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Author Topic:   Is the Bible the inerrant word of God? Or is it the words of men?
Faith 
Suspended Member (Idle past 1444 days)
Posts: 35298
From: Nevada, USA
Joined: 10-06-2001


Message 240 of 2241 (738557)
10-11-2014 10:09 PM
Reply to: Message 238 by Modulous
10-11-2014 10:03 PM


Re: 3 in one
No analogy is perfect.
You tried to show that the Trinity is illogical as cause to dismiss it because you think it should be logical.

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 Message 238 by Modulous, posted 10-11-2014 10:03 PM Modulous has replied

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Faith 
Suspended Member (Idle past 1444 days)
Posts: 35298
From: Nevada, USA
Joined: 10-06-2001


Message 242 of 2241 (738560)
10-11-2014 10:56 PM
Reply to: Message 225 by Faith
10-11-2014 3:56 PM


Re: Truth?
Need to answer my own post here: Elizabeth I did persecute Puritans and I should have noted that, so there was reason for James I to object to her policies as against religious tolerance. With respect to Catholics, however, she was quite right to execute them for treason, which as I said had nothing to do with their religious belief.
Also, as jar said, James I did show a very tolerant spirit when he told the people not to take revenge on Catholics for the Gunpowder plot on his life.

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Faith 
Suspended Member (Idle past 1444 days)
Posts: 35298
From: Nevada, USA
Joined: 10-06-2001


Message 244 of 2241 (738562)
10-11-2014 11:24 PM
Reply to: Message 243 by Modulous
10-11-2014 11:14 PM


Re: logic
OK you were just pointing out that the diagram is illogical just to point it out that it is illogical and not to imply anything about the validity of the Trinity. OK.

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Faith 
Suspended Member (Idle past 1444 days)
Posts: 35298
From: Nevada, USA
Joined: 10-06-2001


Message 248 of 2241 (738578)
10-12-2014 2:39 PM
Reply to: Message 247 by jar
10-12-2014 9:05 AM


Re: Truth?
The Bible existed as more or less a specific collection of scriptures long before it was canonized, and all the scriptures on which the Trinity is based were there.

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 Message 247 by jar, posted 10-12-2014 9:05 AM jar has replied

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Faith 
Suspended Member (Idle past 1444 days)
Posts: 35298
From: Nevada, USA
Joined: 10-06-2001


Message 249 of 2241 (738579)
10-12-2014 2:46 PM
Reply to: Message 246 by Percy
10-12-2014 8:48 AM


Re: 3 in one
The mere existence of these other interpretations testifies that there is no one, right and true theology
Very odd logic there. False religions, cults, the ponderings of single individuals with an axe to grind all interpreting the Bible for themselves, against the long history of the understanding of the best of the best being validated by hundreds of churches before it's made dogma, all that testifies that there is no one right and true theology? The devil pokes a few unstable people in the ribs and says "invent a religion" and that's all it takes to defeat the true religion. Unfortunately that is exactly what has happened, you got that right.

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Replies to this message:
 Message 251 by dwise1, posted 10-12-2014 6:00 PM Faith has replied
 Message 276 by Percy, posted 10-13-2014 9:19 AM Faith has replied
 Message 277 by New Cat's Eye, posted 10-13-2014 9:37 AM Faith has not replied

  
Faith 
Suspended Member (Idle past 1444 days)
Posts: 35298
From: Nevada, USA
Joined: 10-06-2001


Message 255 of 2241 (738591)
10-12-2014 7:14 PM
Reply to: Message 250 by jar
10-12-2014 4:09 PM


Re: Truth?
The Bible existed as more or less a specific collection of scriptures long before it was canonized, and all the scriptures on which the Trinity is based were there.
Actually no Faith. That is simply bullshit. If that were the case there would be some uniformity between the different Canons.
Most of the early churches possessed the same collection of New Testament books, plus as arach points out, the Old Testament at least in part but perhaps in whole. What "uniformity" are you talking about? Even different collections of the canon, different from the Protestant now let's say, contain most of the same books, and these differences belong to out-of-the-way churches too; the mainstream of European churches would have had the same collection of books.
The Gospels, the Acts, the Letters of Paul, Peter, John, Jude, James and John. What differences are you talking about? If a church only had one or two of the gospels and a few of the letters of any of the apostles, and the Torah, they had enough for an orthodox understanding of the faith if not the complete doctrine of the Trinity, but there is no reason any of the churches would have been so impoverished for long that I know of.
Before any Canons there was simply a jumble of different, individual scriptural scrolls.
Why a jumble? The gospels were copied and sent to the churches, then the letters of the apostles as well, why would there be a jumble? I don't know if anybody knows the exact history of any of this, we're speculating about what happened, but a jumble makes no sense when we're talking about the inspired words of God being sent to men who would treasure them. All the churches would know ABOUT what books were circulating even if they might have had to wait a while to get a copy of their own of some of them. They didn't have the internet or even telephones or telegraph, but they weren't without communication.
Yes, the concept of the Trinity existed before the Bible as I pointed put ...
You keep insisting on this absolute nonsense. The Trinity could not possibly have existed before the scripture verses from which it is derived. For one thing although there are pagan trinities of gods there is no concept like the Biblical Trinity that could have existed before the Bible. It is unique. The early Church fathers had an immense love for the scriptures and with some exceptions rejected everything pagan, wrote arguments against pagan ideas as against Judaism as well.
... and yes, the concept of the Trinity was supported by cherry picking verses from different scriptural scrolls just as those opposing the Trinitarian concept supported their position by cherry picking verses from different scriptural scrolls.
If the verses are cherry-picked, that huge long list of them, you ought to be able to show us where they are belied by the context or by other verses. The verses that show the Trinity emphasize over and over again that God is One, then also show that each of the Three Persons has all the attributes of God and act independently of one another. What other verses could possibly be mustered against this picture taken as a whole?
That has absolutely nothing to do with whether the concept of the Trinity is reasonable or logical. It's not.
Nor have I claimed it is or make it part of this particular discussion. It is utterly counterintuitive, which is one reason it couldn't have been modeled on any of the pagan trinities.

This message is a reply to:
 Message 250 by jar, posted 10-12-2014 4:09 PM jar has replied

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 Message 258 by jar, posted 10-12-2014 8:50 PM Faith has replied

  
Faith 
Suspended Member (Idle past 1444 days)
Posts: 35298
From: Nevada, USA
Joined: 10-06-2001


Message 256 of 2241 (738592)
10-12-2014 7:20 PM
Reply to: Message 254 by arachnophilia
10-12-2014 6:57 PM


Re: 3 in one
Yes, I have a relative who is Oneness Pentecostal and just as stubborn as anyone here about rejecting the Trinity. He believes Jesus is God at least so I hope for his salvation.
I don't see that analogy as representing modalism, though, if that's what you are saying. It is merely imperfect as a representation of the Trinity, and one could even say that the sun's light is the sun's light and no other light, and sun's heat the sun's heat and so on to patch it up a bit. But I'd prefer to go back to Patrick's three-leafed clover which is clearly one clover made up of three clover lobes.
Edited by Faith, : No reason given.

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Faith 
Suspended Member (Idle past 1444 days)
Posts: 35298
From: Nevada, USA
Joined: 10-06-2001


Message 257 of 2241 (738594)
10-12-2014 8:14 PM
Reply to: Message 251 by dwise1
10-12-2014 6:00 PM


Re: 3 in one
Very odd logic there. False religions, cults, the ponderings of single individuals with an axe to grind all interpreting the Bible for themselves, against the long history of the understanding of the best of the best being validated by hundreds of churches before it's made dogma, all that testifies that there is no one right and true theology? The devil pokes a few unstable people in the ribs and says "invent a religion" and that's all it takes to defeat the true religion. Unfortunately that is exactly what has happened, you got that right.
Yes, that's right. You have described Christianity to a "T". So what's your point? That somehow your own cult is different from the rest?
Mainstream Doctrinal Christianity is what I'm defending, no cult, and I'm sure you know that. It has the long history I mention next, of doctrine hammered out, principally in the earliest centuries but it endured down to the Reformation and beyond.
... the long history of the understanding of the best of the best being validated by hundreds of churches before it's made dogma, ...
When did that ever happen? The history of all Protestant churches...
My focus is on the hammering out of doctrine against various heresies that was the main work of the Church fathers of the earliest centuries, that was validated by other church leaders and by various Councils made up of the leaders of the other churches. They laid the groundwork which the Protestant Reformers later made use of.
...The history of all Protestant churches (bar perhaps a few possible exceptions, none of which I'm aware of) is that they split off from another church for any number of reasons, including disagreement over some doctrinal point.
Have you read any of the Reformers? Spent any time on Luther or Calvin? You sound utterly ignorant of the true causes for the Reformation and the struggles Luther in particular went through before he understood the doctrines he eventually embraced. The reason for splitting from the Roman Church was originally what he perceived to be violations of basic doctrine, which he enumerated in his 95 Theses, predominantly the selling of Indulgences to get people out of Purgatory which was nothing but fleecing the flock with a false promise since you can't buy your way out of eternal punishment. Luther was sure the Pope would agree with him but the Pope rejected his arguments and eventually excommunicated him. That came as quite a shock to faithful Luther, and as he continued to develop his understanding of scripture and discovered that the RCC taught a false view of salvation he began to understand that the papacy was the actual Antichrist described in the scriptures. It took some time before he was able to see that the whole institution was rotten. He'd had no desire to break with it at all, but the reactions of the papacy showed him that the corruptions were far deeper than he'd had any idea.
You seem to have a very sour version of Revisionist history about the Reformers.
You have quite an imagination. The Reformation took more time to develop than you seem to have any notion of for one thing, and other priests were also leaving the RCC in those years having discovered its false doctrine of salvation. In the exposition of the scripture passages about salvation, particularly the letters to the Romans and Galatians, Luther taught the truth to his church that the RCC had suppressed, the truth of salvation by faith in Christ alone without works, without all the ridiculous and sublime works that had been imposed on the people by the RCC, from absurd penances to indulgences. And that truth of salvation by faith alone through God's grace alone without works became the basis for the entire Reformation as it was the pivotal point of the RCC's apostasy that all the Reformers came to recognize.
Even in the first few centuries of Christian history, congregations formed and split and generated a plethora of different forms of Christian doctrine, each with its own copy of "Scripture" that supported its own doctrine.
Stuff and nonsense. What history are you reading for this absurd idea? Are you conflating one or two examples into hundreds or what?
And out of that mess one religion was formed by committee,
What you keep disingenuously referring to as a "committee" was a convention of the leaders of all the churches who sat to hear arguments about important theological questions and arrived at a judgment of their truth based on scripture.
one which was held together by force
I have no idea what you are talking about. The church leaders would have gone back to their churches and taught the doctrines from scripture, where's the force?
Rome was certainly prone to use force in many ways for many objectives, but to enforce the doctrines of the Councils? Where and when? And again, the Bishop of Rome had no power over any of the churches but his own until 606 AD, when Emperor Phocas conferred on him primacy over the other bishops, and then he had to fight to maintain and accumulate more power after that, including by making use of forged documents that convinced the poor illiterate people of his right to rule them. So what ARE you talking about?
Again I had the earliest developments of doctrine in mind that were validated by the many churches through the Councils. You are now skipping centuries, during which the RCC grew in power and persecuted and martyred millions of Bible believers among others until the Reformation came along and dampened their murderous inclinations. There was no splintering going on at all in those years, just the RCC murdering anybody who thought differently from its pagan superstitious utterly nonChristian dogmas, most especially those who had the effrontery to translate the scriptures into the languages of the poor people that Rome was exploiting in its endless grab for wealth and power..
Luther was an Augustinian Monk. Augustine himself had spelled out the doctrines of salvation by grace years before and Luther was able finally to make use of his work as he bit by bit saw through the deceptions of the Roman Church. He also came to recognize that the dissenting groups that had been outside the RCC for centuries, that the RCC had persecuted, murdered and martyred, such as the Waldensians, had faithfully held to the doctrine of salvation by faith from the earliest times.
Your view of a jumble of doctrines is simply false. There are basically the two, salvation by a complex pagan nightmare of ridiculous and blasphemous works, and salvation by God's grace through faith alone. The latter had been lost to Romanism as it fell away from the Bible and resumed the trappings and practices of the old pagan priesthood of Rome, though it, the true gospel, continued to exist in the dissenting groups, and it also existed in the earliest teachings and very clearly in the scriptures themselves despite the accretions of Romanist nonsense.
Only the Roman Catholic and Orthodox churches had any opportunity to conduct that long process of "validation by hundreds of churches before it's made dogma", but even there the dogma was established from the start.
Even during the development of the power center of Rome there were faithful churches and faithful pastors who were apart from its deceits and taught true doctrine which informed the basic theology of the churches down the centuries. There were no doubt also many simple Catholics, principally from those faithful churches, who knew nothing of the theological nightmare of Rome and who had a sincere love of Christ based on what bits of the gospels were available to them. I don't know at what point we can say all that stopped and the superstitious paganism of Rome took over, it was a gradual process, but even then there were true streams of the gospels among the Catholic priests and laity, wherever the scriptures were known at all, which was still permitted to the priests in Luther's time. It was his knowledge of the gospels and other parts of scripture on which Luther based his objection to indulgences. There had to be enough truth left in the RCC for the Reformation to develop at all, muddied though it was by pagan blasphemies which made it hard for the Reformers or anybody to see through it.
Edited by Faith, : No reason given.

This message is a reply to:
 Message 251 by dwise1, posted 10-12-2014 6:00 PM dwise1 has replied

Replies to this message:
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Faith 
Suspended Member (Idle past 1444 days)
Posts: 35298
From: Nevada, USA
Joined: 10-06-2001


(1)
Message 260 of 2241 (738597)
10-12-2014 9:36 PM
Reply to: Message 258 by jar
10-12-2014 8:50 PM


Re: Truth?
And the obviously highly limited Samaritan Canon is some kind of representation of what?
And the other "Gospels" were Gnostic fictions which the true Church recognized right away and ejected, keeping the inspired four. Really, the differences from the inspired gospels are so obvious it's ridiculous to even mention the gnostics in the same breath. They will of course continue to entertain the apostates.
Your constant refrain about the Trinity being formulated before the canon has no purpose if it wasn't to say it isn't based on the scriptures but if you had some other purpose you really should explain.
God is one and the three are separate is fine. God is one and three is contradictory.
Which is why it is so hard to grasp it, but it is based solidly on the many scripture references and you just have to allow your mind to be stretched to accommodate it because it is there. And the Church would not have affirmed it if it wasn't there. God is One in uniqueness of character and being. There is nothing and no one else like Him. And there are three who all express that uniqueness of character and being. There is no other way to characterize these facts than that God is Three Persons in One God, whether your mind can handle it or not.
Bring on your list of verses and just as with all the claimed prophecy we will take a look at it in context line by line.
Go ahead. I've posted it twice already but why not three times:
HERE

This message is a reply to:
 Message 258 by jar, posted 10-12-2014 8:50 PM jar has replied

Replies to this message:
 Message 261 by jar, posted 10-12-2014 9:38 PM Faith has replied

  
Faith 
Suspended Member (Idle past 1444 days)
Posts: 35298
From: Nevada, USA
Joined: 10-06-2001


Message 262 of 2241 (738599)
10-12-2014 9:40 PM
Reply to: Message 261 by jar
10-12-2014 9:38 PM


Re: Truth?
It is a list of verses with an index to them at the top. You can skip the commentary in between.

This message is a reply to:
 Message 261 by jar, posted 10-12-2014 9:38 PM jar has replied

Replies to this message:
 Message 275 by jar, posted 10-13-2014 9:10 AM Faith has replied

  
Faith 
Suspended Member (Idle past 1444 days)
Posts: 35298
From: Nevada, USA
Joined: 10-06-2001


Message 265 of 2241 (738602)
10-12-2014 10:34 PM
Reply to: Message 263 by dwise1
10-12-2014 10:10 PM


Re: 3 in one
Analogies are meant to clarify. If they don't work for that, which is obviously the case here, drop them.

This message is a reply to:
 Message 263 by dwise1, posted 10-12-2014 10:10 PM dwise1 has replied

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Faith 
Suspended Member (Idle past 1444 days)
Posts: 35298
From: Nevada, USA
Joined: 10-06-2001


Message 266 of 2241 (738603)
10-12-2014 10:41 PM
Reply to: Message 264 by dwise1
10-12-2014 10:23 PM


Re: 3 in one
You always make the mistake of assuming motive precedes belief, in all these cases. No, in my own experience and my observations of historical fact, belief follows persuasion by the evidence. Your reversal of the reality of course is a handy fiction of unbelievers to try to make believers look stupid.
Nothing could be more orthodox than Calvinism, it's even held by churches that don't know it's Calvinism. It's just that we are today witnessing a proliferation of false churches, Bible-twisting and Bible-denying churches which are eventually going to make up the One World Apostate Church, watch for it, which you mistake for the orthodox mainstream.
I don't know if there's anything else to answer in your post, but I have to be away for a while and may come back to it later.

This message is a reply to:
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Replies to this message:
 Message 269 by NoNukes, posted 10-12-2014 11:50 PM Faith has replied
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Faith 
Suspended Member (Idle past 1444 days)
Posts: 35298
From: Nevada, USA
Joined: 10-06-2001


Message 267 of 2241 (738604)
10-12-2014 10:59 PM


I don't know where people get their ideas of what mainstream Christianity consists in but in my experience it is still the majority of churches out there despite the many deviant bodies that have sprung up in recent years, and just for a representative sample take a look at Sermon Audio with its thousands of churches represented:\
http://www.sermonaudio.com/main.asp
I can't claim they are all solidly orthodox of course. In perusing sermons by topic I've found some klunkers and certainly some pastors who have what could be called a rather flabby grasp on doctrine, but overall the site aims to get good sound orthodox preachers and I think they've succeeded at getting a good sample of those.

  
Faith 
Suspended Member (Idle past 1444 days)
Posts: 35298
From: Nevada, USA
Joined: 10-06-2001


Message 271 of 2241 (738611)
10-13-2014 12:30 AM
Reply to: Message 269 by NoNukes
10-12-2014 11:50 PM


Re: 3 in one
I've read a lot of church history over the years, I'm sure I miss some things and get some wrong. But I'm also sure your characterization of me as denying things I don't like is just your own prejudice.

This message is a reply to:
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Faith 
Suspended Member (Idle past 1444 days)
Posts: 35298
From: Nevada, USA
Joined: 10-06-2001


(1)
Message 272 of 2241 (738612)
10-13-2014 1:54 AM
Reply to: Message 270 by dwise1
10-12-2014 11:53 PM


Re: 3 in one
Mainstream is orthodox in my way of thinking. If you want to make mainstream include apostate churches then I'll remember not to use the term.
But seriously on the question of where Trinitarianism came from, we really do need to trace that back. Some of the early churches taught it, while others didn't.
Which ones where and how far back?
Early Scripture that taught it were created by the churches that taught it, while the Scripture that didn't teach it were created by those who didn't; some Scripture was selected by committee and some were not, mainly based on how well they complied with the "One True Faith" that they had come up with. But even before then, the idea itself had to have come from somewhere; I only mentioned the Hindu idea because it's a very well-known example.
Certainly there has to have been some kind of research on this question. But it would be better to look at non-Christian research. It's just that Christian research, or rather what passes for research among Christians, has a very bad reputation for lying through their teeth. We see it all the time in "creation science". And we see it in their revisionist American history. Indeed, Faith, you yourself fell victim to their outright lies when you posted all those "Founding Father quotes", all of which turned out to be complete and utter lies.
Who it is who rewrites and revises history for the consumption of people now is not that easy to determine. You have clearly bought a lot of lies yourself, that you probably accept because of the plausible fictions that have been created around them. Certainly your view of church history is a pack of lies and I have no idea who you are trusting for all that. There is little point in trying to change your mind, and I don't have the expertise or breadth of knowledge needed to do that anyway. I present what I'm convinced of and I think I have very good reason to trust it if I do.
The histories of the church I've encountered are all very consistent on the development of the Trinity as historically based on scripture all the way back to the beginning. That you could believe people just made it up out of their own heads, and even wrote scripture to support it is beyond reason into totally daft, and that you actually LIKE this idea and seem to believe it just speaks to some kind of deep need of your own to hate Christianity that I cannot fathom.
Where is your evidence by the way? Where are the bogus scriptures that were supposedly created? (Any such inventions would fairly blast your eyeballs out with their fictiveness; people are just not that good at lying, and especially not in such a complex way as inventing elaborate scripture, good grief what are you thinking? They put in all those indicators of the Trinity that occur everywhere throughout the scriptures? Get a grip, man.). There should be at least two differing sets out there on this subject. Where are they? I have never encountered such bizarre ideas even on the fringes of the reading I've done on these things, even to be mentioned, even touched on.
Perhaps you really do believe you've been lied to but half the lies you say are lies are just your own confusion about things and your history of the Church is a gigantic lie you've chosen to believe instead of the other lies which may not really be lies.
I just decided to listen to a sermon on the subject at Sermon Audio, found the following one by Professor Bruce Ware, someone I know of as a reliable Reformed teacher, where he explains how the early church encountered the principles of the Trinity in the scriptures and how they tried to deal with them in the early years. He has a much greater knowledge of how things played out in the early church than I do, and since this is only the first of a series of six teachings on the Trinity I may try to listen to the rest.
But this one deals with most of what we've been talking about here, including the early Councils that worked out all the related doctrines, not just Nicea but the Council at Constantinople, then the one at Ephesus and then Chalcedon, which all contributed to working out the different aspects of the nature of God. If you can find the time and any interest at all I think it might be worth it for you to listen to it.
Half a century ago, I attended a Protestant church and Sunday School and Vacation Bible School. We were taught that lying is a sin. And now apparently lying is de rigueur for "true Christians". How very sad.
Again I suspect it's you who has bought the lies that are designed to put the truth in doubt.
Edited by Faith, : No reason given.
Edited by Faith, : No reason given.

This message is a reply to:
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