ECT Our triune God

[Nihilo]

If you merely take the Didache, not as authoritative (i.e., the Didache is not Scripture) concerning faith, doctrine and morals, but as authoritatively representative of what the earliest Church believed and taught, then you would take the Trinity as the "null hypothesis," to borrow a term from statistics (that is frequently misapplied by atheists, but that's another topic), and the evidence against the null hypothesis must rise above all the evidence that is---given the null hypothesis---clearly in support of it. This amounts to a conspiracy theory in the case of the Trinity, that the earliest Church, the Church founded upon the Apostles, had already been utterly destroyed through a massive error in doctrine, by the end of the first century (when the Didache was written). Conspiracy theories aren't ipso facto false, but their defenders have a tremendously high burden of proof to meet in order to overthrow or deny the null hypothesis of the Trinity.

If you can get your mind around the fact that the earliest Church was literally built upon the Apostles of our Lord, and that they busily set about building her up to what she was when the last of the Apostles departed bodily, then you simply can't accept that she was already ruined, and in a fundamental way. To believe and teach the utterly wrong thing about the nature of God is a fatal error for the Church.

I don't believe the Church was stillborn when John died. Therefore, the Trinity.

 

[fzappa13]

.08 PPD ... are you an Ent?

 

[Nihilo]

.08 PPD ... are you an Ent?

I cracked the first part of your code but the second part stumped me.

 

[fzappa13]

I cracked the first part of your code but the second part stumped me.

Lord of the Rings.

 

[Nihilo]

Lord of the Rings.

Yes. I am an Ent.

 

[PneumaPsucheSoma]

Musterion posted this in another thread and I thought it could help one quickly see the Biblical presentation of the Triune view

This presupposes Father, Son, and Holy Spirit are individuated hypostases without exegesis or lexicography, though.

 

[Lon]

This presupposes Father, Son, and Holy Spirit are individuated hypostases without exegesis or lexicography, though.

It is meant rather to substantiate a Trinitarian view as viable. It isn't definitive, I'd agree on that point, it simply opens the biblical support of the triune view and as such, I think it usable and worth the time in brief.

 

[fzappa13]

Yes. I am an Ent.

The accent was a dead give-away. :chuckle:

 

[PneumaPsucheSoma]

It is meant rather to substantiate a Trinitarian view as viable. It isn't definitive, I'd agree on that point, it simply opens the biblical support of the triune view and as such, I think it usable and worth the time in brief.

I understand; but the problem is the English word "person/s", which too readily engenders a multiple-being conceptualization that is either embraced or rejected.

If the minutiae of the historical Trinity doctrine were understood and taught, there would be fewer Arians and Unitarians to reject the eternal, uncreated, ontological Deity of Christ because it would not be misrepresented by modern bunglers who don't know their own professed doctrine.

Too many professing Trinitarians are functional Tritheists or Modalists to convince those who deny the deity of Christ to promote Monotheism.

A hypostasis is not a "person" in English parlance for translation. Faith is the hypostasis of things hoped for...

It's maddening futility from both sides. Something must change in how these arguments transpire. Non-/anti-Trinitarians are not being convinced, whether by men or the Spirit.

 

[Lon]

I understand; but the problem is the English word "person/s", which too readily engenders a multiple-being conceptualization that is either embraced or rejected.
....

It's maddening futility from both sides.

Hence this thread, which I hope has been a refuge for you to hammer out the matter, and serves. I'd likely concede a few of your concerns, but again, I see this thread as a testament that Modalists and Unit-arians should read and digest. I'd like to see a few other Theology proper threads go this kind of distance and effort. I will try to catch up on my thank you's in this thread.

 

[Nihilo]

Spoiler

If you merely take the Didache, not as authoritative (i.e., the Didache is not Scripture) concerning faith, doctrine and morals, but as authoritatively representative of what the earliest Church believed and taught, then you would take the Trinity as the "null hypothesis," to borrow a term from statistics (that is frequently misapplied by atheists, but that's another topic), and the evidence against the null hypothesis must rise above all the evidence that is---given the null hypothesis---clearly in support of it. This amounts to a conspiracy theory in the case of the Trinity, that the earliest Church, the Church founded upon the Apostles, had already been utterly destroyed through a massive error in doctrine, by the end of the first century (when the Didache was written). Conspiracy theories aren't ipso facto false, but their defenders have a tremendously high burden of proof to meet in order to overthrow or deny the null hypothesis of the Trinity.

If you can get your mind around the fact that the earliest Church was literally built upon the Apostles of our Lord, and that they busily set about building her up to what she was when the last of the Apostles departed bodily, then you simply can't accept that she was already ruined, and in a fundamental way. To believe and teach the utterly wrong thing about the nature of God is a fatal error for the Church.

I don't believe the Church was stillborn when John died. Therefore, the Trinity.

And so, if we can just accept that the Didache is not authoritative in what it taught (it is not Scripture (nor has the Church ever thought that it was),("didache" contains the same root word from which we get the derived English words "didactive" and "autodidact"), and it is not ex cathedra infallible papal teaching), but that it is a type of "newspaper of record" concerning what the Church actually believed and taught before the close of the first century, then we are not limited to what the Scripture itself taught on the Trinity. We can investigate what the Church actually believed, through similar "newspapers of record" because whatever the Scripture teaches about the Trinity, it is that the Church actually believed the Trinity that is the important point, in a way, and not that the Scripture teaches or does not teach the Trinity.

Thought experiment: What would we do if there really were very little Scriptural support for the Trinity, as all variations of Arians profess, and yet the Didache and other "newspapers of record" show definitively and unequivocally that the Church did believe and teach the Trinity anyway?

For Protestants I believe this poses a problem. For those of us who accept Apostolic succession (Holy Orders) and especially Apostolic Tradition (Sacred Tradition), there is no problem, because everything that our Magisterium teaches infallibly was previously a hidden part of Sacred Tradition, which from the very beginning was oral and not written. We receive the trivial reality that the Apostles said more than is preserved in the New Testament, and they especially said those things to their successors, the bishops (e.g. 1st Timothy 5:22), and at various times throughout history, they (the Magisterium) have seen fit to reveal some of that Tradition openly, for the sake of the faith of the Church and for no other reason.

The "development" of the doctrine of the Trinity is one of those things. This is what we who accept Holy Orders and Sacred Tradition would think if my thought experiment above were the case (and it is clearly not the case). IOW, there would be zero difference between what I would believe about the Trinity if that were the case, because I believe in Holy Orders and in Sacred Tradition, because I believe that the Church is founded upon, in a very real, palpable way, the actual hand-picked Apostles of our Lord Jesus Christ.

 

[PneumaPsucheSoma]

Hence this thread, which I hope has been a refuge for you to hammer out the matter, and serves. I'd likely concede a few of your concerns, but again, I see this thread as a testament that Modalists and Unit-arians should read and digest. I'd like to see a few other Theology proper threads go this kind of distance and effort. I will try to catch up on my thank you's in this thread.

Yes, it's been a fruitful thread, in spite of the Arians and Unitarians.

 

[1Mind1Spirit]

Yes, it's been a fruitful thread, in spite of the Arians and Unitarians.

As well as in spite of the trin it Arians.

 

[PneumaPsucheSoma]

As well as in spite of the trin it Arians.

Though many are functional Tritheists, the denial of the eternal uncreated divine Logos being the Son is by far the greater doctrinal atrocity.

 

[fzappa13]

And so, if we can just accept that the Didache is not authoritative in what it taught (it is not Scripture (nor has the Church ever thought that it was),("didache" contains the same root word from which we get the derived English words "didactive" and "autodidact"), and it is not ex cathedra infallible papal teaching), but that it is a type of "newspaper of record" concerning what the Church actually believed and taught before the close of the first century, then we are not limited to what the Scripture itself taught on the Trinity. We can investigate what the Church actually believed, through similar "newspapers of record" because whatever the Scripture teaches about the Trinity, it is that the Church actually believed the Trinity that is the important point, in a way, and not that the Scripture teaches or does not teach the Trinity.

Thought experiment: What would we do if there really were very little Scriptural support for the Trinity, as all variations of Arians profess, and yet the Didache and other "newspapers of record" show definitively and unequivocally that the Church did believe and teach the Trinity anyway?

For Protestants I believe this poses a problem. For those of us who accept Apostolic succession (Holy Orders) and especially Apostolic Tradition (Sacred Tradition), there is no problem, because everything that our Magisterium teaches infallibly was previously a hidden part of Sacred Tradition, which from the very beginning was oral and not written. We receive the trivial reality that the Apostles said more than is preserved in the New Testament, and they especially said those things to their successors, the bishops (e.g. 1st Timothy 5:22), and at various times throughout history, they (the Magisterium) have seen fit to reveal some of that Tradition openly, for the sake of the faith of the Church and for no other reason.

The "development" of the doctrine of the Trinity is one of those things. This is what we who accept Holy Orders and Sacred Tradition would think if my thought experiment above were the case (and it is clearly not the case). IOW, there would be zero difference between what I would believe about the Trinity if that were the case, because I believe in Holy Orders and in Sacred Tradition, because I believe that the Church is founded upon, in a very real, palpable way, the actual hand-picked Apostles of our Lord Jesus Christ.

I have some appreciation of your term "newspaper of record" as it concerns extra-biblical offerings concerning said tome. Folks often append them to their Bible and consider them one in the same and, though said offerings may or may not be of merit, one should be careful not to confuse the two.

 

[Lon]

John 1:18; 6:46 - Exodus 33:20 - God

Then Nikolai:

... whatever Moses saw, the implication is that he didn't see God as He was in uncovered and full form. I John 3:2 says "[we will] see Him as He is". Clearly, Jesus (as He appeared on earth) was not God as He is.
...Paul expounds on God's form in his letter to the Philippians:

Let this mind be in you, which was also in Christ Jesus:
Who, being in the form of God, thought it not robbery to be equal with God:
But made himself of no reputation, and took upon him the form of a servant, and was made in the likeness of men:
Philippians 2:5-7

So Jesus changed "form". To look on the flesh was not to look on God in His form (as Jesus was saying in John 5:37).

 

[PneumaPsucheSoma]

Then Nikolai:

It would really help to undertake an excursus of the terms morphe and schema for those who deny the eternal uncreated divinity of the Son.

 

[Krsto]

If you merely take the Didache, not as authoritative (i.e., the Didache is not Scripture) concerning faith, doctrine and morals, but as authoritatively representative of what the earliest Church believed and taught, then you would take the Trinity as the "null hypothesis," to borrow a term from statistics (that is frequently misapplied by atheists, but that's another topic), and the evidence against the null hypothesis must rise above all the evidence that is---given the null hypothesis---clearly in support of it. This amounts to a conspiracy theory in the case of the Trinity, that the earliest Church, the Church founded upon the Apostles, had already been utterly destroyed through a massive error in doctrine, by the end of the first century (when the Didache was written). Conspiracy theories aren't ipso facto false, but their defenders have a tremendously high burden of proof to meet in order to overthrow or deny the null hypothesis of the Trinity.

If you can get your mind around the fact that the earliest Church was literally built upon the Apostles of our Lord, and that they busily set about building her up to what she was when the last of the Apostles departed bodily, then you simply can't accept that she was already ruined, and in a fundamental way. To believe and teach the utterly wrong thing about the nature of God is a fatal error for the Church.

I don't believe the Church was stillborn when John died. Therefore, the Trinity.

Since I've been out for a couple years I started at the end and am going back in time so I don't know how far I have to go to get the rest of this conversation so I'll just ask this: Do you see something in the Didache to validate the oft repeated myth that the Apostolic Fathers were Trinitarians?

 

[Krsto]

But Modalists will just superficially claim that Jesus is God (the Father) "in work clothes", or whatever. Even Unitarians will have some fabricated and convoluted inference to purport; especially those of JW ilk.

God working through the agency of a man, who, btw, said he can do nothing of himself, and that he is not good (only God is good), and therefor one could say either God or the man did it, is pretty straightforward. Let me give you an example of the same sort of "giving credit where credit isn't due". In a couple of places in Acts it is said that the apostles healed people. You and I know that apostles can't heal people. Only God can. We also all know that if God delegates that power or ability to a human then it's not "inappropriate" to say the man healed, even though, technically, he didn't. I think we make the mistake of taking biblical narratives as being "technically true" when they are not. Apostles and other scripture writers use language just as contrary to "technical truth" as anyone else. In fact, the nerds or grammar Nazis we have in our midst who always insist we speak 100% accurately at all times we find to be annoying and out of touch with how language is used. To make something of "Go and tell them what God has done" is quite the exercise in nerdishness, I must say, and sites like TOL attract a fair share of them (myself included).

 

[Krsto]

BTW PPS, how have things been going? Nice to see you still on this board.