Posted on 07/13/2007 7:28:01 PM PDT by restornu
Jesus Christ is one in essence with the Father. They are not separate and distinct. Jesus said, “The Father and I are one.”
Elohim and YHWH are the same Person in the Old Testament. Jesus Christ is never called "Jehovah."
Jesus Christ prayed to His Father in Heaven and taught us how to pray: “Our Father who art in Heaven, hallowed by Thy Name . . .” I believe Jesus when He says He’s the Son of God. When Jesus ascended into Heaven, He said He was going to His Father. I don’t want to argue over this. I love Jesus. I love Heavenly Father. I love the Holy Ghost. Amen.
That is your belief!
In one of the major Christian treatments of the doctrine of the Trinity, Jesuit scholar Edmund J. Fortman, having examined the various parts of the New Testament individually, notes that "there is no trinitarian doctrine in the Synoptics or Acts." He also observes that in the New Testament "nowhere do we find any trinitarian doctrine of three distinct subjects of divine life and activity in the same Godhead," and that "in John there is no trinitarian formula." Concerning the letters of Paul, Fortman states:
These passages give no doctrine of the Trinity, but they show that Paul linked together Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. They give no trinitarian formula... but they offer material for the later development of trinitarian doctrine· [Paul] has no formal trinitarian doctrine and no clear-cut realization of a trinitarian problem, but he furnishes much material for the later development of a trinitarian doctrine.
After examining all parts of the New Testament, Fortman concludes that the classical doctrine of the Trinity is not biblical:
There is no formal doctrine of the Trinity in the New Testament writers, if this means an explicit teaching that in one God there are three co-equal divine persons. But the three are there, Father, Son, and Holy Spirit, and a triadic ground plan is there, and triadic formulas are there .... The Biblical witness to God, as we have seen, did not contain any formal or formulated doctrine of the Trinity, any explicit teaching that in one God there are three co-equal divine persons.
Stephen E. Robinson, Are Mormons Christians?, p.74
Edmund J. Fortman, The Triune God: A Historical Study of the Doctrine of the Trinity (Philadelphia: Westminster Press, 1972), pp. 14, 16, 29.
Who IS the God of the Bible? Perhaps you can tell us about Him? Is he without body, parts or passion?
I was raised Baptist and taught that churches “in error” or even “false churches” like the LDS contain genuine Christians who have through simple faith been born again, whether they really understand it or not. I agree, and say we can judge a church’s doctrine without judging the souls of individual members.
I am not a theologian but God is without “body, parts, or passion” except for the Son who became fully man as well as God. But since all parts of the Trinity are fully God, He understands and is all you suggest.
In Italian: Perciocchè tre son quelli che testimoniano nel cielo: il Padre, e la Parola, e lo Spirito Santo; e questi tre sono una stessa cosa.
In Portuguese: Porque três são os que testificam no céu: o Pai, a Palavra, e o Espírito Santo; e estes três são um.
In Russian (don't know if cyrillic will display on your browser) :Ибо три свидетельствуют на небе: Отец, Слово и Святый Дух; и Сии три суть едино.
In the original Greek (using Latin alphabet): oti treiv eisin oi marturountev en tw ouranw o pathr o logov kai to agion pneuma kai outoi oi treiv en eisin
And following that, we have 1st John 5:8-10, which includes an admonition.
8 And there are three that bear witness in earth, the Spirit, and the water, and the blood: and these three agree in one.
9 If we receive the witness of men, the witness of God is greater: for this is the witness of God which he hath testified of his Son.
10 He that believeth on the Son of God hath the witness in himself: he that believeth not God hath made him a liar; because he believeth not the record that God gave of his Son.
> I was raised Baptist and taught that churches “in error”
> or even “false churches” like the LDS contain genuine
> Christians who have through simple faith been born again,
> whether they really understand it or not. I agree, and
> say we can judge a church’s doctrine without judging the
> souls of individual members.
Exactly.
Ephesians 4.
Anything and everything else is meaningless.
And once someone denies the deity of Christ, the "what is a Christian" conversation is over.
Furthermore, once you claim that the Father was once a man who attained godhood and that you too can win the kewpie doll, you exit all bounds of Judaeo-Christian teaching and enter into fantasy land.
you exit all bounds of Judaeo-Christian teaching and enter into fantasy land.
Fantasyland and cultland.
Really??
How is it that a Universalist can be a "perfect Christian"?
To deny Jesus as the only way to the Father is not even close to perfection (in fact, it is the opposite side of the spectrum).
To Choose Ye this Day:
I will state up front that I am Catholic and also this post may be long. However, this sound-bite mentality that is part of current American Culture is just not me (I have to deal with it with my students). With that, I would like to address the reference the Jesuit Scholar Fortman. First, a Jesuit Scholar does not confirm what Catholic Orthodoxy is. I would conjecture that Fortman relied only on the “historical critical” method of scripture exegesis. While this method has given the Church better insights into the means of Sacred Scripture, as Pope Benedict stated in his excellent book “Jesus of Nazareth”, this method has its limitations.
So the Sacred Scriptures do teach the Holy Trinity. From the Catholic Churches view, the Sacred Scriptures “teach firmly, faithfully, and without error that truth which God, for the sake of our salvation, wished to see confided in the Sacred Scriptures” (Catechism of the Catholic Church par. 107). However, Catholic hermeneutic principles include three main criteria of interpretation Sacred Scripture in accordance with the Holy Spirit who inspired it. 1) Be especially attentive to the content and unity of the whole Scripture, 2) Read the Scriptures within the living Tradition of the whole Church and 3) Be Attentive to the analogy of faith, i.e. the coherence of the truths among themselves in the whole plan of salvation.
Thus, reflecting on the Sacred Scriptures and the Sacred Tradition of the Church (i.e. expressed in the Liturgy of the Church, Consensus of the Early Church Fathers). The Church in the Four Great Early Councils (Nicea 325, Constantinople 381, Ephesus 431, and Chalcedon 451) formally defined the Doctrine of the Holy Trinity and developed its Christological formulations regarding Christ, the second Person of the Holy Trinity.
So from the Catholic perspective, what makes one a Christian is Baptism in the Holy Trinity, which also requires, as some of the other posters stated, a belief in the Divinity of Christ and his Passion, Death and Resurrection. The Sacrament of Baptism and the underlying Theology behind it is critical, from the Catholic Theological view, of who is a Christian.
As someone who works with RCIA (assisting those who are seeking to become Catholic) I can state the following 1) While Mormons may use the Trinitarian Formula to Baptize, the underlying Theology of Mormonism is not consistent with how the Catholic Church understands the Trinity (Eastern Orthodox and Traditional Confessional Protestants share the same belief about the Trinity). Therefore, Mormons who enter the Catholic Church are “Unconditionally Baptized”. 2) While the Protestant Traditions do not agree with the Catholic Churches Doctrine on some issues (and this is ok), among the Doctrines we do share is belief in the Holy Trinity and the Divinity of Christ and therefore persons from the Traditional Protestant Confessions (Anglican, Reformed, Lutheran, Methodists, and Baptists) are “not rebaptized”
Pax Domine
I believe that the bible does teach that they are two separate persons, yet one in unity, thought and purpose. An earthly shadow, a parallel, would be an ideally married couple. They share a common name. They share the same goals. They build toward these goals together. They are separate persons, yet one. "Elohim" could be considered the last name of God, while YHWH (an English representation of the Hebrew term) could be considered the personal name of Christ.
Christ seems to make this distinction in scripture:
Joh 1:18 No man hath seen God at any time; the only begotten Son, which is in the bosom of the Father, he hath declared him.
This is an amazing statement in that Christ says that nobody has seen the father. He states this in stronger terms later:
Joh 5:37 And the Father himself, which hath sent me, hath borne witness of me. Ye have neither heard his voice at any time, nor seen his shape.
Well we know that some Israelites DID hear a voice of God and did see his shape. They heard the voice of God at Horeb: Deu 1:6 The LORD our God spoke unto us in Horeb, saying, Ye have dwelt long enough in this mount:
So the only conclusion that can be drawn is as Restornu said, that the "God" who interacted with his people throughout the eons was the pre-incarnate Christ. And though he was "God", he is still separate and distinct from God the father.
Yet at the same time, he makes it clear that he exactly represents God, the father:
Joh 14:7 If ye had known me, ye should have known my Father also: and from henceforth ye know him, and have seen him.
Joh 14:8 Philip saith unto him, Lord, show us the Father, and it sufficeth us.
Joh 14:9 Jesus saith unto him, Have I been so long time with you, and yet hast thou not known me, Philip? he that hath seen me hath seen the Father; and how sayest thou then, Show us the Father?
Joh 14:10 Believest thou not that I am in the Father, and the Father in me? the words that I speak unto you I speak not of myself: but the Father that dwelleth in me, he doeth the works.
Who in is denying Jesus Christ as deity?
Mormons deny the deity of Christ.
Never claim that the Father was once man to ATTAIED GODHOOD.
That is your addendum God was always God just like Jesus was always God even when he was manifest in the flesh!
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.