I certainly congratulate Raindog is making his points against the Trinity. However, I do think Polycarp’s analysis takes the Biblical data more fully into account. If Raindog answered me before on this, I missed it, so again I ask- in the Bible, do we see Jesus either accepting or being rightly worshipped either by people in his time of Earth or by
angelic beings in Heaven?
IMHO the Holy Spirit has always been present equally within all people. Getting people to be aware of that and to seek that inner connection has been the purpose of any religion or spiritual quest. To become one in purpose, in mind and heart if you will, with this common spirit, the essence of our truest being we have to lose our illusion of separateness. Looking at mankind and religion in general, we see continued support for separateness. People look to their religious leaders to show them the way. That’s okay except that too many religious leaders also focus separateness, and dogma rather than teaching people to look within to find and follow their own connection.
When Jesus said, “I and my father are one” I think he meant “and so are you”
When he told the apostles that if he didn’t go the comforter would not come, I think he meant that as long as they looked to him, as long as they looked outside themselves, for the way, they would never truly find it.
It is interesting to ponder the mystery of how Jesus, God and the Holy Spirit and different and yet one. Personally I don’t see them as separate beings but they and we as part of a greater whole.
Our muscle cells are different from our bone cells, our blood cells, our brain cells, etc. Yet the essence of each cell , our DNA is the same. I think that’s a good analogy for mankind’s spiritual journey as well. We look differently, we act differently, we have different talents and functions, but our essence is the same.
How they are, and we are one seems much more relevant.
Reading this thread makes me glad my church is non-trinitarian. We do, though, believe in God the Father, Jesus the Christ, and the Holy Spirit.
Why are you glad? What are the benefits of believing in the three without embracing the Holy Trinity doctrine?
In a sense this agrees with my belief that We are all part of existence and there is nothing outside of existence.
My understanding of the 82d Psalm, and Jesus explaining his claim to divinity by using this Psalm, meant, we are a part of a greater whole, that is why he said being equal to God was not a thing to cling to. We should look for the(what we call divine) IN ALL PEOPLE.
I found that once I could see the reign of God in everything I became more compassionate and understanding of others and their beliefs.
Monavis
For one thing, I don’t have to try to figure out how the Father can be the Son.
I noticed that shift in myself as well. Once it became more than an intellectual exercise and the belief became a real part of how I feel about myself and others my interaction with people changed. It requires some constant maintenance. Day to day interaction challenges the belief. The other realization that helps is understanding that when troubles and unpleasant confrontations arise it is an opportunity to grow and understand something more about myself.
I see.
My guess is that every religion has plenty of confusing doctrines to figure out. Of course there’s always accepting them on faith without trying to have it make sense.
What does that have to do with the Trinity doctrine? The Trinity doctrine denies that the Father is the Son, but they are both aspects (a word I prefer to either “persons” or “modes”) of the One God. The doctrine that confuses the Father with the Son is modalism, which is almost only taught in Oneness Pentecostal churches.
Hello FriarTed.
My thoughts on the matter of the Trinity isn’t so much whether anyone should believe in the Trinity Doctrine, as much as whether it has a credible **biblical **basis or not.
That begs both the question[s] and debate[s] whether the bible should be be considered the exclusive arbiter on the subject, or whether non-biblical sources have any merit in the matter.
That will naturally lead us to consider whether the bible is the “Word of God” or not; and if it is, what that really means.
It seems plainly evident to me that the answers to those questions (and there are others) are revealed by how the Jews, and Christian Jews, wrote. lived and worshipped. In short, is there evidence to discern how the Israelites of Jacob’sday, as well as the followers of Christ, would have felt about those questions? In short, how did they view the written Laws that governed their lives?
That is upstream of the question of the Trinity, and a question that must be answered if in fact the Trinity Doctrine must rely on non-biblical sources [even if in part] to support the doctrine.
So, I must respectfully disagree—I believe Polycarp cited a couple texts, neither in great detail. The thrust of his arguments–to me anyway–are non-biblical.
I am out of town on work, and do not have a bible with me. (and work seems to get in the way of my play time) What I’d like to do is defer my answer to your question until I return.
I would like to answer it, if I may, by starting a thread (something I don’t believe I’ve ever done in GD) that speaks directly to the Trinity Doctrine and the Bible.
Is that cool?
Huh? The whole point of the Trinitarian doctrine is that there is one and only one god and that the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit are each equally and only that one god. They’re three persons in one, according to that doctrine.
Maybe you prefer aspect instead of person to refer to that doctrine, but that’s not the way it’s been described by TPTB.
That leads me to think God is a noun:Person, place, or thing. Since to exist there has to be a place in which to exist,so in my understanding there had to be a place before 'a" God could exist,other wise, where was God before place?
Monavis
The point is- the Trinity doctrine nowhere claims the Father is the Son and to assert that it does is erroneous, as erroneous as if I claimed your faith to be tritheistic.
I’d incline to the exact opposite view, monavis: God is not such that He can be bound by “where”, and before there could be “place”, there had to be God to conceive of what “place” could be.
That could be true,only if God and Place are the same thing. Because if God came before place he was nowhere!
Monavis
And I’d say that by the same token he would still be “nowhere” - because God did not need to conceive of “Place” as somewhere for Himself to be. But it’s not quite the same meaning that we put on the concept of “being nowhere” otherwise. 
Again, I wouldn’t envisage “God” and “Place” as the same thing - as per my previous post.
This all ties right back to (philosophical) Materialism. If, as is the case for most atheists and agnostics and probably most non-theistic humanists, you consider that “reality” equals “that which is matter or energy,” then there is no place for God in your scenario unless you interpret Him as something composed of matter and/or energy: the Universe; an overarching presence permeating the Universe; an entity existing in “Heaven,” a place somehow within the Universe; the Magic Sky Pixie; etc.
But in point of fact, space and time are the matrix within which matter and energy interact; they are defined by the existence of matter and energy. God, as conceived of by theologians trying to eschew anthropomorphism, is superior to, the creator of, ontologically prior to, space and time. Asking where God is in material-universe terms is akin to asking where specifically in the United States constitutional rights are located, or when a couple is in a close embrace where the love “between” them is located, if they are in fact touching.
As I tried to explain above, the term “Holy Spirit” is the convenient English translation for the the title of the Third Person of the Trinity – who does not have a name per se. All three Persons of God are spirit, all three are holy – but the term “Holy Spirit” is the title-used-as-name which references Person #3.
And the concept of the Trinity does defy normal human conception, as it is impossible for a human being (other than God and angels [presuming they exist] the only sentient entities we know of) to be simultaneously one Entity and three distinct Persons. Analogies to the three states of water (or any other physical substance), an actor playing three roles, a board of three persons speaking collectively, all fall short of the concept. Perhaps the closest we could come is someone with multiple personality disorder who has successfully integrated all three personalities into one entity and who can simultaneously be Joe, Fred, and Martha. And yes, that sounds paradoxical; we’ve admitted that since the day the concept was formulated, under the Greek term mysterion.
It is a concept that God is a supreme ‘being’, that would indicate that He is in existence, to be an entity one needs a place. Some call this place heaven. Either one exists or is non existent. If God has boundries it would indicate there was something else outside of God, that must have been there as long (or longer )than God.
The Old Testament says Moses saw God’s Back side, this would indicate that God had shape and was not as the wind that you can feel but not see.
Monavis
The way I heard it explained to me, over and over and over again as a youth in the Episcopal church, was that the Father, the Son, the Holy Ghost are the same god, the same deity. One god and only one god.
How that means that it’s not teaching that each one of them is the other is beyond me.
It’s pretty much meant to be beyond you - but please don’t take that personally; it’s meant to be beyond everyone.
The DoT describes something unusual - that’s the whole point - if you could fully understand how it (supposedly)works or simplify it, it just wouldn’t be what it is.