Trinity.

[TheEditor]

Hi Homer.

Good question. I can tell you what my trained Arian response was as a JW. That is simply; It is true, we are to love Jehovah our God with our whole mind, heart, soul and strength, and our neighbor as ourself. It is also true that God shares His glory with no other "I am Jehovah. That is my name; and to no one else shall I give my own glory, neither my praise to graven images." (Isaiah 42:8) But this verse is referring to "idols" and "graven images", and we know that God has expressly delegated honor and glory to Jesus. But, the time will come when God will be "all in all" and the Son will return all things over to his Father.

That would have been the answer I gave if challenged by a trinitarian back in my salad days. Now, with qualifications I would agree with that statement. We can honor the Son as we honor the Father because the Father tells us to. I personally could never understand the trinitarian objection to this reasoning. It seems an unnecessarily wooden reading of the text.

Perhaps the problem really lies in the fact that the trinitarian formula as articulated in the creeds, really runs afoul of so many verses in the Bible that non-trinitarians have been able to seize upon that to make their case.

Regards, Brenden.

[Paidion]

It is interesting that you should refer to Isaiah 42:8, Brenden. This was the very passage that Trypho brought up to Justin Martyr. Justin replied that "I will give my glory to no other" meant that He would give his glory to no other than his Son—contextually this seems to be the case, since He seems to be addressing his Son as the one who is a covenant and a light for the nations, to open the eyes of the blind and set prisoners free.

“I am the LORD; I have called you in righteousness; I will take you by the hand and keep you; I will give you as a covenant for the people, a light for the nations, to open the eyes that are blind, to bring out the prisoners from the dungeon, from the prison those who sit in darkness. I am the LORD; that is my name; my glory I give to no other, nor my praise to carved idols. (Isaiah 42:6-8)

[dizerner]

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[Paidion]

Now at this point, just as you non-Trinitarians see us Trinitarians in kind of a pickle over the fact that Christ submits to the Father, us Trinitarians kind of see you in a pickle that here we have something created claiming worship of all creation and sharing God's throne. Created things just don't "do that" unless that created thing is, indeed, God himself.

I can't understand why you keep insisting that non-Trinitarians believe that Christ is a created being, in spite of the fact that many of us deny your perception of us. I have denied it several times and explained my denial. It's just as if you have not read my words. Not very "dizerning" in my opinion.

A large class of non-Trinitarians not only disbelieve that Jesus was created, but believe that God is a single, divine Individual, who expresses Himself in three modes, or "wears three masks" as some of them like to put it. They are known as Modalists, and include the United Pentecostal Church, as well as some forms of the Apostolic Church. It would be impossible for these folks to believe that Jesus was created. If so, from their point of view, He would have had to create Himself!

You may want to check out the UPC website under the heading "The Oneness of God". If you do that, please let us know if you still think these non-Trinitarians believe Christ was created.

http://www.upci.org/about-us/beliefs/21 ... beliefs/91

[Homer]

As dizerner has alluded, could it be that the statements in the NT regarding Jesus being inferior to, subservient to, separate from the Father, etc., be due to His emptying Himself and becoming fully man?

[dizerner]

[user account removed]

[TheEditor]

Greetings,

@Dizerner,

You wrote the following:

The Editor clearly claimed that absolutely no one, just reading the Bible alone, could come to the conclusion that Jesus was God. I found that completely absurd

Now I will "pun" on your name. That is not what I wrote. Let's read it again:

Does anybody want to soberly deny the fact that, if one read the Scriptures without a pre-conceived notion regarding the trinity, that they wouldn't come about it on their own? What one would come to believe is that Jesus is, in some sense, divine or theos, in some sense, the same that his Father is.

A bit different wouldn't you say? I admit that when one reads John 1:1 all alone, it seems to say that Jesus is God. But even the verse itself in the Greek is a bit troubling. Whatever the case, I was very specific in saying "trinity", not "Jesus is God".

@Homer,

Hi Homer, I trust you are on the mend? Capitalizing on your wife's good graces I hope.

You wrote:

could it be that the statements in the NT regarding Jesus being inferior to, subservient to, separate from the Father, etc., be due to His emptying Himself and becoming fully man?

They could be. The problem I always have had is not the accepting of that explanation, but the fact that this dynamic appears to continue after Jesus' resurrection and ascension. It's one thing to relegate Jesus saying "the father is greater than I" to his earthly sojourn. It's another to understand how one gets around Jesus calling his Father "My God" both to Mary at the tomb and later to John in the Revelation. If Thomas saying "My Lord and My God" is enough fodder for the trinitarian to feed his belief in the trinity, why isn't Jesus same statement regarding his Father sufficient to raise some doubts?

Paul seems to go to great lengths to clear up any misconceptions in 1 Corinthians 15:

For he must rule as king until God has put all enemies under his feet. As the last enemy, death is to be brought to nothing. For God “subjected all things under his feet.” But when he says that ‘all things have been subjected,’ it is evident that it is with the exception of the one who subjected all things to him. But when all things will have been subjected to him, then the Son himself will also subject himself to the One who subjected all things to him, that God may be all things to everyone. (1 Corinthians 15:25-28)

Why would Paul even feel the need to say "it is with evident exception"? What was he being proactive about? Did he not want people to have the mistaken assumption that the Son is not subject to the Father? Is the Father incapable of being "subject" to the second Person of the trinity? Again, I can accept "equal but subject". I don't believe a person has to be "inferior" to be subject (that is a straw man--sorry Dizerner). But this traditional concept of the trinity seems to have an awful lot of verses that need to be "qualified" to make them fit into a trinitarian paradigm.

Regards, Brenden.

[dizerner]

[user account removed]

[dizerner]

[user account removed]

[Homer]

Hi Brenden,

You wrote:

Hi Homer, I trust you are on the mend? Capitalizing on your wife's good graces I hope.

Healing is going very well and I am blessed with a wonderful wife who watches me like a hawk. Might be having more treatments/surgery though; tissue samples showed a more aggressive form of cancer though it appears that they got it all and it hadn't invaded the muscle of the bladder wall from where it could spread. Doc will look in bladder as soon as I'm healed.

They could be. The problem I always have had is not the accepting of that explanation, but the fact that this dynamic appears to continue after Jesus' resurrection and ascension. It's one thing to relegate Jesus saying "the father is greater than I" to his earthly sojourn. It's another to understand how one gets around Jesus calling his Father "My God" both to Mary at the tomb and later to John in the Revelation. If Thomas saying "My Lord and My God" is enough fodder for the trinitarian to feed his belief in the trinity, why isn't Jesus same statement regarding his Father sufficient to raise some doubts?

Paul seems to go to great lengths to clear up any misconceptions in 1 Corinthians 15:

For he must rule as king until God has put all enemies under his feet. As the last enemy, death is to be brought to nothing. For God “subjected all things under his feet.” But when he says that ‘all things have been subjected,’ it is evident that it is with the exception of the one who subjected all things to him. But when all things will have been subjected to him, then the Son himself will also subject himself to the One who subjected all things to him, that God may be all things to everyone. (1 Corinthians 15:25-28)

Yes, that could be a problem but in my view Jesus existed as he Word prior to his self-abnegation when He became the Son through Mary and He will forever be the Son; He will always be Jesus.