The Trinity.

[Elijah John]

Is the dogma of the Trinity

a) Revealed Truth?
b) Is it Biblical? Or
c) Is the doctrine of the Trinity a theological solution to the problem of maintaining monotheism in light of early Christian desire to worship Jesus?

As always, please support your answer.

[ttruscott]

t's pertinent to note that if God was a trinity, God would have made that fact clear when inspiring the writing of Scripture, because God would have known that debates like this would arise.

A false premise in light of some people being deliberately kept from understanding:
Matthew 13:13 This is why I speak to them in parables: "Though seeing, they do not see; though hearing, they do not hear or understand.

Deuteronomy 29:4 Yet to this day the LORD has not given you a mind to understand, eyes to see, or ears to hear.

Why does He do this? John 9:39 Then Jesus declared, "For judgment I have come into this world, so that the blind may see and those who see may become blind."

He would know about debates arising?? He caused such debates to arise!!!

[RightReason]

[Replying to Elijah John]

Do you believe Paul and John, believers with extremely high Christology, were Trinitarians?

Yes. First,

***********

Jesus refers to Himself with the divine name—I am —in several places. This "I am" formula is a reference back to the Divine Name revealed to Moses in Ex. 3:14. Not only does Jesus refer to himself as "I am" four times in John’s Gospel (see John 8:24; 58; 13:19 and 18:5-6), but when he does so in John 8:58, the Jews to whom he was speaking understood his meaning because they immediately wanted to stone him for blasphemy!


Jesus places his word on the same level as the word of God—the Old Testament. "You have heard it said . . . but I say to you . . ." (see Matt. 5:21-28). This is in sharp contrast to the prophets of old who always made clear the word they were speaking was not their own: "The word of the Lord came unto me, saying . . . " (cf. Jer. 1:11; Ezek. 1:3, etc.). Only God possesses this kind of authority.


Jesus is referred to as "equal" with God by both John and Paul. In John 5:18, the author comments on why the Jews wanted to kill Jesus: "Because he called God his Father, making himself equal with God." Paul refers to Jesus when he was "in the form (Gk. morphe; in Greek usage this word means the set of characteristics that makes a thing what it is) of God" thinking "his equality with God" not something to be g.asped onto, but emptying himself and becoming man (cf. Phil. 2:6-10). Paul assumes his readers already knew Jesus to be equal with God, the Father.


Jesus is referred to in the New Testament with the title Lord as it is uniquely applied to Yahweh in the Old Testament. Jesus calls himself "the Lord of the Sabbath" in Mark 2:28. The Sabbath is referred to as the "Sabbath of Yahweh" in the Old Testament (cf. Ex. 20:10; see also Is. 8:13, referred to in 1 Peter 3:15; and Joel 2:31-32, quoted both in Acts 2:20-21 and in Rom. 10:13).

https://www.catholic.com/magazine/print ... sus-is-god

If so, please demonstrate.

I don't see it, I think they both stop just short of a Trinitarian understanding of God and Jesus.

See above. Also, even if the Apostles ever didn’t fully understand something, that wouldn’t mean something wasn’t true. I think the Apostles did know Jesus was God, as demonstrated by the above Scripture, also as demonstrated by Scriptures account of what everyone else at the time thought of Jesus and why they hated Him so much. The Trinity is a mystery that even today can’t be comprehended to its fullest. But Scripture itself tells us there was much more for us to be told. Scripture itself tells us Christ left us His Church and sent us the Holy Spirit to guide us in all truth. So, why you think if something isn’t spelled out in Scripture – exactly as you think it should – means it isn’t true or revealed. That is actually contrary to Scripture itself. Writings of the first Christians (see below) demonstrate belief in the Trinity as well as what the overwhelming majority of Christendom taught for centuries following Jesus Christ.


Also, how do you account for the early Jewish-Christian sects (like the Ebionites), who had no such notion of a Trinity? [/quote]

How do you account for all the Jewish people that rejected Jesus Christ? Because some failed to see Truth does not mean it didn't exist.

Not all of the "earliest Christians" believed in the Trinity. In fact, it took the Church over 300 years to arrive at that dogma.

Incorrect. The following are early Church writings all expressing belief in the Trinity and all dating prior to 300 years after Christ . . .

*************



The doctrine of the Trinity is encapsulated in Matthew 28:19, where Jesus instructs the apostles: "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."


The parallelism of the Father, the Son, and the Spirit is not unique to Matthew’s Gospel, but appears elsewhere in the New Testament (e.g., 2 Cor. 13:14, Heb. 9:14), as well as in the writings of the earliest Christians, who clearly understood them in the sense that we do today—that the Father, the Son, and the Spirit are three divine persons who are one divine being (God).



The Didache



"After the foregoing instructions, baptize in the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit, in living [running] water. . . . If you have neither, pour water three times on the head, in the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit" (Didache 7:1 [A.D. 70]).



Ignatius of Antioch


"[T]o the Church at Ephesus in Asia . . . chosen through true suffering by the will of the Father in Jesus Christ our God" (Letter to the Ephesians 1 [A.D. 110]).


"For our God, Jesus Christ, was conceived by Mary in accord with God’s plan: of the seed of David, it is true, but also of the Holy Spirit" (ibid., 18:2).



Justin Martyr



"We will prove that we worship him reasonably; for we have learned that he is the Son of the true God himself, that he holds a second place, and the Spirit of prophecy a third. For this they accuse us of madness, saying that we attribute to a crucified man a place second to the unchangeable and eternal God, the Creator of all things; but they are ignorant of the mystery which lies therein" (First Apology 13:5–6 [A.D. 151]).



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]).



Irenaeus



"For the Church, although dispersed throughout the whole world even to the ends of the earth, has received from the apostles and from their disciples the faith in one God, the Father Almighty . . . and in one Jesus Christ, the Son of God, who became flesh for our salvation; and in the Holy Spirit" (Against Heresies 1:10:1 [A.D. 189]).



Tertullian



"We do indeed believe that there is only one God, but we believe that under this dispensation, or, as we say, oikonomia, there is also a Son of this one only God, his Word, who proceeded from him and through whom all things were made and without whom nothing was made. . . . We believe he was sent down by the Father, in accord with his own promise, the Holy Spirit, the Paraclete, the sanctifier of the faith of those who believe in the Father and the Son, and in the Holy Spirit. . . . This rule of faith has been present since the beginning of the gospel, before even the earlier heretics" (Against Praxeas 2 [A.D. 216]).


"And at the same time the mystery of the oikonomia is safeguarded, for the unity is distributed in a Trinity. Placed in order, the three are the Father, Son, and Spirit. They are three, however, not in condition, but in degree; not in being, but in form; not in power, but in kind; of one being, however, and one condition and one power, because he is one God of whom degrees and forms and kinds are taken into account in the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit" (ibid.).


"Keep always in mind the rule of faith which I profess and by which I bear witness that the Father and the Son and the Spirit are inseparable from each other, and then you will understand what is meant by it. Observe now that I say the Father is other [distinct], the Son is other, and the Spirit is other. This statement is wrongly understood by every uneducated or perversely disposed individual, as if it meant diversity and implied by that diversity a separation of Father, Son, and Holy Spirit" (ibid., 9).


"Thus the connection of the Father in the Son, and of the Son in the Paraclete, produces three coherent persons, who are yet distinct one from another. These three are, one essence, not one person, as it is said, ‘I and my Father are one’ [John 10:30], in respect of unity of being not singularity of number" (ibid., 25).



Origen



"For we do not hold that which the heretics imagine: that some part of the being of God was converted into the Son, or that the Son was procreated by the Father from non-existent substances, that is, from a being outside himself, so that there was a time when he [the Son] did not exist" (The Fundamental Doctrines 4:4:1 [A.D. 225]).


"No, rejecting every suggestion of corporeality, we hold that the Word and the Wisdom was begotten out of the invisible and incorporeal God, without anything corporal being acted upon . . . the expression which we employ, however that there was never a time when he did not exist is to be taken with a certain allowance. For these very words ‘when’ and ‘never’ are terms of temporal significance, while whatever is said of the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit, is to be understood as transcending all time, all ages" (ibid.).


"For it is the Trinity alone which exceeds every sense in which not only temporal but even eternal may be understood. It is all other things, indeed, which are outside the Trinity, which are to be measured by time and ages" (ibid.).



Hippolytus



"The Word alone of this God is from God himself, wherefore also the Word is God, being the being of God. Now the world was made from nothing, wherefore it is not God" (Refutation of All Heresies 10:29 [A.D. 228]).



Novatian



"For Scripture as much announces Christ as also God, as it announces God himself as man. It has as much described Jesus Christ to be man, as moreover it has also described Christ the Lord to be God. Because it does not set forth him to be the Son of God only, but also the son of man; nor does it only say, the son of man, but it has also been accustomed to speak of him as the Son of God. So that being of both, he is both, lest if he should be one only, he could not be the other. For as nature itself has prescribed that he must be believed to be a man who is of man, so the same nature prescribes also that he must be believed to be God who is of God. . . . Let them, therefore, who read that Jesus Christ the son of man is man, read also that this same Jesus is called also God and the Son of God" (Treatise on the Trinity 11 [A.D. 235]).



Pope Dionysius



"Next, then, I may properly turn to those who divide and cut apart and destroy the most sacred proclamation of the Church of God, making of it [the Trinity], as it were, three powers, distinct substances, and three godheads. . . . [Some heretics] proclaim that there are in some way three gods, when they divide the sacred unity into three substances foreign to each other and completely separate" (Letter to Dionysius of Alexandria 1 [A.D. 262]).


"Therefore, the divine Trinity must be gathered up and brought together in one, a summit, as it were, I mean the omnipotent God of the universe. . . . It is blasphemy, then, and not a common one but the worst, to say that the Son is in any way a handiwork [creature]. . . . But if the Son came into being [was created], there was a time when these attributes did not exist; and, consequently, there was a time when God was without them, which is utterly absurd" (ibid., 1–2).


"Neither, then, may we divide into three godheads the wonderful and divine unity. . . . Rather, we must believe in God, the Father Almighty; and in Christ Jesus, his Son; and in the Holy Spirit; and that the Word is united to the God of the universe. ‘For,’ he says, ‘The Father and I are one,’ and ‘I am in the Father, and the Father in me’" (ibid., 3).



Gregory the Wonderworker



"There is one God. . . . 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" (Declaration of Faith [A.D. 265]).

https://www.catholic.com/tract/the-trinity

[RightReason]

[ttruscott]

Not all of the "earliest Christians" believed in the Trinity. In fact, it took the Church over 300 years to arrive at that dogma.

Umm, the fact that a bureaucratic church group had to formalize what it wanted in its dogma in response to the heretical blasphemies of pretenders to belief is NOT PROOF that this was the 'arrival' of the doctrine in the consciousness of the body of believers. Believers came first and the bureaucracy was a johnny come lately...

[Elijah John]

Not all of the "earliest Christians" believed in the Trinity. In fact, it took the Church over 300 years to arrive at that dogma.

Umm, the fact that a bureaucratic church group had to formalize what it wanted in its dogma in response to the heretical blasphemies of pretenders to belief is NOT PROOF that this was the 'arrival' of the doctrine in the consciousness of the body of believers. Believers came first and the bureaucracy was a johnny come lately...

300 years of contention between the Arians and the Athanasians. (and their predecessors) Athanasious won.But pure, unitarian (small "u")monotheistic Christianity is at least as old as Trinitarian Christianity, dating back to the apostles themselves. I doubt any of them were "Trinitarians" at least not how we understand the doctrine today.

[JehovahsWitness]

[JehovahsWitness]

[JehovahsWitness]

JOHN 13:19

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DOUAY-RHEIMS 

 At present I tell you, before it come to pass: that when it shall come to pass, you may believe that I am he. - John 13:19

• Shortly before his death Jesus spoke of the coming events to his disciples. He explained that certain prophecies would be fulfilled so that their faith in him should increase, stating "... [that] you may believe that I am he". The Catholic Bible DOUAY-RHEIMS adds the pronoun (he) to complete the phrase understandabe in English.
  
  Certain trinitarians claim that John 13:19 is an example of Jesus referring to himself as Almighty God YHWH; this is because in the original text there is, what certain translators, refer to as an ellipsis, where Jesus does not furnish the identifying noun/adjective. In short the Greek text reads "... [that] you may believe that I am..." (eimi) and doesn't say who or what he is. With no word in the predicate after the copula (ειμι — eimi ) Jesus could be affirming himself to be one (or more) one of several things, the specifics of which are not supplied in the phrase itself.

QUESTION Does the context of John 13:19 shed light on who Jesus was claiming to be?

• Yes, just before alluding to his identity, Jesus had applied Psalms 41 :9 prophetically to his own betrayer (Judas) . The Psalmist looked to YAHWEH for vengence stating...
  

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  JERUSALEM BIBLE 
  
  Even my trusted friend on whom I relied, who shared my table, takes advantage of me.   But you, Yahweh, take pity on me! Put me on my feet and I will give them their due - Psalms 41:9-10
  

  So Jesus identified himself, not as YAHWEH but as Yahweh's servant, who would be vindicated in God's due time.

CONCLUSION: Rather than identifying himself as YAHWEH, John 13:19 presents Jesus as affirming to be the one spoken of prophetically being wronged by a trusted friend in Psalms 41:9. Whether Jesus wanted his disciples to keep in mind his being the wronged person mentioned in the Psalms or that and all his previous affirmations as the promised Messiah and the Son of God, we cannot say, but what we can say is that the context and language of John 3:19 gives no reason for us to conclude Jesus was declarating himself to be YHWH Almighty God.

JW



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Was Jesus declaring himself to be YAWEH at John 8:58?
http://debatingchristianity.com/forum/v ... 842#935842

So called trinity "proof" texts
http://debatingchristianity.com/forum/v ... 772#935772

[JehovahsWitness]

[RightReason]

[Replying to JehovahsWitness]

JehovahWitness,

Why should we accept your take on the meaning of Scripture?

How can one confidently think he is getting truth from a group that sprung up in the 19th century, who admittedly got stuff wrong and continually changes her teachings?

Can anyone just pick up the Bible and authoritatively declare what it means?