yBeayf, not yBeafy
Sorry…
I think there’s some confusion about what I was trying to get across in my OP. I wasn’t trying to question the trinity, or argue for the duality, I phrased it wrongly.
I was trying to say that I see two things in christianity, and I’d never really experienced anything about the third (the spirit) even in church. But the last time I went to a sunday sermon is along time ago.
Obviously there’s a big debate about the trinity as has been seen in this thread. What I really should have done is created a thread in GQ called “What is the Holy Spirit?”
That was more of what I was curious about and Polycarp answered.
That’s not entirely true. Richard Rolle had made a prose translation of much of the Hebrew Bible (Old Testament) before Wyclif, and there also had been English translations of the Epistles and the Book of Matthew before Wyclif. Also, the Augustinian friar Orm had written a poetical exegesis of parts of the Gospels.
I cordially invite you to attend a service at your local Assembly of God. 
Perhaps I wasn’t entirely clear. I didn’t say that English translations were unheard of. Not did I say that Tyndale was the first to endeavor to translate the bible into the language of the common people.
My point was that believers in Tyndale’s England had to get their “truth” spoon fed to them from their Church in a [dying] language that most couldn’t read. Tyndale needed to seek permission from the Bishop (Tunstall) because an agreement in 1408 (The Constitutions of Oxford) banned translating or even reading the bible in the vernacular.
Those who defied that ban (The Lollards) and distributed Wycliffe’s bible were burned as heretics. Ultimately Tyndale himself was strangled and his body publicly burned. Wycliffe himself died a natural death, but lived in constant risk most of his life because of his work. Some years after his death his body was disinterred and burned.
You are right in asserting that English bibles existed before Tyndale. My point however, was that in Tyndale’s time (and those who preceded him including Rolle and Wycliffe) the bible was not in widespread use among the common people in their own language; and that the church insisted in keeping the bible close to the clergy in Latin. Further, for many who dared to procure or read the bible in their native tongue did so at great personal risk.
The thrust of my point is that, unlike Tyndale, we live in a time of great freedom and that the bible is readily available to virtually the whole world in their native tongue. (with very few exceptions)
yBeayf and I apparently disagree as to how the Church fits into our faith and relationship with God. (Which she has explained well and I respect) It is my view that ultimately we will stand alone before God. To that end, it is incumbent of us to search the scrpitures to see if the church is teaching us from the scrpitures, or whether it is a man-made tradition.
That means reading the bible.
If I ask my priest to show me where God is a trinity, and he responds “Because we’re the Church”(**) or; “We have 20 centuries of tradition backing us up” I would find that insufficient. My relationship with God is a personal one (As I’m sure it is for Polycarp and yBeayf) and I’m quite willing for the Church to lead me or teach me. But they must be speaking from God’s Word, not King James, Constantine, Aristoltle, Pope John Paul or Charles Dickens.
(** I am not suggesting that yBeayf aproaches her faith in this manner. I’m simply stating that I am much less likely to accept the church’s credentials based on longevity or tradition)
Ahem… I am quite male, thanks. 
First I spell your name wrong, and now I even get your sex wrong.
My humble apologies!
(I was speaking from memory of other threads. It looks like I confused you with another poster. Once again, I’m sorry)
Right, but the Constitutions of Oxford were issued as a response to Wyclif and the Lollards. And Wyclif got in trouble, not so much because he published the bible in English, but because he denied papal authority and transubstantiation, said that the bible was the only authority for Christian belief, and that it was wrong for clergy to hold property.
I think that if he had stuck to the translation, and not held (or at least, not made public), his beliefs, the translation would have gotten a much better reception than it had gotten.
And you’re right, the bible wasn’t in widespread use among the common people (and literacy wasn’t all that common, although it was increasing). That was due less, though, to some decision from above, and more due to the high cost of books, since everything had to be hand copied. One of the reasons Luther succeeded while Wyclif failed was due to the printing press, which allowed books (including bibles) and pamphlets to be printed quickly and cheaply, and made literacy possible and pracitcal for a wider number of people.
agreed.
At the risk of being a spoilsport, I want to return to the OP and insert some facts into the debate. The historical record shows clearly that there was a development over time of the concept of God in Christianity. The term"trinity" was first used by Tertullian (160-220 AD). This was a time of considerable debate in Christian circles over the nature of Jesus and his relation to God.
Justin (100-165 AD), one of the earliest post-NT writers we have, has this to say:
“…we confess the most true God…we honor and worship him and the Son who came from himand taught us these things, and the army of good angels who follow and resemble him, and the prophetic Spirit.” (Apology 1.6.2, cited in R. M. Grant, Gods and the One God) Grant asks “What is the army of good angels doing here? Apparently the Spirit is less significant than this army.”
There is a startling record of Origen (185-254 AD), a great and influential early church leader who is considered one of the “church fathers”, examining one Heracleides (cited in R. Doran, Birth of a Worldview):
Origen: … Is the Father God?
Heracleides: Certainly.
O: Is the Son other than the Father?
H: How can he be Son if he is also Father?
O: The Son, while he is other than the Father, is he himself God?
H: He himself is also God.
O: And do two Gods become one?
H: Yes.
O: Do we confess two Gods.
H: Yes. The power is one.
O: But since our bretheren are shocked if one says that there are two Gods, we must pay careful attention to what we say, and show in what way there are two and in what respect the two are one God…
Note that in this discussion (and in the rest of what Doran cites, which is more than I typed here) there is no mention of the Holy Spirit as a 3rd person or entity. The whole debate is “one God or two?”
The early creeds have little to say about the Holy Spirit. The Nicene Creed (325 AD) only says “We believe… in the Holy Spirit.” Period. The same creed discusses Jesus and his relation to God in some detail, specifying both what can be said and what cannot about their relationship. But about the Spirit, nada.
There was an amazing variety of beliefs during the 2nd, 3rd, and 4th centuries. Some Christians believed Jesus was only an aspect or manifestation of God. Others considered him a human, not divine, but more of a prophet. (A case can be made that this was the original belief of Jesus-followers, and Paul and others began the trend toward more exalted views of Jesus.) Still others believed in a Trinity of Father, Mother, and Son. Helmut Koester, in * Intro. to the NT vol. 2 *, says that early Christianity “utterly lacked unity”.
OTOH, baptism “in the name of the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit” seems to have been a very early tradition. Early Christians don’t seem to have felt the need to define the relationships among the three. It was only in later centuries, when church leaders tried to be more specific, that argument broke out and official doctrine was created. The 4th century was a time of vigorous debate that not infrequently led to bloody riots in the streets, and of church councils that came to conflicting resolutions about the nature of Jesus.
In spite of the impressive list of quotations the raindog provided, there is really no reason to connect the Trinitarian doctrine with any specific pagan beliefs. The primary pagan belief that influenced Christian theology was the philosophers’ view of God as omnipotent, omniscient, and (especially) impassible (meaning unchanging and unaffected by anything). The last was particularly a difficulty: how could Jesus be God and yet suffer on the cross? The idea of one God, three Persons was, to a large extent, an attempt to answer this question.