Posted on 08/12/2002 7:24:31 PM PDT by restornu
Explain you reasoning for that question on a patriarch thead?
DrStevej,
This is where sola scriptura logically leads...there must be an authority to infallibly interpret scripture or one gets such conclusions as this.
Based on Sola Scriptura, restornu's religion regarding the Trinity is correct:
The Holy Spirit is one of the three Persons of the Trinity: Certainly Scripture can be found which tells us the Holy Spirit is God (e.g., Acts 5:3-4), but nowhere does it say that God consists of more than one Person. Numerous early heresies concerning the Holy Spirit arose both because the canon of Scripture was not yet fully defined and because those elements of Scripture that were recognized were simply not all that clear on how the Holy Spirit fit into the Godhead.
Jesus Christ as true God and true Man: Scripture is essentially silent on the true nature, or rather natures, of Christ. Scripture says Jesus Christ is God; Scripture says Jesus Christ is human; Scripture says Jesus Christ is like us in all things but sin. But nowhere does Scripture say how or when all of this fits together. Was He this way from the moment of conception, or did His divinity descend upon Him at the baptism by John?
The idea that Jesus Christ is both fully God and fully man, having the fullness of the divine nature and a complete human nature, was only finally settled by the Magisterium at the Councils of Ephesus and Chalcedon. He was known to be God from the moment of conception because Ephesus (431 A.D.) declared Mary to be Mother of God in order to clarify that very point. The doctrine of Jesus’ dual natures was laid out at Chalcedon in 451 A.D.
Jesus Christ shares the same nature as God the Father: The Arian heresy, one of the toughest heresies the Church has ever faced, was fought over precisely this point. Arius had many passages of Scripture to support his position that Christ is the highest of all created beings, but not God, while his opponent, Athanasius, had an equally compelling case from Scripture asserting that Jesus Christ is truly God. As the debate progressed, the majority of bishops vacillated between the two sides.
The declaration that Jesus was consubstantial with the Father, not just of nature “like unto” the Father (as Arius asserted), but actually of the same substance as the Father, was only won after Athanasius appealed to apostolic Tradition to prove that his formula expressed the true faith handed down to the bishops from the apostles. As a result, the First Council of Nicea (325 A.D.) formulated what we now call the Nicene Creed, including in it the first unscriptural word ever used in a creed, “homoousious,” which means “of the same substance as” or “one in being with."...
...Yet we can only interpret Scripture properly by listening to the Church, our Mother and Teacher. We who are the children of God need the gentle “home-schooling” of our Mother, who instructs us with Jesus’ authority, if we are to learn the full truth of our Father’s saving plan.
ST POLYCARP, BISHOP OF SMYRNA, MARTYR—7?-166 Feast: February 23
Be that as it may, the LDS view of the Trinity is one that comes naturally from, and in fact is the most honest interpretation of, the relavent scriptures re: the Trinity, divorced from the traditions of the early Christians that lead to the correct (orthodox) interpretation of those scriptures.
Only by presupposing the Trinity as Tradition already defined it does one read into those relevent scriptures the doctrines we both share today regarding the Nature of God as orthodox Christians.
This is not silly.
It calls into question your faith tradition's rejection of the authority of the church to define proper interpretion of scripture.
Without such authority, the LDS interpretation holds just as much credibility and authority as your own interpretation.
Jesus himself declares that he is Yahweh ("I AM,"). In John 8:58, when questioned about how he has special knowledge of Abraham, Jesus replies, "Truly, truly, I say to you, before Abraham was, I AM." His audience understood exactly who he was claiming to be. "So they took up stones to throw at him; but Jesus hid himself, and went out of the temple" (John 8:59).
With the personal name of God, Yahweh, being applied to both the Father and the Son, it is almost certainly applied to the Spirit, and thus to all three members of the Trinity.
The parallelism of the Father, the Son, and the Spirit is not unique to Matthew’s Gospel, but appears elsewhere in the New Testament (e.g., 2 Cor. 13:14, Heb. 9:14), as well as in the writings of the earliest Christians, who clearly understood them in the sense that we do today—that the Father, the Son, and the Spirit are three divine persons who are one divine being (God).
Read Cubicle's post regarding Brigham Young's teaching that Adam is God. here and here. See also post #34 and #38.
Gotta hit the hay. Later....
This definition came solely from the RCC, it is not the "plain sense of scripture" as scripture seems contradictory. Forget the LDS. Look at the arguments of the Aryan heresy.
Scripture is not self explanatory regarding the Trinity.
It demands an authoritative interpreter.
The reformers rejected that authoritative interpreter.
Thus the LDS doctrine is a direct outgrowth of 1)rejection of the authoritative interpreter as well as 2) sola scriptura, both being the primary "fruits" of the reformation.
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