Exactly.
There are just tons of texts in Jesus’s own words that indirectly refute the Trinity.
Too many to count.
And I have never heard an explanation from the texts that stood up under scrutiny.
You’re welcome.
I think you’re hijacking the thread and asking you to stop.
The intention is to use Jesus’s own words to make a case for the Trinity, if a case exists.
If it doesn’t in your view, please don’t jump in with unrelated points just to have someone to debate.
Please.
So many apparently that you are unable to post even a singe one. 
Well, no.
When you are presented with such explanations, you simply dismiss them as “a personal treatise on the Trinity and other things”, as though such explanations could be anything else. :rolleyes:
I think you are witnessing in a thread that is masquerading as a debate and asking you to stop.
I have pointed out no less than three times that Jesus said explicitly that he and God are one being, and that he is in God and God is in him. You clearly have no interest or ability to actual debate this issue, which is why you have to avoid even acknowldeging that direct quotation from the Bible.
The intention of this thread is to debate your claim that you had constructed an **overwhelming **refutation of the Trinity.
If you didn’t want to debate that claim, then you should concede that you have not constructed **overwhelming **refutation of the Trinity, as you claimed.
So start defending the claims you made and addressing the direct scriptural quotes that I have presented.
Please.
Blake’s energy is laudable but I think he’s injured the thread with this silly hijack.
I’m pleased to concede that you overwhelmed me with an eviscerating superior argument. I’m speechless.
For those who still want to talk, please re-read the OP. I ask you…
Did Jesus make an implicit or explicit case for the Trinity?
Can you show with concise cites?
I think raindog’s’s inability to defend his **overwhelming **refutation of the Trinity should be clear to all by now.
I’m pleased to accept his concession that I have refuted the argument in the OP. I hold little hope that it will actually render him speechless on this topic.
His attempt at witnessing is annoying but now that he has conceded i think we can get back to debating his claims.
For those who still want to talk, please re-read the OP. I ask you…
Is the OP really an **overwhelming **refutation of the Trinity, or is it an argument from ignorance coupled with a strawman mischaracterisation of the Trinity?
For the seventh time:
Why, oh why, do you refuse to acknowledge this direct quote from the man you claim to worship?
Of course we all know why. Because the first thing you are going to have to say is that Jesus’ words can’t be taken literally here. And that will lead people to ask the obvious question: why are Jesus’s words able to be interpreted literally when talking about the Father being superior or having a different will, but figuratively when he says that he and the father are one, with the Father in him and He in the Father.
How many Catholics does it take to change a light bulb?
Three – but, they’re really only one!
It looks to me as though you are trying to shape the debate’s outcome by putting unnecessary restrictions on others’ posts.
Blake has provided the words of Jesus recorded in the Gospel to make his point. That he has also provided additional information does not appear to be harmful to the debate and it will only become a hijack if you continue to point at it and cry “not allowed.”
You are perfectly free to ignore his posts, responding only to those of which you approve. You are not free to order other posters regarding the shape or structure of their posts.
Let it go.
[ /Moderating ]
Actually I don’t think he did, although it’s possible that in his lengthy diatribe I overlooked it.
But I agree, I’ll let it go. I didn’t order anyone. And, I will ignore his posts.
Thanks for the guidance.
And this, folks, is the Jehovah’s Witness debating tradition at its finest…
For the fifth time Raindog:
But hey, it’s so much easier to ignore inconvenient facts than to engage in debate.
Of course we all know why. Because the first thing you are going to have to say is that Jesus’ words can’t be taken literally here. And that will lead people to ask the obvious question: why are Jesus’s words able to be interpreted literally when talking about the Father being superior or having a different will, but figuratively when he says that he and the father are one, with the Father in him and He in the Father.
Translation - you would not be able to defend the Watchtower position - IF anyone cared to actually debate you on it - this was handled in less than 1/2 dozen posts a few years back quite easily.
The Watchtower position is ‘exhaustive’ because its wrong. The actual translation is quite simple to understand.
(Will post link to GD thread if anyone cares on this - but I will not otherwise engage in this discussion with raindog)
I think a comprehensive look at the Trinity would reveal that the Trinity likely started in the decades after Christ. (although codified in the Nicene Creed 3 1/2 centuries later)
Just exactly when, and by whom is an interesting discussion, I think. If it indeed did not come from the OT, nor Jesus---------and had this discussion continued I would have made the argument that it didn’t come from Peter, Paul & Co either-----than it would have revealed that the Trinity comes from a non-biblical source.
I think that that discussion; the historical record that shows that Christianity in the aftermath of Paul & Co was heavily influenced by pagan religions is well documented by biblical scholars and historians of all sorts. In that respect, the Trinity is similar to Christmas----a well intentioned Christian practice that isn’t just influenced by pagan beliefs/ practices, it was a pagan belief that was co-opted by elements of Christianity.
Fast forward a couple thousand years and we are blinded by a rich and poignant tradition and the the endemic ignorance that centuries of time tend to induce. There is no better example than “Elohim”; a word used to establish “unassailable proof”, a word that upon cursory review proves to be quite assailable. Really assailable.
At any rate, this thread was to be the second of four. At the outset, I made it clear that I would continue if there was interest. There doesn’t appear to be so I will not continue with the other threads.
Yes, please post the link. Thank you.
Thanks. I have terrible luck with this board’s search engine.
I will post this once as I think tomndebb’s advice was excellent and certainly applies to my impression of simster’s contribution to this thread.
I will say this however…On more than one occasion I found myself on the same side of an argument with DtC, a former, and well known atheist poster, who was reputed to be knowledgeable about the bible.
AFAIAC, either the OT, or Jesus mentioned the Trinity or not. Either there is a compelling argument for the Trinity or not. “Elohim” is “unassailable proof” of the Trinity or it is not.
In the first couple years I posted, the fact I was a JW was opaque. I never hid the fact, but because it wasn’t germaine to the discussion it never came up. After it became known, on more than a few occasions I offered----and posted----as an atheist.
I was able to do that because A) I wasn’t witnessing. (I never intentionally do that here, and to the extent it might seem that way it’s entirely incidental to the discussion at hand), and; B) If I’m not witnessing so it’s virtually never germaine to the discussion.
In fact, while I didn’t share the view that DtC was knowledgeable about the bible, I felt he was pretty good with history. I’d bet he would be intellectually dismissive of a biblical case for the Trinity for the exact reason I am. Imagine, a celebrated board atheist in bed with me.
It would be bad form and offensive for me to dismiss tomndebb because he’s a Catholic, Polycarp because he’s an Episcopalian, or Marley23 because he’s an atheist.
Either Jesus made a case for the Trinity or he did not. That discussion doesn’t require faith, and could be advanced just as easily by an atheist.
By ignoring the OP, and allowing the kind of nonsense in post #31 without some moderation you will continue to keep GD as intellectually anemic and incestuous as it’s become.
Two responses to this paragraph:
First, everything that is found only in the Christian New Testament could be regarded as “non-biblical” at the time it was written. The first canon was not compiled until around 150 with Marcion’s attempt to expunge all references to Judaism from Christianity by limiting the books that could be used for preaching to a limited number of writings. The church rejected his efforts, condemning him as a heretic, but even then the earliest effort of which we know to compile a canon that included both testaments was the Muratorian Canon from around 170 and Origen’s list from around 200. “The Scriptures” for the first decades of Christianity were the writings of Judaism. (There is further conflict in this matter, because Christianity, as it spread to the Gentiles, tended to use as their source the Septuagint (Greek translation), which differed in several places from the Hebrew scriptures. None of those differences, however, tend to bear on the question of the trinity.) The books that were eventually gathered into the New Testament canon were those chosen after they had been written and circulated among Christian community, much earlier than erroneous claims that they were chosen at Nicaea, but certainly not at the time they were written.) There are quite a few ideas that have remained with Christianity regardless that they do not appear in “the bible” however that is defined. Luther could proclaim “sola scriptura” to his heart’s content, but even he carried a few non-scriptural ideas in his theology.
Second, as has been pointed out in this thread and its companion, there are references in the New Testament that easily support a Three Person God with (given an association with the Father and Jesus throughout) several references to the Spirit, notably the Great Commission at the end of Matthew (naming all three members of the Trinity), in every one of the Baptism of Jesus narratives, and in John, chapters 7, 14, 15, 16, and 21.
There is no place in scripture where anyone makes a philosophical declaration that God is three persons in one God. However, with many declarations that there is only one God combined with multiple references to three persons as God, the groundwork was certainly laid in scripture from which that conclusion could be drawn.
AFAIK, no one has dismissed you because you’re a JW - but they have busted your arguments because they are poorly made - which may, in fact, be because you are a JW. The fact that you want to control the conversation so narrowly shows that you have no real interest in discussion EXCEPT to those that already agree with you.
Have a pleasant day.
The Tao that can be described meaningfully is not the eternal Tao.
I agree with you, but entertaining all of these ancillary items in a single thread would make have a comprehensive discussion all but impossible. There is probably a dozen worthy threads in your first paragraph alone.
So, in an effort to have a comprehensive discussion about the Bible and the Trinity, I’ve segregated 4 aspects of the discussions and listed them more than once in this and the initial thread. More than once.
So, asking “What did Jesus have to say about the Trinity”, doesn’t require the reader to be a Christian, Trinitarian, or anything else. It doesn’t require the reader to accept his veracity, nor assume his silence meant he wasn’t God.
It also doesn’t mean that it wouldn’t be found elsewhere in the NT, right? And, I said we’d consider the rest of the NT if there was interest.
So this thread simply asks if Jesus’s words support the Trinity.
Is that so hard?
I would have been pleased to investigate the rest of the NT cites in the thread dedicated to the NT.
Considering Trinitarians see Jesus as God, his words were worthy of special consideration. If you’d ,like to have a discussion and make that case, I’ll start that thread. But the kind of shrill ,off point arguments made by simster and blake make it unproductive.