To all christians on this forum

[metis]

Jesus did not symbolically die. He literally died.

Of course he died. My reference was to the concept that he died to forgive sins.

 

[wellwisher]

Let me ask you to clarify what you think the Trinity is. Once upon a time there was a dispute about whether to accept the trinity or not, but these days there is even confusion about what the word means. Large groups of people think it is this or that, or they don't know. Its common to hear some people say its beyond understanding. There are also people who say it is simple as a pie of three ingredients. There is a lot of confusion, and so you may not even know what the Trinity is. In that case what is the point in discussing whether to believe in it?


One or more strawman versions of the Trinity often are passed around; and people judge the Trinity based upon what it is not.

If you aren't familiar with this I'll give you an example: A convert to Christianity is taught very little but is told that everything they need is in the bible, so they read that. They can't find the Trinity in there. They'll either try to figure out how to see the Trinity in it, or they may try to debunk the Trinity using it. Then they hear rumors or imagine what the Trinity is, and so they likely have a partial understanding, which is a misunderstanding. Teachers also sometimes spread mistaken ideas, and it is easy to become a broadcaster or teacher of inaccurate information.

That's why I ask what you think it is.

The Trinity are the three manifestation of God to the Christians. There is God the father of the Old Testament which is still studied by Christians. There is God the Son or Jesus, who is the heart of Christianity. There is also the Holy Spirit that Jesus promised.

The works of the Holy Spirit has yet to be compiled in a third major book of the Bible. The Old Testament is about the Father, while the New Testament is about the Son. The yet to be written, Future Testament, is about the last 2000 years connected to the works of the Holy Spirit of Christianity. The Catholic Church, alone has over 10,000 Saints over 1600 years or so. Saints displayed exemplary behavior and also had to do a miracle or two.

There are also Saints within all the Christian Denominations, who may not be labeled that way. But they were the movers and shakers of the Christian Culture and Churches, as well as very gifted people like DaVinci, Michelangelo, Newton, Dr Martin Luther King, etc., that through their unique works demonstrated the works of the Spirit; time changing ideas.

Once the Future Testament is compiled, the Trinity; three acts of God, will be much easier to see. How do you summarize so many gifted people into a book the size of the other two Testaments? I suppose it could written like a history account of the doers and shakers from each century, to the present. There were a lot of remarkable people but some really stood out in each generation. This would include those who compiled the New Testament, two hundred years after Jesus. The spirit started to move them at a critical junction that needed change; untold stories of faith.

 

[RestlessSoul]

I don't consider the nature of the messenger to be more important than the message. Christ's message was an unequivocal call to love, forgiveness, and universal brotherhood; Father, Son and Holy Spirit may be useful concepts for some, the source of confusion for others. But there is nothing abstract or confusing about John 15:12 This is my commandment, That ye love one another, as I have loved you.

 

[amazing grace]

Of course he died. My reference was to the concept that he died to forgive sins.

So, what you're saying is that he did not die for the forgiveness of sins, the redemption of mankind?

 

[setarcos]

While the Baháʼí writings teach of a personal god who is a being with a personality (including the capacity to reason and to feel love), they clearly state that this does not imply a human or physical form.

Full disclosure...the Baháʼí faith is one I've not studied in depth. But I can't disagree with what you've said here. Christian Scripture clearly indicates that God is a spiritual being. Christians believe the physical came into being with Gods creative act.

And of course Jesus was also a person

Agreed.

I do not believe that the Holy Spirit is a person.

This is arguable in consideration of what the Bible indicates.
In many verses the Holy spirit is treated and acts like a something with personhood.

I believe that the Holy Spirit is the Bounty of God whose luminous rays emanated from Jesus.

Colorful phrase but I'm not sure what that means.

 

[setarcos]

es·sence
[ˈes(ə)ns]

NOUN

1. the intrinsic nature or indispensable quality of something, especially something abstract, that determines its character:
   "conflict is the essence of drama"
   • PHILOSOPHY
     a property or group of properties of something without which it would not exist or be what it is.

Nice...thanks for replying. Now we have a term we've defined. So no, how do we determine the indispensable qualities of something?
What quality could we take away from a human being that would no longer make them human?
But this is a good starting point. Here we see some difficulties in pinning down Gods essence. For one there is nothing to compare it to. God at least in the monotheistic religions is absolutely unique. How do we describe the qualities of something when there is nothing to compare it to?
Can we compare Gods essence to ourselves? Are we little pieces of Gods essence reflecting the BIG piece which is his essence?

 

[Trailblazer]

This is arguable in consideration of what the Bible indicates.
In many verses the Holy spirit is treated and acts like a something with personhood.

Interesting.... I don't know those verses since I am not very familiar with the Bible.
Is the Holy Spirit working through a person such as a prophet in those verses?

Colorful phrase but I'm not sure what that means.

Rather than trying to explain it myself, below is the full quote.

Question.—What is the Holy Spirit?

Answer.—The Holy Spirit is the Bounty of God and the luminous rays which emanate from the Manifestations; for the focus of the rays of the Sun of Reality was Christ, and from this glorious focus, which is the Reality of Christ, the Bounty of God reflected upon the other mirrors which were the reality of the Apostles. The descent of the Holy Spirit upon the Apostles signifies that the glorious divine bounties reflected and appeared in their reality. Moreover, entrance and exit, descent and ascent, are characteristics of bodies and not of spirits—that is to say, sensible realities enter and come forth, but intellectual subtleties and mental realities, such as intelligence, love, knowledge, imagination and thought, do not enter, nor come forth, nor descend, but rather they have direct connection.

Some Answered Questions, p. 108

25: THE HOLY SPIRIT

 

[InChrist]

To all christans, both catholics, ortodox, protestants and anglican on this forum, do you believe in the trinity? why? And if you do not believe in the trinity then why?

Yes, because I believe both the scriptures and our universe testify to the triune Godhead.


“The Bible presents a God who did not need to create any beings to experience love, communion and fellowship. This God is complete in Himself, being three Persons: Father, Son and Holy Spirit, separate and distinct, yet at the same time eternally one God. They loved and communed and fellowshiped with each other and took counsel together before the universe, angels or man were brought into existence. Isaiah "heard the voice of the Lord [in eternity past] saying, "Whom shall I send, and who will go for us?" (Isa:6:8). Moses revealed the same counseling together of the Godhead: "And God said, Let usmake man in our image, after our likeness"; and again, "Let us go down, and there confound their language" (Gen:1:26;11:7). Who is this "us" if God is a single entity? “


“In this Romans:1:20 Paul argues that God's "eternal power and Godhead" are seen in the creation He made. God's eternal power—but His Godhead? Yes, as Dr. Wood pointed out years ago in The Secret of the Universe, the triune nature of God is stamped on His creation. The cosmos is divided into three: space, matter and time. Each of these is divided into three. Space, for instance, is composed of length, breadth and width, each separate and distinct in itself, yet the three are one. Length, breadth and width are not three spaces, but three dimensions comprising one space. Run enough lines lengthwise and you take in the whole. But so it is with the width and height. Each is separate and distinct, yet each is all of space—just as the Father, Son and Holy Spirit is each God.

Time also is a trinity: past, present and future—two invisible and one visible. Each is separate and distinct, yet each is the whole. Man himself is a triunity of spirit, soul and body, two of which are invisible, one visible. Many more details could be given of the Godhead's triunity reflected in the universe. It can hardly be coincidence.”

The Trinity

Many Christians are at a loss to understand, much less to defend, the "Trinity." Critics argue that that word is not even found in the Bible. To deal with that issue, we must begin with God,

www.thebereancall.org

 

[Brickjectivity]

I don't consider the nature of the messenger to be more important than the message. Christ's message was an unequivocal call to love, forgiveness, and universal brotherhood; Father, Son and Holy Spirit may be useful concepts for some, the source of confusion for others. But there is nothing abstract or confusing about John 15:12 This is my commandment, That ye love one another, as I have loved you.

Thank you!

For your sake I deleted two paragraphs. Here's my take on it:

The trinity demystified (don't show this to the kids): 1. Jesus gives up all of his humanity denying himself, becoming nothing. In this way man unifies with God. 2. The Holy Spirit is what separates the person from the evil world, merging the person into a new creation which is replacing the old, evil world. This is why non-Jews can join. 3. The divine nature is the inheritance, inherited from the Father.

This trinity seems to me quite gnostic in character.

Developed in the 2nd and 3rd century as a philosophical exploration. The scholars doing the work were at this time interested in extracting all that was good out of philosophy, and they saw a parallel between Christianity and some of the ideas in Plato and philosophers. They looked into all of them: Pythagoras, the Stoics, etc. They were mining or harvesting, and they did not at all limit their scripture to what was canon but rather thought that all things were worth investigating. They found interesting ideas in Plato, and some became enamored of these. In modern times people still find the study of the philosophers to be good meditation.

In centuries which followed some began to try to use the Trinity to attract people to Christianity. This wasn't its original purpose, and there was some push-back. In fact there are differences between the trinity and Plato's trinity. Certain people enamored of the Trinity became defensive about it and began to argue that the trinity was compelling evidence to become a Christian, and again: this was not its original purpose. I think it led to some problems. Philosophy cannot compel one to become a catholic/Christian. Philosophy has value in and of itself, and where it intersects Christianity it can be very useful meditation. It neither proceeds from Christianity nor compels Christianity; but people imagined it to be otherwise.

When we come to the modern creeds "I believe in the..." etc. I have to wince a little bit. I don't know, but I don't think the creeds unify people or help people to understand God or their role in Christ. Actually researching the Trinity can be a distraction from other more useful pursuits. I think the creeds are sort of barriers to entry and they are like shibboleths.

 

[metis]

So, what you're saying is that he did not die for the forgiveness of sins, the redemption of mankind?

Correct, but that's my opinion. However, taken symbolically, that can work.

Human sacrifices were not allowed in Judaism, so Jesus being the sacrificial lamb can only work as being symbolic.

 

[metis]

Nice...thanks for replying. Now we have a term we've defined. So no, how do we determine the indispensable qualities of something?
What quality could we take away from a human being that would no longer make them human?
But this is a good starting point. Here we see some difficulties in pinning down Gods essence. For one there is nothing to compare it to. God at least in the monotheistic religions is absolutely unique. How do we describe the qualities of something when there is nothing to compare it to?
Can we compare Gods essence to ourselves? Are we little pieces of Gods essence reflecting the BIG piece which is his essence?

My concept of God is more similar to that of Spinoza, so I'm not going to deal with the above.

 

[Brickjectivity]

@wellwisher in my reply I meant to quote you but accidentally quoted @RestlessSoul instead, but my reply was to you.

 

[PureX]

To all christans, both catholics, ortodox, protestants and anglican on this forum, do you believe in the trinity? why? And if you do not believe in the trinity then why?

I choose to envision God as being outside and beyond me, as being inside and a part of me, and spiritually through my interactions with the world and it's people. This is the "divine trinity" from my perspective.

 

[TrueBeliever37]

To all christans, both catholics, ortodox, protestants and anglican on this forum, do you believe in the trinity? why? And if you do not believe in the trinity then why?

No I do not believe in the trinity for the following reasons.

The word trinity is not even mentioned in the scriptures.
The Apostles were told to teach what they had been taught. None of the Apostles taught it.
It was a term coined by Tertullian many years after the death of the apostles.
The scriptures end up contradicting each other when someone tries to defend belief in the Trinity.

 

[Ajax]

It would be interesting to have your thoughts as to why the unproven and impossible for the human mind to perceive Trinity dogma was agreed, especially when it is not mentioned in the Bible and was finalized almost 350 years after Jesus death.
To give you a time perspective it was as if something was agreed today, for a story which happened in 1674...

 

[paarsurrey]

To all christians on this forum

It depends on what trinity means. As a disciple of Jesus, I believe what Jesus said. And according to him there is only one true God, who is greater than him. Jesus didn't speak anything about trinity.

Well I am not a Pauline (aka Christian), I love (Jesus) Yeshua- the truthful Israelite Messiah, I am a Muslim, please, right?
The stance of friend @1213 , is very reasonable, right, please?
Those who believe in Trinity and interpret it from the Gospels, falsely of course, only make an accusation against Jesus, please, right?

Regards
_________________
My cherry pick:

To all christans, both catholics, ortodox, protestants and anglican on this forum, do you believe in the trinity? why? And if you do not believe in the trinity then why?

Let me ask you to clarify what you think the Trinity is. Once upon a time there was a dispute about whether to accept the trinity or not, but these days there is even confusion about what the word means. Large groups of people think it is this or that, or they don't know. Its common to hear some people say its beyond understanding. There are also people who say it is simple as a pie of three ingredients. There is a lot of confusion, and so you may not even know what the Trinity is. In that case what is the point in discussing whether to believe in it?
One or more strawman versions of the Trinity often are passed around; and people judge the Trinity based upon what it is not.
If you aren't familiar with this I'll give you an example: A convert to Christianity is taught very little but is told that everything they need is in the bible, so they read that. They can't find the Trinity in there. They'll either try to figure out how to see the Trinity in it, or they may try to debunk the Trinity using it. Then they hear rumors or imagine what the Trinity is, and so they likely have a partial understanding, which is a misunderstanding. Teachers also sometimes spread mistaken ideas, and it is easy to become a broadcaster or teacher of inaccurate information.
That's why I ask what you think it is.

No, I do not believe in the Trinity doctrine. #1 Jesus never taught it.

No I do not believe in the trinity for the following reasons.

The word trinity is not even mentioned in the scriptures.
The Apostles were told to teach what they had been taught. None of the Apostles taught it.
It was a term coined by Tertullian many years after the death of the apostles.
The scriptures end up contradicting each other when someone tries to defend belief in the Trinity.

It would be interesting to have your thoughts as to why the unproven and impossible for the human mind to perceive Trinity dogma was agreed, especially when it is not mentioned in the Bible and was finalized almost 350 years after Jesus death.
To give you a time perspective it was as if something was agreed today, for a story which happened in 1674...