Three strikes. You're out.
Jesus kept on speaking of himself as the Son of God. He was about to be stoned for saying this. The Father-Son relationship is obvious in the Godhead. I'm not sure where you find controversy here.
The three as fully God of course is a bit confusing. This is what made the discussion important. You are just bringing up an element of the discussion, not a continuing point of confusion. We only know what God is like based on His revelation of Himself. God is what He is. We are not the ones to define His essence. For there to be a contradiction, you would have to know the whole metaphysical realm of God. I'm not sure how you will attain that knowledge --- or even attain any knowledge of God's realm apart from revelation through scripture.
This was not a political compromise. The meeting was called by Constantine but we have no indication that he forced the choice. Arianism faded away awhile after that because it did not sufficiently match the scriptural concepts. Additionally, we have had 1700 years to reconsider the results -- and we still find the Trinitarian concept as valid. You have to have some miraculous knowledge to counter what is known about the Trinity. If there is a better conception of the Godhead than has been presented so far, I could envision people accepting that.
Arianism was not just of the Son, as subordinate to the Father. Arianism was apparently about Christ Jesus being a creature of the Father rather than the Son existing eternally with the Father. The advice that I give to JWs who visit me is that they need to present a good argument against the Trinity if they think their perception of God is somehow better. It is not reasonable for them to just claim Christ is a creature rather than Deity, i.e. Arianism.
If you wish to prove something contrary to the Trinitarian understanding of the Godhead, you have to find a convincing weakness. (I know... it is a pretty heady undertaking.) This cannot be a supposed weakness built from your opinion about the metaphysical realm of God. You have to find a weakness in the scriptures or find a more acceptable conception of God when reconciling the various verses about the Father, the Son and the Spirit.
If you are trying to prove Christianity is wrong based on the Trinity doctrine, the weakness of your approach is that evaluate the Godhead within the extent of the metaphysical context that you can scrounge up. If you have no basis for verifying the accuracy of your metaphysical concepts, how can you even try to build any argument about the Trinity?
Jesus kept on speaking of himself as the Son of God. He was about to be stoned for saying this. The Father-Son relationship is obvious in the Godhead. I'm not sure where you find controversy here.
The three as fully God of course is a bit confusing. This is what made the discussion important. You are just bringing up an element of the discussion, not a continuing point of confusion. We only know what God is like based on His revelation of Himself. God is what He is. We are not the ones to define His essence. For there to be a contradiction, you would have to know the whole metaphysical realm of God. I'm not sure how you will attain that knowledge --- or even attain any knowledge of God's realm apart from revelation through scripture.
This was not a political compromise. The meeting was called by Constantine but we have no indication that he forced the choice. Arianism faded away awhile after that because it did not sufficiently match the scriptural concepts. Additionally, we have had 1700 years to reconsider the results -- and we still find the Trinitarian concept as valid. You have to have some miraculous knowledge to counter what is known about the Trinity. If there is a better conception of the Godhead than has been presented so far, I could envision people accepting that.
Arianism was not just of the Son, as subordinate to the Father. Arianism was apparently about Christ Jesus being a creature of the Father rather than the Son existing eternally with the Father. The advice that I give to JWs who visit me is that they need to present a good argument against the Trinity if they think their perception of God is somehow better. It is not reasonable for them to just claim Christ is a creature rather than Deity, i.e. Arianism.
If you wish to prove something contrary to the Trinitarian understanding of the Godhead, you have to find a convincing weakness. (I know... it is a pretty heady undertaking.) This cannot be a supposed weakness built from your opinion about the metaphysical realm of God. You have to find a weakness in the scriptures or find a more acceptable conception of God when reconciling the various verses about the Father, the Son and the Spirit.
If you are trying to prove Christianity is wrong based on the Trinity doctrine, the weakness of your approach is that evaluate the Godhead within the extent of the metaphysical context that you can scrounge up. If you have no basis for verifying the accuracy of your metaphysical concepts, how can you even try to build any argument about the Trinity?
Comment