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Hi KW,
Human logic is fallible and subject to the judgement of the common man.
Divine wisdom is of the Spirit and beyond the natural mind.
The mind must become subject and retaught.
Arius, as did the other fathers, went on Hellenic metaphysics and standards of perfection. The Greeks enshrined the immune and the immutable. Hence, Arius thought of God as wholly immutable, passionless, and incapable of suffering. Therefore, he and other Arians rejected the Deity of Christ, on the grounds that Christ both changed and suffered.
The Bible implies a Trinity, but does not work it out in any detail. Hence, the Trinitarian formulations are extra-biblical in nature. As I said, the fathers relied heavily on Hellenic metaphysics. Accordingly, they viewed God as a wholly simple, immaterial, immutable, nonrelational being, a monad. Then they tried to introduce the highly complex, relational machinery into this monad. The result was contradiction and confusion. Contrary to popular myth, the Trinity is not a mystery due to the transcendence of God. This so-called “mystery” is largely due to muddled thinking on the part of the fathers.
The Trinity is implied in Scripture ,but not clearly worked out, as Scripture is not a book of metaphysics or systematic theology, for that matter. The Trinitarian formulations are mostly extra-biblical in nature. The early fathers were deeply imbued in Hellenic metaphysics and standards of perfection, as I just stated in another post here. Consequently, they thought of God as a wholly simple, nonrelational being. Then they tried to introduce the complex, relational Trinitarian machinery into this monad. The result was contradiction and confusion.
Jesus said in John 17:3:
“This is eternal life, that they may know You, the only true God, and Jesus Christ whom You have sent.Wise men listen to Jesus. Wise men seek the eternal life that God offers. There is one true God and HE has a son. That is why he is called: THE SON OF GOD.
I believe these words of eternal life, do you? Or do you follow Athanasius instead who promoted a multi-person God who should in English be called “They”. The Bible refers to the only true God as the Father and as a HE, not THEY.
There’s considerable confusion over the use of the term “person.” As use din the traditional Trinitarian formulas, it did not mean “person” in the modern sense of teh term. It denotes a role. It is true there re many modern Trinitarians who use the term “person” in the modern sense of the term. And yes, any teaching which suggests there are three subjectivities within the Godhead automatically collapses into tritheism.
There’s considerable confusion over the use of the term “person.” As used in the traditional Trinitarian formulas, it did not mean “person” in the modern sense of teh term. It denotes a role. It is true there re many modern Trinitarians who use the term “person” in the modern sense of the term. And yes, any teaching which suggests there are three subjectivities within the Godhead automatically collapses into tritheism.
So you are advocating a single person but with three hats? That is by the Trinity standard, heretical.
Some Christians do object to anything smacking of modalism. But that doesn’t worry me a bit. I and many other contemporary Christians could be seen as modalists. Heresy simply and only means that you not in compliance with what some church teaches. It has nothing to do with the validity of your beliefs. Often, the heretics were the ones found to be right in the end. Also, may overlook that the fathers did espouse modalistic notions. For example, Tertullian, who is said to have initiated the attack on modalism, argued that the Trinity is best thought of as analogous to the inner dialogue we have in our minds between ourselves and our reason. Also, Augustine and Calvin advocated similar psychological models of the Trinity, where each “person” refers to a particular dimension of one overall personality. Getting back to Tertullian. Actually what he was attacking isn’t modalism per se; it was the notion that God could suffer. He was imbued in Hellenic metaphysics and standards of perfection, which enshrined the immune and the immutable. Hence, God could not suffer. Therefore, he wanted to keep the Father and Son as separate as possible. Eventually this led to the doctrine of divine impassability and the two natures of Christ, whereby Christ has a human nature, which can experience emotion and suffer, and a divine nature, which is impassible, has no emotion and then cannot suffer.
I don’t necessarily believe heresy is bad because heresy is simply a term to define what is error according to who is in power. But I established that you do not believe in the Trinity.
Hi Hoghead,
Could you please explain how you see God and the Son?
I am a non-trinitarian, but recently I have been considering the trinity and oneness, and peoples explanations of it. So I would love to hear yours.
My dad explains God (Father Son and Holy Spirit) as similar to an Irish Shamrock.
Hoghead1,
The Trinity is Scripture is part of the unity of the Spirit. It is the head of the body. It is not three that are one in being God but rather three that are one in walking according to the Spirit.
There is a Second Trinity which is spoken of in Genesis 1 and other places. It is God, his Spirit, and his word. It is testified with by the words that through his word God framed the ages for in Genesis his Spirit hovered over the water.
I have to be honest and say that I am not interested in making Trinitarian formulations just to comply with tradition. However, I do have in mind several ideas about the Trinity. For example, I have considered the possibility that the persons may be persons in the modern sense of the term. Hence, I can view God as a kind of group mind or meta-personality. I have no trouble viewing God as such, since we are all a synthesis of many personalities. We are social-relational beings. Hence, every other personality is an item in the real internal constitution of any one person. Or, I can also view the Trinity as dimensions of one personality. The Father signifies God’s creative potentiality. The Son signifies the temporal objectification of these possibilities; it is God entering into finite reality. The Holy Spirit signifies God’s intimate responsiveness to creation, that is, God as supreme effect. If we view Christ as God’s ultimate revelation, then the Christ event has to revel God’s general MO with creation. To me, that means a revelation that God is incarnate throughout the entire universe.
Well, t8, as I just said in my previous post here, I am not interested in making Trinitarian distinctions just to comply with tradition. However, I do have in mind several formulations that I feel do real justice to the Trinity, which I have shared above.
hoghead1,
- Jesus is not God (James 1:13) but rather he is a human being (1 Timothy 2:5) that was appointed to be Lord of all things in heaven and on earth. (Matthew 28:18-18)
- God chose him to be the Christ before the world came to be (2 Timothy 1:9) and before he made him in his mother’s womb.(Galatians 4:4)
- God imparted his Spirit on him. (Matthew 12:18)
- Jesus walked according to the Spirit and so did not sin though tempted by evil even as we are (Hebrews 4:15) and commanded that his people to follow him by doing likewise.(Mark 8:34)
I like your open-mindedness Hoghead.
Perhaps different layers.
Tree has roots, trunk, bark, wood, gum, branches, leaves, seed, etc.Still one tree.
Jesus can do nothing without the Father.
A tree can do nothing without the roots either.
The branch could say, if branches could speak, “I can do nothing without my roots”.Still one tree. Different parts – different dimensions.
So, when we pray, we pray to the one God, complete.
Without excluding the Son, and not excluding the Father.Not two or three separate gods.
James1:13 has nothing to do with the Trinity that I can see. I Tim 2 simply says Christ is human, says nothing about whether he is also God. The prologue to Jn. states that Christ is God. Other passages vary between equating Christ with God (“I and the Father am one’) and then seeing Christ in a subordinate relationship to the Father. My conclusion is that the Bible is very ambiguous here. It implies a Trinity, but that’s it. Does not spell it out in any kind of clear detail. The Bible is not a book of metaphysics, tells us very little about how God is built. What we have area number of snap shots which often conflict. It is left to the reader to somehow put these snap shots together into a meaningful whole.
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