Let me add that the passages you brought up here are very problematic and require more attention that I can give at present.  No doubt about that.  The problem is who the “you” refers to in Ps. 82.  Some think it refers to the Israelites who thought they were gods because they received the law.  Others think the reference is to judges, who  were…[Read more]

I Chron. 29 does not say they worshipped David, however.  Jn. 10 has to be taken in the context of the prologue, which clearly does establish that Christ is God.  Also, note Jn. 10:30.  Jn. 10:34-35 is using “gods” in the sense of superior ones or leaders.

Thanks, Miia.  My spiritual values emphasize a healthy skepticism about tradition, creativity, personal experience over doctrine and  also Scripture, and interfaith dialogues based on respect, the realization that all religions contain truth as well as falsehood, not finger-pointing and denunciations or forms of Christian Imperialism, whereby on…[Read more]

That doesn’t do justice to all the biblical claims about Christ, some of which do in fact clearly identify Christ with God. Scripture is simply not systematic here or approaches anything like metaphysics.

It all comes down to what your model of God is, the picture you have of God as he or she is in his or her own nature. The Bible presents a very anthropomorphic image of God, in which God has emotions and can change.  The fathers used largely Hellenic standards of perfection, which enshrined the immune and the immutable. Hence, God was described,…[Read more]

The Trinity is, no doubt, one of the most problematic doctrines in Christendom.  Most of the Trinitarian formulations are extra-biblical in nature and involve concepts foreign to Scripture, such as “substance,” which was borrowed from Hellenic substance metaphysics.   The problem is that the Bible is not a book of metaphysics or systematic th…[Read more]

If we are going to talk about the Trinity, we first have to bear in mind that it is largely an extra-biblical collection of formulations, using terms not found in the Bible.  The reason is that the Bible is not a book of metaphysics, says little about how God is built. We get snap shots of God, but that’s it and often they conflict.  The reader h…[Read more]

Actually, nobody today uses the 1611 edition of the KJV.   Except for serious historical scholars, no one would want to read it, as it uses radically different spellings, was in Gothic lettering, included the Apocrypha, and contains many words that had very different meanings back then.  Over the years the KJV has been updated.  Between the 16…[Read more]

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 concl…[Read more]

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.

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…[Read more]

Well, Milia, I don’t think God ever abandons us or jus sits back and doesn’t try to help.   I think of God as Cosmic Artist.  God’s goal is to prom0te beauty.  Now beauty means complexity, and complexity means freedom, things can be some other way.   Hence, God has to work in and through our free decisions.  We have to decide for ourselves, God ca…[Read more]

Well, of course, quite right.  God is radically transcendent and therefore beyond being ever fully understood by us.  And, as you indicated, for that matter, we don’t fully understand ourselves very well, either.  However, I do feel we should be more careful about how we think of God as transcendent.  Too often, Christians have assumed that God…[Read more]

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 f…[Read more]

It is certainly true that the Bible attributes deep emotion and also change to God.  Unfortunately, classical theism, the traditional Christian model of God as he or she is in his or her own nature, was based on Hellenic metaphysics and therefore stripped God of all emotion and change. I think Spirit (capital S) refers to God’s omnipresence, God…[Read more]

I think the universe exists because creation is God’s own self-evolution from unconsciousness and mere potentiality into self-consciousness and self-actualization.  Each part of the universe, however tiny it may be, serves to enrich God.  I like to think of teh universe as the body of God. I don’t know any other metaphor that does justice to G…[Read more]

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 th…[Read more]

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 th…[Read more]

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. C…[Read more]

I think we need to realize that divinely inspired as it may be, the Bible was still the product of fallible male authors, whose prejudices do show through.  I think it most naïve to assume the dictation theory, that God dictated it word for word to purely passive scribes.  For example, there  about 100 major contradictions in Scripture. Also, it…[Read more]