John, you say > "A second reason for the confusion (as I understand it) is that God did not chose to explain Himself to us. Without "official" explanation, we have only conjecture. Each of the three are there, in the inspired text. I am afraid that if we try to explain what has not been fully revealed, we give the enemy another target."
I say > I can't let this go without weighing in. Please bear with me. This quote conjures pictures in my head of a couple bored tea-drinkers trying to think of something to do with the rest of their day. "Well," said one of them, "why don't we conjecture something about God." The other one says, "Yes, let's do, and why don't we make it about something which has never been talked about." And since they were bored and ornery, they spent not only the rest of the day, but the rest of their lives building on this imaginary doctrine, the fallout being that we here in the 21st century can't figure out how to get away from their conjectures and back to something more biblical to say about the God of the Bible. Well, that is just ridiculous. [:-) The Trinity/person language of the 3rd century developed out of real-time struggles to preserve biblical truths about God and the Incarnation. It's not like Arius, the heretic who started the controversy, did not believe the Bible was the word of God. He was a very devout man. He believed the things he said about Jesus Christ, and he thought they were biblical. The problem was, he thought the Bible taught there was a time when the Son was not. Well now, if that were true, what would it do to the Hebrew idea of one - ness? What would the unity of God become if the Son and Holy Spirit just happened to disappear? Unity demands a coming together, a subject-object relationship. A single mark on a piece of paper is not unity. It is nothing more than a singularity. The Hebrew God cannot be who he is, if two of the three participants are not involved and not eternal. All he is then is just an idea, a mark on a piece of paper. The early fathers knew that something must be done to preserve this Hebrew/biblical one - ness reality of God. The question was, how was the church going to convince a man who believed the Bible that he was wrong about what the Bible taught? How were they going to convince his followers that he was wrong. The church did the only thing it could do; it developed ways of clarifying and defending and talking about biblical truths about the Godhead and the incarnate Son. Hence we have the doctrines of the Trinity and personhood. The answer now, it seems to me, is not to trash the language -- as if that will make the controversy go away -- but to learn how to speak it in a way that is both historically and biblically accurate, while meaningful and true. Thanks, Bill Taylor > >From: [EMAIL PROTECTED] > >Reply-To: [EMAIL PROTECTED] > >To: [EMAIL PROTECTED] > >Subject: Re: [TruthTalk] The Trinity > >Date: Tue, 9 Mar 2004 18:14:57 EST > > > >In a message dated 3/9/2004 1:55:49 PM Pacific Standard Time, > >[EMAIL PROTECTED] writes: > > > > > > > we get in to in these "Trinity" discussions arise not because of the > > > threeness idea of the Trinity but because of the oneness idea we have > >about "God." > > > >Another new guy on the list. Hi. > > > > I am thinking that such discussions arise because we insist on speaking > >in > >non-biblical terms. "Trinity" is our word. "Godhead" is the biblical > >word. > >With "Godhead" there is little doubt that a bunch of first century flat > >foots (the 12 apostles) would see a problem that was anywhere close to the > >first > >century issue of considering Christ to be God. Let's not forget that in > >Old > >Testament scripture, God Almighty and the Spirit of God are everywhere but > >the > >Jews only thought in terms of oneness. There were no "dualist" nor > >"trinitarians" in the Pentecost crowd the day of the first Christian > >sermon. > > > > > >A second reason for the confusion (as I understand it) is that God did not > >chose to explain Himself to us. Without "official" explanation, we have > >only > >conjecture. Each of the three are there, in the inspired text. I am > >afraid that if we try to explain what has not been fully revealed, we give > >the > >enemy another target. > > > >John Smithson > > _________________________________________________________________ > Store more e-mails with MSN Hotmail Extra Storage - 4 plans to choose from! > http://click.atdmt.com/AVE/go/onm00200362ave/direct/01/ > > ---------- > "Let your speech be always with grace, seasoned with salt, that you may know how you ought to answer every man." (Colossians 4:6) http://www.InnGlory.org > > If you do not want to receive posts from this list, send an email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] and you will be unsubscribed. If you have a friend who wants to join, tell him to send an e-mail to [EMAIL PROTECTED] and he will be subscribed. > > ---------- "Let your speech be always with grace, seasoned with salt, that you may know how you ought to answer every man." (Colossians 4:6) http://www.InnGlory.org If you do not want to receive posts from this list, send an email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] and you will be unsubscribed. If you have a friend who wants to join, tell him to send an e-mail to [EMAIL PROTECTED] and he will be subscribed.
