The soul of man

[GodsGrace]

The word begotten isn't causing problems. The Scriptures say that Jesus was begotten. Jesus Himself said that He came out of God. What I told is what the early Christians taught and believed. I guess you can argue with them if you want to. However, these men were either taught by the apostles or were close in time to them. Either way what they taught was what Christian believed before this idea of a being called God consisting of three persons. It was the teaching for about 400 years. The first we see of this one being consisting of three persons idea in around 450 with the Athanasian Creed. It's not really know who wrote the creed, but it does have an
Augustinain flair to it

Please address my thoughts ad to how the Apostles would never have referred to Jesus ad God (Thomas)
Or even the SON of God, as they would have considered it blasphemy and polytheism.
How would you have explained this if you were around at that time??

 

[GodsGrace]

The word begotten isn't causing problems. The Scriptures say that Jesus was begotten. Jesus Himself said that He came out of God. What I told is what the early Christians taught and believed. I guess you can argue with them if you want to. However, these men were either taught by the apostles or were close in time to them. Either way what they taught was what Christian believed before this idea of a being called God consisting of three persons. It was the teaching for about 400 years. The first we see of this one being consisting of three persons idea in around 450 with the Athanasian Creed. It's not really know who wrote the creed, but it does have an
Augustinain flair to it

What does. " begotten " mean?

 

[OzSpen]

Amen Oz
I think the problem is that we try to rationalize Christian concepts.
We try to understand God. An impossible task and I repeat, we can only accept and trust the Apostle's and the original Fathers who were close in time to the events.

Wondering

Wondering,

Thank you for your affirmation.

The difficulty is that some do not begin with an assumption, 'We'll check out the evidence and see where it leads'. Instead, the presumption often is, 'I can't understand the Trinity as three in one, so I'll attempt to rationalise with my autonomous reason'.

It gets back to our faith based on fact - the fact of Scripture and the many 'by faith' statements of Heb 11 (ESV). By faith, I understand that I cannot understand the infinite God in his immensity and authority and his Trinity. But enough has been revealed in Scripture for us to understand that God is triune in unity.

Blessings,
Oz

 

[GodsGrace]

Please address my thoughts ad to how the Apostles would never have referred to Jesus ad God (Thomas)
Or even the SON of God, as they would have considered it blasphemy and polytheism.
How would you have explained this if you were around at that time??

I mean, how would you have reconciled the idea of there being only one God and the fact that Jesus was God or even the son of God.

 

[Butch5]

So why are you not addressing problems presented to you?

Butch,

I think it's time for you to read some more of the early church fathers. Mr Google would have helped you to find church fathers who promoted the Trinity, contrary to your view, well before Augustine of Hippo (ca 354-430).

Here are a couple of examples:

Irenaeus (ca 120/140- 200/203) listened to Polycarp, the disciple of John, when Irenaeus was a boy. He became Bishop of Lyons. This is an especially early confirmation of the Trinity. He wrote:


Another ECF, Tertullian had some telling things to say about the Godhead, unity in trinity, and he was much earlier than Augustine:

Tertullian (ca 155/160-220), who was an active apologist for the Christian faith in northern Africa, wrote:


I'm learning that your affirmation here short on evidence - thus making it a personal opinion.

Oz

When are you gonna stop Oz? Why do you keep posting things that show a Trinity? Show me where the quote from Irenaeus says anything at all about the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit being a single being. It doesn't. There's not a single word about them being one being. So, you're presenting a straw man. How about presenting some evidence that shows that the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit are a single being.

Regarding the quote from Tertullian, note that I've been saying all along that I affirm the Nicene Creed which state that the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit are on the same substance or essence. So, you're quote of Tertullian is just affirming what I've been saying. However, there is nothing in the quote that says they are a single being.

If you're all you're interested in is playing games, I'm not interested. If you want to continue please stop playing.

 

[Butch5]

So why are you not addressing problems presented to you?

Because mine have gone unattended.

 

[OzSpen]

I really expected more from you Oz. You try to come across as well educated and well informed. Yet, you make arguments that are illogical. I'm sure you've read that all things were created by God through Christ. Notice what you posted, "of" and "by".

Yeah, I got the numbers reversed. Sorry, I'm not infallible like you.

Now, instead of the smoke screen why not show where the Bible teaches that one being consists of three persons.

Let me ask you another question Oz. If Jesus is God almighty, how can He have a God?

17 Jesus saith unto her, Touch me not; for I am not yet ascended to my Father: but go to my brethren, and say unto them, I ascend unto my Father, and your Father; and to my God, and your God. (Jn. 20:17 KJV)

I read you article. In it you make a point about the Holy Spirit and you emphasize the word "He". Below is a quote from your article.

• ‘You have not been reading scripture …have you?…scripture sats (sic) nothing about a triune nature….it says God is ONE……what are the three natures you are talking about??? show scripture saying there are three natures… Jesus said I and my Father are one….Jesus and the Father makes their abode with us….One Spirit’. [7]
• ‘OK here is the person…..: but ye know him; for he dwelleth with you, and shall be in you.” who was HE that the disciples Knew???….who was he that dwelleth with the disciples???…and who was the HE that shall be in us????’

Are you aware that in the Greek text the Spirit is in the neuter gender? The only place where the Holy Spirit is referred to as "He" in the Greek text is where Jesus uses the word Comforter. That's because, If you know Greek, the pronoun has to match the noun in gender and the word translated comforter is a masculine noun. So the passage you quoted in the article, John 14:17, should read it and not He. That the translators translated it He instead of it shows their bias.

There are too many false premises here for me to reply to. To be honest, I have other things to do.

By the way, I know Greek very well because I teach it.

Bye,
Oz

 

[Free]

Butch,

I think it's time for you to read some more of the early church fathers. Mr Google would have helped you to find church fathers who promoted the Trinity, contrary to your view, well before Augustine of Hippo (ca 354-430).

Here are a couple of examples:

Irenaeus (ca 120/140- 200/203) listened to Polycarp, the disciple of John, when Irenaeus was a boy. He became Bishop of Lyons. This is an especially early confirmation of the Trinity. He wrote:


Another ECF, Tertullian had some telling things to say about the Godhead, unity in trinity, and he was much earlier than Augustine:

Tertullian (ca 155/160-220), who was an active apologist for the Christian faith in northern Africa, wrote:


I'm learning that your affirmation here short on evidence - thus making it a personal opinion.

Oz

This. One can see in the early church fathers' writings the wrestling of the worship of Jesus in Scripture, among other things, implying that he is also God.

Justin Martyr (110-165), in using OT texts to show the divinity of Christ regarding the incarnation states, "Therefore these words testify explicitly that He is witnessed to by Him who established these things, as deserving to be worshipped, as God and as Christ" (First Apology, ch. 63). He also refers to Christ as "God the Son of God" and "the Word," which is "indivisible and inseparable from the Father." To illustrate this, he gives the example of the sun and its rays.

Clement of Alexandria (c. 150 - c. 215), mentions in Paidagogos, "God the Son".

As you can see, Butch, what is written of Jesus in Scripture caused the early church fathers to reconsider the nature of God, as it should.

 

[Butch5]

I see that the quote from Tertullian has been completely ignore.

 

[Free]

Because mine have gone unattended.

Not on my side of things.

 

[Butch5]

That's a false claim about how I deduce from Scripture the Trinity. I provided my evidence in #195. I will not repeat.



See #195 for the evidence. Your 'I suspect' is nothing more than your presupposition about my theology and learning. It is WRONG because it comes with no factual basis. I've refuted your claims over and over and I'll not do it any more.

Oz

I suspect is an opinion. You can leave the discussion if you choose to. However, all you've presented is straw man arguments and no evidence that God is a being that consists of three persons.

 

[Butch5]

Please address my thoughts ad to how the Apostles would never have referred to Jesus ad God (Thomas)
Or even the SON of God, as they would have considered it blasphemy and polytheism.
How would you have explained this if you were around at that time??

I did. Jesus and the Father are of the same essence. They are both Deity.

 

[OzSpen]

I suspect is an opinion. You can leave the discussion if you choose to. However, all you've presented is straw man arguments and no evidence that God is a being that consists of three persons.

The quote from Irenaeus was not as strong and focussed as that by Tertullian because Irenaeus was addressing a particular issue that was affecting the church in his era.

However, that from Tertullian is specific and hit the mark of the Trinitarian God in unity.

Thus the connection of the Father in the Son, and of the Son in the Paraclete, produces three coherent Persons, who are yet distinct One from Another. These Three are one essence, not one Person, as it is said, I and my Father are One, [John 10:30] in respect of unity of substance not singularity of number. (Against Praxeas. ch 25).

What could be clearer than that and it reads nothing like that by Butch?

Oz

 

[Butch5]

What does. " begotten " mean?

only offspring

 

[Butch5]

There are too many false premises here for me to reply to. To be honest, I have other things to do.

By the way, I know Greek very well because I teach it.

Bye,
Oz

Ah, so you're not going to address the fact that Spirit is neuter.

 

[OzSpen]

I did. Jesus and the Father are of the same essence. They are both Deity.

Please show me from Arndt & Gingrich's Greek lexicon and Thayer's Greek lexicon that theos does not mean God but Deity. Since when were Deity (with capital) and God not synonymous?

 

[Butch5]

I mean, how would you have reconciled the idea of there being only one God and the fact that Jesus was God or even the son of God.

I think you're defining God as being rather than Deity. Let try to use a human example. Let's use Royalty. Lets suppose there is a king. He is royalty. When the king has a son, the son is royalty, however, the son is not the king. The king and the son are the same royalty or royal family there are two royalties, there is one. Likewise the Father is Deity (theos, God) and the Son is Deity (theos God). There is one Deity, like the royalty, but the Father and the Son aren't the same being

 

[Butch5]

Please show me from Arndt & Gingrich's Greek lexicon and Thayer's Greek lexicon that theos does not mean God but Deity. Since when were Deity (with capital) and God not synonymous?

I thought we were done with this. I NEVER said that theos doesn't mean God. I chose to use Deity for clarity.

 

[JohnDB]

I think you're defining God as being rather than Deity. Let try to use a human example. Let's use Royalty. Lets suppose there is a king. He is royalty. When the king has a son, the son is royalty, however, the son is not the king. The king and the son are the same royalty or royal family there are two royalties, there is one. Likewise the Father is Deity (theos, God) and the Son is Deity (theos God). There is one Deity, like the royalty, but the Father and the Son aren't the same being

I'd have to disagree with this thought process.
"The word was God..."
"The word became flesh"

"...All authority in Heaven and Earth has been given unto me"

"Hear oh Israel, The Lord, The Lord God is One."

"...Scripture cannot be broken..."

 

[OzSpen]

Ah, so you're not going to address the fact that Spirit is neuter.

All nouns and adjectives in Greek are masculine, feminine or neuter. Greek's gender system differs from, say, English. In Greek, adjectives automatically have attached gender, associated with the noun to which it refers.

For example, Acts 11:24 (ESV) reads: 'for he was a good man, full of the Holy Spirit and of faith. And a great many people were added to the Lord'.

Take the phrase, 'a good man'. It's in the predicate nominative (in Australia we call it the complement) of the sentence with the verb to be. The Greek for 'good man' is, ἀνὴρ ἀγαθὸς = aner agathos, i.e. man good. Why is the masculine agathos used for 'good' as the adjective to accompany aner, instead of, say, the feminine nominative, agathe, or the neuther, agathon?

That's because aner is masculine gender noun (here in the nominative case) and the Greek adjective must modify the noun in gender, number and case.

If it were referring to a 'good word' (word being the neuter, hrema) in the nominative case, it would be hrema agathov. Why is it agathon and not agathos? Because it is modifying the neuter noun, hrema, and agathon is the neuter adjective declension, nominative case, and not the masculine adjective, agathos.

However, if one wants to refer to a neuter noun such as pneuma (Spirit) and you want us to understand this is a person and not a thing, the Greek can use a pronoun (nominative case masculine example used) such as autos, ekeinos, etc, to emphasise that this is a person and not an 'it'.

This may have been technical, but it demonstrates what happens when all nouns and adjectives in a language have declensions at the end of words to indicate where they are to be placed in a sentence. I learned some of the dynamics of nouns with different gender and their meaning when I took German at high school a long time ago.

Those who speak other languages that have inanimate nouns with, say, masculine or feminine gender should get the hang of what I'm saying. The difficulty with Greek is that there were no gaps between words in sentences. There was no punctuation.

The fact that pneuma (Spirit) is neuter is nothing more than an observation that there are nouns that can be neuter gender that can refer to persons.

Oz