For the same reason that a man takes out of his treasure house both that which is old and that which is new. (You'll find it in the Bible. Just sayin'.)
It's not really syncretism, as such. What Greek learning gave to the Church was, you might say, the ability to be coherent, where coherence is possible.
This is no mean thing. If the earliest documents, including the NT (and the OT 'types') give a sense that God is somehow three as well as one, then sooner or later somebody will crop up worshipping three gods -- or charging that we do.
If we insist on one-ness, then somebody will crop up, as they still do, saying Jesus and the Holy Spirit are less than God.
We have the responsibility, all of us who are able, to say, as much as we can, HOW it can be that God is at once three and one. Greek learning gives us the tools.
Nobody says a Christian carpenter is syncretistic for building a house using a hammer made in China. How are we syncretistic for using a philosophical armamentarium built in the Mediterranean littoral?
I say again, and again and again, the councils, the development of doctrine arose because of disputes, as we read in Acts 15. Scripture itself could not resolve the dispute between the Judaizers and the more, ahem, catholic wing. So the Church resolved it. Causa finita.
Similarly, Scripture itself could not resolve whether Jesus was one 'person' with human and divine natures, or two persons, or a kind of tertium quid, a blend.
And even more so with the Trinity. Surely SOMEHOW the Son is less than the Father. He says so Himself. And the Father "sends" the Spirit, which suggests HE gets to tell the Spirit what to do.
Yet, how can God have parts so that the Spirit is not all of Him? And is it the Spirit of Christ, as Paul says, or what?
I don't see how anyone can claim that a conclusive, indisputable resolution can be proved from Scripture. And certainly the Jehovah's Witnesses are evidence that the Arians can find texts to support their stand.
Sure WE can say that they are misreading and misinterpreting. Can we prove it before an objective and disinterested judge?
So the Church, bringing forth from its treasure house what was a couple of centuries old to the Greeks but a new acquisition to the Church, uses the tools of Greek philosophy to build a doctrinal structure about the God of the Bible.
And please don't go after all the Pauline stuff about "philosophy." Already in Paul's time (as in ours) bizarro gnostic cults were abusing Platonic concepts to construct weird cosmologies. THEY were the syncretists, trying to shove the round peg of the Gospel into the square hole of pseudo-Platonism.
The councils, on the other hand, made good use of philosophical concepts to delineate if not explain things which needed to be clarified somehow if the evangelical work was to continue.
Okay, that's it for the day. Discuss amongst yourselves. I'm going to take a real Sabbath.
NO more so than the Catholic church cherry picks verses for it's own, unbiblical benefit...
God didn't reveal all of the aspects of the Trinity in the scriptures but you guys claim that a bunch of intellectual, philosophical men got together and came to a conclusion on what God didn't reveal, to anyone...
God didn't give your religion, or anyone that authority...
I don't see how anyone can claim that a conclusive, indisputable resolution can be proved from Scripture.
We of course you don't...It wasn't intended to be revealed...What was revealed is that there are three...And those three are one...Any thing beyond that is none of your business, until God choses to reveal it...
Oh, but it is, according to Newman:
Confiding then in the power of Christianity to resist the infection of evil, and to transmute the very instruments {372} and appendages of demon-worship to an evangelical use, and feeling also that these usages had originally come from primitive revelations and from the instinct of nature, though they had been corrupted; and that they must invent what they needed, if they did not use what they found; and that they were moreover possessed of the very archetypes, of which paganism attempted the shadows; the rulers of the Church from early times were prepared, should the occasion arise, to adopt, or imitate, or sanction the existing rites and customs of the populace, as well as the philosophy of the educated class.
[...]
We are told in various ways by Eusebius [Note 16], that Constantine, in order to recommend the new religion to the heathen, transferred into it the outward ornaments to which they had been accustomed in their own. It is not necessary to go into a subject which the diligence of Protestant writers has made familiar to most of us. The use of temples, and these dedicated to particular saints, and ornamented on occasions with branches of trees; incense, lamps, and candles; votive offerings on recovery from illness; holy water; asylums; holydays and seasons, use of calendars, processions, blessings on the fields; sacerdotal vestments, the tonsure, the ring in marriage, turning to the East, images at a later date, perhaps the ecclesiastical chant, and the Kyrie Eleison [Note 17], are all of pagan origin, and sanctified by their adoption into the Church.
Excerpts from An Essay on the Development of Christian Doctrine (index) by John Henry Newman
Chapter 8. Application of the Third Note of a True Development—Assimilative Power
§ 2. The Assimilating Power of Sacramental Grace, (pp 5-6)
Now, as to the rest in general: I am a Protestant and an American... Who am I to object to enlightenment? :P
But there comes often with enlightenment, it's lurking shadow, sophistry... toward this I will give no quarter, nor patience. And in religious circles, it is often foisted upon the laity as justification by the clergy. You might note, btw, that I say I am not accusing you and yours alone in this thing, particularly.
We have the responsibility, all of us who are able, to say, as much as we can, HOW it can be that God is at once three and one. Greek learning gives us the tools.
No, in fact you don't have the responsibility to define what God has left undefined. Especially if you are making it up as you go along. There's yer problem, right there.
I say again, and again and again, the councils, the development of doctrine arose because of disputes, as we read in Acts 15. Scripture itself could not resolve the dispute between the Judaizers and the more, ahem, catholic wing. So the Church resolved it. Causa finita.
"More, ahem, catholic wing..." Yahrightwhatever.
The Pharisees are the culprit here... Lording over the laity... "Nicolatian"=="Conquer laity"... Re-read Acts 15 with that in mind... It might make it easier to determine what the "Judaizers" are.
Similarly, Scripture itself could not resolve whether Jesus was one 'person' with human and divine natures, or two persons, or a kind of tertium quid, a blend.
The official position should be the truthful one: "We don't know. It is not revealed."
And even more so with the Trinity. Surely SOMEHOW the Son is less than the Father. He says so Himself. And the Father "sends" the Spirit, which suggests HE gets to tell the Spirit what to do.
Yet, how can God have parts so that the Spirit is not all of Him? And is it the Spirit of Christ, as Paul says, or what?
Again, the official position should be the truthful one: "We don't know. It is not revealed." It is the honest answer, and one doesn't have to go to all the trouble of making things up... And covering for one's self when the stuff you made up last time turns into yet another problem, which then requires making more stuff up.
I don't see how anyone can claim that a conclusive, indisputable resolution can be proved from Scripture. [...]
That is because it isn't there.
And certainly the Jehovah's Witnesses are evidence that the Arians can find texts to support their stand.
Sure WE can say that they are misreading and misinterpreting. Can we prove it before an objective and disinterested judge?
No. Because you are wrong. As are they. Neither position can be proven exclusively... It isn't what we know that is the problem. It is what we think we know that gets us all in trouble. What can be proven should be dogma. I have no problem with that.
So the Church, bringing forth from its treasure house what was a couple of centuries old to the Greeks but a new acquisition to the Church, uses the tools of Greek philosophy to build a doctrinal structure about the God of the Bible.
...that is made of whole cloth as far as the Bible is concerned - That is my point precisely.