The Great Trinity Debate, Part 5: Bowman on the Trinity

142 replies to "The Great Trinity Debate, Part 5: Bowman on the Trinity"

• sam shamoun

  2010-06-02

  Continued…

  Morphe rarely refers to the external appearance as opposed to the essence (thus, e.g., in tomb inscriptions in the antithesis between morphe and psyche)… The understanding of morphe as essential being (Kasemann 65ff.) possibly points to Gnosticism, where morphe and eikon are synonyms (Jervell 228). But Gnosticism had as little influence on Phil 2:6-11 (contra Jervell 229) as did the Greek magical papyrii. Morphe in Phil 2:6f. refers not to any changeable form but to a specific form on which identiyt and status depend. Morphe doulou is thus to be understood with Cremer/Kogel 736 as “the form proper to a slave, as an expression of his state,” and morphe theou likewise as “the expression of the divine state.” Basic understanding to the understanding of morphe in Phil 2:6-11, therefore, is not mutability but precisely the immutability of morphe theou and morphe doulou.

  Thus, even though this source says that morphe rarely means appearance as opposed to essence it pretty much confirms Bowman’s exegesis that Phil. affirms that Jesus’ prehuman Divine existence.

  Frankly I am getting embarrassed for both you and Burke.

  So much for your dubious appeal to scholars and lexicons, but more to come.
• sam shamoun

  2010-06-02

  In response to Fortigurn post # 97, this is nothing more than more of your smoke and mirrors tactics at work and a further illustration that you simply can’t understand what you read.

  First, you only posted that comment AFTER Bowman corrected you and showed you that had misread him.

  Second, for the UMPTEENTH time the reason why I am quoting these lexicons is to EXPOSE that your tirade against Bowman for citing outdated or defective lexicons for what it truly is, a smokescreen intended to cover over your inabili8ty to actually engage the issues on an exegetical level.

  Once I show that even THE VERY LEXICAL SOURCES that you yourself use agree with the range of meanings listed by Bowman’s lexicons and confirm Bowman’s exegesis not just for morphe but for all the rest of the words then this will completely expose your cheap debate tactic for what it truly.

  Did you finally get it now or do I need to repeat myself another fifty times? It seems I need to start charging you for impugning on my time.
• sam shamoun

  2010-06-02

  Fortigurn,

  Here is more from your own document on the meaning of morphe. Beginning at p. 64 the lexicon seems to define morphe in Phil. 2:6 as appearance, again agreeing with Bowman, and even speaks of incarnation!

  It is clear from all these examples that the use of morphe in the hymn in Phil 2 is entirely to be expected in a context of metamorphosis or incarnation, but that it would be risky to give it a precise theological meaning. p. 66.

  Your next source says the following:

  … In the sequence of Phil. 2:5-11it is also the opposite of the morphe theou which He had before, and of the position of the kyrios … which He will receive at His exaltation (w. 9ff.). The renunciation of the pre-existent Lord… finds expression in a morphe which is the absolute antithesis to His prior morphe.

  Thus the phrase morphe theou, which Paul coins in obvious antithesis to morphe doulou, can be understood in the light of this context. The APPEARANCE assumed by the INCARNATE Lord, the image of humiliation and obedient submission, stands in the sharpest conceivable contrast to His former APPEARANCE, THE IMAGE OF SOVEREIGN DIVINE MAJESTY, whose restoration in a new and even more glorious form is depicted for the exalted kyrios at the conclusion of the hymn, v. 10f. The specific outward sign of the humanity of Jesus is the morphe doulou, and of His ESSENTIAL divine likeness (to einai isa theo…) the morphe theou. The lofty terminology of the hymn can venture to speak of the form or VISIBLE APPEARANCE OF GOD in this antithesis on the theological basis of the doxa concept of the Greek Bible, which is also that of Paul, and according to which the majesty of God is visibly expressed in the radiance of of heavenly light… The morphe theou in which the pre-existent Christ was is simply the divine theou; Paul’s en morphe theou hyperchon corrsponds exactly to Jn. 17:5: te doxes eichon pro tou ton kosmon einai para soi. pp. 87-89

  Continued…
• sam shamoun

  2010-06-02

  Continued,

  Wow, another leixcon that agrees with Bowman! And in fn. 48, p. 87, it states:

  That the pre-existent Christ is meant may be seen from the structure of the hymn, which traces the whole path of the Redeemer from its beginning in heaven by way of the status exinanitionis to the goal of exaltation and glorification. The reference to the historical Jesus… IS UNABLE TO EXPLAIN the en morphe theou hyperchon SATISFACTORILY. Because of the pre-existent Christology there is no cause to reject Pauline authorship of Phil 2:6f…

  All I can say to both you and Burke is… OUCH!!!!

  Lord Jesus willing, more to come.
• sam shamoun

  2010-06-02

  Oops, I forgot to add the rest of the quote:

  The wealth of the christological content of Phil. 2:6f. rests on the fact that Paul does not regard the incomparable measure of the self-denial displayed by the PRE-EXISTENT Christ in His INCARNATION merely as the opposite of the egotistic exploitation of what He possessed… or as the surrender of His own will, nor is he concerned merely to emphasise the contrast between His eternal and temporal existence, His deity and humanity, but he brings out in clear-cut contrast the absolute distinction between the modes of being. Christ came down from the height of power and splendour to the abyss of weakness and lowliness proper to a slave, and herein is revealed for the apostle the inner nature of the Redeemer who is both above history and yet also in history. He did not consider Himself; He set before the eyes of those who believe in Him the example of forgetfulness of His own ego.

  It may thus be seen that there is no trace of a Hellenistic philosophical understanding of morphe in this passage, and certainly not of any supposed philosophical concept of morphe theou = ousia or phusis… Similarly what Paul understands by morphe theou and morphe doulou is remote from the epiphany ideas of myth or legend. Christ did not play the role of a god in human form. Again, there can be no thought of a metamorphosis … in the sense of Hellenistic belief or superstition. Paul does not speak of the exchanging of one’s own form for another; in 1 C. 2:8 the man Jesus is kyrious tes doxes. Materially, if not linguistically, the apostle’s paradoxical phrase morphe theou is wholly in the sphere of the biblical view of God. eikon theou cannot be equated with morphe theou (2 C. 4:4; Col. 1:15…). The image of God is Christ, while the morphe theou is the garment by which His divine nature may be known. Pp. 89-90

  Again… OUCH!!!!

  Now Fortigurn, what was that about scholars and lexicons?
• sam shamoun

  2010-06-02

  Now for the final quote on morphe taken from pp. 95-96 of your document:
  … Of appearances in visions etc., similar to persons… morphe doulou labon he took on the form of a slave=expression of servility Phil 2:7… This is in contrast to expression of divinity in the PREEXISTENT Christ: en m. theou hyperchon although he was in the form of God… [Phil 2:7] becomes the supporting framework for Christ’s servility and therefore of his kenosis…

  This source not only speaks of the preexistent Divine Christ but also defines morphe in Phil. 2:6-7 as appearance, WHICH AGAIN AGREES WITH BOWMAN!

  Now Fortigurn, I can go on to quote all the lexical sources you provided for harpagmos to prove that they all agree with Bowman that the word in the context of Phil. 2:6 means exploit, i.e. Christ did not consider equality with God something to be EXPLOITED, or you can simply admit this to be the case. That way I won’t have to waste time quoting them.

  Do you admit this or no? I will wait for your reply.
• Ady Miles

  2010-06-02

  This thread is becoming a bit of a joke to be honest

  Keep it simple and stop arguing and debating about semantics and grammar!

  All commentators are biased to some extent or other by their own beliefs and indoctrinations
• sam shamoun

  2010-06-02

  Ady Miles, please tell that to Fortigurn.
• Ed Kratz

  2010-06-02

  Fortigurn,

  I wrote:

  “Your attempt to characterize me as using the triadic statements in an independent deductive proof of the Trinity simply is wrong.”

  You replied:

  “Now you’re trying tell me that this is not an inductive argument?”

  You’re responding so quickly and so often that you still are making careless mistakes.
• sammy

  2010-06-02

  Rob, if I were you I would wash my hands of Fortigurn. Not worth wasting time on a gent who shows no hesitation to distort the words of people.
• Ed Kratz

  2010-06-02

  MATTHEW 28:19

  Dave,

  You wrote:

  “If the Matthean formula was a Christological formula, intended to describe ontological relationships within the Trinity, we would find it repeated elsewhere throughout the NT; and yet, we do not.”

  How you figure that is beyond me.

  J. P. Holding is at least partially correct: if all we had was Matthew 28:19, we could not confidently eliminate modalism or tritheism. However, since we can confidently and easily eliminate both of those options on other grounds, the remaining most likely understanding of the verse is Trinitarianism. Even Holding agrees that the wording most likely implies an ontological equality of the three.

  You wrote:

  “In the next phase of your argument you refer to ‘two of the three names in Matthew 28:19.’ I presume you mean ‘referents’, since ‘God’ isn’t a name; ‘Son’ isn’t a name, and ‘Holy Spirit’ isn’t either (despite your unsubstantiated claim to the contrary).”

  Apparently your mind was wandering here, as the term “God” does not appear in Matthew 28:19. So anxious were you to defend the position that only the Father is God that you even wrote “God” in place of “Father”!

  I had some material in the first draft of my post answering the objection that the terms “Father,” “Son,” and “Holy Spirit” are not names, but our length restriction forced me to cut that material. The NT writers can use the Greek word onoma (“name”) to refer to both proper names (like Jesus or Peter) and titles (like Father and Son). There are explicit examples of the word “name” referring to the designations Father (Matt. 6:9; Luke 11:2; John 17:1, 5, 11, 21, 24, 25), Son (Heb. 1:4-5), Christ (Matt. 24:5; 1 Peter 4:14, 16), Jew (Rom. 2:17), Lord (Phil. 2:9-11), Word of God (Rev. 19:13), and King of kings and Lord of lords (Rev. 19:16).

  You claim that you accept Matthew 28:19 “as it is written” but supposedly we Trinitarians do not. You miss the point. We accept the text as written also. My point was that Unitarians and Trinitarians both interpret the verse in ways that go beyond simply parroting its words. Your claim that Unitarians “have no need to interpret the verse” is balderdash. After claiming that you don’t need to interpret it, you offer an interpretation! The fact that you claim it is not an interpretation is at best naïveté on your part. Here, I will help you to see the point, if you don’t already. You wrote:

  “Matthew refers to the Father (God), the Son of God (whom we know to be Jesus) and the Holy Spirit (‘the power of the Most High’, as Luke calls it).”

  By glossing “Holy Spirit” with the words “the power of the Most High,” you are doing exactly what you claim not to do, offering a “gloss” to interpret what the verse means. Your selection of those words from Luke 1:35 reflects your own theological agenda, just as much as if I had written “and the Holy Spirit (who is ‘God’ according to Acts 5:3-4).”

  I run into this all the time. Anti-Trinitarians claim they don’t interpret the Bible; they just take it as it is. If that’s so, why are there Unitarian, Jehovah’s Witness, Mormon, and Oneness Pentecostal theologies, and why do they differ from one another so much?

  To show that being baptized “in the name…of the Holy Spirit” does not mean that “Holy Spirit” is literally a name, you cite several texts in which acting “in the name of” expresses acting on someone’s authority. Some of these texts, as you point out, do not give a specific proper name (you especially emphasized Matt. 10:41-42). This argument proceeds from the false premise that the Greek word onoma means a proper name. As I documented above, it can refer to what we call a title. Of course, what your argument overlooked was that in all of these texts the one on whose authority the action is done is a person (God, Deut. 18:20; 1 Chron. 21:19; other gods, Deut. 18:20; King Ahasuerus, Esther 3:12; the god Baal, Jer. 2:8; a prophet or a disciple, Matt. 10:41-42; our Lord Jesus Christ, 2 Thess. 3:6).

  Worse still, you apparently did not bother to check the Hebrew or Greek of these verses, or even other translations. For example, Jeremiah 2:8 does not have any form of the word “name” in either the Hebrew or Greek version. It looks like you were simply looking up verses in the NET Bible and going by the English. This is funny, since you had just gotten through falsely alleging that I was “effectively interpreting the English instead of the Greek.”

  Your statistics on the use of pneuma are faulty, but it doesn’t matter much. If pneuma frequently does denote a spirit person of whatever kind (God, Christ, angels, departed humans, demons), and if the term is coordinated in a triad with two indisputable terms for persons (Father, Son), then the burden of proof is on the interpreter who would claim that pneuma in such a context is not a person. I don’t claim, and I don’t need to claim some deductive or incorrigible certainty for my exegesis; all I claim is that my position has the weight of the evidence on your side and that your interpretation (and that’s what it is!) bears the burden of proof.

  In a separate comment, I have already responded to your objection that pneuma nowhere else denotes a Trinitarian person.

  Finally, I found nothing in your quotations from Mounce, Nolland, or Newman with which to disagree. I don’t claim that Matthew 28:19 presents a formal treatment of the ontological status and ad intra relations of the three persons of the Trinity. I do claim that the text has some Trinitarian implications. You haven’t presented any evidence to discount the arguments I have presented to support those implications.
• Fortigurn

  2010-06-03

  Rob, I was posting between 3 and 4 in the morning, which is a good reason for me to make mistakes. But you still can’t explain your own argument, and you are still not reading my posts, and you weren’t posting between 3 and 4 in the morning. The point I made about your use of lexicons with regard to ‘morphe’ was that you were using them to claim that it was not possible to be dogmatic about the meaning of the word. You cited those lexicons in support of you. I said this three times:

  * ‘they are dogmatic over the word which you say we can’t be dogmatic over?’

  * ‘claimed on the basis of these (rather than the authoritative lexicons), that it wasn’t possible to be dogmatic about the meaning of the word under discussion’

  * ‘they are all dogmatic on the point on which you say we shouldn’t be’

  How could you miss it? I already demonstrated that it was wrong to do so because none of those lexicons are sufficient to make your case. One is out of date, as you acknowledged. One is a student’s lexicon, one is a translator’s help, two of them provide English glosses on New Testament vocabulary rather than defining Greek words with historical lexical data. None of them cite any lexical evidence whatever to support their definitions, which is problematic to say the least.

  As Sam has helpfully shown, the major historical lexicons do not even gloss ‘morphe’ with ‘nature’, and are dogmatic about its meaning. Sam quoted the major lexicons repeatedly. Every time he did, he was forced to admit again and yet again that they supported Dave’s understanding of the word. He ran frantically from one lexicon to the next, but to his horror they all supported Dave.

  You cannot claim that it’s not possible to be dogmatic about the meaning of this word when the major historical lexicons are all dogmatic about it.
• Fortigurn

  2010-06-03

  Sam,

  Now Fortigurn, what was that about scholars and lexicons?

  What I said was that all the major historical lexicons support Dave’s understanding of ‘mophe’. You have helpfully confirmed this. Thanks, but we knew it already. You will note that even Bowman has admitted that he tends to agree with the same understanding of ‘morphe’ as Dave. Yet here you are quoting the very lexicons which support him, and claim that they don’t.

  I don’t think you’re reading them very closely. All you’re doing is reading the theological commentary, and ignoring the word definitions. The theological commentary is irrelevant. The word definitions are not.

  First, you only posted that comment AFTER Bowman corrected you and showed you that had misread him.

  No Sam, I posted that comment after I had examined Dave’s argument for myself, as I said I would. I saw that Dave’s argument was deficient, and I immediately posted a counter to it. I then posted a link to my counter, for you and Bowman. Bowman read it, you didn’t.

  You then proceeded to make yourself look foolish by making the same case against Dave which I had already made, and claiming that you were correcting me in the process. In reality you had no idea that I had already made the same case against Dave before you. All you did was repeat what I had already said, only a lot less efficiently.

  Once I show that even THE VERY LEXICAL SOURCES that you yourself use agree with the range of meanings listed by Bowman’s lexicons and confirm Bowman’s exegesis not just for morphe but for all the rest of the words then this will completely expose your cheap debate tactic for what it truly.

  But Sam, you still don’t realise that Bowman and Dave agree on the meaning of the word ‘morphe’. Bowman just says we can’t be dogmatic about it.
• Fortigurn

  2010-06-03

  By the way, here’s a free lexicon for you, so you finally have one:

  http://www.archive.org/details/greekenglishlexi00grimuoft
• Fortigurn

  2010-06-03

  Rob,

  Fortigurn, you’re obviously someone who has spent some time with biblical scholarly resources, if nothing else. You’re clearly intelligent and seem fairly knowledgeable. Why hide behind a pseudonym?

  That’s a pejorative description of my preference for anonymity (the same preference as the overwhelming majority of Internet users). Why phrase it that way?
• Fortigurn

  2010-06-03

  ἁρπαγμός

  * ANLEX: ‘literally something seized and held, plunder’ (Philippians 2L6 is glossed as ‘figuratively in PH 2.6 of Jesus’ equality with God οὐχ ἁρπαγμόν”)

  * LSJ9: ‘ἁρπαγμός, ὁ, robbery, rape, Plu.2.12a; ἁ. ὁ γάμος ἔσται Vett.Val.122.1. 2. concrete, prize to be grasped, Ep.Phil.2.6; cf. ἅρπαγμα 2.’

  * Louw/Nida: ‘ that which is to be held on to forcibly—‘something to hold by force, something to be forcibly retained.’’ (Philippians 2:6 is glossed as ‘he always had the nature of God and did not consider that remaining equal with God was something to be held on to forcibly’)

  * Newman: ‘ἁρπαγμός , οῦ m something to grasp after; something to hold onto’

  * BDAG: ‘a violent seizure of property, robbery’, ‘ As equal to ἅρπαγμα, someth. to which one can claim or assert title by gripping or grasping, someth. claimed’ (the gloss on Philippians 2:6 is ‘ the state of being equal w. God cannot be equated w. the act of robbery’, which helpfully shows that the meaning of the word is incompatible with the idea that Jesus is God in Philippians 2:6)

  * EDNT: this exegetical lexicon gives ‘robbery’ as the definition, and then blatantly admits that it cannot accept this definition in Philippians 2:6 for theological reasons (‘The meaning which predominates in secular Greek, robbery, is out of the question for Phil 2:6’)

  * TDNT: ‘In common with other subst. formed with -μός, ἁρπαγμός first means a. the activity of ἁρπάζειν.1 In non-Christian writings it is found only in this sense‘, ‘he word then took on the sense of the more common ἅρπαγμα and came to mean b, “what is seized,” esp. plunder or booty’, ‘to take up an attitude to something as one does to what presents itself as a prey to be grasped, a chance discovery, or a gift of fate, i.e., appropriating and using it, treating it as something desired…
• Ed Kratz

  2010-06-03

  Fortigurn,

  I didn’t say that it isn’t possible to be dogmatic about the meaning of morphē. I said it was unjustified. If you wish to insist dogmatically that it is justified to be dogmatic about its meaning, go ahead.

  How fun: the anti-Trinitarians are the dogmatists! Who would have thought?

  For those who want to go beyond dogmatic assertions and read a thoughtful, nuanced discussion of the issue, I recommend Moises Silva’s commentary Philippians, 2d ed., Baker Exegetical Commentary on the New Testament (Grand Rapids: Baker Academic, 2005), 100-102. For those unfamiliar with Silva, he is a renowned expert on NT Greek linguistics and hermeneutics and is the author of Biblical Words and Their Meanings: An Introduction to Lexical Semantics (Grand Rapids: Zondervan, 1995). Of course, many good treatments of the meaning of the word are out there. An even more recent commentary that takes an approach similar to Silva’s is G. Walter Hansen, The Letter to the Philippians, Pillar New Testament Commentary (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 2009), 133-42. Hansen shows why simply repeating what the standard lexicons say about morphē does not settle the matter of its precise meaning or connotation in the context of Philippians 2:6-7.
• sam shamoun

  2010-06-03

  Fortigurn, I know you are up to your tricks and deception again and that in your arrogance you can’t admit that you were being simply silly for chiding Bowman for not citing your choice of lexicons.

  Not only did the lexicons you preferred add nothing new to the ones which Bowman cited or agreed with but they also destroyed your belief system since THEY ALL AGREED THAT JESUS PREEXISTED IN A DIVINE STATE, AS GOD. This means the lexicons actually confirmed one of Bowman’s 6 points, while decimating Burke’s case.

  Rob, are you surprised that Fortigurn AGAIN distorted your words? He can’t help it. Anyway, I have a few more things to say to Fortigurn and I am through with his games and debate tricks.
• Fortigurn

  2010-06-03

  Rob,

  If you wish to insist dogmatically that it is justified to be dogmatic about its meaning, go ahead.

  As I’ve pointed out many times Rob, it’s not me saying it. The standard historical lexicons are dogmatic about the meaning of this word. That being the case, the insistence from a non-professional that we shouldn’t be dogmatic about it fails to convince. I don’t ask you to take my opinion over that of professional lexicographers, or Bible translators, or even your local electrician. You shouldn’t do it either.

  How fun: the anti-Trinitarians are the dogmatists! Who would have thought?

  That’s a misrepresentation, since in this case as I have pointed out there are plenty of Trinitarians being dogmatic.

  Silva is great, but he’s not a lexicographer. Don’t you just love how he says this passage was ‘not written for the purpose of presenting an ontological description of Christ’ (pp. 101-102), though Trinitarians typically use it that way, and how about where he downplays the meaning ‘visible appearance’ (pp 100-101), despite its clear attestation in the Greek literature?

  Hansen is like other Trinitarians who have realised that Philppians 2:6 is a problem for the Trinity, and is wrestling with how to explain to the laity that the key word under question doesn’t actually mean what they’ve always been taught it does mean. That’s why the definition in the standard lexicons doesn’t work for him, because it’s very difficult to reconcile with his theology.

  If it was a Unitarian trying that argument, you’d be all over him. What if Dave tried that on with ‘aion’? If the word ‘morphe’ actually meant ‘divine nature’, Hansen wouldn’t be saying that repeating the lexicon meaning isn’t the way to settle what it means here.
• Fortigurn

  2010-06-03

  Sam,

  Not only did the lexicons you preferred add nothing new to the ones which Bowman cited or agreed with but they also destroyed your belief system since THEY ALL AGREED THAT JESUS PREEXISTED IN A DIVINE STATE, AS GOD. This means the lexicons actually confirmed one of Bowman’s 6 points, while decimating Burke’s case.

  This is proof that you don’t own a lexicon, you don’t understand the difference between a lexical definition and a theological gloss. All of the standard lexicons agreed with Dave on the meaning of ‘morphe’, which Bowman is actually saying is the same meaning to which he leans (you still seem to think he disagrees with Dave on this point!).

  Their theological claims about Christ being pre-existent as God are irrelevant to this fact. Trinitarians say Jesus is God? How surprising!

  Do yourself a favour, get on B-Trans and B-Greek, and lurk while the professionals talk for a month or so. You’ll pick up a lot of useful information about how lexicons should and shouldn’t be used. You’ll even get a few suggestions about which should be your first lexicon.

  http://www.ibiblio.org/bgreek/

  http://bible-translation.110mb.com/list/index.html
• sam shamoun

  2010-06-03

  Notice what Fortigurn did when his own lexical sources ended up working against him and establishing Bowman’s case. Much like what Burke did, he throws them under the bus and calls into question their definitions and explanations due to their theology!

  Let me expose your tricks and deception once again. You write:

  I don’t think you’re reading them very closely. All you’re doing is reading the theological commentary, and ignoring the word definitions. The theological commentary is irrelevant. The word definitions are not.

  This is why I keep saying that people shouldn’t waste time on Fortigurn and should simply ignore him.

  Fortigurn, your comments either show you have no clue how lexicons work or that you are again being deceptive. Which is it?

  Although word definitions are important they do not tell us what specific definition of a word best fits a given context. That is why the lexicons you chose provided “theological commentary.” The explanation or so called theological commentary helps us understand and explain the reasons why a particular word bears a specific meaning in a particular context.

  Moreover, the “theological commentary” of the lexical sources you chose are based upon and derived from the exegesis of the texts in question. In light of this, isn’t it amazing that your lexical sources came to the same conclusion and understanding that Bowman did? It must really hurt you that your lexicons of choice do not interpret passages such as Philippians 2:6 they way you or Burke do? Too bad, so sad!

  So now Fortigurn let me repeat my question to you. Do I need to quote from your document to prove that the lexicons you chose agree with Bowman concerning the meaning of harpagmos? Or are you willing to admit that they do?

  Anyway, depends on how you answer this may be my final post to you. You have been a waste of my time to be honest.
• sam shamoun

  2010-06-03

  I have to laugh at you at this point:

  This is proof that you don’t own a lexicon, you don’t understand the difference between a lexical definition and a theological gloss. All of the standard lexicons agreed with Dave on the meaning of ‘morphe’, which Bowman is actually saying is the same meaning to which he leans (you still seem to think he disagrees with Dave on this point!).

  What this proves is that you are good at committing logical fallacies and that you are willing to throw your sources under the bus when they are used to expose your lies and distortions. I already explained why we find “theolgoical glosses” in the lexicons you chose.

  And you can rant and rave all you want, but your arrogant chatter doesn’t refute the fact that you are now trying to save face after exposing you for what you are.

  So keep ranting, maybe somebody will take you seriously.

  My advice, learn to spend more time reading your own sources carefully and also try being honest since this will prevent you from being put in embarrassing situations where you are constantly getting humiliated. I know its hard for you be honest and humble seeing where your beliefs originate from (cf. John 8:44; 2 Peter 3:15-16)
• sam shamoun

  2010-06-03

  Anyway, I am done with Fortigurn. Rob, if you want to continue dialoguing with a person who distorts people’s words, lies, and arrognatly boasts about what he knows (when in reality he doesn’t know much) then more power to you.

  Nick was right to avoid him since Fortigurn shows that he cannot comprehend what he reads or represent what certain sources or even his opponents say accurately.
• Fortigurn

  2010-06-03

  Sam, you’re not getting it. You keep on changing your own tune. First you admitted that the lexicons define ‘morphe’ the way Dave understands it. Then you claimed that despite this they are still against Dave because the theological gloss says that Jesus pre-existed as God. I pointed out that this does not change the fact that the lexicons qua lexicons actually support Dave’s understanding of the word, which is precisely what lexicons are there to settle.

  Now you claim that I throw them under a bus? Nonsense. I’m entirely happy using these lexicons to settle the meaning of ‘morphe’. As you were forced to admit, they all supported Dave’s understanding of the word.

  Although word definitions are important they do not tell us what specific definition of a word best fits a given context. That is why the lexicons you chose provided “theological commentary.” The explanation or so called theological commentary helps us understand and explain the reasons why a particular word bears a specific meaning in a particular context.

  What you don’t yet understand Sam is that this is not where lexicons are authoritative. No lexicon is an authoritative theological commentary. That is not what lexicons are for. Anyone is entirely at liberty to ignore a theological commentary in a lexicon. Fortunately purely historical lexicons such as LSJ9 do not contain theological commentary.

  So now Fortigurn let me repeat my question to you. Do I need to quote from your document to prove that the lexicons you chose agree with Bowman concerning the meaning of harpagmos? Or are you willing to admit that they do?

  I already cited them all (the post is probably still in the moderation queue). They are consistent in saying the word means ‘a robbery’ or ‘something to be seized’, and several of them acknowledge that this meaning is theologically impossible to apply to the instance of ‘morphe’ in Philppians 2:6.
• Fortigurn

  2010-06-03

  Sam,

  Anyway, I am done with Fortigurn.

  No you’re not. You’ve said this several times, and it hasn’t yet been true. You’ll come back.
• Charles

  2010-06-03

  Trinitarians are notorious for taking a word and its defined meaning then applying commentary, not to explain the word in context, but to change the words meaning entirely.
• Fortigurn

  2010-06-03

  Charles, even though some Trinitarians do that, plenty of non-Trinitarians are also guilty. And sure, Trinitarians have been responsible for all the textual corruptions of the Bible which were written in specifically to try and prop up their doctrine. But they don’t do that anymore.
• Charles

  2010-06-03

  Trinitarians are still defending doctrines in which they believe has given them liberty to change the meaning of words. Doctrine ought not give anyone the right to do that.

  If a word has meanings then I am not at liberty to change those meanings to suit my claim. And no one else should either, because if they do, then they turn what was meant into a lie.
• Charles

  2010-06-03

  Begotten son means begotten son. Now, where in all of Scripture or in any language at all does begotten son mean anything else than begotten son.

  Why have people been given liberty to change the meaning? Why have people allowed them to do it?

  How can anyone be fooled into believing a certain groups doctrines are true when they have taken it upon themselves to change the meanings of words, even though those meanings have never changed even to this very day?
• Ed Kratz

  2010-06-03

  Fortigurn,

  Further debate about whether dogmatism about the meaning of morphē is justified seems otiose, when everyone here agrees that the word means appearance.

  How about addressing some issues of substance? For example, I explained to Dave that his Unitarian interpretation of Philippians 2:6-7 really does not fit the definition of morphē as “appearance.” Here is what I said:

  By contrast, interpreting morphē consistently to mean “appearance” will not fit the Unitarian interpretation. Christ “existed in the appearance of God…but emptied himself, taking the appearance of a servant.” How does this fit Unitarian Christology? You don’t think it does, either, which is why, after all the argument to show that morphē means “appearance,” you assert that what this really means is “image” (citing Cullmann, whose views on what this means in context you do not mention and certainly do not accept). Well, then, if you want to take this view, then you must be consistent: Christ “existed in the image of God…but emptied himself, taking the image of a servant.” This would appear to mean that Christ exchanged the image of God for the image of a servant. So, did Christ stop existing in God’s image? When did he do that?

  Offering thoughtful answers to problems like these would be a genuine contribution to the discussion.
• Charles

  2010-06-03

  Here’s my 2cents worth.

  “who, though he was in the form of God, did not count equality with God a thing to be grasped,”

  Though he visibly appeared as God, did not himself count being equal with God as something to be grasped (unlike Adam, who did grasp at equality with God). Instead he humbled himself and became as a servant.

  Christ visibly appearing as God, or in the form of God, would consist of more than just being in the physical image of God as all men are, but he could actually say that if you had seen him you had seen the Father. He demonstrated not only a reflective image or resemblance but the very character of the Father.

  That is why Paul could say that as we bore the image of the earthly (Adam) we shall also bare the image of the heavenly (Adam). It’s not just the physical appearance that we will share, but the character and immortal nature also.
• Ed Kratz

  2010-06-03

  ACTS 2:33-36

  Dave,

  I had written:

  “Biblical Unitarians interpret Psalm 110:1 to mean that the LORD YHWH exalted a mere man to be the Messianic lord, and so they understand Acts 2:36 to mean that Jesus’ designation as ‘lord’ refers to a status that he acquired for the first time in his exaltation.”

  You replied:

  “Wrong. This is a misrepresentation. In previous weeks I have repeatedly demonstrated that I believe Jesus was Messiah and Lord before his death, resurrection and exaltation. I showed that Jesus claimed these titles throughout his ministry. I have never said that Jesus only became ‘Lord’ for the first time at his resurrection and exaltation. That is not my position.”

  Dave, I’m happy for you to clarify your position or to correct any misunderstanding I might have of what you believe. However, I have searched through every thread of this debate twice and was not able to find a single statement from you affirming that prior to his death and resurrection Jesus was already the “Lord” of Psalm 110:1, or even affirming that Jesus was already “Lord.” The closest you came was in your Part 2 post, where you listed several titles of Jesus, including “Lord” in John 13:13, but without any comment as to its significance. That is, you did not cite this verse to make the point that Jesus was already Lord before his death and resurrection. Furthermore, I think this is the only instance in all of your posts and comments where you even mentioned a text in which Jesus is called Lord prior to his death. So it simply is not true that you “repeatedly demonstrated that [you] believe Jesus was Messiah and Lord before his death, resurrection and exaltation.” I agree that you affirmed that Jesus was Messiah before his death, but not Lord, except indirectly in your citation of John 13:13. Since you offered no explanation for John 13:13, it seemed plausible that you understood the term in that context to mean something less than in Acts 2:36. Elsewhere, in your comment responding to my exegesis of Romans 10:9-13 (my post in Part 3, comment #4), you used the title “Jesus Christ: The Cornerstone who Became Lord,” and in that comment you emphasized Acts 2:36.

  In any case, you cannot have your cake and eat it too. If you are going to argue that Acts 2:36 means that God changed Jesus’ status to that of Messiah and Lord, then he must not have been Messiah and Lord prior to God making that change. Furthermore, in the context of Acts 2:36, if a change in status is indicated, it would seem to come at Jesus’ resurrection and exaltation. Therefore, given your insistence that Acts 2:36 means that Jesus acquired a status he did not previously have, it makes sense for me to conclude that in your view Jesus became Lord at his resurrection and exaltation. I cannot agree, then, that I had “created” a “straw man argument,” as you went on to complain.

  Now, you can define your position any way you like. If you say that you think Jesus was already “Messiah and Lord” in the sense meant in Acts 2:36 throughout Jesus’ ministry prior to his death, I take you at your word. However, you will then have to explain why Peter makes the statement he does in the context he does, given your insistence that it means that Jesus obtained a status he did not previously have.

  I would like to quote a text from the Jewish Apocrypha that may shed some light on the usage of epoiēsen (“made”) in Acts 2:36. I don’t claim it is an exact parallel, but it seems close enough to be instructive. The passage has to do with the action of the king Ptolemais toward the Jewish high priest Jonathan:

  “Although certain renegades of his nation kept making complaints against him [Jonathan], the king treated [epoiēsen] him as his predecessors had treated [epoiēsen] him; he exalted [hupsōsen] him in the presence of all his Friends. He confirmed him in the high priesthood and in as many other honors as he had formerly had, and caused [epoiēsen] him to be reckoned among his chief Friends” (1 Macc. 11:25-27 NRSV).

  This passage illustrates the fact that there is sometimes a difference between the lexical definition of a word and the sense that the word conveys in a particular context. We could woodenly translate verse 26 “the king made him as his predecessors made him,” but this doesn’t convey the meaning in good idiomatic English. The NRSV gets the sense right in good English by using the word “treated” instead of “made.” Now, you can argue that epoiēsen does not mean “treated,” and you’d be right; but translation is not always about substituting an English word lexical equivalent for each Greek word. That “concordant” approach to Bible translation is simply outmoded; translation scholars and theorists of the past generation or more have thoroughly discredited that approach.

  In the passage in 1 Maccabees 11, the king “exalted” (hupsōsen) Jonathan by restoring to him the office and honors he had previously; he “made” (epoiēsen) Jonathan what he had been before. The high priesthood had been Jonathan’s before and was already his office by right; the king simply recognized and confirmed publicly that Jonathan was the rightful high priest. Similarly, God the Father had “exalted” (hupsōtheis) Jesus (Acts 2:33) and “made” (epoiēsen) him both Lord and Christ (Acts 2:36), even though, as you say you agree, Jesus had already been both Lord and Christ prior to his death (e.g., Luke 2:11). Thus, it does appear that the sense of the statement in Acts 2:36 is that God the Father treated or publicly confirmed Jesus in his status as Lord and Christ. This is a perfectly legitimate interpretation and one that seems to have some precedent linguistically in 1 Maccabees 11:25-27.
• Fortigurn

  2010-06-03

  Rob, I note you changed Peter’s ‘God’ to the Trinitarian ‘God the Father’. It’s this repeated replacement of apostolic terms which exposes the Trinitarian bias. You keep saying that the Trinity was only ‘implicit’ in the New Testament (whatever that is supposed to mean), but you still want Peter to talk like a modern Trinitarian. You can’t have it both ways.

  If you acknowledge the Trinity is only ‘implicit’ in the New Testatment, then you acknowledge (with mainstream theologians), that the concept is a post-Biblical development of which the 1st century church knew nothing. You keep flipping between the two. This seems to be for the benefit of your punters, since the average layman still thinks the apostles believed in a fully fledged Trinity which was believed and taught just as their pastors teach it today. But you know this isn’t true, and you know the scholarly consensus holds that it isn’t true. However, you seem to avoid wanting to make that explicit, so you make Peter talk like a Trinitarian using theological distinctions which weren’t invented until over 150 years later.

  For Peter, as for Paul, God was one person, ‘the Father’. For the Trinitarian, ‘God’ is an barely definable concept (not a person), which describes three divine ‘pseudo-persons’ (because they’re not definable using the standard English meaning of ‘person’) united in a mysterious and unknowable way. This is why Trinitarians don’t preach what Peter preached in Acts 2 before baptizing people with that knowledge. Unitarians preach what Peter preached in Acts 2, and then baptize people with that knowledge. For this, Trinitarians call us heretics.
• Ed Kratz

  2010-06-04

  Fortigurn,

  You wrote:

  “Rob, I note you changed Peter’s ‘God’ to the Trinitarian ‘God the Father’. It’s this repeated replacement of apostolic terms which exposes the Trinitarian bias.”

  But then you also wrote:

  “For Peter, as for Paul, God was one person, ‘the Father’.”

  So, if God is the Father, or if the Father is God, is there anything wrong with using the term “God the Father”?

  Does not Peter say, “Being therefore exalted at the right hand of God, and having received from the Father the promise of the Holy Spirit, he has poured out this that you yourselves are seeing and hearing” (Acts 2:33)? Does this not tell us that in this context Peter uses the titles “God” and “Father” for the same person, so that the compound form “God the Father” is faithful to what Peter himself says?

  And does not Peter himself use this very form, “God the Father,” in his epistles (1 Peter 1:2; 2 Peter 1:17), as does Paul 11 times, John once, and Jude once? How can you say that using “God the Father” is a “replacement of apostolic terms” when it is an apostolic term? How can you claim that I am making Peter “talk like a modern Trinitarian” when Peter himself talked in exactly the same way?

  May I not reasonably claim that you have inadvertently conceded that the compound form “God the Father,” which four of the NT writers use a combined total of 15 times, is “Trinitarian” language? Have you not in effect intercepted the ball and run toward the wrong end of the field on my behalf?

  Did you think about any of this before making your criticism?

  Out of everything I said in that comment, was this the most substantive issue you could find to attack?

  The rest of your post runs with the ball in the same direction and requires no further comment. Thanks for the assist.
• Ed Kratz

  2010-06-07

  THE HOLY SPIRIT IN ROMANS 8

  Dave,

  You argue (comment #43 above) that the Spirit is “something God possesses” because he is the Spirit of God or the Spirit of the Father (in Romans 8:11, “the Spirit of him who raised Jesus from the dead”). Elsewhere you appear to assume that these references to God’s Spirit are analogous to references to the spirit of a human being; “my spirit” means the spirit that I possess, the spirit that belongs to me, and God’s Spirit is likewise the spirit that he possesses. In both cases, you appear to argue, the “spirit” is an attribute or aspect of that person, something that belongs to the person or characterizes that person.

  If this argument by analogy is correct, how can God give his spirit (or even some of his spirit) to others? How can, as you have argued, God pour out his spirit on people, send his spirit into the world to dwell in people, and so forth? We can’t do these things with our spirits. My spirit stays with me or I’m dead, and I can’t pour out my spirit on other people. The only response I think you could give to this question is that God can do things with his spirit that we can’t do with ours. I don’t deny that this is possible, but then it seems the analogy between God’s spirit and ours breaks down.

  Furthermore, the Holy Spirit is not only the Spirit of God; he is also the Spirit of Jesus Christ (Acts 16:6-7; Rom. 8:9-11; Phil. 1:19; 1 Peter 1:11-12). Here again, the analogy between a human being’s spirit and God’s Spirit breaks down. The problem is acute for the Unitarian position: if this is God’s personal spirit that he possesses (analogous to my personal spirit that I possess, that gives me life), how can it also be Christ’s spirit? Clearly, it cannot really be Christ’s spirit, yet Luke, Paul, and Peter all speak of the Holy Spirit as the Spirit of Jesus Christ. I stand by what I wrote above: The fact that the Spirit can be described in the same context as both “the Spirit of God” and “the Spirit of Christ” proves that “Spirit of God” does not mean the energy or power that belongs to and emanates from God’s being and that Christ supposedly “uses” as God gives it to him. Rather, the Holy Spirit can be called both the Spirit of God (the Father) and the Spirit of Christ (the Son) because he is the Spirit whose role it is in redemption to unite us to the Father and the Son.

  You also cite a number of places where “spirit” is followed by various genitives (“of truth,” “of slavery,” “of faith,” etc.) concluding that in these occurrences the word “spirit” denotes “aspects; attributes; inclinations; dispositions; reflections of the mind.”

  The Bible uses similar language, however, using the term “God.” Here are some examples of such parallel expressions:

  • The Spirit of truth (John 14:17; 15:26; 16:13; 1 John 4:6); the God of truth (Ps. 31:5; Isa. 65:16)
  • The Spirit of knowledge (Isa. 11:2); a God of knowledge (1 Sam. 2:3)
  • The Spirit of grace (Zech. 12:10; Heb. 10:29); the God of all grace (1 Peter 5:10)
  • The Spirit of glory (1 Peter 4:14); the God of glory (Ps. 29:3; Acts 7:2)

  A similar parallel can be drawn with regard to the use of “spirit” for a source of evil:

  • The spirit of the world (1 Cor. 2:12); the god of this world (2 Cor. 4:4)

  For those of us who accept the biblical teaching that Satan is a real being, we have no problem recognizing “the spirit of the world” to refer not just to an impersonal or abstract Zeitgeist but to the evil spirit that dominates the world in its anti-God attitudes and values.

  The grammatical gender of the pronouns used for the Holy Spirit is unimportant and irrelevant; my argument concerning this passage has nothing to do with whether we translate pronouns referring to the Spirit as “him” or “it.” Oddly, you brought up Romans 8:16 (you accidentally wrote 9:16), which I did not even mention. Meanwhile, you ignored the point I made regarding Romans 8:26-27 and 8:33-34, which was that Paul speaks in the same context of the Holy Spirit “interceding” from within us and of the Son, Jesus Christ, interceding for us from heaven. I wrote: That these are two distinct yet complementary acts or types of intercession is clear from how Paul describes each. The Spirit intercedes for us from within us, “with groaning too deep for words.” The Son, Christ Jesus, intercedes for us from “the right hand of God.” You completely ignored this point.
• Ed Kratz

  2010-06-07

  TRIADIC STATEMENTS IN PAUL AND 1 PETER

  Dave,

  You posted a flurry of six brief comments (#44 through #489 above) on the rest of the triadic texts that I discussed in my post. None of these comments engaged my arguments one bit!

  Your only objection to my treatment of 1 Corinthians 12:4-6 was the embarrassingly irrelevant objection that the passage is not an instance of Hebrew parallelism. I referred to “the deliberate parallelism of these three lines,” and you criticized this statement on the mistaken assumption that I was referring to Hebrew poetic parallelism. I could have said “the deliberately similar wording of these three lines” and my argument would have been the same. Thus, your criticism is completely off target. You ignored the entirety of the argument I presented, instead picking at this one word in a way that has nothing to do with the argument itself.

  You didn’t even pretend to address my argument concerning 2 Corinthians 13:14. Anyone reading my careful exegetical treatment of the text and then reading your careless dismissal will see that immediately.

  Your superficial comment on Galatians 4:4-6 likewise totally failed to engage the argument. Once again, you confused my reference to a “parallel” between what Paul says about the Son and the Spirit with Hebrew poetic parallelism.

  Ephesians 2:18-22 received an equally superficial comment from you. You made no attempt to engage the arguments I presented on this text, either. It is hardly arbitrary to point out that Paul uses an expression with reference to Christ (“in the Lord”) that the LXX uses uniformly with reference to Yahweh. Consistent with your comments in this part of the debate, you didn’t even acknowledge that specific argument, merely repeating your objection in general to identifying Jesus as Yahweh.

  I gave three specific exegetical arguments for my interpretation of Ephesians 4:4-6. You addressed none of those arguments. I gave three specific exegetical reasons for understanding Ephesians 5:18-21 to be treating Jesus Christ as the LORD Yahweh. You addressed none of those arguments, either. You had nothing of substance to say on these texts or on 1 Peter 1:2 (not 2:1, as you wrote) that in any way dealt with the argument I presented.

  The purpose of a rebuttal is to rebut the other debater’s specific arguments. You utterly failed to do so in these six comments.
• Fortigurn

  2010-06-07

  Rob, what your quote from Acts 2:33 shows is that for Peter ‘the Father’ and ‘God’ are synonymous. That is not what Trinitarians believe. You believe that the Father is God, but you believe God is ‘the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit’.

  The issue I took with your placing the phrase ‘God the Father’ in the mouth of Peter was that he never uses this phrase. The reason why you used it was becuase Trinitarian theology requires you to make this qualification.

  The compound ‘God the Father’ is not faithful to what Peter himself says, because the compound ‘God the Father’ is a Trinitarian device invented specifically to identify the Father as the first person of the Trinity. You are equivocating badly here, because you know you read this term ‘God-the-Father’. I am sure you would be among the first to acknowledge that Peter had no such conception of God.

  Peter does not use the compound term ‘God the Father’. He will say ‘God, the Father’, but he does not use the Trinitarian compound, which is not an apostolic term. You are equivocating badly when you claim that Peter’s use of ‘God, the Father’ means the same as the Trinitarian ‘God the Father’. You are explic

  The very fact that you replaced his words with your own in Acts shows that you know he didn’t use use that term, and that you needed him to.

  The point you are avoiding, which Trinitarian scholarship agrees on, is that for Peter ‘God’ was ‘the Father’. God was not ‘the Father, the son, and the Holy Spirit’. For Peter, there was one God, the Father. For Peter, God was one person, the Father.

  For you, God is ‘the Father, the son, and the Holy Spirit’. That’s precisely why you cannot accept Peter’s description of God, that’s why when Unitarians use this description you object to it, and that’s why when Unitarians preach what Peter preached before baptizing people you say we are wrong.
• Ed Kratz

  2010-06-07

  Fortigurn,

  You haven’t extricated yourself from the problem you created for your own position.

  Astonishingly, you claim that what Peter says in his epistles (and I assume you would have to say the same thing for Paul, John, and Jude) is not “God the Father” but “God, the Father,” as if this makes some big difference. Does this clear anything up? Not really. I do not know of a single translation of the Bible that ever renders the expression in this way (with the comma). Do you? And it really doesn’t make any difference. I am just as comfortable with “God, the Father” as with “God the Father.” It doesn’t matter to me.

  As I explained to Dave, the issue is not words but the substance, the ideas, those words express. Yes, the NT authors, when they spoke of “God” without qualification, normally were referring to the person of the Father. Likewise, when they spoke of “the Lord” without qualification, normally they were referring to the person of the Son. I have provided exegetical evidence supporting the conclusion that many, many NT scholars have reached that the NT frequently calls Jesus “Lord” in contexts where this term stands for the divine name YHWH. You can’t get around this evidence by appealing to the Bible’s routine use of “God” for the Father.

  Furthermore, I have shown that the NT does occasionally refer to Jesus Christ as “God” in contexts where this term must have its full sense of the God who created the world and is the sole proper object of religious devotion and service (notably in John 1:1 and 20:28). Peter does this himself in 2 Peter 1:1 (a text we did not get a chance to discuss in this debate).

  You still haven’t touched the substance of my argument in comment #132 above, to which you were supposedly responding. Until you do, I will consider your line of argument concerning “God, the Father” (!) an attempt to distract attention from the argument I presented.
• Fortigurn

  2010-06-07

  Rob,

  Yes, the NT authors, when they spoke of “God” without qualification, normally were referring to the person of the Father.

  Thank you, that was my point precisely. You replaced Peter’s ‘God’ the Trinitarian compound phrase ‘God-the-Father’. The Trinitarian compound phrase ‘God-the-Father’ was not used by the apostles. If it had been, you wouldn’t be forced to say that the Trinity is only implicit in the New Testament.

  Astonishingly, you claim that what Peter says in his epistles (and I assume you would have to say the same thing for Paul, John, and Jude) is not “God the Father” but “God, the Father,” as if this makes some big difference.

  It does make a difference Rob, and you know it does. You cannot say that God is the Father. I can.

  ‘Theologically it is correct to say that the Father is God, the Son is God, and the Holy Spirit is God. But these statements cannot be reversed.

  We cannot say God is the Father, because that would omit the Son and the Holy Spirit.’

  Fish, John H III, ‘God the Son’, Emmaus Journal Volume 12. 2003 (1) (34). Dubuque, IA: Emmaus Bible College.

  You should realize of course that I have no problem with divine titles being ascribed to a divine agent, so I have no problem with Jesus carrying the name ‘Yahweh’ just as the angel of the presence carried it, and just as Christ said he would write his Father’s name on his faithful followers (Revelation 3:12).

  You still haven’t touched the substance of my argument in comment #132 above, to which you were supposedly responding.

  To what else am I supposed to be responding? I certainly believe that God treated or publicly confirmed Jesus in his status as Lord and Christ. I took issue with you rephrasing Peter’s ‘God’ as ‘God the Father’.

  Did Peter believe God was the Father, or ‘the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit’?
• Fortigurn

  2010-06-07

  * 1 Corinthians 8:6 (KJV), ‘But to us there is but one God, the Father, of whom are all things, and we in him; and one Lord Jesus Christ, by whom are all things, and we by him.

  I’m fairly sure we all know that this is the standard translation of modern English Bibles. Do you really think that comma makes no difference? Is this really saying the same as ‘But to us there is but one God the Father’?

  Compare this:

  The one true God consists of three persons, the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit.

  Emmaus Journal Volume 12. 2003. Dubuque, IA: Emmaus Bible College

  With this:

  John 17:
  3 Now this is eternal life – that they know you, [one person, the Father] the only true God, and Jesus Christ, whom you [one person, the Father] sent.
• Able

  2010-06-10

  @ Rob

  You state that “I mean the aspect of orthodox Christian doctrine that affirms that the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit are three, and the only three, distinct persons who are God.”

  How does this statement fit with your idea of a “progressive revelation” of the identity of God?

  If God didn’t reveal his triunity until the New Testament then what is to stop us from contemplating the possiblity that he will in the future progressively reveal that he is in fact a quadunity or an octunity?
• Dave Basford

  2010-06-11

  Right at the beginning you stated Rob

  “Father is not the Son, the Son is not the Holy Spirit, and the Father is not the Holy Spirit, and the only theological position in the marketplace of ideas that is left is the doctrine of the Trinity.”

  As a programmer for a living we’ll see what you did in simpler terms
  F != S ( != means ‘is not equal to )
  S != HS
  F != S
  I’ll also a given
  F = G (for God) as we all agree with that statement

  therefore you state that it MUST be true that
  F = G
  S = G
  HS = G

  Stating that things that are not equal does not lead to all things being equal to something else just because one of them is.

  Both the statement and your apparent belief it is a natural and logical next step are neither logical, natural or factual.

  I’ve seen one or two points you made that stod up well against scrutiny but in summing up you’ve destroyed your credability totally with what you say is a statement of logic which is just the reverse.

Comments are closed.