the trinity concept?

[DrBubbaLove]

What he lacked and therefore wanted was fellowship! He obviously lacked it, it is undeniable. Elohim means self-existent one. There was nobody else BUT him. He clearly lacked fellowship. I am not implying at all that he NEEDED us but he did want. It shows no sign of weakness and doesn't take away from his infiniteness.

He nothing is added to him when he created us, because we were always in his thoughts. An infinite God can never have a new thought, thus all of his creation was eternal with him in his thoughts. They are now thoughts manifested. Tangible

God created to share His Goodness. We cannot expand that to suggest He lacked something before Creating and therefore created to fulfill some need to gain what He alledgedly "lacked".

We can say God "wants" us to be happy, not because God needs or lacks something that He somehow gains by our being happy. It is obvious He "wants" us to happy because He made us to love the Supreme Good and in doing so or to the degree we do so...., being the best we can be...be what we were made to be, that is what really makes us "happy".

 

[donfish06]

God created to share His Goodness. We cannot expand that to suggest He lacked something before Creating and therefore created to fulfill some need to gain what He alledgedly "lacked".

We can say God "wants" us to be happy, not because God needs or lacks something that He somehow gains by our being happy. It is obvious He "wants" us to happy because He made us to love the Supreme Good and in doing so or to the degree we do so...., being the best we can be...be what we were made to be, that is what really makes us "happy".

God created man in his own image, and IMMEDIATELY says it is not good for him to be alone. If man was in God's image and it wasn't good for man to be alone God was telling us it wasn't good for HIM to be alone.

 

[DrBubbaLove]

Since God does not have a body, the idea of being made in "His Image" must mean something else rather than a literal copy of Himself. Many theologians suggest our souls could be the only thing that could in some sense reflect "His Image". Mormons would agree with your understanding of those verses however if I followed you correctly - their god certainly has a body just like ours.

 

[Phantasman]

Since God does not have a body, the idea of being made in "His Image" must mean something else rather than a literal copy of Himself. Many theologians suggest our souls could be the only thing that could in some sense reflect "His Image". Mormons would agree with your understanding of those verses however if I followed you correctly - their god certainly has a body just like ours.

Man was created on the sixth day:

Genesis 1
26 And God said, Let us make man in our image, after our likeness: and let them have dominion over the fish of the sea, and over the fowl of the air, and over the cattle, and over all the earth, and over every creeping thing that creepeth upon the earth.
27 So God created man in his own image, in the image of God created he him; male and female created he them.


Two ideas here. One is an image of God (who no one has seen, except the Son), or "our image", in likeness of more than one. Since man did not receive his "soul" till the seventh day, I don't accept the soul as the likeness being created on the sixth.


Though verse 27 speaks "male and female", is this suggestive that Adam had both within (a Gnostic approach) or is he speaking of Eve before hand?

 

[DrBubbaLove]

There are two creation stories or two perspectives given in the beginning of the Bible. The second starts in Gen 2.4 and does not give a day-day imagery that the first version does. However the second gives a very clear image of God giving humans a soul, which suggests among other things a difference between man and other animals in regard to our spirits and even our place (above lower ordered animals).

Besides the soul, our spirit joined to a body is what makes that body "alive", so a view suggesting a man walking around for "a day" before getting a soul is refuted by that understanding of what it means to be human.

So if one wants to reject the idea that our souls would be the only thing about us that could possibly reflect His Image, then one needs another reason besides attempting to link two versions of the same Creation as if the second were just an extension of the "seventh day".

"Our image" would only mean more than one god in a view which claims there are many gods. In an orthodox view of God, "our" is the proper way for one Person to refer to a group of Three Persons. Since the Hebrew first and the Christians following them are recorded in secular history as being unique in holding there is ONLY One God, such a view is not just unorthodox, it is unsupported by the foundations laid by the Jewish people for Christians.

The question about man/woman vs Adam/Eve is also answered by the view which says these are two versions of the story of Creation.

 

[Phantasman]

Or, Christ really could have told John the creation story in his Apocryphon.

 

[DrBubbaLove]

And pink elephants could have wings. And if I believed that I would own some really sturdy umbrellas.

There are reasons not every writing, even popular ones, were not included in the canon.

 

[Phantasman]

And pink elephants could have wings. And if I believed that I would own some really sturdy umbrellas.

There are reasons not every writing, even popular ones, were not included in the canon.

And the reasons are...................?

 

[DrBubbaLove]

The reasons vary as do the writings, typically the writing could have even a single reference which conflicts with a truth/teaching already held. Same reason Luther wanted to cut more books out.

 

[Phantasman]

Why not stay with Marcion then? He was really big during his time.

The only conflict with non Canon books I see is parts of the OT. It verifies and aids the Canon Gospels.

 

[DrBubbaLove]

Do you mean Marcion or the thoughts/ideas of those who followed?

And it is not like Bishops are incapable of error, in writing or teachings, so am unclear what the point is. Bishops are men, and all men are sinners.

 

[nothead]

And one that I believe makes the most sense when used in context with the Bible:

Joh 4:24 God is a Spirit: and they that worship him must worship him in spirit and in truth.

God is an invisible spirit. God wants to have communion with us. How can an invisible spirit have communion with us?

He creates a body to dwell in. This is the MAN Jesus. He then descends into this body, and Jesus becomes Christ (which is translated, annointed)

First of all, God is more than spirit. And He didn't CREATE a body to dwell in, He IS a Body and Face which no man can see and live.

JESUS' body is not God's body. Wherever did you get that idea. It is not in the Bible, sir.

 

[DrBubbaLove]

Mormons have God with body and face, and the same would at one "time" have been an "infant" unable to express Himself.
Am unfamiliar with any orthodox view of God that holds Him having a physical form or parts, in fact the idea of an Infinite Being negates the possibility of "parts", just a Perfection would negate the idea of "growing".

Is a physical form of God a common UT belief and are their any denominations associated with such beliefs?

 

[visionary]

"The baptismal formula (in Matthew 28:19) was changed from the name of Jesus Christ to the words Father, Son, and Holy Spirit by the Catholic Church in the second century." The Catholic Encyclopedia, II, page 263.

 

[visionary]

Catholic Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger made this confession about the origin of the chief Trinity text of Matthew 28:19. "The basic form of our (Matthew 28:19 Trinitarian) profession of faith took shape during the course of the second and third centuries in connection with the ceremony of baptism. So far as its place of origin is concerned, the text (Matthew 28:19) came from the city of Rome."

 

[DrBubbaLove]

The formula was in use in the 1st Century - ref Didache - and technically a universal "change" within all communities would not be possible in the second century. I agree some would like us to think otherwise.

 

[Der Alte]

Catholic Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger made this confession about the origin of the chief Trinity text of Matthew 28:19. "The basic form of our (Matthew 28:19 Trinitarian) profession of faith took shape during the course of the second and third centuries in connection with the ceremony of baptism. So far as its place of origin is concerned, the text (Matthew 28:19) came from the city of Rome."

That is absolute rubbish. That is just copy/pasted from some vitriolic anti-trinitarian website. This piece of lying poison is floating all over the internet. A person who would quote something like this without verifying it should be ashamed of themself. Here is what then Cardinal Ratzinger actually said. Link to the book below where this can be verified.

Introduction to Christianity, By Pope Benedict XVI, Chapter 2 The Ecclesiastical Form of Faith

The answers can only be found by looking at the concrete shape of Christian belief, and this we now mean to consider, using the so-called Apostles Creed as a guiding thread. It may be useful to preface the discussion with a few facts about the origin and structure of the Creed; these will at the same time throw some light on the legitimacy of the procedure. The basic form of our profession of faith [the Creed] took shape during the course of the second and third centuries in connection with the ceremony of baptism. So far as its place of origin is concerned, the text comes from the city of Rome; but its internal origin lies in worship; more precisely, in the conferring of baptism. This again was fundamentally based on the words of the risen Christ recorded in Matthew 28:19: "Go therefore and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit."

Introduction to Christianity - Pope Benedict XVI - Google Books​

Early church fathers who quoted Matt 28:19 with the Triadic formula long before the RCC existed, ca. 1075 AD. FYI I am not RCC, just a believer in truth.

Ignatius, ca 110

For those things which the prophets announced, saying, “Until He come for whom it is reserved, and He shall be the expectation of the Gentiles,” have been fulfilled in the Gospel, [our Lord saying,] “Go ye and teach all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Ghost.” (Ignatius of Antioch, Epistle to the Philadelphians, 9.2)

Irenaeus, ca 170

And again, giving to the disciples the power of regeneration into God, He said to them, Go and teach all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Ghost. (Irenaeus, Against Heresies, Book III, chap 17.1)

Tertullian, ca 200

Accordingly, after one of these had been struck off, He commanded the eleven others, on His departure to the Father, to go and teach all nations, who were to be baptized into the Father, and into the Son, and into the Holy Ghost. (Tertullian, Prescription Against the Heretics, 20)​

 

[Phantasman]

Do you mean Marcion or the thoughts/ideas of those who followed?

And it is not like Bishops are incapable of error, in writing or teachings, so am unclear what the point is. Bishops are men, and all men are sinners.

Yep. So men don't dictate truth, or where it resides. We seek spiritual guidance, and much of that comes from physical information, but not all of it.

 

[Der Alte]

"The baptismal formula (in Matthew 28:19) was changed from the name of Jesus Christ to the words Father, Son, and Holy Spirit by the Catholic Church in the second century." The Catholic Encyclopedia, II, page 263.

More contemptible internet poison. Here is what the Catholic Encyclopedia actually says. I suggest, before you copy/paste any more of this nonsense from whatever anti-Trinitarian site you use, check it out from the primary sources. I have no qualms at all about exposing poison like this.

Institution of the sacrament

That Christ instituted the Sacrament of Baptism is unquestionable. Rationalists, like Harnack (Dogmengeschichte, I, 68), dispute it, only by arbitrarily ruling out the texts which prove it. Christ not only commands His Disciples (Matthew 28:19) to baptize and gives them the form to be used, but He also declares explicitly the absolute necessity of baptism (John 3): "Unless a man be born again of water and the Holy Ghost, he can not enter into the Kingdom of God." Moreover, from the general doctrine of the Church on the sacraments, we know that the efficacy attached to them is derivable only from the institution of the Redeemer.

Form

The requisite and sole valid form of baptism is: "I baptize thee (or This person is baptized) in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Ghost." This was the form given by Christ to His Disciples in the twenty-eighth chapter of St. Matthew's Gospel, as far, at least, as there is question of the invocation of the separate Persons of the Trinity and the expression of the nature of the action performed.

CATHOLIC ENCYCLOPEDIA: Baptism​

 

[Phantasman]

I wonder how John the Baptist baptized? Water.

John

6 That which is born of the flesh is flesh; and that which is born of the Spirit is spirit.
7 Marvel not that I said unto thee, Ye must be born again.


Water for flesh, fire for spirit. The flesh dies. The spirit is eternal.


The water is a ritual. But the anointing is a spiritual experience.



The chrism is superior to baptism, for it is from the word "Chrism" that we have been called "Christians," certainly not because of the word "baptism". And it is because of the chrism that "the Christ" has his name. For the Father anointed the Son, and the Son anointed the apostles, and the apostles anointed us. He who has been anointed possesses everything. He possesses the resurrection, the light, the cross, the Holy Spirit. The Father gave him this in the bridal chamber; he merely accepted (the gift). The Father was in the Son and the Son in the Father. This is the Kingdom of Heaven.-Philip


If the Gospel of Luke is correct over Mark, the thief didn't need water baptism.