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Christians..."Trinity"?

Windwalker

Veteran Member
Premium Member
I'll give you a hint to what my thoughts are if it's worth trying to salvage this thread. I think the Trinity doctrine was formulated in very similar fashion to the Trikaya, or three-body doctrine of Mahayana Buddhism as it wrestled with the nature of the Buddha, being both a human of flesh and blood, yet realizing the eternal nature within himself. How can a human be both? What happens with that nature upon death, etc.? So you end up with the Dharmakaya (the eternal body), the Sambhogakaya (the transformational body), and the Nirmaṇakaya (the gross, physical body). In other words, you have the Casual, Subtle, and Gross bodies. The Trinity doctrine is very similar to this, and in the least shows that the early church, like Mahayana Buddhism, following after the earlier Theravandan Buddhism, struggled with similar questions and proposed similar "Trinity" solutions.

Anyway, there's much more, but I might save this for another thread if this one has died to the topic.
 
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savagewind

Veteran Member
Premium Member
Anyway, I might save this for another thread if this one has died to the topic
I wonder if we can hijack it back? Or perhaps resurrect this topic in a new, hijack-free thread?
Interesting. I think the topic of the thread is real Christian vs false Christian and NOT the depth of the trinity. Seems to me you might be off topic too perhaps?

I am a Christian, but I reject the trinity doctrine. I have been told on more than one occasion by other so-called Christians that I can NOT be a Christian unless I accept the doctrine of trinity. Do you believe this is an accurate/fair stance to take?

It is why I am careful before I ever criticize. It makes me look silly if I am doing the same thing. Ooops off topic.
 

Windwalker

Veteran Member
Premium Member
Interesting. I think the topic of the thread is real Christian vs false Christian and NOT the depth of the trinity. Seems to me you might be off topic too perhaps?



It is why I am careful before I ever criticize. It makes me look silly if I am doing the same thing. Ooops off topic.
It's funny how you read the OP that way. He specifically asked about the Trinity doctrine, and how if someone has a different take on that does that mean they aren't considered a Christian. The discussion was about the Trinity in the following pages, but then it devolved into this typical twaddle about True Christian(tm), blah, blah, not even touching on the Trinity anymore.

If this is what the OP wants for a discussion, then the topic should be renamed and I'll start another topic as I have zero interest in "Who's the True Christian(tm)" discussions.
 
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savagewind

Veteran Member
Premium Member
It's funny how you read the OP that way. He specifically asked about the Trinity doctrine, and how if someone has a different take on that does that mean they aren't considered a Christian. The discussion was about the Trinity in the following pages, but then it devolved into this typical twaddle about True Christian(tm), blah, blah, not even touching on the Trinity anymore.

Ha ha ha. So...is the thread for proving the trinity or for disproving it?
 

Windwalker

Veteran Member
Premium Member
Ha ha ha. So...is the thread for proving the trinity or for disproving it?
Not at all. And that's the point. If someone tries to understand the original impetus behind why such a doctrine was formulated, you see more deeply into the questions and why and how they have nothing to do with the silly, surface issues the Christians quibble among each other over, arguing like children "no, I'm the true believer! You don't get it. You can't play with us!". In other words, the Trinity is a sophisticated doctrine, that very few get because they reduce the esoteric into stupid mud fights.

To dig into the doctrine itself, answers the question of being a Christian or not, by ripping the question out of the hands of children back to its origins.
 

Windwalker

Veteran Member
Premium Member
Further thoughts. Models of reality, like the Trinity doctrine, or any framework, are not weapons to beat each other up with. The models are not facts, but ways to talk about experiential realities. It's like people taking developmental models of psychologists and imagining these are fixed things in reality, and then going to war with others who have different models they've come up with. Those that do that, really don't get what the models point to at all. They're arguing over representations, not the reality itself. Which betrays they're own lack of truly 'getting it' as they assume they do.
 

savagewind

Veteran Member
Premium Member
read what I wrote right before that statement, and the post that follows. The answer is in there.

Your answer seems to me to be the trinity is true. God is three. It takes an adult mind to grasp that it is true so very few can know it. Sounds familiar.
 

Windwalker

Veteran Member
Premium Member
Your answer seems to me to be the trinity is true. God is three. It takes an adult mind to grasp that it is true so very few can know it. Sounds familiar.
That's hardly the context in which I'm speaking, which is entirely my point in bringing up getting to the esoteric origins of this. It bypasses this whole literal-argument you and those like you quibble over in judging yourselves "True Believers" or not. It doesn't function on that level. And that's my point. If we can look at that, it makes this sort of quibble a moot point.
 

Shermana

Heretic
Further thoughts. Models of reality, like the Trinity doctrine, or any framework, are not weapons to beat each other up with. The models are not facts, but ways to talk about experiential realities. It's like people taking developmental models of psychologists and imagining these are fixed things in reality, and then going to war with others who have different models they've come up with. Those that do that, really don't get what the models point to at all. They're arguing over representations, not the reality itself. Which betrays they're own lack of truly 'getting it' as they assume they do.

The Trinity doctrine has indeed historically been a weapon to beat each other up. Or burn them for that matter.
 

Windwalker

Veteran Member
Premium Member
Just because one group had political power to wield over the other group and used it to burn them at the stake, doesn't mean they both weren't coming from the same place of ignorance. Shift the balance of power and it's the other team doing the burning.
 

Shermana

Heretic
Just because one group had political power to wield over the other group and used it to burn them at the stake, doesn't mean they both weren't coming from the same place of ignorance. Shift the balance of power and it's the other team doing the burning.

That's not necessarily true. There's no way we can determine if the Arians would have been hunting down opponents or burning people at the stake. One can argue that their adherents were more calm, rational and philosophically enlightened (i.e. not being ones to accept a doctrine that's "Too much for the human mind to understand" which requires a lot of force upon those who don't agree with such logic for it to stick) so that they would have been more tolerant of dissenting beliefs. It's a fallacy to assume that they would have acted similarly.
 
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Shiranui117

Pronounced Shee-ra-noo-ee
Premium Member
I don't remember Arians going around punching Trinitarians in the face or trying to burn them. Refresh my memory when this happened.
Constantius II exiling numerous bishops and using force against those who held to Orthodoxy, for example. Exiling the bishop of Rome and installing an antipope, and especially targeting Athanasius of Alexandria. Driving numerous bishops from their sees who refused to endorse the Arian heresy.

There is no group in all of history that has not persecuted another. The Arians are no exception, and they were no angels.
 

Shiranui117

Pronounced Shee-ra-noo-ee
Premium Member
That's not necessarily true. There's no way we can determine if the Arians would have been hunting down opponents or burning people at the stake. One can argue that their adherents were more calm, rational and philosophically enlightened (i.e. not being ones to accept a doctrine that's "Too much for the human mind to understand" which requires a lot of force upon those who don't agree with such logic for it to stick) so that they would have been more tolerant of dissenting beliefs. It's a fallacy to assume that they would have acted similarly.
We know that they did. You'd just dismiss the accounts out of hand, though.
 

Shermana

Heretic
We know that they did. You'd just dismiss the accounts out of hand, though.

By all means, show us some accounts. Let's see how you "know they did" and then we'll see whether we can "Dismiss" them or not. But if you're not going to present them just because you're afraid I'll "dismiss them out of hand", well just keep in mind that I'm not exactly the only one here. I would love to see some accounts of Arians violently attempting to suppress the Trinitarians around the time. If you're talking about the Vandals and Goths, I do believe they were attacked first and that was more of a warfare issue.
 
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Shermana

Heretic
Constantius II exiling numerous bishops and using force against those who held to Orthodoxy, for example. Exiling the bishop of Rome and installing an antipope, and especially targeting Athanasius of Alexandria. Driving numerous bishops from their sees who refused to endorse the Arian heresy.

There is no group in all of history that has not persecuted another. The Arians are no exception, and they were no angels.

He was not an Arian.

He was a "Semi-Arian", huge difference.

If he was throwing people out, it was because they refused to compromise to the "third position".

Although often considered an Arian,[73] Constantius ultimately preferred a third, compromise version that lay somewhere in between Arianism and the Nicene Creed, retrospectively called Semi-Arianism.[74][75] During his reign he attempted to mold the Christian church to follow this compromise position, convening several Christian councils. The most notable of these were the Council of Rimini and its twin at Seleuca, which met in 359 and 360 respectively. "Unfortunately for his memory the theologians whose advice he took were ultimately discredited and the malcontents whom he pressed to conform emerged victorious," writes the historian A.H.M. Jones. "The great councils of 359–60 are therefore not reckoned ecumenical in the tradition of the church, and Constantius II is not remembered as a restorer of unity, but as a heretic who arbitrarily imposed his will on the church."[76]

Nice try though. Props for effort.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Constantius_II

And for the record, Semi-Arianism is Trinitarian, it just disagrees on the vague "Substance" issue.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Semi-Arianism

So that would classify him as a Trinitarian. Nice!
 
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Shiranui117

Pronounced Shee-ra-noo-ee
Premium Member
By all means, show us some accounts. Let's see how you "know they did" and then we'll see whether we can "Dismiss" them or not. But if you're not going to present them just because you're afraid I'll "dismiss them out of hand", well just keep in mind that I'm not exactly the only one here. I would love to see some accounts of Arians violently attempting to suppress the Trinitarians around the time. If you're talking about the Vandals and Goths, I do believe they were attacked first and that was more of a warfare issue.
From the life of St. Antony the Great:

These things the old man saw, and after two years the present [16] inroad of the Arians and the plunder of the churches took place, when they violently carried off the vessels, and made the heathen carry them; and when they forced the heathen from the prisons to join in their services, and in their presence did upon the Table as they would. Then we all understood that these kicks of the mules signified to Antony what the Arians, senselessly like beasts, are now doing. But when he saw this vision, he comforted those with him, saying, 'Be not downcast, my children; for as the Lord has been angry, so again will He heal us, and the Church shall soon again receive her own order, and shall shine forth as she is wont. And you shall behold the persecuted restored, and wickedness again withdrawn to its own hiding-place, and pious faith speaking boldly in every place with all freedom. Only defile [17] not yourselves with the Arians, for their teaching is not that of the Apostles, but that of demons and their father the devil; yea, rather, it is barren and senseless, and without light understanding, like the senselessness of these mules.'

And an account showing Eusebius of Nicomedia orchestrating the martyrdom of Paul of Constantinople.

And I suppose no one is ignorant of the case of Paul[19], Bishop of Constantinople; for the more illustrious any city is, so much the more that which takes place in it is not concealed. A charge was fabricated against him also. For Macedonius his accuser, who has now become Bishop in his stead (I was present myself at the accusation), afterwards held communion with him, and was a Presbyter under Paul himself. And yet when Eusebius with an evil eye wished to seize upon the Bishopric of that city (he had been translated in the same manner from Berytus to Nicomedia), the charge was revived against Paul; and they did not give up their plot, but persisted in the calumny. And he was banished first into Pontus by Constantine, and a second time by Constantius he was sent bound with iron chains to Singara in Mesopotamia, and from thence transferred to Emesa, and a fourth time he was banished to Cucusus in Cappadocia, near the deserts of Mount Taurus; where, as those who were with him have declared, he died by strangulation at their hands. And yet these men who never speak the truth, though guilty of this, were not ashamed after his death to invent another story, representing that he had died from illness; although all who live in that place know the circumstances. And even Philagrius[20], who was then Deputy-Governor[21] of those parts, and represented all their proceedings in such manner as they desired, was yet astonished at this; and being grieved perhaps that another, and not himself, had done the evil deed, he informed Serapion the Bishop, as well as many other of our friends, that Paul was shut up by them in a very confined and dark place, and left to perish of hunger; and when after six days they went in and found him still alive, they immediately set upon the man, and strangled him. This was the end of his life; and they said that Philip who was Prefect was their agent in the perpetration of this murder. Divine Justice, however, did not overlook this; for not a year passed, when Philip was deprived of his office in great disgrace, so that being reduced to a private station, he became the mockery of those whom he least desired to be the witnesses of his fall.

-Source

Also see that source for other examples of how Arians (not Semi-Arians, but Arians proper) drove out bishops and other clergy.

Accordingly Constantius at once writes letters, and commences a persecution against all, and sends Philagrius as Prefect with one Arsacius an eunuch; he sends also Gregory with a military force. And the same consequences followed as before. For gathering together a multitude of herdsmen and shepherds, and other dissolute youths belonging to the town, armed with swords and clubs, they attacked in a body the Church which is called the Church of Quirinus ; and some they slew, some they trampled under foot, others they beat with stripes and cast into prison or banished. They haled away many women also, and dragged them openly into the court, and insulted them, dragging them by the hair. Some they proscribed; from some they took away their bread for no other reason, but that they might be induced to join the Arians, and receive Gregory, who had been sent by the Emperor. -Source
 
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