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Hello, Kirwin,
I just said, in my previous post here, that they did not worship David. Also I don’t know what the “older tradition” is that you re referring to here. If you mean the OT, OK. However, certain early churches did affirm the Deity of Christ., the exceptions being teh anti-Trinitarians such as the Arians, Orign, etc.
Well, Kirwin, I am not just appealing to tradition to support the Trinity. As I already said, there is biblical support for it. As I said, I am not sure what “older tradition” you are appealing to. The certainly was a strong Christian gnostic movement. Is that what you mean?
Again, I wondering what “older tradition” you have in mind here. As I said, there as a strong Christian gnostic movmenet, which had a kind of totem-pole of greater and lesser gods. An inferior God had created the world. Christ and the Spirit were lesser divine beings or gods. The gnostics also had a completely different set of gospels from the “orthodox,” from what we have. They held Christ was not crucified, Moses was a fool, was not Jewish, had come to free us from the vicious cycle of reincarnation.
Hogshead,
The words of 1 Chronicles 29:20 Authorized (King James) Version (AKJV) disagree with you.
Of course they did not worship him as God but that can be seen as the word worship has more meanings than that and we know he is not God.
The corrupt and ignorant could claim the verse implies King David is a second God but they would nerveless be in error.
Hogshead,
Trinitarianism was not even established until after the Council of Nicea. The debate there was about whether Jesus was God and even then not everyone was invited and many of those that were did not attend. I suspicion Arius was invited merely because of the Emperor.
Claiming Jesus is God is pure Christianized Emperor cult doctrine that were popular among the Gentile nations. Philo’s and John’s word can easily me misinterpreted to support it.
Hello, Kirwin,
It is true that the Council of Nicaea did not go smoothly. Lots of door slamming, yelling, and bitter arguments. Constantine called it an “unprofitable question,” to begin with. He was largely interested in keeping order. Many scholars have good reason to wonder if he was really all that It is also true that there really was no early church, just feuding sects, which produced God only knows how many gospels, maybe as many as 40 different ones. At the Council, 16 members refused to sign and did so only because Constantine held them captive until they did. It is also true that Constantine’s son revoked the Creed and exiled Athanasius. I think it was St. Jerome who lamented, “Alas, the world awoke and found itself to be Arian.” Interestingly enough, Constantine did not exile or banish Arius, but encouraged he be treated well. Later, Emperor Julian, sometimes called Julian the Apostate, really had it with Christians and said they fight like wild animals with one another. So,. obviously there was much feuding among the early churches over many issues, including the Trinity. However, there is no doubt there was a strong Trinitarian movement that did exist before the Council. Otherwise, there would not have been all this feuding and fussing, in the first place. I do think it safe to say there was no official pronouncement on the Trinity until the Council of Nicaea; and that afterwards, it was some time before it was generally accepted, as illustrated by Constantinius throwing it out. If you want to be picky about it, and probably one should be, the Creed, in its original format, did not affirm the Deity of the Spirit. In that sense, the original creed is not Trinitarian in the strict sense of the word. As I said earlier, the Holy Spirit has been the least-elaborated member of the Trinity. So, even early Christians seemingly credited with being Trinitarian were more ditheistic than Trinitarian. Also, I stressed earlier, I think the whole problem here is that both the Trinitarians and anti-Trinitarians followed dualistic, Hellenic metaphysics, which made it impossible to see how God could be present in any sense of the term and therefore had so much trouble with the Deity of the Second Person alone that they really didn’t have time to address the Spirit or a more ubitiquous sense of God’s presence.
I’m not quite sure what your point is about Philo. No, he certainly was not Trinitarian or Christian. He was trying to fuse traditional Judaism with Greek philosophy.
Sorry, Kerwin, but your above post gets the big “Huh?” from me. I’m not sure what your point is here. I thought I made it plain the OT did not claim they worshipped David as a second God.
hoghead1…..I have not seen any answer,i went back and checked.
So what did Jesus mean whe he said in pryer to GOD THE FATHER, “YOU” ARE THE “ONLY” “TRUE”, GOD’, JOHN 17:3, NOW if the God he was praying to was the “ONLY” “TRUE” GOD, then it followes Jesus did not believe he or anyone else was a true God of anykind, in fact that renders all other so-called God’s, FALSE GODS right?
ONLY….means “NO” OTHER
TRUE… means “REAL” OR ACTUAL.
THIS LEAVES “ALL” OTHERS AS “FALSE” GODS, THIS LEAVES NO ROOM FOR INJECTING ANOTHER GOD OF ANYKIND, IMO
peace and love to you and yours. ……..gene
Hello, Gene,
OK, I see now what you are asking about. What you are addressing is a major ambiguity in Scripture about teh Trinity. On one hand, certain passages, such as the prologue to Jn., do identify Christ with God. On the other, there are passages such as you just cited, which make it appear somehow only the Father is God and that Jesus is some form of lesser divine being sent to do the Father’s bidding. Since Scripture provides no real metaphysic, reconciling such seemingly contradictory passages is a real problem. That’s why, going just on Scripture, you find there are Trinitarians and then anti-Trinitarians, all citing from the same Bible. One tentative solution, one way of reconciliation, I find interesting is the notion that God is a meta-personality, a kind of group mind, a synthesis of personalities originating out of the three personalities of the Trinity. God can have a complex social relationship with himself that we do not have. Another is that the Trinity refers to various dimensions of one personality or mind. Hence, the dialogue between the Father and the Son is analogous to the relationship I have with my reason. Yet another is that God, to be conscious, has to enter into the complexity of his or her own being, differentiate into self and other, analogous to the fact I consist of a society of cells, each with it sown personality, yet still me. Or, of course, you could throw the towel in and say the Bible is simply out rightly contradictory on the Trinity.
hoghead,
Sorry, Kerwin, but your above post gets the big “Huh?” from me. I’m not sure what your point is here. I thought I made it plain the OT did not claim they worshipped David as a second God.
I am sure that was the intent of your words but you did not literally say it. Instead the letter of your words conflicted with Scripture. I did not suspicion your intent until partway through my second post. The same thing happens in Scripture which makes some of it hard to understand and helps gives rise to strange teachings like the Trinity.
I have trouble with determining the intent of some passages though often I can say it was not certain intent.
hoghead1,
My intent is to reveal the Trinity is a recent tradition that is based on earlier non-Trintarian tradition. There is no real evidence that John was any more Trinitarian that his contemporaries such as Philo. In fact there is no real evidence Trinitarianism existed until the early third century when Tertullian defended it against “Praxean” heresy.
Gnostic teacher Valentinus (lived c.100 – c.160) spoke of a trinity earlier but I am not of the details.
the Cappadocian Fathers are credited with establishing the current form of the trinity at the end of the Forth Century.
They established a new religion but instead Jesus Anointed came to establish a new covenant.
Sorry, Kerwin, but I don’t think that is going to fly. Jhn Definitely affirms the Deity of Christ and also strongly implies that of the Spirit as well.
Sorry, Kirwin, but still puzzled here. I defiantly did not say Scripture portrayed David as a god. As to my intent, I have rejected the classical model of God, in favor of a neo-classical one. I believe that dropping Hellenic substance metaphysics, specifically substance metaphysics, and affirming God is relational helps make better sense of teh Trinity.
hogshead1,
I make it simple for you. The words you utter were that people did not worship King David when Scripture stated they did.
In short your literal words disagreed with Scripture though you claim I believe your intent did not.
That is about as simple as I am capable of making it.
hogshead,
Then you must believe Philo claimsthe even though he denies it.
Denial of the truth does not change it.
When Philo literally claims the that theos without the article is not God but the Logos and John tells you the same thing with the word the logos is theos and you choose to ignore that parallel then you have willingly embraced foolishness. You really need to come to realize that you have told untruths, often by since but ignorant people.
Where do you see Scripture affirming that the worshipped David as God? I Chron. 29:20 onwards? if say, when it says they “prostrated themselves before the Lord and the king,” it simply means they bowed down before King David and also God. “The Lord and the king” here is referring to God and David; it is not saying they are one and the same or that David should be worshipped. or considered a god, or anything like that.
Look, Kerwin. I enjoy discussions and debates, but they have to be respectful. I don’t put up with any flaming. When you sounded off above, saying that I embraced foolishness and told untruths, you are unduly attacking my character, which I do not appreciate. If you want to disagree with me, fine, but it’s your responsibility to be respectful. I try and extend the same courtesy to you and others, and I expect you and others to do the same with me. How hard would it be for you to cease and desist such personal attacks and present your rebuttals? That’s what a solid theological debate is all about. Yu disagree with me? Fine. Then address my points and show me where you feel I am wrong.
hoghead1……Not ambiguous to me in fact it is one of the most unambiguous scriptures in our bible texts, it is clearly written and accurate and clearly stated by JESUS himself. IT is not the only scripture that clearly shows us that there is “ONLY ONE TRUE GOD” , there are many more that say the samething. But if you have a mind set based on vage and unsubstantiated scriptures like JOHN 1:1 and others where the reader has to substute words to force the text to say what it does not “specifically” say, then that would naturally cause “ambiguity “, but if you pull that scripture in line with the many others that also clearly show there is “ONLY ONE TRUE GOD” then there is no “AMBIGUITY”. Therein lies your problem , but hear is another specific scripture from our God’s own mouth. “thou shall have no other GOD “BESIDE” ME.” THAT IS THE FIRST COMANDMENT AND REMEMBER, Jesus said “he did not come to destory the comandments, but to fulfill them”.
REMEMBER also Jesus said the greatest comandment was to THE LORD “OUR” GOD WITH ALL YOUR HEART AND SOUL, now tell me did he say God’s,or jut God, as in a singular being? NOW if we make Jesus into another God are we not commiting IDOLATRY? WILL OUR ONLY TRUE GOD HEAR IDOLATAR’S? Think about it hoghead1.
peace and love to you and yours. ……..gene
Dear Hoghead,
“Fighting like wild animals with one another” as you mentioned above is just part and parcel with being a Christian,no? I think this is the reason that St John’s Jesus prayed that we’d all become one since it was so prevalent even then. His desire was to unite Christianity which in ways I think it did since St John’s gospel is vital to the creeds and the formation of the Orthodox/Catholic church.
Btw have you ever eaten hoghead cheese? My grandparents on my father’s side raised and slaughtered pigs before my time,so I’ve heard about it but have never had the luxury of trying any.
hoghead1,
Where do you see Scripture affirming that the worshipped David as God? I Chron. 29:20 onwards? if say, when it says they “prostrated themselves before the Lord and the king,” it simply means they bowed down before King David and also God. “The Lord and the king” here is referring to God and David; it is not saying they are one and the same or that David should be worshipped. or considered a god, or anything like that.
I do not know what version you are using but I am going by the wording of the AV of the KJV.
King James Bible
And David said to all the congregation, Now bless the LORD your God. And all the congregation blessed the LORD God of their fathers, and bowed down their heads, and worshipped the LORD, and the king.As I pointed out the bolded words include the word worshiped.
English Standard Version
Then David said to all the assembly, “Bless the LORD your God.” And all the assembly blessed the LORD, the God of their fathers, and bowed their heads and paid homage to the LORD and to the king.The translators of the ESV chose its synonym homage which does not have the same connotations present in our current society.
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