It is my personal observation, as well as my belief, that adherents of both doctrines, as well as "oneness" adherents, are not hindered in the least from submitting fully to Jesus as their Lord. Unfortunately, that doesn't stop those from all three persuasions who are inclined to declare the others unsaved. But I don't fault the doctrines for that, I fault the people.
I know it must drive the more "doctrinally punctilious" a bit crazy, but I happily accept all three doctrines as "true". Which I'll qualify by saying all have their problems (in my opinion) but the problems simply don't bother me. I suppose I find more to like in a correct articlation of the Trinity, but it's not a critical distinction in my practical faith.
Of course I am aware that some people have reached similar conclusions to Wierwille without his "assistance."
But they still also face the same challenges with biblical texts to answer.
Now in this area when you think that you have solved one thing you find there is something else that does not follow.
I am completely for openness and charity in disagreement. Clearly if it was completely cut and dried from the bible with no possible misunderstanding of the position then we would not be seeing discussions like this.
But it would be interesting to see who were trinitarians before their encounter with TWI and who have returned to that viewpoint since TWI. I am such a one but the difference is that there was in intolerance before and during for the other point of view that I no longer have.
It's almost an academic excercise now to weigh points made upon their merits. All I can say is that in TWI God became distant because the Father was only some far off unreachable spirit and the Son was replaced by the written word. It helps me to think more in trinitarian forms. We are looking through a dark glass at best, the face to face is yet to come.
It just doesn't wash. Look at the dozens of times Jesus referred to "God" in the Gospels, instead of "me". Look at Gethsemane. Why in the world would God need to pray to God, especially if the "person" he was praying to was "of the same substance" and "co-equal"?
Look at Matthew 19:17:
quote:And he said unto him, Why callest thou me good? there is none good but one, that is, God: but if thou wilt enter into life, keep the commandments.
Two things leap out from this verse. First, if this were any other book, it would be obvious to all that Jesus is correcting the questioner's mistake, yet trinitarians have told me (with a straight face, even) that what Jesus is really doing is affirming that the questioner has correctly indicated him as God. Think about that for a minute. If that were the case, the first 15 words of Jesus' response are completely irrelevant unless Jesus is speaking from pride. The word "pride" is used 46 times in the KJV, none of which in a positive light. If the questioner knew Jesus was God, and presumably Jesus knew Jesus was God, then the first part of the response is nothing but a boast. That's not something a sinless man or god would do.
The second glaring problem is that after Jesus establishes the sole good as God, he says only "keep the commandments." Not "my" commandments, not "our" commandments. If Jesus had just established himself as God, and everyone knows the commandments came from God, there's little reason to use the definite article instead of a personal possessive pronoun.
If the Christian fathers really knew Jesus was God all along, why on Earth would there have been 300+ years of debate over it? No one questioned the resurrection or the virgin birth enough to convene an ecumenical council, why would something so supposedly concrete as the bedrock of all orthodox Christianity even be questioned?
Another thing--does the trintarian "Father" have a human form? The traditional "old white-haired man on a throne" model of God, in other words. Wouldn't that make the Father "fully man and fully God" just as the Son is supposed to be? Well, why did the Holy Spirit get the short end of the stick then, if the Father and Son both got something it didn't?
It just doesn't add up. It diminishes nothing about Jesus to have him be Number Two to God Almighty. There's certainly no shame at all in "only" being the Penultimate Entity in all Creation! But since he didn't go around demanding worship, and since he certainly spent a lot of time praying to some higher Person, trying to force our Lord into also being our God makes about as much sense as gilding a lily.
Sigh, word wolf, this is precisely why the argument becomes intractable. It becomes "duelling verses".
Anybody who is honest will find plenty in the Bible to contradict their position on the Godhead. Those who insist on making their position unassailable (why, why oh why must we?) will find elaborate explanations for each "difficult" verse.
Well-versed orthodox trinitarians have a good solution for the problem you pose. You'll have a good solution for the problems they pose. Where does that get us?
But, first, if you really wish to refute a Trinitarian, read a few really good books on the doctrine before you do. It's not very convincing when your refutations reveal ignorance of the doctrine you think you're refuting...
quote:And he said unto him, Why callest thou me good? there is none good but one, that is, God: but if thou wilt enter into life, keep the commandments.
Two things leap out from this verse. First, if this were any other book, it would be obvious to all that Jesus is correcting the questioner's mistake, yet trinitarians have told me (with a straight face, even) that what Jesus is really doing is affirming that the questioner has correctly indicated him as God.
The Marcionite version, according to Couchoud's reconstruction,-though not differing much here -reads:
"He said to him, Why do you call me Good?
One alone is Good, God the Father!"
Is it possible that this verse can be construed in the sense of "those who have seen me, have seen the Father"?, rather than as Jesus correcting the questioner?
If Jesus was affirming himself as "Good"
(and therefore God) solely from a position of pride, as you argue, - then what of the latter, -"I'm not Good but God is" - where such a case of extreme modesty would compel one to lie?
Was Jesus not "Good"? This was precisely the epithat given to Jesus by the modalist Marcionites.
Where the Marcionite version does differ is that it is the rich man who cites the commandments back to Jesus -
"I know the commandments:
Do not kill; do not commit adultery, (etc.) -
to which Jesus responded, "One thing is lacking you: all that you have, sell it. Give it away to the poor...."
quote:Again I ask Raf and the other bu's to look at this site and come back.
Let's talk after that.
Why? I'm not going to change your mind. You're not going to change mine. You can ask me to look at that site, I can ask you to look at Buzzard's book. Where does it get us? I assume you've looked at the evidence and have drawn a conclusion. Give me a little credit here: I've looked at the evidence too. I draw a different conclusion, and I'm not particularly interested in arguing to point to death with someone who has already made up his mind.
I discuss this on a regular basis with folks who've never been exposed to a Biblical Unitarian position. That's different: it's not arguing. It's exchange.
Def, you and I would just be arguing. I'd rather not.
Def -- I started to read the site, then ran across this ---
quote: that man's very life and salvation is dependent upon his relationship with Him (a claim nothing short of blasphemy for a mere created being!)
How so? I do not see it as blasphemy for God to choose a sacrifice that is not Himself, and then require us to accept that sacrifice for our salvation, and life.
If the sacrifice has been chosen by God, who are we to argue and say that the "sacrifice" is somehow negated if it is not God himself?
The "blasphemy" (imho) part enters when we decide that a "mere created being" cannot be something that God chose to be our substitute.
quote: The Trinity is the term employed to signify the central doctrine of the Christian religion -- the truth that in the unity of the Godhead there are Three Persons, the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit, these Three Persons being truly distinct one from another. Thus, in the words of the Athanasian Creed: "the Father is God, the Son is God, and the Holy Spirit is God, and yet there are not three Gods but one God."
In this Trinity of Persons the Son is begotten of the Father by an eternal generation, and the Holy Spirit proceeds by an eternal procession from the Father and the Son. Yet, notwithstanding this difference as to origin, the Persons are co-eternal and co-equal: all alike are uncreated and omnipotent.
This, the Church teaches, is the revelation regarding God's nature which Jesus Christ, the Son of God, came upon earth to deliver to the world: and which she proposes to man as the foundation of her whole dogmatic system.
In Scripture there is as yet no single term by which the Three Divine Persons are denoted together.
From the Catholic Encyclopedia, and their definition of trinity. Sounds pretty ambiguous to me, and I was raised Catholic. It admits to "difference of origin", yet turns around to claim all are one co-eternal, etc.
How can you be eternal, yet have an origin as the Son did? And this is their definition, not mine. And then they state that there is as yet scripturally "no single term ------------ " and so on. If it isn't scriptural, where did they get it from?
I went to Google to find the Catholic take on this, and when I entered "trinity", I got several Catholic sites, but off to the right was a box labeled "Research the Trinity" www.truthortradition.com:D--> :D-->
Denying the pre-existence of Christ is probably the most glaring difficulty of the "biblical unitarian" position. I see no way of unequivocally supporting the notion without doing some serious dancing around a goodly-sized body of scripture...
You misunderstand me, because I do not understand you. That's only what I am asking for is to learn more why you believe what you believe and why I believe what I believe. Because I used to believe as you did, I want to see what others do.
Amd allow me to predict my own behavior in saying that this would quickly devolve into a shouting match. Seeing as I'd rather not, and I wouldn't change your mind if I would, I'd rather just read. :)-->
"I don't think that all biblical unitarian positions deny Christ's pre existence.
"Wierwille did but that did not make him an Arian as Arius did not deny pre existence. I believe that denial of this is called Socinianism."
*****
Quite correct.
Although both Arianism and Socinianism deny the eternal existence of the Son, Socinians (e.g. Wierwille, CES' principals, various GS posters) hold that Christ had no existence prior to his earthly conception, while Arians (e.g. Jehovah's Witnesses) hold that Christ was the first creature created by God.
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TheEvan
It is my personal observation, as well as my belief, that adherents of both doctrines, as well as "oneness" adherents, are not hindered in the least from submitting fully to Jesus as their Lord. Unfortunately, that doesn't stop those from all three persuasions who are inclined to declare the others unsaved. But I don't fault the doctrines for that, I fault the people.
I know it must drive the more "doctrinally punctilious" a bit crazy, but I happily accept all three doctrines as "true". Which I'll qualify by saying all have their problems (in my opinion) but the problems simply don't bother me. I suppose I find more to like in a correct articlation of the Trinity, but it's not a critical distinction in my practical faith.
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Trefor Heywood
Of course I am aware that some people have reached similar conclusions to Wierwille without his "assistance."
But they still also face the same challenges with biblical texts to answer.
Now in this area when you think that you have solved one thing you find there is something else that does not follow.
I am completely for openness and charity in disagreement. Clearly if it was completely cut and dried from the bible with no possible misunderstanding of the position then we would not be seeing discussions like this.
But it would be interesting to see who were trinitarians before their encounter with TWI and who have returned to that viewpoint since TWI. I am such a one but the difference is that there was in intolerance before and during for the other point of view that I no longer have.
It's almost an academic excercise now to weigh points made upon their merits. All I can say is that in TWI God became distant because the Father was only some far off unreachable spirit and the Son was replaced by the written word. It helps me to think more in trinitarian forms. We are looking through a dark glass at best, the face to face is yet to come.
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Zixar
It just doesn't wash. Look at the dozens of times Jesus referred to "God" in the Gospels, instead of "me". Look at Gethsemane. Why in the world would God need to pray to God, especially if the "person" he was praying to was "of the same substance" and "co-equal"?
Look at Matthew 19:17:
Two things leap out from this verse. First, if this were any other book, it would be obvious to all that Jesus is correcting the questioner's mistake, yet trinitarians have told me (with a straight face, even) that what Jesus is really doing is affirming that the questioner has correctly indicated him as God. Think about that for a minute. If that were the case, the first 15 words of Jesus' response are completely irrelevant unless Jesus is speaking from pride. The word "pride" is used 46 times in the KJV, none of which in a positive light. If the questioner knew Jesus was God, and presumably Jesus knew Jesus was God, then the first part of the response is nothing but a boast. That's not something a sinless man or god would do.The second glaring problem is that after Jesus establishes the sole good as God, he says only "keep the commandments." Not "my" commandments, not "our" commandments. If Jesus had just established himself as God, and everyone knows the commandments came from God, there's little reason to use the definite article instead of a personal possessive pronoun.
If the Christian fathers really knew Jesus was God all along, why on Earth would there have been 300+ years of debate over it? No one questioned the resurrection or the virgin birth enough to convene an ecumenical council, why would something so supposedly concrete as the bedrock of all orthodox Christianity even be questioned?
Another thing--does the trintarian "Father" have a human form? The traditional "old white-haired man on a throne" model of God, in other words. Wouldn't that make the Father "fully man and fully God" just as the Son is supposed to be? Well, why did the Holy Spirit get the short end of the stick then, if the Father and Son both got something it didn't?
It just doesn't add up. It diminishes nothing about Jesus to have him be Number Two to God Almighty. There's certainly no shame at all in "only" being the Penultimate Entity in all Creation! But since he didn't go around demanding worship, and since he certainly spent a lot of time praying to some higher Person, trying to force our Lord into also being our God makes about as much sense as gilding a lily.
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WordWolf
Acknowledging the previous post and doing nothing to detract from it.....
With that in mind, and with that understanding, I find those who claim that the
adherents to the contrary POV to their own-Trinitarian or not-are not saved because
they disagree are being silly and drawing a distinction God Almighty does not.
To both "types" of Christians, I say, can't we all get along and tackle some REAL
problems, of which there are many?
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def59
Zix
Jesus never forbade anyone who wanted to worship him.
But
Angels did
the apostles did
What are we do with Jesus' I am statements anyway
I am the Bread of Life
I am the Good Shepherd
I am the vine
'
I am the Way Truth and Life
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def59
Again I ask Raf and the other bu's to look at this site and come back.
Let's talk after that.
And check out the site's discussion of Granville Sharp's rule.
http://aomin.org/EGO.html
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WordWolf
He refused to let them call him GOOD, however...
"Good master...?"
"Why do you call me 'good'? There is none good, save one-God."
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TheEvan
Sigh, word wolf, this is precisely why the argument becomes intractable. It becomes "duelling verses".
Anybody who is honest will find plenty in the Bible to contradict their position on the Godhead. Those who insist on making their position unassailable (why, why oh why must we?) will find elaborate explanations for each "difficult" verse.
Well-versed orthodox trinitarians have a good solution for the problem you pose. You'll have a good solution for the problems they pose. Where does that get us?
But, first, if you really wish to refute a Trinitarian, read a few really good books on the doctrine before you do. It's not very convincing when your refutations reveal ignorance of the doctrine you think you're refuting...
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TheInvisibleDan
The Marcionite version, according to Couchoud's reconstruction,-though not differing much here -reads:
"He said to him, Why do you call me Good?
One alone is Good, God the Father!"
Is it possible that this verse can be construed in the sense of "those who have seen me, have seen the Father"?, rather than as Jesus correcting the questioner?
If Jesus was affirming himself as "Good"
(and therefore God) solely from a position of pride, as you argue, - then what of the latter, -"I'm not Good but God is" - where such a case of extreme modesty would compel one to lie?
Was Jesus not "Good"? This was precisely the epithat given to Jesus by the modalist Marcionites.
Where the Marcionite version does differ is that it is the rich man who cites the commandments back to Jesus -
"I know the commandments:
Do not kill; do not commit adultery, (etc.) -
to which Jesus responded, "One thing is lacking you: all that you have, sell it. Give it away to the poor...."
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Raf
Why? I'm not going to change your mind. You're not going to change mine. You can ask me to look at that site, I can ask you to look at Buzzard's book. Where does it get us? I assume you've looked at the evidence and have drawn a conclusion. Give me a little credit here: I've looked at the evidence too. I draw a different conclusion, and I'm not particularly interested in arguing to point to death with someone who has already made up his mind.
I discuss this on a regular basis with folks who've never been exposed to a Biblical Unitarian position. That's different: it's not arguing. It's exchange.
Def, you and I would just be arguing. I'd rather not.
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dmiller
Def -- I started to read the site, then ran across this ---
How so? I do not see it as blasphemy for God to choose a sacrifice that is not Himself, and then require us to accept that sacrifice for our salvation, and life.
If the sacrifice has been chosen by God, who are we to argue and say that the "sacrifice" is somehow negated if it is not God himself?
The "blasphemy" (imho) part enters when we decide that a "mere created being" cannot be something that God chose to be our substitute.
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WordWolf
Must have been blasphemy also to designate the passover lamb for sacrifice
every year, too....let's be consistent, here.....
Evan,
I think you missed my earlier post, where I said I find this a lesser issue,
and prefer we all just get along. It's on page 6, 6/13/04,
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def59
Here's another article I would like to see everyone take a whack at.
And I offer it with no invitation to judge its whackableness
http://aomin.org/The_Pre_Existence_of_Christ.html
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dmiller
Whackableness????
Ya hooked me!!
:D--> Headed there now. 
;)-->
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dmiller
From the Catholic Encyclopedia, and their definition of trinity. Sounds pretty ambiguous to me, and I was raised Catholic. It admits to "difference of origin", yet turns around to claim all are one co-eternal, etc.
How can you be eternal, yet have an origin as the Son did? And this is their definition, not mine. And then they state that there is as yet scripturally "no single term ------------ " and so on. If it isn't scriptural, where did they get it from?
I went to Google to find the Catholic take on this, and when I entered "trinity", I got several Catholic sites, but off to the right was a box labeled "Research the Trinity" www.truthortradition.com
:D--> 
:D-->
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TheEvan
Denying the pre-existence of Christ is probably the most glaring difficulty of the "biblical unitarian" position. I see no way of unequivocally supporting the notion without doing some serious dancing around a goodly-sized body of scripture...
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Trefor Heywood
I don't think that all biblical unitarian positions deny Christ's pre existence.
Wierwille did but that did not make him an Arian as Arius did not deny pre existence. I believe that denial of this is called Socinianism.
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def59
Oh Raf,
You misunderstand me, because I do not understand you. That's only what I am asking for is to learn more why you believe what you believe and why I believe what I believe. Because I used to believe as you did, I want to see what others do.
If it becomes an argument, I'll stop.
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def59
hey I know its clear where i come from, but I know nothing I will say will convince anyone. That's up to the Holy Spirit.
So excuse me as I share sites that I have found along my journey.
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Raf
I apologize for the misunderstanding, Def.
Amd allow me to predict my own behavior in saying that this would quickly devolve into a shouting match. Seeing as I'd rather not, and I wouldn't change your mind if I would, I'd rather just read.
:)-->
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def59
No problem bro
I enjoy the little chats we have had.
Keep in touch.
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Cynic
Trefor wrote,
"I don't think that all biblical unitarian positions deny Christ's pre existence.
"Wierwille did but that did not make him an Arian as Arius did not deny pre existence. I believe that denial of this is called Socinianism."
*****
Quite correct.
Although both Arianism and Socinianism deny the eternal existence of the Son, Socinians (e.g. Wierwille, CES' principals, various GS posters) hold that Christ had no existence prior to his earthly conception, while Arians (e.g. Jehovah's Witnesses) hold that Christ was the first creature created by God.
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dmiller
in which administration?!?
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Cynic
Arians hold that God created Christ and that Christ subsequently created all other things.
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