Apocolips

Hola!

I am confused and confounded about the Trinity. The Father, Son and Holy Spirit (ghost). Protestant Christianity teaches that God sent his Son, Jesus to Earth to die for our sins on the cross at Calvary. Jesus himself stated, "No one can come to the Father, except by me." The Holy Spirit's job to me is to move the faithful who believe and to show the way to the "lost" or sinning masses wishing salvation.

OK, first of all, to me, if you believe in the Trinity, that there are three beings serving as God of the universe. God is not so much a being as it is an office, like President of the USA. But Trinitarians speak of one God, not three, or a three in one deal. When God thought about making a man, He (or They?) stated, "Let's make man after our image." OUR image. So, early on, we the reader are led to believe that there is more than one force in the Universe working in unison.

If Jesus is the "Son of God", he would have to be younger than God or a created being. My belief system states that Jesus is not a created being, that Jesus is God himself. So the Jesus is and has always been God philosophy conflicts with the "son of God" philosophy.

Mary, mother of Jesus must have been a wonderful woman, but she is not a diety, as Catholics believe. Jesus also had brothers and sisters, this is plainly seen in the Bible. His brother James became a very elderly man and was a martyr in the early church.

Lastly, not all Christian groups believe in the Trinity. A good example are the Pentecostals, those loud, women wear skirts and no makeup, yelling, speaking in tounges crowd. God wants to worship him "with a mighty noise" and this crowd qualifies.

Please discuss if you wish.

SENOR

Vinnie

It is false to make this positive claim as if it was verifibable or well evidenced that Jesus said this. The sayings material in GJohn is so problematic as to be pratically useless outside of Pastoral uses.

I've never understood the trinity and I think the whole issue is utter nonsense. Three-in-oneness of God? Why not modalism?

Vinnie

mark9950

That even christianity is also confused but accept it because they will not accept a polytheistic god of the Gods.

Christianity wants to really believe in this god and always uses semantic gymnastics to call polytheistic gods into a monotheistc God.

The trinity does not make any sense when calling God monotheistic.

Doctor X

I think the problem comes from trying to have a personal god--one you can talk to and relate to--while also having an diverse, all-encompassing--controls the universe--I mean really, really, really, big god.

With Junior you have a human who, at some point, is claimed to be a god. Neat! "Son" works but now . . . unfortunately . . . we have two gods. The Big Daddy--the El--is a tried and true entity--Marduck/Baal can go smite a city whilst El sits up there considering much more important things, like when the humans can discover cheese-whiz [All Rights Reserved.--Ed.]

In modern times, certainly, with monotheism, we cannot have more than One God [!--Ed.]

So . . . who the hell is Junior?

If you make Junior Big Daddy you lose that personal touch--the guy, the bloke, someone you can relate to. Furthermore, if Big Daddy just came down on the planet and . . . like . . . it is hard to contain an all-present-all-knowing-et cetera in such a small package.

Methinks the solution was to through up hands and say "its a mystery!"

Christian sects that scoff at the trinity have the same problem. "Is Jesus your personal savior?!!"

"No, it is God. Why should I bother with Jesus?"

"Jesus IS God!"

"Again, why bother with calling him 'Jesus' if I am talking to 'God?'"

Somehow, Junior is suppose to be someone who understands you--ignore all of that "let them perish and not be saved" stuff from the Gospels! He is your friend. Buy him a drink!

Big Daddy seems involved with . . . well . . . big stuff . . . like helping you get a date this weekend--a major miracle for most of us.

This problem with the universal and the personal drives such dilemas.

--J.D.

Darth Dane

1: Thou shall have no other God'S before me.


So the One God acknowledges plural God's, how can this be true?






DD - Love & Laughter

Diotima

Interesting this theory of yours Doctor X.

From what I read it's obvious that none made you go to the Sunday Church School... and you grew up with the luxury to have theological theories of your own....Lucky you!

This Trinitarian concept of deity must be very old. While I was reading the thread, Pythagoras ( “the monad which turns into silence and darkness” ) was the first that came to my mind and of course the teachings of Kabalah .

I remember when I was in school, the lesson of Theology was obligatory twice a week during the 9 years of compulsory education.!!! Now I am grateful about this.
So, the idea of the Trinity God is very old especially in the World of eastern Mediterranean.
- The Chaldean Sun-god, Mithra, was called "Triple”.
- The Persian triplicate Deity also consists of three persons, Ormazd, Mithra, and Ahriman.
- The Chinese idol Sanpao, consists of three equal in all respects
- The Peruvians "supposed their Tanga-tanga to be one in three, and three in one"
- The Egyptians had The Sun (the Father), the Moon (the Mother), and Mercury-Thoth (the Son)
- In early Greek cosmology we come across the Triad of Chaos, Gaea and Eros.

Later on, when I was in the University I was impressed by a professor who claimed that Saint Athanasius the Church father who defined the Trinity as dogma ( in 4th ce-IF I am not wrong) and has lived all of his life in Egypt, all he had to do was to turn to one of the innumerable trinities of the “uncivilized creeds”, or to the Egyptian priests, in whose country he had lived all his life. He modified slightly only one of the three "persons."

All the triads of the Gentiles were composed of the Father, Mother, and the Son. By making it "Father, Son, and Holy Ghost," he changed the dogma only outwardly, as the Holy Ghost had always been feminine, and Jesus is made to address the Holy Ghost as his "mother" in every Gnostic Gospel.

Regardless if he is right or not I found it rather interesting.

Now according to MY perception( while in moments I might seem that I am parroting Aristotle … ) the story with the Trinity that is common to EVERY religion and explains the fundamental Christian dogma “ of the three in one and one in three” goes as follows:

In its most simple and comprehensive form, The Triad, is found in the human Entity in its triple division into spirit, soul, and body. So, if we believe the “mean” professor I was talking about, Athanasius had to find a way to introduce into the dogma the “old” idea of the unknown and unknowable Essence being transformed first into subjective, then into objective matter.

So, let’s say that the Christian dogma was born in an environment where those “fundamental” truths couldn’t be ignored. In fact this was the only way people perceived the World and its manifestations. So, Father symbolizes the Spirit, the Holy Ghost, the Soul and Jesus the body.

At least this is what we were told in the Sunday School, athough none really mentioned the dirty story with Saint Athanasius…

Now... Where is this book about the Elohim???

Rational BAC

I am a little fuzzy on this one, but wasn't it the Council of Nicea that determined our modern day concept of a trinity. Wasn't that the main reason for that Council?--------to standardize Christian beliefs, decide what was valid and what wasn't and especially to make "official" the idea of a Trinity.

I seem to remember that there were many different beliefs about this in the first 3 centuries AD. After the Council of Nicea all the others (who didn't believe in a Trinity) were considered heretical and treated pretty badly.

Am I wrong about this?

Any historians want to answer?

Doctor X

Diotoma:

Actually, some of the mythologies you cite had more than three--sometimes different characters acted as parts of a whole--a mediator of sorts.

However, you may be on to a general trend. Big Daddy generally needs a Big Mama for all of the obvious fertility and nagging aspects. Whilst the "goddess" crapolla spouted in the section of Barnes and Noble next to Van Praag is just that, goddesses did, indeed, exist.

As Big Daddy become more than just a locative deity--"our guy" who covers the general area up to the intersection--and becomes a more impersonal "Celestial" deity, you still need a Big Smiter who has a personal stake in things--bring in Marduk, Baal . . . perhaps YHWH initially.

You need a Junior.

What happens to Big Mama? If you believe the snooze-fest reference I cited in another thread, YHWH's possible Big Mama--Asherah--really existed as a manifestation of his appropriate power rather than a deity on her own initially. However, later on--possibly because of Assyrian influences--not to mention everyone else wandering through the place--she returned to a more goddess figure . . . than passed away in a sense.

Return to the gnostics . . . if memory serves me correctly [Rare that it does.--Ed.], they elevated a "wisdom" a pistis sophia (?) as a female important figure.

Returning to my theory . . . which is mine [No Monty-Python references.--Ed.] . . . the female aspect was fulfilled, particularly in later "main stream" Christianity--those who made it--with Mary. A lot of stuff is made up about her--such as her perpetual virginity even though Junior has brothers and sisters in Mk . . . Joseph and Mary must have adopted . . . yeah . . . yeah.

Anyways, each sect, if not each person, solves these problems in their own way.

I am not sure which Elohim book you refer to, but a wonderful one is:

Edelman DE (ed.). The Triumph of Elohim: from Yahwisms to Judaisms. Wm. B. Eerdmans Publishing Co. ISBN 0-8028-4161-9

If you refer to the "E" writer in the OT, then check out Friedman's, Who Wrote the Bible?

Darth:

Absolutely.

--J.D.

Diotima

Rational BAC

The dogma of the Trinity was crystalized in more than one Ecumenical Synods.

In the first one, that took place in Nicaea ( 325 BC ) the Ecumenical Synod dogmatized the divinity of the son as against Arius.

The second one that took place in Constantinople ( 381 AD) dogmatized the divinity of the Holy Spirit, against Macedonius, who had "blasphemed", concerning the Holy Spirit by asserting it to be a creature of Son.

The Trinitarian concept was very old though, this is what I suggested in my previous post.

Doctor X

In all the mythologies first we have the triad, the rest of the pantheon emanates from the Triad. The mediators you are talking about existed indeed but in the faces of demigods.

I do not really disagree but... I think that the ancient thought or better- the perception of Deity in antiquity, was more complicated than we actually think. The Trinitarian idea covers very well the very foundation of life itself. Then, comes the rest.

Maybe I am wrong and maybe my approach to the matter has to do with my origin but I have always thought that the religious feeling can't be analyzed by the logical methods West has used.

Can we analyze religion using the scientific method?

Oh yes indeed!! I wonder how this skipped my attention to my post. I should have mentioned it... thanks for bringing it up.

Yes this is a classical book.

and this:

is the bottom line of the whole discussion!

Doctor X

Diotoma:

Not true for the Egyptian, the Persian extends from previous traditions, and in Greek mythology you had basically a sky and earth eventually separated--rather messily--by a son who has children and . . . down you go.

I think one can approach religion scientifically provided one understands the extent and quality of the evidence.

--J.D.