Posted on 08/12/2006 11:15:20 AM PDT by Teófilo
Folks, the table I shared with you a couple of days back, documenting the different anti-Trinitarian heresies, the time of their birth, and the people and events leading their rebuttal and condemnation as false teaching, had become a piece of conversation in here.
One user observed that nowhere in the authorities in favor of the Trinity do we find "the Bible" and that's because the Trinity, so he said, is a heretical, devil-inspired concept foreign to Scripture and the Truth, or words to that effect.
I suppose that he was talking about the second two tables because the first one quotes Sts. Paul and John as the "inspired writers" who refuted the earliest anti-Trinitarian heresies and we know of Sts. Paul and John as "inspired writers" of inspired Scripture.
Nevertheless, I've decided to further illustrate my point by scanning and saving into a PDF file the Table of Contents (TOC)of the book from I which reproduced the table, What is the Trinity? You may download this TOC, peruse it at your leisure and then consider the following thoughts from a moment:
I am not so deluded as to think that these few words will end the current, revived controversy. People, even well-intentioned people, will chose to believe whatever they want.
- The concept of a Triune Deity was not pulled out from a rectal database maintained by Catholic bishops and theologians, nor was it a realization that was reached at the spur of the moment. It took several hundred years for the Magisterial Church to develop the technical language needed to teach this truth in a manner consistent with data contained in Holy Scripture as understood, taught, and guarded by the most immediate successors to the Apostles down to their own time.
- The concept of a Triune Deity, of one God in Three Persons, sharing one Divine nature, without multiplying the nature or dividing the Being, is central to Christianity, and the only one that does justice to the economy of revelation and salvation as revealed in Scripture as it was handed down from Apostolic times. Trinity deniers would do well in reviewing this history to understand what we orthodox Catholic Christians and other Christians understand by the Trinity, and why believe in a Triune God is so central to the Christian faith.
Nevertheless, for most Christians who place value on the historical Christian faith and its living, historical connection with the Apostles and the Lord, all the questions regarding the nature of God, of Christ as Emmanuel or "God with us," and of the Holy Spirit who binds them together, were solved about a millennium-and-a-half ago, in a process that lasted hundreds of years, by people in the know, much closer in space and time to the time of the Apostles and very familiar with their ways of thoughts and expression.
Frankly, nineteenth or early twentieth century Johnny-come-latelies, who come waving "the Bible" purporting to have found "the truth" by denying God's Triune nature, have any standing to speak truthfully or authoritatively to this question. I specifically have the following sectarians in mind:
King Solomon was right when he stated that there's nothing new under the sun. Unlike General MacArthur's mythical soldier, ancient heresies don't die, they just fade away to reappear later as if they have not been already debated, refuted, and rejected by the Body of Christ.
- Modern day Ebionites like those behind sites such as The Torah of Messiah Yahshua or other "biblical Unitarians" touting similar claims.
- Sects espousing of Arianism like the Jehovah's Witnesses who are willing to believe that Jesus was a "lesser god;" a "mighty one" but not the "Almighty."
- Monarchian modalists or "Sabellians" such as the Oneness Pentecostal constellation of sects, which confuse the persons of the Trinity, by reducing them to "modes" or "manifestations" of a single, unitary Deity.
- The Tritheism of the Church of Latter-Day Saints, commonly known as "Mormons," who maintains that "God the Father (Heavenly Father), Jesus Christ, and the Holy Ghost are three separate and distinct beings who together constitute the Godhead."
Believers claiming to be "Christian" but who deny the Triune nature of God, Father, Son, and + Holy Spirit deprive themselves of much of the grace needed for sanctification and salvation. Their handicap deprives them of the spiritual ability to know and experience God as Love. Their eternal salvation is, if not impossible--for I have no direct knowledge of God's will for each person--is extremely difficult.
My advice: to repent and come back to the Church of Christ; therein you will know God.
PING!
http://vivificat.cybercatholics.com/PDF/TrinityTOC.pdf.
Sorry about the confusion. URLs are case sensitive; it gets me every time!
-Theo
Gen1:26 Then God said, "Let us make man in our image, in our likeness, ..."
Gen1:27 So God created man in his own image,
in the image of God he created him;
male and female he created them.
John 10:33-36 "We are not stoning you for any of these," replied the Jews, "but for blasphemy, because you, a mere man, claim to be God."
Jesus answered them, "Is it not written in your Law, 'I have said you are gods'[Psalm 82:6]? If he called them 'gods,' to whom the word of God came—and the Scripture cannot be broken— what about the one whom the Father set apart as his very own and sent into the world? Why then do you accuse me of blasphemy because I said, 'I am God's Son'?
The spirit is the person's mind with all it's knowledge, understanding, and it's set of decisions and values. Body and Soul are just machines that support the function of mind.
There are some Orthodox prayer groups who have up to 11 elements or dimensions.
No, just didn't elaborate. The soul is the heavenly body, that supports the mind. The same mind that was developed on Earth. The spirit is the mind. I said that. The heart is a function of mind. It has both a rational and emotional component. I don't know those Orthodox 11 elements, so I can't place them.
Isn't T D Jakes an anti-Trinitarian? i.e. Jesus Only?
Frankly, I don't know.
-Theo
Rumored to be...but currently denies this belief.
Bumpus ad summum
Forgot Christian Science.
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