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Results from: Answered Bible Questions, Answers, Unanswered Bible Questions, Notes Ordered by Verse | ||||||
Results | Verse | Author | ID# | |||
1 | so, you're saying that they go to hell? | Bible general Archive 1 | Reformer Joe | 37900 | ||
"Now, would God be responsible for a doctrine about himself that is so confusing that even Hebrew, Greek and Latin Scholars cannot really explain it?" Well, first of all, the question itself is invalid, because we are not talking about a doctrine that God created, but rather a doctrine concerning the nature of God Himself. Since God did not create Himself (He just IS), the question is whether he eternally exists as one being in three persons or not. I can explain the Trinity in a single paragraph: The Father is God. The Son is God. The Holy Spirit is God. The Father is not the Son. The Son is not the Spirit. The Spirit is not the Father. There you go! The verse in 1 Corinthians 14 does not refer to the doctrines of God, but on church order. Taking the verse in its context precludes it from referring directly to the Trinity, whether it is a confusing doctrine or not. You quoted: "ENCYCLOPEDIA OF RELIGION: There is no evidence of any sacred writer even suspected the existance of the Trinity, it is to go beyond the words and intent of the sacred writers." Well, the Encyclopedia of Religion is simply wrong. Your reference to the Encyclopedia Brittanica seems to be your own paraphrase and not a direct quote. In any case, the first person to actually use the word "Trinity" was Tertullian, to describe a doctrine which had been in existence for quite some time. Problem with your view that the Trinity was invented at Constantinople is that Tertullian died about a century before the Council of Nicaea was convened, which itself was convened over fifty years before Constantinople. The references to triads of gods is invalid, because that is not what the Trinity teaches. Are you seriously saying that Christianity was influenced by an Indian culture with whom it had virtually no contact? So in all of your research, please tell me what other religions hold to one God eternally existing in three persons. While you are "searching for the truth," you might want to check out a brand new book by John Hannah entitled _Our Legacy: The History of Christian Doctrine_. It documents quite well the doctrine of the Trinity and how it was recognized by the earliest church fathers in their writings. The idea that someone came along later and invented it is simply bad history. --Joe! |
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2 | so, you're saying that they go to hell? | Bible general Archive 1 | wannabe | 37927 | ||
Trinity....Hi Joe, that's one of my points, God never created such a doctrine in which a lot of trinitarians believe he has. Gods name was given to us to understand and recognize the difference between truth and false and false "gods[* note gods as in three or one or one in three or whatever todays belief is] As he has stated he is the only true [GOD]In modern Bibles where you see "LORD", I see "Yahweh" Now if you try to take a non believer and introduce him to God's Word with a modern Bible, what will he see? This is just another way of supporting what has already been corrupted for centuries. Now if KJV or any other Bible today would go back to the original hebrew scriptures with their translations they would have a big problem on their hands, people would become really confused and no longer would they see LORD, Lord or Lord God or GOD and Jesus Christ. They would see Yahweh (or JEHOVAH), Lord, God, Jesus Christ. A big problem for modern Bibles and Pastors etc... Now things become more complicated in explaining the Trinity which they are already having trouble explaining anyway! A BIG PROBLEM FOR THESE COMPANIES! Now nobody would want their Bibles and OHHH how we know the green stuff can really hurt here. But I'm sure they would still care about us. You have mentioned "Tertullian" I am unfamiliar wth this, can you explain? |
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3 | so, you're saying that they go to hell? | Bible general Archive 1 | Reformer Joe | 37947 | ||
Tertullian was one of the early church fathers, who died about 225 (one hundred years before Nicaea). He was the first person on record to coin the word "Trinity" to signify the doctrine of the three-in-one God revealed in the Bible and testified to by the post-apostolic writers (he did so in his apologetic work "Against Praxeas"). He didn't "invent" the doctrine, either, because we see Trinitarian teachings in the writings of Clement of Rome (first century), Ignatius (one of John's disciples -- turn of the second century), and the authors of the Epistle of Barnabas and 2 Clement. When I said that God did not "create" the doctrine, I did not mean that it was created by men or that it was not true. God is uncreated and unchanging in His nature, so anything which describes God's being or his nature could not be created. If God is one Being eternally existing in three Persons, God didn't make himself that way, nor did man make him that way. He simply IS that way, and He has chosen to reveal himself as such to His people. Again, I am under no illusion that some people in the pulpit have trouble properly proclaiming the Trinity. A lot of them seem to have a great deal of trouble when it comes to even much easier biblical topics! But the issue is not whether some preachers can't get it right, or whether the church fathers dating back to the apostolic era had the Trinity right or not. The question is whether the essential teachings of trinitarianism can be discerned from Scripture. That is something that definitely won't fit into a 5,000-word post, but I encourage you to pick up James R. White's book _The Forgotten Trinity_ for a lengthy and scholarly defense of the doctrine from the pages of Scripture. By the way, I don't think pastors in 21st-century America would be hurting from not teaching the Trinity. Many of the most famous and wealthy pastors today (one whose initials are "T.D." comes to mind) are at best fence-sitters on the issue, and that certainly hasn't stopped the flow of "green stuff." Others outright deny all kinds of other clearly biblical teachings and still have huge followings (a certain minister in a Crystal Cathedral comes to mind). It is pretty apparent that the absence of sound, biblical doctrine will not hurt too many preaching careers here in the U.S.A. --Joe! |
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