Kent Stevens

With the trinity it is easy to get into some incomprehensable waffle about something being one and three with the trinity. In order to reason about something we need to be able to be feed something meaningful. The simplest interpretation of Christianity is that it has at least three separate gods.


To A3

Freedom is something that is accepted by most people as being as desireable and good. But most people also want to have truth. Telling someone the truth about something is not taking someones freedom away. Is science, mathematics, engineering, and business classes actually oppressive? Usually people who are really oppressed are freed partly because they expose the truth about their oppression.

God would be wrong by keeping us in false beliefs if he existed. If people knew the truth about God they would perhaps not murder, steal, or lie. People may not feel like killing other people over in Israel or the US over religious differences. Since God keeps us in false beliefs by hiding himself away he seems to approve of people doing wrong things.

Danpech

If you can deal with symbolic logic, I think you might then have no problem with this formula. What 'dealt with' means is either contradicting the fact that the three things are inseparable, or it is not contradicting it. Part of the trouble here is that English lacks prescision in many things (according to my sources it has become the world-wide political language for this reason), whereas Greek is a lot more precise scientifically. In any case, what I was looking for was neutral word or phrase covering a wide range of functions under one conceptual classification, so that you would then know to narrow it down to one or more of those functions which made sense in the formula. If I gave a more precise wording in English, the object which the formula describes would be practically given away. I was trying to make the formula as neutral as possible in wording, while exact as possible in the combination of it details, so that, by looking at all of these details together as functioning to mutually qualifying each other, you could pin-point the object.

The object is space, and the three objects of which it is comprised are height, width and depth.

spin

This following is given by DanPech as an analogy for the relationship between the elements of the trinity:

--------------------------------------------
The object is space, and the three objects of which it is comprised are height, width and depth.
--------------------------------------------

This bears no relationship to the notion of three substances and is capable showing any useful reflection of them, therefore it is a false analogy.

One needs something which can at least fulfil this (before we can get into more problematic areas of the trinity):

It is three things, yet it is one thing.

Meta-terms such as length, width and height are simply not things, but merely terms which can be applied to things. So, a better analogy please.

Earlier, Danpech wrote:
---------------------------------------------
Part of the trouble here is that English lacks prescision in many things (according to my sources it has become the world-wide political language for this reason), whereas Greek is a lot more precise scientifically. In any case, what I was looking for was neutral word or phrase covering a wide range of functions under one conceptual classification, so that you would then know to narrow it down to one or more of those functions which made sense in the formula. If I gave a more precise wording in English, the object which the formula describes would be practically given away.
---------------------------------------------

You should realise that this is not so much a problem of English being less precise, but the fact that the idea was developed specifically in Greek and is more tranparently aberrant in other languages.

spin

A3:
-----------------------
1) We would not be able to exercise free choice in political, moral or natural things if we did not have free will in spiritual things.
-----------------------

Where is the free will when the media can manipulate people to buy this or vote that?

A3:
-----------------------
2) If our freedom were taken away, we would lose our humanity.
-----------------------

Freedom has nothing to do with humanity, as benevolent acts in prisons show. If you mean free will, much of a human's life has been predestined by its training from the womb onwards.

A3:
-----------------------
3) If our freedom were taken away, we would lose our lives. The very core of our lives comes from our spiritual freedom.
-----------------------

This is why surveys show that children are usually already set on which direction they will vote, that children of violent parents usually end up violent parents, that people usually marry partners who in some way reflect their parent of that sex...

A3:
-----------------------
4) If our freedom were taken away, we could not be regenerated [reborn].
-----------------------

This is unsupportable even from a biblical point of view.

A3:
-----------------------
5 If our freedom were taken away, we could not become spiritual.
-----------------------

You cannot assume "spiritual".

A3:
-----------------------
6) If our freedom were taken away, we could not be conjoined to the Lord.
-----------------------

In what way conjoined? so one loses one's individuality?

A3:
-----------------------
7) If our freedom were taken away, we would have no immortality.
-----------------------

This makes no sense. If God had simply created us without the test drive on earth, what difference do you imagine there would be, other than the fact that the vast majority of the world's population would have been saved the tortures of the test (and saved the later tortures in hell)?

You, A3, have a view of the human species that doesn't seem to relate to the world. You have justified our existence in the world in a nice ideal way that takes no account of information which doesn't come from the cultural tradition from which your thoughts derive. Your views on freedom make it impossible for those who are not allowed freedom to "conjoin" with your god, just think of the starving people around the world who have little to no choice, those people constrained to live lives against their wills, eg women in many Arab countries (where one can seem that the situation is so institutionalised that the accepting women enforce it on their own daughters). I think you should deal with the real world and not an idealised one.

[ March 16, 2002: Message edited by: spin ]</p>

A3

Hi Kent,

That depends if they value your version of the truth. If I tell my son he looks awful in those pants, it is not going to change him, but if God did that (silly example) it would make him change if he regarded God as the biggest influence in his life.
If they were given by my neighbour, no, but if a world renowned person (bank of America president?) would do it that would be oppressive in the sense of the comparison "who is he and who am I"
I know that there are people that rather stay in jail because of the tight structure, than be free without any guidance
Got to go now
A3

Danpech

I didn't mean it as an analogy to the Divine Trinity (although it can be used as such, but obviously only so far). All I meant was to show that the formula of the Divine Trinity does not mean that the Divine Trinity makes no sense just because we are somehow ignorant of the real stuff of which it is made. The formula of space seems like nonsense unless you treat it as a riddle for something which you already know the object of but have not yet run through enough objects to see which one fits the riddle.

The Divine Trinity does not need an analogy, it needs an object.

No, the three dimensions of space cannot meaningfully be reduced to two, nor increased to four (and objects occupy space, while space clearly seperates any two of them which are not in contact). And, any one of them is a thing rather than nothing. If they were nothing, then we would not have space at all.


I was not there referring to the Divine Trinity, but to my formula for space, and that I lacked words which fit the widest range of "things" (a word with which you disagreed).

[ March 16, 2002: Message edited by: Danpech ]</p>

Sojourner553

The Trinity concept does have a pagan history.
It's sort of silly (seems to me) to talk without incorporating this history into your discussion.

(Taken from
<a href="http://mac-2001.com/philo/crit/GOD.TXT" target="_blank">http://mac-2001.com/philo/crit/GOD.TXT</a>

or Section VI, Chapter 2 from:
<a href="http://mac-2001.com/philo/crit/index.html)" target="_blank">http://mac-2001.com/philo/crit/index.html)</a>

===========================================
God, as a Trinity

Judaism has NO concept of a Trinity, and indeed considers such a concept
as a direct violation of their central tenet of ONE and ONLY one God. There
is NO reference to the concept of God as a Trinity anywhere within the Old
Testament! Yet, the concept of a trinity of gods was very common among many
of their pagan neighbors. For example, the concept of a Trinity appears in
the mystery religions that surrounded the Egyptian deities of Serapis, Isis,
and Horus. "Thus from one god I became three gods", says Osiris in describing
his creation in a papyrus that has been dated twelve years after the date of
Alexander the Great. (Budge, "Payrus of Nesi-A,si." p 442)

The Babylonians had a powerful Trinity comprised of a father, mother
and messiah child. In Brahmaism, the highest God Brahm is conceived of as
a Trinity consisting of Brahma, Vishnu, and Siva. Brahma was considered
the creator of man. He produced the soul first, taking it out of his same
being. Then he clothed it with a body. (This is in reverse order from
the Hebrew account, where God forms the body first, and then secondly
breathes the breath of life into the body, creating a living soul.)
In Buddhism, there is reference to the three jewels representing the
Buddha himself, the good law, and last the Buddhist brotherhood or Church.

Gnostics perceived God in the form of a Trinity. As gnostics began to
convert into Christianity, their earliest views of a Trinity consisted of a
father, mother, and child. The gospel of the Egyptians found at Nag Hammadi
speaks of a Trinity composed of a Father, Mother, and Son. One reference
prays to both a divine Father and Mother couple: "From Thee, Father, and
through Thee, Mother, the two immortal names, Parents of the divine being,
and thou, dweller in heaven, humanity, of the mighty name." (Elaine Pagels,
GNOSTIC GOSPELS, p 59)

The Gnostic leader Valentinius, taught that while the image of God was
indescribable-- that it could be imagined as the Primal Father (symbolized
as the Ineffable, the Depth), at the same time as the "Mother of the All"
(symbolized as Grace, Silence, and the Womb). (Ibid) The mother member
of the Trinity was referred to under various names by gnostic groups--
including the names of Sophia, Pneuma, and Logos. Members prayed to her
as the "mystical, eternal Silence." (Ibid).

One gnostic writing, the GREAT ANNOUNCEMENT, (as quoted by Hippolytus
in his REFUTATION OF ALL HERESIES), describes the universe in dual male/
female terms. From the depths of silence appeared:

"a great power, the Mind of the Universe, which manages all things,
and is a male...the other...a great Intelligence...is a female which
produces all things." (Ibid, p 60.)

In early version of the GOSPEL ACCORDING TO THE HEBREWS, Christ spoke
of the Holy Ghost as his Mother. Both Origen and Jerome have quoted the
famous passage that reads: "Just now my mother the Holy spirit took me by
one of my hairs and carried me off to the great mountain Tabor." The same
text also takes an especially puzzling gospel saying of Jesus -- "Whoever
does not hate his father and his mother cannot be my disciple". The same
passage goes on to declare that Jesus meant by this that it is "my (earthly)
mother [who gave me death], but [my] true [Mother who] gave me life."
(Some scholars have suggested that the language of the writers may have
influenced the gender of the Holy Spirit. As the word for spirit or
"ruach" in the Semitic languages is feminine--whereas in Latin the word
"spiritus" is masculine, and in Greek, "pneuma" is neuter.)

Gnostic teachers seemed split over the exact sexual metaphors describing
God. Some viewed God as embodying both male AND female characteristics.
These authors speculated who God was referring to when he said in Genesis
1:26, "Let us make man in OUR image, after OUR likeness". They noted that
the next verse states that humanity was created "male and female". Other
gnostics claimed that God was neither male nor female.--Instead God was
described using such imagery to aid the believer in comprehending sacred
concepts.

During the early development of the Christian church, the concept of a
mother God member of the Trinity was rejected. The term Logos was identified
with the son member of the Trinity, and the term Pneuma or Holy Spirit was
retained for the third person (usually held to be of "neutral" sex).

The Eastern version of Christianity appears to have retained the concept
of the Trinity as a divine unity of Father, Mother, and Christ-child longer
than the Western Christians (centered in Rome). The Koran which referred
to the concepts of Christianity taught in the East, represents the Christian
Trinity as one comprised of God, Christ, and Mary. This Gnostic tradition
proved strong enough to add the devotion of the Mother Mary within the Roman
Catholic Church, almost on an equal footing with the worship of the Trinity
itself. In the minds of some adherents, the power of Mary's personage
replaced the Holy Ghost element itself as the third member.

Belief in the Holy Spirit as a distinct and equal member of a three-personage
God was NOT declared an article of Christian faith until the Council of
Constantinople in 381 C.E.. It was at this council that the following words
were added to the Nicene Creed:

"... I believe in he Holy Spirit, the Lord and giver of life, Who with the
Father and Son together is worshipped and glorified. Who spake by the
prophets."

This orthodox view, looked to John 5:7-8 for its official definition of
the Trinity:

"For there are three that bear record (in heaven, the Father, the Word,
and the Holy Ghost: and the water and the blood; and these three agree
in one".

Interestingly, this verse is missing in the earliest Greek mass, and
most biblical scholars believe that this verse is an interpolation. For this
reason, these verses are omitted in the Revised Version of the Bible.

None of the synoptic gospels even mention the "Trinity" with one
exception: Matthew 28:19, quotes Jesus as saying:

"Go ye therefore, and teach all nations, baptizing them in the name
of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Ghost."

Many scholars believe the difference in tone and style of this passage
makes this also to be a possible interpolation by a later Christian editor.
According to Acts 2:38, the early Christian baptismal formula was "in the
name of Jesus the Messiah". Also, when Eusebius (third century C.E.), quoted
this verse by Matthew, he wrote "make disciples of all nations in my name."
(Randel Helms, "Resurrection Fictions", FREE INQUIRY, (FALL 1981, Vol 1 No 4
p 39)


It was during the Enlightenment, as individuals began applying the
scientific method towards the gospels, that the doctrine of the Trinity
began to become seriously questioned. Interestingly, the famous scientist
and mathematician Isaac Newton also dabbled in the history of Christianity.
During the 1670's, after studying the theological history of the doctrine of
the Trinity, Newton (who was a deist) declared that he was convinced that
Athanasius and his colleagues had forged the gospel verses on the doctrine of
the Trinity and the Incarnation during the fourth century C.E.. Newton believed
that Arius' doctrine which held that Jesus had been born a man instead of a
God, was the correct one.

Of course, this position, cannot be directly proved (just as the doctrine
of the Trinity cannot be directly proved). Today, most mainstream Christian
denominations have continued to stress the importance of the doctrine of the
Trinity--as one of their most cherished and inviolate doctrines.

*********************
The accuracy of the NEW TESTAMENT writings had been seriously questioned
in Gibbon's famous work, the DECLINE AND FALL OF THE ROMAN EMPIRE (1776-88)
In it, Edward Gibbon asserted that the early Church fathers had used FORGED
TESTIMONIES in order to take hold over the Jewish and pagan religions of
their time. He insisted that "rash and sacrilegious hands" of the Church
father had edited scriptures in the New Testament, to bring them in line
with their doctrine. As proof, he focused on the first Epistle of John 5:7
which first defines the Trinity as follows:

'There are three which bear witness, the spirit and the water and the
blood, and the three are one AND THESE THREE ARE ONE IN CHRIST JESUS;
AND THERE ARE THREE WHO BEAR WITNESS IN HEAVEN, THE FATHER, THE WORD
AND THE SPIRT, AND THESE THREE ARE ONE.'

Gibbon argued that the last section (in bold above) was an insertion
by some later Christian writer. Gibbon charged that Christian scholars such
as Erasmus had suspected the passage was false, but kept them anyway out
of "prudence". Gibbon concluded that later Christian theologians had
stuck to this spurious (ie "false") phrase out of "honest bigotry."

Gibbon's charge brought on a uproar, that resulted in scholars rushing
to either defend or attack Gibbon's claims. Some religious scholars for
example argued that the attacked passages HAD to be true, because of their
importance to orthodox Christian doctrine.

To their dismay, Gibbon's claim that spurious verses had crept into the
New Testament was soon vindicated due to the efforts of a brilliant scholar
(when sober), named Richard Porson. Richard Porson was a known skeptic
when it came to belief in the Trinity. Indeed once, while discussing his
doubts on the doctrine of the Trinity to a friend, they both looked up,
and saw a buggy passing by them with three men in it. "There" said Porson's
friend, "is an illustration of the Trinity". Porson shot back, "No, you
must show me one man in THREE buggies, if you can".

Richard Porson set out to test Gibbon's claims, by grouping all the
known old texts of the bibles into groups or "families"--a technique now used
by virtually all textual scholars. All the texts that shared common errors,
misspellings, alterations, etc were grouped into the similar families. In
this way, he was able to build a family tree of texts, discovering at what
stage a text had undergone an alteration or mistake. His goal was to locate
the oldest, and therefore the most pure version of the New Testament.

What Porson found was that NONE of the OLDEST existing Greek manuscripts
of the Bible contained the "spurious" verse attacked by Gibbon. None
of the early Church fathers had ever quoted or cited this verse. This
verse first showed up in Latin manuscripts around the year 400 C.E. It was
later copied into later manuscripts, and in 1516 Erasmus included it in
his Greek Bible.

Gibbon was overjoyed that his attack on the passage had been so powerfully
vindicated. Some scholars set out to refute Porson's work by trying to find
old Greek manuscripts that DID contain the disputed verse. None were ever
discovered. Today, no modern version of the Bible contains the old epistle
John 5:7 passage.

Religious scholars were forced to admit with this defeat, that possibly
there were other interpolations and errors in the bible. Erasmus, it
appeared, had based his Greek version of the New Testament using poor
manuscripts. This faulty text was later used as the basis of all New
Testament translations --- by both Catholics and Protestants. For example,
when Martin Luther translated the whole bible into German in 1520, he
translated the New Testament directly from Erasmus' Greek version.

A small inner-circle of scholars and clergymen had known of some
translation errors prior to Gibbon's book. There are clear cases where
the religious authorities attempted to downplay any publication on
this whenever possible. However, with the publicity of Gibbon's and
Porson's research, suddenly the general public was now aware that there
were some inaccuracies, in what was previously considered divinely inspired,
and therefore inerrant writings.

<a href="http://mac-2001.com/philo/crit/NEWTEST2.TXT" target="_blank">http://mac-2001.com/philo/crit/NEWTEST2.TXT</a>


Sojourner

spin

spin:
------------------------------
One needs something which can at least fulfil this (before we can get into more problematic areas of the trinity):
------------------------------

Danpech:
------------------------------
The Divine Trinity does not need an analogy, it needs an object.
------------------------------

Are you in a position to know??


spin:
------------------------------
It is three things, yet it is one thing.
Meta-terms such as length, width and height are simply not things, but merely terms which can be applied to things. So, a better analogy please.
------------------------------

Danpech:
------------------------------
No, the three dimensions of space cannot meaningfully be reduced to two, nor increased to four (and objects occupy space, while space clearly seperates any two of them which are not in contact). And, any one of them is a thing rather than nothing. If they were nothing, then we would not have space at all.
----------------------

This does not seem to be saying anything. You can't remove of of the principle components of anything and have what you started with.


Danpech wrote:
---------------------------------------------
Part of the trouble here is that English lacks precision in many things...
---------------------------------------------

spin:
----------------
You should realise that this is not so much a problem of English being less precise, but the fact that the idea was developed specifically in Greek and is more tranparently aberrant in other languages.
----------------

Danpech:
----------------
I was not there referring to the Divine Trinity, but to my formula for space, and that I lacked words which fit the widest range of "things" (a word with which you disagreed).
----------------

Have you tried a Roget's Thesaurus, starting with "thing" or "element" or "object" as starting points?

Amos

One man in three buggies is much like the Russian troika and is easy to explain.

When three horses are in charge of our destiny we really can't go wrong if they properly harnassed and are galloping in the same direction. The left lead horse is the conscious mind and the right off-hand horse is our subconscious mind. The middle horse is the communicator between the two.

Kent Stevens

Using analogies to substantiate the trinity is false. For by analogy we could say that god is two as we have two arms, two ears, and two legs for example. Or god could be five as we have five fingers in one hand.

Two arms are part of one body. But if you have two siamese twins joined in one body they are really two people. For in terms of what identifies us as unique persons our brain and mind, a siamese twin has two brains and two minds. This is in spite of siamese twins say having only one heart or one set of lungs. Anyway, the bible passages are not consistent with the essence of god being a siamese type individual.

To A3

You seem to be inconsistent here. You are saying that for one authority called God it is good for him to give his opinon to your son. On the other hand you are saying another authority in terms of a banker is oppressive in giving his expert opinion. Is god oppressive in giving his opinon or is it good that the banker gives his expert opinion?