a list of 3 different gods and refuses to call them gods is just refusing to face the facts. calling them persons of god if you have to add them up is just ridiculous.

No one can understand a contradiction. Even trinitarians, when pressed on the matter, will admit that the doctrine of the trinity is beyond human understanding. Which is just another way of saying that it doesn't make any sense.

[


And yes, you're right, it does seem to point to four gods. I hadn't really thought about that. It seems there's the father, Jesus, the Holy Spirit and then there's God. But that makes God out to be very strange indeed, I think.

Hard to figure out if 3 gods are one god means 4 gods or just 3 as it is an exercise in illogic in the first place to say 3 gods are one god, or 3 cars are one car.

 

[2ducklow]

[ah changed my mind;

 

[Simonline]

was it something I said?

Not just 'something', virtually everything you say is a blatant manipulation of the truth in order to try and make it appear as if it endorses your idolatrous understanding of God. Only those who, through honest study, have familiarized themselves with the truth, as revealed through the Judeo-Christian Scriptures (which rules out many of the people who post on this site) are aware of how you deceitfully and dishonestly manipulate the truth for your own ends. Such deceitful manipulation of the truth is the very essence of witchcraft [i.e. the manipulation of spiritual forces for one's own ends] and as such is absolutely contrary to Judeo-Christianity.

Simonline.

 

[Simonline]

Well I got Jesus in my heart. I love Jesus tremendously, much much much more today than I did 37 years ago, but I have always loved Him ever since I got born again. Do you love Jesus too? I talk to Jesus all the time, and he talks to me all the time, like right now he spoke to me. Do you know the Lord ? I've known Jesus for 37 years, and it has been wonderfull. In all those 37 years that i've know Jesus he never once told me that I was rotten to the core, so probably it isn't true. Otherwise He would have told me to correct me. But maybe you think you know more than the LOrd?!

You may well have 'Jesus' in your heart but the Jesus you have in your heart is definitely not the Jesus whom the Judeo-Christian Scriptures reveal since He is YHWH Himself, incarnate as the man Jesus of Nazareth, something that you, like your father (Jn.8:44), vehemently deny.

The very fact that virtually every statement you make contradicts the Judeo-Christian Scriptures simply confirms that you are not a true believer, a member of the elect, otherwise we would be fighting the good fight on the same side, upholding the truth together? As it is, we are on oposite sides and only one of us is a true believer, the other is simply masquerading as an angel of light and only the true believers can see right through your deception.

Simonline.

 

[Kris10leigh]

Such deceitful manipulation of the truth is the very essence of witchcraft [i.e. the manipulation of spiritual forces for one's own ends] and as such is absolutely contrary to Judeo-Christianity.

Simonline.

Simon! You just called him a witch! For that matter, I think you just called several of us witches. "The manipulation of spiritual forces for one's own ends"? How exactly is he manipulating anything for his own means? What "ends" is he meeting? That makes no sense.

 

[2ducklow]

You may well have 'Jesus' in your heart but the Jesus you have in your heart is definitely not the Jesus whom the Judeo-Christian Scriptures reveal since He is YHWH Himself, incarnate as the man Jesus of Nazareth, something that you, like your father (Jn.8:44), vehemently deny.

no comment.

The very fact that virtually every statement you make contradicts the Judeo-Christian Scriptures simply confirms that you are not a true believer
a member of the elect, otherwise we would be fighting the good fight on the same side, upholding the truth together?
As it is, we are on oposite sides and only one of us is a true believer, the other is simply masquerading as an angel of light and only the true believers can see right through your deception.

Simonline.

no comment

 

[2ducklow]

You may well have 'Jesus' in your heart but the Jesus you have in your heart is definitely not the Jesus whom the Judeo-Christian Scriptures reveal since He is YHWH Himself, incarnate as the man Jesus of Nazareth, something that you, like your father (Jn.8:44), vehemently deny.

The very fact that virtually every statement you make contradicts the Judeo-Christian Scriptures simply confirms that you are not a true believer, a member of the elect, otherwise we would be fighting the good fight on the same side, upholding the truth together? As it is, we are on oposite sides and only one of us is a true believer, the other is simply masquerading as an angel of light and only the true believers can see right through your deception.

Simonline.

no comment.

 

[Simonline]

Simon, your dialogue begs a question from me? You have been talking very nicely with me. I think you are largely misunderstood here.

What is your purpose in chatting here with us? Is it to bring us to your "truth"? Do you debate in the hope that people will see your position and therefore change theirs?

No! Your thinking is fundamentally warped and therefore fundamentally flawed. There is no such thing as 'your' truth and/or 'my' truth (that is a modern distortion of the absolute nature of Truth that is itself false). There is only THE TRUTH (Jn.14:6). God is Truth and He has revealed Himself to us at various times throughout either human history and in various ways (Heb.1:1-2) the most obvious ways being Creation (Rom.1:18-32); the Scriptures (2Tim.3:16-17; Heb.4:12-13) and supremely through His incarnating as a human creature - the Messiah, Jesus of Nazareth (Jn.1:1,14; 14:6; 17:17).

The Scriptures also declare that unless God monergistically regenerates us [Monergistic regeneration refers to God bringing His creatures to life (from a state of spiritual death), i.e. causing them to be 'born again', something in which the creature is utterly incapable of participating.] so that we can actively participate, with God, in our sanctification, then one simply will not either understand or accept the truth (1Cor.1:18-2:16).

I for one do not expect to change my opinion, though often times I do. Mostly, I just like to dialogue. Sometimes just by voicing my thoughts, people come and tell me where I'm right and where I'm wrong. I can then choose to agree or disagree.

Your perception of reality is completely relativistic. You think that your opinion is no more true or false than anyone else's opinion and that everyone's opinion is equally true (for the person holding the opinion) and therefore equally valid?! Acording to the Truth (not 'my' truth but God's Truth), that perception of reality is absolutely false. If two people believe the exact opposite about God (i.e. that He both exists and does not exist) they cannot both be correct. One of them is correct and the other, by definition, is wrong since God CANNOT both exist and not exist in the same sense at the same time. That is an absolute contradiction. However, the modern understanding of truth says that both opinions are equally true (and therefore equally valid) for the people who hold them. In other words 'Whatever is true for you...is true, but only for you'?! Such an understanding is an outright denial of objective reality...does God actually exist (in reality) or not?!

I never intend to change your view of your truth, or anyone else's for that matter, and especially not on this issue.

You CAN'T change anyone's view of 'Truth' because YOU DON'T BELIEVE IN TRUTH. You only believe in opinion (which is exactly how you have been taught to understand truth by the culture in which you have been raised and that understanding is totally false and absolutely lethal. You have effectively been taught to believe that there is no such thing as 'Truth' in the absolute sense (i.e. one absolute Truth that is binding on all people, at all time and in all places) and with that understanding of reality you have been effectively excluded from any possibility of being a true Christian believer. Effectively, the culture and society in which you have been raised has innoculated you against the Truth. As long as you think that Truth is just a matter of opinion then you will never understand those of us who know that Truth is absolute and therefore seek to communicate the absolute nature of Truth to the rest of the world so that those whom God has predestined to be redeemed can have the opportunity to hear the Truth and so respond (having already been monergistically regenerated by God) by faith and begin the process of sanctification, leading to glorification.

That's where I'm coming from. Where are you coming from? Are you ok with sharing just for the sake of sharing? Or for you, does someone eventually have to win?

I'm happy to talk with you but you need to understand that, whilst you have a 'modern' post-Christian relativistic understanding of truth (which says that there is no such thing as 'absolute truth', there is only 'relative truth' (i.e. personal opinion)) I have a Judeo-Christian Biblical (i.e. classical 'absolute') understanding of Truth which is why we seem to be talking at cross-purposes all the time as if we both come from entirely different realities with entirely different frames of reference.

Having read the complete works of the late Francis A. Schaeffer http://www.amazon.com/Complete-Works-Francis-Schaeffer-Christian/dp/0891073310, I know exactly from where you're coming (you being a product of late twentieth, early twenty first century Western post-Judeo-Christian relativistic culture) but you have no idea from where I'm coming (the world of pre-relativistic Judeo-Christian absolute reality and Truth, i.e. 'the real world' as it really is, instead of the illusionary world of moral relativism into which you have been born).

That means that I do not accept your relativistic perception of reality as valid. I believe that what you believe about truth is false and I believe that I am obligated by God (who, alone, is Absolute Reality) to communicate the Truth (what the late Francis Schaeffer refers to as 'true Truth') to you in the hope that you too might one day come to realize that Truth, by it's very Nature, is Absolute and that it cannot simply be 'just a matter of opinion'.

Simonline.

 

[Simonline]

John 17:1-3 These things spake Jesus; and lifting up his eyes to heaven, he said, Father, the hour is come; glorify thy Son, that the son may glorify thee: even as thou gavest him authority over all flesh, that to all whom thou hast given him, he should give eternal life. And this is life eternal, that they should know thee the only true God, and him whom thou didst send, even Jesus Christ.



So it does say that God the Father is the only God. And 1 cor. 8.6 says the Father is the one God. puttingthe two scriptures together you get that God the Father is the one and only true God.
Only alone same thing, in fact the primary definition of the Greek word used here in John 17.3 <mono> is alone.
well John 17.3 does, so I am right and you are wrong, and you are duty bound to admit that you are a heretic.
john 17.3 does,

John 17:3 And this is life eternal, that they should know thee the only( this word also means alone monos) true God, and him whom thou didst send, even Jesus Christ.

No comment.

Simonline.

 

[2ducklow]

No comment.

Simonline.

the bible says God the father is the only (alone) true God, you say God the Father isn't the only (alone) God. So what else can you do but run away from the truth for the umpteenth time with your 'no comment".

Simon says.

It doesn't say 'one God, the Father alone' (only)?! If it said that then 2ducklow would be absolutely right in what he argues and I would gladly acknowledge that I am the one who is a heretic and not he,

John 17:3 And this is life eternal, that they should know thee the only (alone) true God, and him whom thou didst send, even Jesus Christ.

so Simonline says it doesnt say that God the father alone is the one true God but The word of God does say that god the Father is the one and only (alone) true God. So what do you do when caught in a blatant contradiction? run for cover with 'no comment.'

 

[Kris10leigh]

Simon, I never said you and I are both right or that God can both exist and not exist. You are twisting my words. I said, and I'm going to make this big:

I will not say that I am right and you are wrong!

And you can not make me see that differently because that would make me a very different person than who I am!

And I have noticed that you will not allow anyone to be nice to you.

 

[Simonline]

I've followed this thread for a while. I have been hesitant to post because, after reading the thread, I perceive this subject as being fraught with anger and emotion.

You are correct. Fighting the good fight CANNOT be done dispassionately. God has made us in His likeness (Gen.1:26-27) and therefore He has made us emotional beings, not dispassionate androids like 'Data' from Star Trek - The Next Generation.

Contrary to popular opinion, anger, per se, is not sinful (since God also gets angry). The Scriptures tell us 'In your anger, do not sin' Eph.4:26. Christians often feel righteous anger when they become aware of that which is contrary to the truth and sometimes we manifest that anger in ways that are not glorifying to God. I acknowledge that that is wrong but I'd rather be an emotional human creature, just like my Divine Creator Father than a dispassionate android who can NEVER know the only true God and His incarnation as a human creature (Jn.17:3). Would you rather have it any other way?

Anyway, I am not here to dissuade anyone from their interpretation of Scripture.

Then, by definition, you're not here to make a stand for the Truth against falsehood either?!

I just have a sincere question.

Simonline, you said:

Actually, for the record, Jesus isn't Divine. He's only human. It is the Messiah who is both Divine and human. As Divine, the Messiah is YHWH, whilst as human, the Messiah is Jesus of Nazareth.

No, because Jesus is NOT God. It is the Messiah who is both God and man (Divine and human). As Divine, the Messiah is YHWH (the one (and only) true God), whilst, as human, the Messiah is Jesus of Nazareth.

The distinction that is being made here by the apostle Paul 'yet to us there is one God, the Father, of whom are all things, and we unto him; and one Lord, Jesus Christ, through whom are all things, and we through him' is the distinction between God existing as God (Jn.4:24) and God, by means of the Incarnation, existing as man (Col.1:13-17). The Messiah is YHWH Himself, incarnate as a man (which is why the Messiah is called Emmanuel - 'God with us')

This is very confusing to me. You said the Messiah is Jesus of Nazareth, but you are talking about Jesus and the Messiah as if they are two separate persons.

That's because what I am espousing is classic orthodox Christology rather than the modern 'over simplified' parody of it that is commonly understood and espoused by most Christians today.

If we, as most Christians today, say that 'Jesus is God' then, by implication, what we are also saying is that 'YHWH is human' (?!) and that is not only absurd it is also blasphemous. The early Christians would NEVER have declared the Messiah, existing as human, to be Divine since that would have been a metaphysical absurdity which would have been rejected by the entire intelligent world.

What the early Christians espoused was that the Messiah (or Christ) was/is ONE PERSON [i.e. the Son], simultaneously existing in TWO (distinct but NOT separate) WAYS as TWO (mutually exclusive) NATURES. As the Divine Creator, the Messiah is YHWH whilst, as a human creature, the Messiah is Jesus of Nazareth - same single Person - just simultaneously existing as two distinct realities - God and man (which is why the Messiah is also called Emmanuel - 'God with us').

Your other statements have left me with questions:

1. Jesus isn't Divine he's only human, but the Messiah is both Divine and human. (1st quote)

2. Jesus is not God, but the Messiah is both God and man. (2nd quote)

How can Jesus (the Messiah) be Divine, yet not Divine? Not God, yet both God and man?

I am not trying to start an argument, I sincerely want to understand your reasoning.

Don't worry, I can tell by what you say (and the way that you say it) that you're not 'picking a fight' you're just trying to understand so I'm happy to explain for you.

You need to understand that the Messiah is ONE PERSON simultaneously existing as TWO NATURES (not just one nature like the rest of humanity).

With the sole exception of the Messiah, all mankind exist as mono-personal creatures [one person - one nature] but the Messiah alone exists as one Person - Two Natures (one Divine, the other human) and those two natures are mutually exclusive (the Divine Creator, as the Divine Creator, CANNOT exist as a human creature just as any human creature, as a human creature, CANNOT exist as the Divine Creator). This means that Divine Nature and human nature CANNOT be blended, combined or amalgamated into one single hybrid Divine/human nature (?!) That is absolutely impossible for both God and man.

The Messiah, simultaneously existing as both Divine Creator and human creature, is God first (both Eternally and Immutably) and human second (but only from a specific point within time and space history). As God, the Messiah is YHWH, not Jesus of Nazareth. As human the Messiah is Jesus of Nazareth, not YHWH.

I know this is 'off the beaten track' but this is the correct Biblical understanding of the Messiah simultaneously existing as both God and man (the official term is the doctrine of the hypostatic union and this just means 'how the Messiah exists as both God and man at the same time').

I hope this helps a bit?

Simonline.

 

[2ducklow]

never mind

 

[Simonline]

Simon, I never said you and I are both right or that God can both exist and not exist. You are twisting my words. I said, and I'm going to make this big:

I will not say that I am right and you are wrong!

But that is exactly my point! Because of what you believe about the fundamental nature of Truth, you CANNOT say that anyone (including God Himself) is 'right' or that anyone (including God Himself) is 'wrong'?! Your defective understanding of the fundamental nature of Truth won't allow you to make any kind of absolute declaration that someone is right and therefore someone else is wrong! That's what's wrong with your understanding of Truth and why your understanding of Truth is actually false! Truth, by its very nature is absolute and anything that does not conform to it is by nature false. Why else do you think that God (as the incarnate Messiah) is one day going to judge the world and pour out His wrath upon all who do not conform to Him as Truth (Jn.3:36)?!

And you can not make me see that differently because that would make me a very different person than who I am!

Yes, it would! It might even result in you becoming a true Christian?!

And I have noticed that you will not allow anyone to be nice to you.

I don't have a problem with people being nice toward me but that does not mean that, because they are nice toward me, that I will agree with whatever they say irrespective of whether whatever they say is true or false?! I will always be civil toward you but I will NEVER agree with your current understanding of the Truth and I will never allow you to say that 'your' truth is as ligitimate and valid as 'my' truth because then I would be tacitly endorsing a lie. Your perception of truth as relative is absolutely false and I will ALWAYS say so.

Please understand that my 'hostility' is NOT against you personally, it is against the falsehood that you have been taught is the truth. You have been sold a lie by your post- Judeo-Christian culture in which you have been raised and you (like most people growing up in the same post-Judeo-Christian culture) are not even aware of it?

The Evil One and his cohorts are doing an incredible job in deceiving modern society and inocculating them against the absolute nature of Truth by teaching people that 'truth' is not absolute but is actually both subjective and relative?! People with this understanding with this relativistic understanding of 'reality' are totally out of touch with Reality as God has created it.

The Truth is that Truth, by its very nature, is both exclusive and offensive to those who don't want to believe it and so be redeemed from Perdition (2Cor.2:14-17).

Simonline

 

[Kris10leigh]

[/size]

But that is exactly my point! Because of what you believe about the fundamental nature of Truth, you CANNOT say that anyone (including God Himself) is 'right' or that anyone (including God Himself) is 'wrong'?!

I'm done. The moment you just twisted my words into saying that somewhere I've said God is not right, I'm done. God IS the truth. Simon is not. I will follow God and not Simon, thank you.

 

[2ducklow]

Should one believe in the Trinity? Should one believe in Oneness? Should one believe in unitarianism? NO. ONe should believe in God and his word, not a doctrine. Stand on what the word of God says, not on what some church council says. Take your stand on john 1.14, not on an interpretation of John 1.14.
God said the word became or was made flesh. I beleive it and I am standing on the word of God. I place my faith in the word of God that says "the word became or was made flesh"
God did not say "YHWH incarnated as a human" . So I will not place my faith in such statement. But will on the contrary suject it to tests proveing it either right or wrong in my eyes. . And "YHWH incarnated as a human" fails the proof test, at least to me it does , and is not subject to the faith test (in that it is not the word of God but an interpretation). Trinity is an interpretation, we should not believe in or have faith in Trinity, or oneness or Unitarianism, but should prove them to ourselves. God requires this of us. He does not want us to just accept any doctrine on faith. God only wants us to accept his word on faith.

Honest intelligent people can and do differ on how they see things in the word of God. No one has 100 percent accurate doctrine, although some of course are more accurate than others. Everyone needs the holy spirit to lead them into more and more truth. And that presuspposes that some things that everyone of us believe are wrong. Else there would be no need for the holy Spirit to lead us into all truth, for we would already be there.



Faith in a doctrine, any doctrine is bad.. , Frequently people whose faith is in a doctrine will consider anyone not of that doctrine outside the realm of Christianity. Because they don't have faith, faith in their doctrine which they equate with the word of God. I don't have faith in Trinity, I don't have faith in the oneness doctrine, I don't have faith in any doctrine, I have faith IN Jesus Christ, I have faith in the word of God, this is what God wants. God doesn't want us to have faith in any doctrine.

Ok , nuff said, I'll stop for now.

 

[2ducklow]

So anybody got another reason why we should believe in the Trinity other than the aforementioned " we are witches if we reject the Trinity" reason?

 

[Kris10leigh]

So anybody got another reason why we should believe in the Trinity other than the aforementioned " we are witches if we reject the Trinity" reason?

Why even try when our words get twisted into totally illogical things? Confuse 'em into believing!

 

[YeshuamySalvation]

Why even try when our words get twisted into totally illogical things? Confuse 'em into believing!

Things are getting really ugly over here. You and 2 ducklow have been able to hang in there but I'm no longer interested in getting slammed by Christians apologist. I am not Christian and refuse to allow Christians to impose there dogmas on myself and others. The existence of Christianity is found in 325 AD and the First Nicene Council. Not so for Judaism which is far older then that, and it's history is found all through the Torah and the prophets. Jews have never engaged in worshiping a Trinitarian deity the Babylonians and Egyptians did. The followers of Yeshua were not Christians as we know them today and neither were any of the New Testament authors. Christians have taken the title of being Christians for themselves, as far as I'm concern they can have it. Our Apostle of grace was a practicing pharisee not a Christian Acts 23:6 But when Paul perceived that the one part were Sadducees, and the other Pharisees, he cried out in the council, Men and brethren, I am a Pharisee, the son of a Pharisee: of the hope and resurrection of the dead I am called in question.

Not generalizing for i know there is a lot of none condemning and just Christians. It is those Christians who base there salvation on belief in a dogma that it's existence is found in the mid third and fourth century. These people that imposed those dogmas were not the original Messianic believer that existed in Shaul's days. If the Nicene Council determines who is Christian and who is not, then i will never consider myself Christian but simply a Messianic believer, a believer in my Jewish Mashiyach not a Greek one.

 

[Simonline]

I'm done. The moment you just twisted my words into saying that somewhere I've said God is not right, I'm done. God IS the truth. Simon is not. I will follow God and not Simon, thank you.

This contradicts everything you have said so far. Up to now you have refused to say that anyone is either 'right' or 'wrong'. Now you have declared that 'God is Truth'. If you really believe that 'God is Truth' then you should pin your colours to the mast and endorse those who speak in accordance with what God as Truth has revealed through the Judeo-Christian Scriptures whilst at the same time repudiating those who speak contrary to what God as Truth has revealed through the Judeo-Christian Scriptures.

Anyone who claims to believe that 'God is Truth' CANNOT, by definition, remain 'neutral' or 'sit on the fence' on matters of Truth or falsehood. To do so is to deny that 'God is Truth' and affirm that 'all truth is relative' (which is a lie), so, which is it? Is God really Truth...or not?!

Simonline.