The Holy Trinity and John 17:3

[Glaurung]

Fine. Then give us definitions that distinguish the two. And, exactly what is the Word?

C'mon Skwim, this is just lazy. It's basic Christian theology readily available with only a minimum of research.

The persons of the trinity are distinct identities that share a consubstantial relationship in their essence. In other words, the Father, the Son and the Holy Spirit share one substance as one God, yet somehow each remain distinct in identity. How three distinct identities simultaneously exist as one being is beyond our ability to comprehend beyond the conceptual, but that is what we believe God has revealed and we just have to take his word for it. God is intelligible, yet ultimately incomprehensible.

The Word is the Logos.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Logos_(Christianity)

The Logos the divine principle of God's creative order.

 

[Thief]

did anyone say.....
Cut a deal with the Son and the Father will honor it.
Cut a deal with the Father and the Son will abide by it.

same mind and heart
same deal and consequence all around

 

[Skwim]

C'mon Skwim, this is just lazy. It's basic Christian theology readily available with only a minimum of research.

Yeah, I had a hunch you wouldn't be able to tell me. It's easy to bandy terms about when you don't have account for them.

The persons of the trinity are distinct identities that share a consubstantial relationship in their essence. In other words, the Father, the Son and the Holy Spirit share one substance as one God, yet somehow each remain distinct in identity. How three distinct identities simultaneously exist as one being is beyond our ability to comprehend beyond the conceptual, but that is what we believe God has revealed and we just have to take his word for it. God is intelligible, yet ultimately incomprehensible.

And this is exactly my point here. As characterized, it lacks the internal logic necessary for comprehension. People talk about the trinity as if they understood it, but they don't, and can't. Yet they, in particular priests, parsons, and pastors, go on talking about it as if they did. At best, they're left parroting statements that only result in confusion. It all sounds good on paper, but utterly fails under scrutiny. I think they and their congregants would be much better off if they never said a thing about it. At most, perhaps: "The trinity consists of god the father, god the son, and god the holy ghost. Period. Next subject please."

The Word is the Logos.

Saying the word is the word is hardly illuminating.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Logos_(Christianity)

Which says,
"In Christology, Logos (Greek: Λόγος logos, that is, "word", "discourse" or "reason") is a name or title of Jesus Christ, seen as the pre-existent Second Person of a Trinitarian God."

So "The Word" is the name or title for Jesus before he was born. Nice, but in John 1:1 it's said to be god.

"In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God."​

Or, with substitution: "In the beginning was Jesus, and Jesus was with God, and Jesus was God."

One more piece of scripture that goaded the Church into creating the doctrine of the trinity. And I honestly believe this was the reason the trinity was formulated; to explain away some of the confounding statements in the Bible. Unfortunately, it only succeeds among the naive and uncritical.

​

 

[Glaurung]

And this is exactly my point here. As characterized, it lacks the internal logic necessary for comprehension. People talk about the trinity as if they understood it, but they don't, and can't. Yet they, in particular priests, parsons, and pastors, go on talking about it as if they did. At best, they're left parroting statements that only result in confusion. It all sounds good on paper, but utterly fails under scrutiny. I think they and their congregants would be much better off if they never said a thing about it. At most, perhaps: "The trinity consists of god the father, god the son, and god the holy ghost. Period. Next subject please."

The Trinity makes perfect sense. Understanding person and being is the difference between understanding the difference between who and what. There is nothing incoherent about the concept of the trinity. We can't visualise it beyond a concept, but the concept itself is sound. Not everything is a question of either all. Three persons in one being, the concept is not that hard to grasp.

Saying the word is the word is hardly illuminating.

The Logos has been a philosophical concept since antiquity, and in Christianity the Logos is identified with Christ. The passage assumes knowledge of Greek philosophical concepts which you clearly lack. Nonetheless, your incredulity doesn't make it meaningless, it just means that you don't understand what you're reading. (Or more likely, you just don't want to).

One more piece of scripture that goaded the Church into creating the doctrine of the trinity. And I honestly believe this was the reason the trinity was formulated; to explain away some of the confounding statements in the Bible. Unfortunately, it only succeeds among the naive and uncritical.

And you hide behind factitious incredulity as "reason" then gloat about how no one can answer you. It may score you points with your fellow ideologues, but I'm confident I'm not the only one who sees your tactics for what they are. Tactics to convince yourself that you've "won" an argument. But shutting down Christians on the internet doesn't make you right. You're just another atheist looking to reinforce a bankrupt, self-assured ideology to yourself.

EDIT: Spelling.

 

[Skwim]

The Trinity makes perfect sense. Understanding person and being is the difference between understanding the difference between who and what. There is nothing incoherent about the concept of the trinity. We can't visualise it beyond a concept, but the concept itself is sound. Not everything is a question of either all. Three persons in one being, the concept is not that hard to grasp.

Then you're not understanding the issue. Consider the following from an article on the trinity from The Internet Encyclopedia of Philosophy if you can:

3. Philosophical Puzzles and Solutions
For Christians, at least in the West, Quincunque Vult, commonly known as the Athanasian Creed, defines Trinitarian orthodoxy as follows:

We worship one God in Trinity, and Trinity in Unity, neither confounding the Persons, nor dividing the Substance
For there is one Person of the Father, another of the Son, and another of the Holy Ghost…
Such as the Father is, such is the Son, and such is the Holy Ghost…
[T]he Father is God, the Son is God, and the Holy Ghost is God.
And yet they are not three Gods, but one God

Christians are thus committed to the following claims:

(1) The Father is God

(2) The Son is God

(3) The Holy Spirit is God

(4) The Father is not the Son

(5) The Father is not the Holy Spirit

(6) The Son is not the Holy Spirit

(7) There is exactly one God

a. Trinity and Identity
Can one consistently believe (1) – (7)? It depends on how we read the “is” in (1) – (6). If we read it throughout as the “is” of strict identity, as “=” the answer is no. Identity is an equivalence relation: it is reflexive, symmetric and transitive, which is to say, for all x, y and z the following hold:

Reflexivity: x = x

Symmetry: If x = y then y = x

Transitivity: If x = y and y = z then x = y

In addition, identity is an unrestricted indiscernibilty relation for all properties, which is to say it obeys Leibniz’ Law, understood as the Indiscernibility of Identicals:

LL: If x = y then for all properties, P, x has P if and only if y has P

This is bad news. Suppose we read the “is” as “=” in (1) – (6). Then it follows from (1) and (2), by symmetry and transitivity, that the Father is the Son, which contradicts (4). Put another way, given LL, (1) entails that God has all the same properties as the Father, including the property of being identical with the Father insofar as everything has the property of self-identity. (2) says that the Son likewise has all the same properties as God. It follows that, since God has the property of being identical with the Son, the Son also has the property of being identical with the Father, which contradicts (4).

These formal features of identity are non-negotiable in the way that the four-sidedness of squares is: God cannot evade them any more than he can make a square with only three sides. God can make triangles—and pentagons, chiliagons or figures with any number of sides he pleases—but he cannot make such things squares. So, assuming that “God,” “Father,” “Son” and “Holy Spirit” don’t change their reference, the “is” that figures in (1) – (6) cannot be the “is” of strict identity.

b. The "Is" of Predication
In English, most of the time the word “is” occurs it does not express an identity. The “is” that occurs in (8) and (9) is the “is” of predication: it is used to ascribe a property to an object:

(8) Ducati is a dog.

(9) Ducati is canine.

(8) is not an identity statement because “a dog” does not pick out a particular object. Identity is a relation between objects; in particular, it is the relation that everything bears to itself and to no other thing. In a true identity statement the nouns or noun phrases on either sides of the identity pick out the very same thing. (10) and (11) are true identity statements:

(10) Ducati is the chocolate Lab at 613 Second Avenue.

(11) Ducati is Britynic Cadbury of Bourneville

“The chocolate Lab at 613 Second Avenue” and “Britynic Cadbury of Bourneville” each pick out particular dog, as it happens, the same dog that “Ducati” picks out but “a dog” does not. (8) in fact says the same thing as (9)—it says that Ducati has the property of being a dog, that is the property of being canine. The “is” in (8), like the “is” in (9) is therefore, the “is” of predication.

Now consider (1) – (3) understanding the “is” that occurs in each sentence as the “is” of predication to yield:

(1') The Father is a God

(2') The Son is a God

(3') The Holy Spirit is a God

The “is” of predication does not express an equivalence relation and, in general, “x has P” and “y has P” do not imply “x is identical to y.” Ducati is a dog and Riley is a dog but it does not follow that Ducati is (identical to) Riley—in fact they are not. Similarly, (1') and (2') do not imply that the Father is the Son so there is no contradiction.

However, (1') – (3') just say that the Father, Son and Holy Spirit are each divine, in the way that (8) just says that Ducati is canine, and this leaves open the possibility that there are two, or three Gods involved. They do not explain what makes the Persons one God or provide any rationale for (7). Furthermore, together with (4) – (6) it seems to follow that there are indeed three Gods, just as it follows from “Ducati is a dog,” “Riley is a dog” and “Ducati is not Riley” that there are (at least) two dogs.

This is the concern Gregory of Nyssa addressed in his response to Ablabius, who worried that understanding the unity of Trinitarian persons in terms of their sharing the property of divinity implied Tri-theism:

The argument which you state is something like this: Peter, James, and John, being in one human nature, are called three men: and there is no absurdity in describing those who are united in nature, if they are more than one, by the plural number of the name derived from their nature. If, then, in the above case, custom admits this, and no one forbids us to speak of those who are two as two, or those who are more than two as three, how is it that in the case of our statements of the mysteries of the Faith, though confessing the Three Persons, and acknowledging no difference of nature between them, we are in some sense at variance with our confession, when we say that the Godhead of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Ghost is one, and yet forbid men to say “there are three Gods”? The question is, as I said, very difficult to deal with. (Gregory of Nyssa, “To Ablabius”)​

This is a difficult question indeed.
source​

The Logos has been a philosophical concept since antiquity, and in Christianity the Logos is identified with Christ.

So what? Just because Christianity co-opted the word and applied it to Jesus means nothing more than that. Here's a brief note on "the Word."

"Originally a word meaning "a ground", "a plea", "an opinion", "an expectation", "word", "speech", "account", "to reason" it became a technical term in philosophy, beginning with Heraclitus (ca. 535–475 BC), who used the term for a principle of order and knowledge."
Source: Wikipedia​

And you hide behind factitious incredulity as "reason" then gloat about how no one can answer you. It may score you points with your fellow ideologues, but I'm confident I'm not the only one who sees your tactics for what they are. Tactics to convince yourself that you've "won" an argument. But shutting down Christians on the internet doesn't make you right. You're just another atheist looking to reinforce a bankrupt, self-assured ideology to yourself.

Ah ha, we finally reach the culmination of your argument. Your best shot of them all, an amusing ad hom, because when all else fails one can always go on the attack.

Have a good day. I know I will.

 

[Muffled]

why Jesus (pbuh) after this verse did not said :I and Father are one , then worship me, or if you worship me you are worshiping God .

so that's definitely does not mean the deity , it's meant same message , same way .

so many 99% of verse of Bible deny deity of Jesus (pbuh) , you stuck in this one !!!

This is the null hypothesis. One must show that it is absolutely necessary for Him to say this otherwise the absense of the statement does not mean anything.

So God can never be one He can only be the same mesage? I believe you don't relly believe there is one Allah but that there is one message but I really think you ought to believe that there is one Allah. Again you ought to know what one means or your religion is meaningless.

I believe this is a non-sequitur, Your conclusion does not flow from the facts.

I believe ther is no evidence of this and I only picked the most cogent one that would be most consistent with Islam. There are many more.

 

[Ingledsva]

C'mon Skwim, this is just lazy. It's basic Christian theology readily available with only a minimum of research.

The persons of the trinity are distinct identities that share a consubstantial relationship in their essence. In other words, the Father, the Son and the Holy Spirit share one substance as one God, yet somehow each remain distinct in identity. How three distinct identities simultaneously exist as one being is beyond our ability to comprehend beyond the conceptual, but that is what we believe God has revealed and we just have to take his word for it. God is intelligible, yet ultimately incomprehensible.

The Word is the Logos.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Logos_(Christianity)

The Logos the divine principle of God's creative order.

There is absolutely nothing saying the Logos/Word is Jesus. Logos more likely indicates the Holy Law given to the Hebrew, and Jesus is just a special teacher of that "light." When you read John 1 in the original language - ALL come from the Light/Law/Creation.

*

 

[Glaurung]

There is absolutely nothing saying the Logos/Word is Jesus.

Your opinion is noted, and utterly rejected by two-thousand years of Christian tradition. Whatever you think you know, those much more qualified than you disagree.

When you read John 1 in the original language - ALL come from the Light/Law/Creation.

And of course, none of the contemporaneous Church Fathers read Greek, nor did the Greek Church. They were all morons or lying conspirators. It's ludicrous, and you do not know Greek yet alone know better than the very people contemporaneous with the text and what it says.

 

[Glaurung]

Then you're not understanding the issue. Consider the following from an article on the trinity from The Internet Encyclopedia of Philosophy if you can:

I do understand the issue. You don't like the trinity because it doesn't fit into semantic rules that you arbitrarily demand our understanding of God play by. You're playing games and you know it.

Ah ha, we finally reach the culmination of your argument. Your best shot of them all, an amusing ad hom, because when all else fails one can always go on the attack.

It wasn't an ad hom, it was a response to this.

One more piece of scripture that goaded the Church into creating the doctrine of the trinity. And I honestly believe this was the reason the trinity was formulated; to explain away some of the confounding statements in the Bible. Unfortunately, it only succeeds among the naive and uncritical.

This is an ad hom, so don't whine that I call you out as an atheist ideologue in response. Because that is the real issue here. You're a preacher, and those who do not think like you are to be shamed as naive fools to be saved. This whole thread is nothing more than a contrivance to spout more anti-Christian trash.

 

[Terrywoodenpic]

With out the benefit of the Greek language and its ability to describe concepts in a way that Latin could not. Christianity would of necessity be quite different to that which was decided at Nicaea, and has come down to us today.
The Concept of the Trinity and much of the Creed is based on the ideas made possible by Greek concepts.

I find as I age, that the Trinity is no easier to understand than I did when I was in school, and am more inclined to the Unitarian view of God the Father... Jesus His son and the Holy Spirit are no less real and are in communion with God, but are not God.
We understand almost nothing about the nature of God, nor that of Jesus and the Holy Spirit. Nor do we need to spell this out as the churches have tried to do. It makes more sense, to me, to accept them as they are, even if that means that the concept of monotheism needs more flexibility to accommodate them into a Godhead

 

[Muffled]

if you tell Jesus (pbuh) son of God , just become he comes without father , so Adam(pbuh) is suppose son of God too .

btw do you know that ALL prophets in Bible called sons of God ,why is Jesus (pbuh) is special one !!!

btw , if you really believe that Muhammad (pbuh) is Prophet and Messenger from God , so you are still Muslimah .

You would have to consider me a Muslim and Islamic also but Jesus is primary in my faith.

 

[Muffled]

With out the benefit of the Greek language and its ability to describe concepts in a way that Latin could not. Christianity would of necessity be quite different to that which was decided at Nicaea, and has come down to us today.
The Concept of the Trinity and much of the Creed is based on the ideas made possible by Greek concepts.

I find as I age, that the Trinity is no easier to understand than I did when I was in school, and am more inclined to the Unitarian view of God the Father... Jesus His son and the Holy Spirit are no less real and are in communion with God, but are not God.
We understand almost nothing about the nature of God, nor that of Jesus and the Holy Spirit. Nor do we need to spell this out as the churches have tried to do. It makes more sense, to me, to accept them as they are, even if that means that the concept of monotheism needs more flexibility to accommodate them into a Godhead

When is God not God?

I believe the concept of communig suggests separate beings but that is not the case according to scripture.

 

[Muffled]

If you want to redefine the three individuals making up the trinity you'll have to take that up with the Christians. I'm just going by what they say.

HUH?????????

I believe not all Christinas arein agreement on this. I view "persons" as a misnomer since it does not fit any English definition but only an ecclesiastical one. As such it confuses a non-eclesiastical person. I prefer members since the Trinity is a group of three. I believe the three members of the Trinity have one personality although this can be expressed as different persons in the people represented. For instance I am a spirit who has many past lives. I have one personality but I have been many persons when one considers the bodies that I have lived in. However even that concept makes it difficult to consider it a trinity of persons because there are millions of us, not just three.

I believe God has only one form and that is Spirit.

 

[Thanda]

Does God hate mathmatics? Because the first thing I see with this chart is that it ignores the transitive property, which is "if A = B and B = C then A = C."

Let's assign A to "The Father" B to "God" and C to "the Son." Reading through the middle we see the Father = God and God = The Son. Therefore The Father = The Son, by the transitive property.

But then the outside of this thing says The Father does not equal The Son. So if you buy into this chart you're not thinking through it really. Or you're just content with saying things like God can make a square triangle and damn the logic.

Your mathematics is unable to formulate this diagram properly

 

[Thanda]

Then you're not understanding the issue. Consider the following from an article on the trinity from The Internet Encyclopedia of Philosophy if you can:

3. Philosophical Puzzles and Solutions
For Christians, at least in the West, Quincunque Vult, commonly known as the Athanasian Creed, defines Trinitarian orthodoxy as follows:

We worship one God in Trinity, and Trinity in Unity, neither confounding the Persons, nor dividing the Substance
For there is one Person of the Father, another of the Son, and another of the Holy Ghost…
Such as the Father is, such is the Son, and such is the Holy Ghost…
[T]he Father is God, the Son is God, and the Holy Ghost is God.
And yet they are not three Gods, but one God

Christians are thus committed to the following claims:

(1) The Father is God

(2) The Son is God

(3) The Holy Spirit is God

(4) The Father is not the Son

(5) The Father is not the Holy Spirit

(6) The Son is not the Holy Spirit

(7) There is exactly one God

a. Trinity and Identity
Can one consistently believe (1) – (7)? It depends on how we read the “is” in (1) – (6). If we read it throughout as the “is” of strict identity, as “=” the answer is no. Identity is an equivalence relation: it is reflexive, symmetric and transitive, which is to say, for all x, y and z the following hold:

Reflexivity: x = x

Symmetry: If x = y then y = x

Transitivity: If x = y and y = z then x = y

In addition, identity is an unrestricted indiscernibilty relation for all properties, which is to say it obeys Leibniz’ Law, understood as the Indiscernibility of Identicals:

LL: If x = y then for all properties, P, x has P if and only if y has P

This is bad news. Suppose we read the “is” as “=” in (1) – (6). Then it follows from (1) and (2), by symmetry and transitivity, that the Father is the Son, which contradicts (4). Put another way, given LL, (1) entails that God has all the same properties as the Father, including the property of being identical with the Father insofar as everything has the property of self-identity. (2) says that the Son likewise has all the same properties as God. It follows that, since God has the property of being identical with the Son, the Son also has the property of being identical with the Father, which contradicts (4).

These formal features of identity are non-negotiable in the way that the four-sidedness of squares is: God cannot evade them any more than he can make a square with only three sides. God can make triangles—and pentagons, chiliagons or figures with any number of sides he pleases—but he cannot make such things squares. So, assuming that “God,” “Father,” “Son” and “Holy Spirit” don’t change their reference, the “is” that figures in (1) – (6) cannot be the “is” of strict identity.

b. The "Is" of Predication
In English, most of the time the word “is” occurs it does not express an identity. The “is” that occurs in (8) and (9) is the “is” of predication: it is used to ascribe a property to an object:

(8) Ducati is a dog.

(9) Ducati is canine.

(8) is not an identity statement because “a dog” does not pick out a particular object. Identity is a relation between objects; in particular, it is the relation that everything bears to itself and to no other thing. In a true identity statement the nouns or noun phrases on either sides of the identity pick out the very same thing. (10) and (11) are true identity statements:

(10) Ducati is the chocolate Lab at 613 Second Avenue.

(11) Ducati is Britynic Cadbury of Bourneville

“The chocolate Lab at 613 Second Avenue” and “Britynic Cadbury of Bourneville” each pick out particular dog, as it happens, the same dog that “Ducati” picks out but “a dog” does not. (8) in fact says the same thing as (9)—it says that Ducati has the property of being a dog, that is the property of being canine. The “is” in (8), like the “is” in (9) is therefore, the “is” of predication.

Now consider (1) – (3) understanding the “is” that occurs in each sentence as the “is” of predication to yield:

(1') The Father is a God

(2') The Son is a God

(3') The Holy Spirit is a God

The “is” of predication does not express an equivalence relation and, in general, “x has P” and “y has P” do not imply “x is identical to y.” Ducati is a dog and Riley is a dog but it does not follow that Ducati is (identical to) Riley—in fact they are not. Similarly, (1') and (2') do not imply that the Father is the Son so there is no contradiction.

However, (1') – (3') just say that the Father, Son and Holy Spirit are each divine, in the way that (8) just says that Ducati is canine, and this leaves open the possibility that there are two, or three Gods involved. They do not explain what makes the Persons one God or provide any rationale for (7). Furthermore, together with (4) – (6) it seems to follow that there are indeed three Gods, just as it follows from “Ducati is a dog,” “Riley is a dog” and “Ducati is not Riley” that there are (at least) two dogs.

This is the concern Gregory of Nyssa addressed in his response to Ablabius, who worried that understanding the unity of Trinitarian persons in terms of their sharing the property of divinity implied Tri-theism:

The argument which you state is something like this: Peter, James, and John, being in one human nature, are called three men: and there is no absurdity in describing those who are united in nature, if they are more than one, by the plural number of the name derived from their nature. If, then, in the above case, custom admits this, and no one forbids us to speak of those who are two as two, or those who are more than two as three, how is it that in the case of our statements of the mysteries of the Faith, though confessing the Three Persons, and acknowledging no difference of nature between them, we are in some sense at variance with our confession, when we say that the Godhead of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Ghost is one, and yet forbid men to say “there are three Gods”? The question is, as I said, very difficult to deal with. (Gregory of Nyssa, “To Ablabius”)​

This is a difficult question indeed.
source​

So what? Just because Christianity co-opted the word and applied it to Jesus means nothing more than that. Here's a brief note on "the Word."

"Originally a word meaning "a ground", "a plea", "an opinion", "an expectation", "word", "speech", "account", "to reason" it became a technical term in philosophy, beginning with Heraclitus (ca. 535–475 BC), who used the term for a principle of order and knowledge."
Source: Wikipedia​

Ah ha, we finally reach the culmination of your argument. Your best shot of them all, an amusing ad hom, because when all else fails one can always go on the attack.

Have a good day. I know I will.

I think you have a very strong understanding of the Father, Son and Holy Ghost.

Something interesting though: since we don't know exactly what properties the Father, Son and Holy Ghost share that make them "God" then how do we know which of the 3 beings the Jehovah of the Old Testament was?

This isn't a question directed to you necessarily but just a thought. Most Christians believe Jehovah is the Father but my religion believes he is the Son. It seems to me it could go either way.

 

[Terrywoodenpic]

When is God not God?

I believe the concept of communig suggests separate beings but that is not the case according to scripture.

You seem to have missed my Aposiopesis (...)
I suggest that God is God, but is in communion with Jesus and the Holy Spirit. I see the them as real individual "persons" who in some undefined way we see with God in a godhead.
The Scriptures do not define or even mention the Trinity. And they only menton Jesus as the Son of God.
The Holy spirit is found in the scriptures in many guises and is always subservient to God.
The Trinity was arrived at by greek argument, language and belief systems, that had no problem with the Nicean wording of the creed. But which makes little sense in English.

 

[Noa]

Only because it's filled with so many unexplainable theological quirks, which make them interesting subjects to rut around in. Christians typically, don't bother with them because they're disturbing and take a good deal of tap dancing to resolve. They're discomforting issues, which isn't what religion is suppose to be about.

This is absurdly untrue. Christians do and have been dealing with the details of their theology for as long as those theological topics have existed.

They just typically think, justifiably, that it is a waste of time to discuss them with every nonbeliever that waltzes in and thinks they have thought of something clever after a few hours on Wikipedia.

 

[Skwim]

This is absurdly untrue. Christians do and have been dealing with the details of their theology for as long as those theological topics have existed.

Talking about Christians as a whole, the 99.9999% who aren't theologians. Theologians are committed to such issues. Issues that continued to be studied, weighed, and fussed over because they defy reasonable resolution.

They just typically think, justifiably, that it is a waste of time to discuss them with every nonbeliever that waltzes in and thinks they have thought of something clever after a few hours on Wikipedia.

Truthfully, your average Christian, even your well informed Christian, is incapable of resolving them. And to their credit they typically steer clear of them. Those that don't are quite another matter.

 

[Noa]

Talking about Christians as a whole, the 99.9999% who aren't theologians. Theologians are committed to such issues. Issues that continued to be studied, weighed, and fussed over because they defy reasonable resolution.

Truthfully, your average Christian, even your well informed Christian, is incapable of resolving them. And to their credit they typically steer clear of them. Those that don't are quite another matter.

For most of the Christians I have known, the reason they do not go around talking about the intricacies of the Trinity is because to them their faith is primarily about how you live your life. Not how you debate with every hostile person you meet.

And this insinuation you keep throwing around that Christians are somehow more likely to not know anything about their own worldview is insultingly silly. That is simply humans. For every Christian I have met that seems to be theologically naive I have met an atheist that does nothing but parrot his favorite Hitchens lines over and over while sneering at people.

You would do well to not continually assume those who believe different than you are all ignorant, unintelligent, uneducated, or childish.

 

[Skwim]

And this insinuation you keep throwing around that Christians are somehow more likely to not know anything about their own worldview is insultingly silly.

No less silly than your tap dancing here to reconstruct the thrust of my post.

For every Christian I have met that seems to be theologically naive I have met an atheist that does nothing but parrot his favorite Hitchens lines over and over while sneering at people.

Really! You do realize that hyperbole such as this is more amusing than convincing, don't you?

You would do well to not continually assume those who believe different than you are all ignorant, unintelligent, uneducated, or childish.

Ah, another deliberate misrepresentation so as to what, save face?