Trinity???

JacksLadder · Oct 10, 2009

Why was Sabellianism not used instead of the Trinity? Wiccans I know believe in a form of the trinity ,seprate gods, but at the same time joining into one divine source which is polytheistic. One God in different forms at the same time makes much more sense to me. So what was the problem with this teaching? In my heart I believe in only One God who can show himself in different ways if he so chooses. So why not Sabellianism?

buzuxi02 · Oct 10, 2009

Sabellianism was condemned as heresy in the late 2nd century. It had a small following and none of the Apostolic writings of the 2nd century supports it at all.

JacksLadder · Oct 10, 2009

I know it was condemed but why is what I want to know.

buzuxi02 · Oct 10, 2009

Because its not the truth. The holy Trinity is 3 hypostasis, with the Son and the Spirit sharing in the same divinity as the Father not 3 different modes of action of one hypostatic God

JacksLadder · Oct 10, 2009

buzuxi02 said:
Because its not the truth. The holy Trinity is 3 hypostasis, with the Son and the Spirit sharing in the same divinity as the Father not 3 different modes of action of one hypostatic God

No that dosen't sound correct. There has to be more to why it was rejected. Besides the Bible is monotheistic not polytheistic so why did later early Christians reject thier being one God? There must be something else that happened that you are not telling me.

HandmaidenOfGod · Oct 10, 2009

Christians do believe in one God. The Trinity is Three in One Essence. There is only one God.

ArmyMatt · Oct 10, 2009

the problem is that if you call God Father, and God is by definition unchanging, then He must always have a Son. God cannot be sometimes Father and other times Son, because how can you have a Son without a Father, or vice versa. you also cannot say God is love, unless you have both at least a lover and a beloved. so if God is love (meaning He does not become love, He just is love) then there has to always have been an eternal lover and beloved. the only eternal being is God, so the Persons would always have to be existent, distinct, but not divisible in Divinity.

There must be something else that happened that you are not telling me.

I would hope that you would have some evidence to back up a statement like this

JacksLadder · Oct 10, 2009

ArmyMatt said:
the problem is that if you call God Father, and God is by definition unchanging, then He must always have a Son. God cannot be sometimes Father and other times Son, because how can you have a Son without a Father, or vice versa. you also cannot say God is love, unless you have both at least a lover and a beloved. so if God is love (meaning He does not become love, He just is love) then there has to always have been an eternal lover and beloved. the only eternal being is God, so the Persons would always have to be existent, distinct, but not divisible in Divinity.

I would hope that you would have some evidence to back up a statement like this

I was more thinking Humanity=God's Son's and Daughters after all God concieved of humanity with his breath(holy spirit) out of the earth making the earth our mother. But thanks for the more in depth answer. What church fathers were for or against Sabellianism?

choirfiend · Oct 10, 2009

Until Christ came and taught us to call God, "Abba," Father, no Jew ever had. It is not part of Jewish belief that God is Father, nor is it within the later developments of the Islam heresy that God was Father. They all reject God as Father. Only Christianity teaches that God is Trinity, One God in three Persons.

This seems to sum up well why it is heresy:
"He (Sabellius) differs from the orthodox standard mainly in denying the trinity of essence and the permanence of the trinity of manifestation; making Father, Son, and Holy Ghost only temporary phenomena, which fulfill their mission and return into the abstract monad."

Each "mode" of God only happens sometimes. Does God change? Is God not eternal in His 'existence'?

God "appears" in different forms. So, then, why would He only appear as Father, Son, and Holy Spirit? Why not choose others? Then, we're really almost getting into Hindu beliefs about gods.

choirfiend · Oct 10, 2009

JacksLadder said:
I was more thinking Humanity=God's Son's and Daughters after all God concieved of humanity with his breath(holy spirit) out of the earth making the earth our mother. But thanks for the more in depth answer. What church fathers were for or against Sabellianism?

In the idea you state here, He not a Father until AFTER He created. Isn't He eternally changeless, the Eternal God, Father? Both ideas cannot be right.

We are His creations, but we only receive the gift of being called Sons of God after our inheritance is received in Jesus Christ, who is the Son. It is because the Son of God united our humanity to Himself that we are likewise called to inherit the Kingdom of God by united ourselves to Christ.

Have you read Divine Energy by Jon Braun? It doesnt go into scholastic depth by any means, but I really enjoyed it as it laid out the Orthodox belief of creation, the fall, the incarnation, crucifixion, and resurrection in easy to comprehend terms. It's a nice summary of what salvation is in the Church, and I would find it helpful to have as a kind of foundational basis before going into greater learning on specific doctrines.

JacksLadder · Oct 10, 2009

God is changless yes. But I am me untill I had my daughter then I still was myself but my relationship with my daughter turns me into a father.

If Christians are the only ones that teach God as father and Jews do not then only a change that happened between Judaism and Christianity would account for God becoming a father.

Or God only became a Father after he created which would also make sense.

As humans we cannot experience all of God at one that would kill us so that is why he would choose to show us only parts of himself at different times as modes.

JacksLadder · Oct 10, 2009

Also If Jesus was eternally all God and all human than Mary would not be needed. But either a change in relationship happened to the word of the Father or Mary would not have been needed. So again why?

choirfiend · Oct 10, 2009

The change is the revelation of the Messiah, Jesus, who told us to pray the Our Father, and who fulfilled all of the prophecies, and who manifested the Trinity at once to us in Theophany, His baptism, where Christ was baptised, God the Father spoke, and the Holy Spirit descended. If He only exists in one mode at a time, what was happening here?

JacksLadder · Oct 10, 2009

choirfiend said:
The change is the revelation of the Messiah, Jesus, who told us to pray the Our Father, and who fulfilled all of the prophecies, and who manifested the Trinity at once to us in Theophany, His baptism, where Christ was baptised, God the Father spoke, and the Holy Spirit descended. If He only exists in one mode at a time, what was happening here?

I see it as showing you a leg and a arm at the same time.

JacksLadder · Oct 10, 2009

Also is God bound in linier time in E.O.?

JacksLadder · Oct 10, 2009

Plus in the only spernatural experiance I have had when I was very depressed God said "do not worry my son" so why would God say that unless he was humanities Father?

Aesjn · Oct 10, 2009

choirfiend said:
Until Christ came and taught us to call God, "Abba," Father, no Jew ever had. It is not part of Jewish belief that God is Father, nor is it within the later developments of the Islam heresy that God was Father. They all reject God as Father. Only Christianity teaches that God is Trinity, One God in three Persons.

Jews DO refer to their god as father, they call him "Avinu" ("Our Father", and 'abba' comes from the same root).

buzuxi02 · Oct 11, 2009

Tetullian refered to sabellianism and modalism as patripassianism because it would mean that God the Father suffered and died in the passion, on the cross. This was an absurd notion, it was the Son incarnate who united himself to humanity that suffered.

One of the best expositors of the Trinity in the early church was Athenagoras bishop of Athens. His writing dates to 177 a.d. you can google it.

JacksLadder · Oct 11, 2009

buzuxi02 said:
Tetullian refered to sabellianism and modalism as patripassianism because it would mean that God the Father suffered and died in the passion, on the cross. This was an absurd notion, it was the Son incarnate who united himself to humanity that suffered.

One of the best expositors of the Trinity in the early church was Athenagoras bishop of Athens. His writing dates to 177 a.d. you can google it.

But if Jesus is part of the one God then of course the Father suffered. Did Jesus's divine half not suffer but only his human half durning the passion according to E.O.?

buzuxi02 · Oct 11, 2009

JacksLadder said:
But if Jesus is part of the one God then of course the Father suffered. Did Jesus's divine half not suffer but only his human half durning the passion according to E.O.?

We do not claim his "two natures" suffered instead it was the one and same person who suffered- Jesus of Nazareth. Dividing Jesus into categories of human and divine is the crux of the nestorian heresy.

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