How Did The Trinity Doctrine Develop

[teadough]

Good reading but in light of that writing, I wonder why so many Roman Catholics are forbidden from drinking from the cup during the Eucharist after being told to do so by Christ? And in those cases also, I wonder why the bread is not given by a priest?

Is that all you have to say in regards to the article? I am surprised you are not trying to outwit Mr.Hahn and say how wrong he is

I have come to the conclusion that no matter what someone tries to say,you always have a comeback answer where you always end up with the “upper hand” in the conversation. Good luck with that.

I am still surprised that you will not give us your religious affiliation. Wait…no I’m not. You are afraid someone will poke holes in it and you will,once again, have to change churches.

 

[teadough]

So we all just state our beliefs and then not worry about having a forum…Why have a discussion then? Or is it possible, just possible, that even one person may learn something from these forums?

Why? Because you are always right no matter what. Whats the point in that?

 

[Gottle_of_Geer]

Old Scholar:

Do you really believe that Paul did not know he was writing Scripture when he wrote his epistles?

ISTM that it’s up to those who think he did, to say why. Even if he did know, where is the evidence he knew ? Evidence of knowledge of his Apostolic authority is certainly present - but knowledge of that is not necessarily evidence of knowledge that he was writing Holy Scripture. Does the truth & value & Divine inspiration of (say) Romans depend on its author’s knowledge of its (future ?) Scriptural status ?​

AFAICS, it is wishful thinking to suppose he knew. I don’t suppose St. Augustine knew he would be recognised as a Doctor of the Church in 1295 - that is not a reason not to think him one. Neither does a lack of awareness by a God-inspired author make him any less God-inspired.

Had he not been commissioned by God to do just that? Didn’t Peter call his writings Scripture and validate them as such?

As Scripture ? No. The author of that passage uses the phrase “…other graphai…” - which does not even clearly imply that they are “God-breathed”. I’ve explained already why the use of the word graphe does not show that a text must necessarily be Holy Scripture.​

This “commission” - where is it ? Thank you.

…more…

 

[Gottle_of_Geer]

**Paul was doing exactly what he was told to do and how can you even insinuate that he did now know his writings were Scripture and would be used forever as such? This is the first time I have ever heard this argument. **

##Because there is no reason to think he did. That we know this is not a reason to attribute to him - or to any other NT writer - the knowledge of later ages.
**

But it is very common to come back to the old “catch all”, which books did the Bible say should be in the Bible. While the books are being written, how do you suppose anyone could say which ones would be in the Bible?

**

Maybe because that argument is good logic. If it’s invalid or otherwise wrong, please explain how That second sentence has torpedoed your own argument, blown it up amidships, & sunk it without trace. A NT that does not yet exist, cannot be used to support doctrine - any doctrine. What’s the use of telling a Christian to read as Scripture a book that​

• has not been written
• has not been recognised as inspired by God
• is rejected as a Gnostic forgery
  In several churches, Revelation had the same status as the Urantia Book or the Book of Mormon has among Christians today. Others accepted it as Scripture.
  “The 27 books existed in the local churches” =//= “all the books were at once accepted as Holy Scripture”; they all came to be accepted as Holy Scripture, in the local churches & in the Church Universal (though to this day there are some - the Ethiopian Church ? - who don’t include Revelation in the canon). Their final recognition is no proof at all that they were never recognised as anything but Holy Scripture: whether singly, as groups, or as an entire body. Revelation wasn’t. Hebrews wasn’t. Likewise others

Any honest but mistaken man, charlatan, lunatic or liar can claim his books are Divinely inspired - Mohammed & Joseph Smith do so, but it is not exactly clear how they can be made to agree. Maybe a fight is the way to settle whom to believe: grudge-match.com

Do you really think that those that were inspired would not be there? Do you not believe that anything
written by an apostle would be considered inspired?

Why should it be ?​

Have you read the criteria that was used for inclusion?

Let’s go through this:​

• “Book X is written by an Apostle” does not show that Book X is inspired
• still less is it proof of Divine inspiration.
• And even that is no proof that it is to be kept permanently by a local church
• let alone by the entire Church
  I have read them.

It’s a little strange that you would consider anything said by a mortal man, because he is called a priest, as Scriptural, even when it goes against Scripture,

## “Scriptural” in what sense though ? Clarification is needed before this can be answered

but would question what was written by an apostle of Christ. Isn’t it true that you believe anything your church tells you?

## St. Paul, like Jesus, constantly “goes against Scripture”. Deuteronomy 21.23 says: “Cursed is he who hangs upon a tree”. St. Paul is untroubled - he makes the Biblical disproof of the validity of the claims made for Jesus into an argument for the truth of those very claims. See 1 Corinthians 1

If we reason only from the Tanakh-OT, Jesus was exactly the “deceiver” His enemies claimed. They found arguments against Him in the OT. In the year 30 or so, Scripture demolishes the claims made for Him. The Jews look in the OT - & they don’t see Him as Messiah. There is no reason they should.

As for “question[ing] what was written by an apostle of Christ” - I’m not: I am questioning dubious reasoning. And I’ve already explained that in his lifetime St. Paul was no more than “a mortal man”. And his own letters are evidence of this - not they are needed to show it. So when they believed what he said, his hearers were believing “a mere man”. To many of his hearers he was not a writer of Divine Scripture at all. He is to later generations, because his writings have had time to be received by the churches.

Some Judaising Christians claimed to be apostles - he didn’t accept that they were. To make claims is no proof at all of their truth. In his lifetime, he was no more than any priest or Pope or other Christian teacher is today - unless everything he ever said is in the Bible, which there is no to believe.

 

[Gottle_of_Geer]

So we all just state our beliefs and then not worry about having a forum…Why have a discussion then? Or is it possible, just possible, that even one person may learn something from these forums?

No, I’m not saying that.​

As we are Catholics, others are able to have some notion of what we believe: Catholics are unlikely to hold to the beliefs of the JWs. Just as Calvinists are unlikely to believe in the perfectibility of human nature, or JWs, to be zealous asserters of the Deity of Christ.

As you might be anything imaginable it is impossible to have more than a very vague idea of your beliefs. I’m guessing you’re a Messianic Jew. If you’re not, the wrong guess is your fault for not giving some indication of your own doctrinal background.

That is not an attempt to avoid a discussion - but to clarify it & help it forward.

I hope that explains matters

 

[Gottle_of_Geer]

Then I guess you still believe that Jesus is subordinate to His Father?

Yes, insofaras He is​

• Man
• not yet glorified
  What I reject is any notion that He is inferior in His Person. He is inferior in His Offices of Prophet, Priest, & King. It does not follow that the Man Who exercises them is not truly God.

 

[Church_Militant]

Do you have anything to contribute to the question of the Trinity or just keep attacking me? By SDA I suspect you must mean Seventh Day Adventist. Is that correct? Does that mean I can have several wives? Ha!

“Scholar”? Sounds like someone doesn’t know what they are talking about after all, but then I think we had determined that long ago.

Polygamy, to the best of my knowledge, is an old LDS (Mormon) doctrine, and the SDA have never taught it.

I did not deal with your early post because you obviously wanted to shift the focus by trying to say I was simply attacking the Catholic faith and that is when you made your unfounded comment on the Mother of God.

Unfounded huh? Let’s just have a look at exactly wjhat you posted.

…If the Trinity is true, it degrades Jesus as part of the Godhead but if it is false, it is degrading to Almighty God to call anyone His equal, and even worse to call mary the 'Mother of God."

…

I told everyone I started this post to have a discussion, not to be attacked. You have only wanted to attack.

No… I have refuted you and exposed your own agenda. That is not an attack, that is a factual refutation.

I know all about the Seventh Day Adventists

You do? I can’t tell from your post.

—other than the fact that they are right about the Sabbath,

I disagree, and that is another matter that has been discussed and refuted quite a bit. Search for it if you are interested.

I don’t believe that Joseph Smith found any plates at all. It kind of resembles those who claim revelation from God that isn’t true as many claim. I don’t believe God sent Moroni any more than He gave inspiration to the successors of the apostles as new doctrines.

Joseph Smith had nothing to do with the SDA…he founded the Mormons. They are not the same thing.

But to be fair, if all Christians were like the Mormons, we would certainly all be much healthier and more family oriented. That part of their faith is admirable. They certainly take care of their bodies and I do ascribe to the belief that God is within us and our bodies are His temple. Do you believe that?

Off topic. I will not respond. make another thread on it if you want an answer.

And by the way, Duet 6:4 can be used to prove that there is but one God, not three.

Again… as I showed earlier (if you had read my posts) Deuteronomy 6:4 actually cannot be used to support the non-trinitarian position because (as I showed earlier)

I suggest Deuteronomy 6:4 (The Jewish Sh’ma)

Hear, O Israel, the Lord our God is one Lord.

Those who reject the Trinity will often point out this verse as a proof text which on its face is pretty convincing…until one looks into the Hebrew that this comes from.

The Hebrew word “echad” is used there for “one” and it is important to note what this word means. It is also used in Genesis 2:24 where it says

Wherefore a man shall leave father and mother, and shall cleave to his wife: and they shall be two in one flesh.

The fact is that the one means “one unity” which, although it doesn’t prove the Trinity, certainly disqualifies the Sh’ma as a counter argument.

Also important is Genesis 1:26 which says, And he said: Let us make man to our image and likeness: and let him have dominion over the fishes of the sea, and the fowls of the air, and the beasts, and the whole earth, and every creeping creature that moveth upon the earth.

Was the Almighty talking to Himself? Indeed not! This can only be seen as an example of interaction between persons of the triune God as further expressed in the Word of God.There’s your answer. Again, showing that your “scholarship” isn’t all you seem to think it is.

 

[Gottle_of_Geer]

I didn’t cover this in the other thread but the Bible does claim that everything we need for salvation or any other thing pertaining to faith or morals is written there. That’s the logic; the claim Scripture itself makes!

Maybe this is something for a new thread.​

Apart from the self-refuting nature of that claim, it would be interesting to know what Biblical texts or ideas your post bases that claim on.

 

[savedsinner]

Good reading but in light of that writing, I wonder why so many Roman Catholics are forbidden from drinking from the cup during the Eucharist after being told to do so by Christ? And in those cases also, I wonder why the bread is not given by a priest?

The Church teaches that Jesus is truly present both body and blood in both species.

If a Catholic is forbidden or seems to be forbidden from receiving from the cup, it probably would be because there might be a problem at that parish of people incorrectly thinking that His body is only to be found in the bread, and his blood only in the cup.

I am not sure what you mean by “the bread is not given by a priest.”

If you are referring to the use of extraordinary ministers they only help the priest distribute the Eucharist to the faithful.

 

[runandsew]

If the Trinity is not taught in the Bible, how did it get to be a doctrine of Christendom?

How many people believe in the Trinity? Shouldn’t it be in the Bible with no question left at all about it?

First of all, why do you assume that everything that a Christian believes is only to be found in the written scripture?
I would reply by saying this is why Jesus left us his Church, to teach us his truth.

If one looks back to the Arian heresy, where more than half of the bishops fell into this error, the Arians were rejecting the Sacred Tradition handed down in the church, and basing their teaching on scripture alone.
But orthodoxy prevailed, because they held not only to the written word handed down, but also to the Oral Tradition which was passed down from the Apostles.

 

[Gottle_of_Geer]

You seems to be saying that through the years, the church keeps learning new things and creates new doctrines because of some special revelation it is receiving. Is this what you are saying? Or are you saying that as time goes along, some men are able to convince others that their ideas are right and then they decide on a new doctrine?

No; though both can be taken in a good sense. But otherwise, both are false & wrong. The CC is not Mormonism. ​

The Church learns & grows - but not though any new public revelation. That is why the Apostolic Tradition is so important.

Humanly speaking, the second alternative describes the spread of Christianity in Acts. What makes the difference, is the gift of faith.

**With all the writings of the first two centuries, how is it possible that the men of the last 1800 years are finding out things those who traveled with the apostles did not know? **

Because what was known, had to be put together. And what was put together had consequences for belief, & for saying what was believed. Doctrinal definition brings the logical consequences of what already believed together, & articulates them as dogmatic formulae. The novelty is in the articulation - not in the presence in the Church of the thing believed.​

5 & 2 = 7, even if a child doesn’t connect them. What 5 oranges & 2 apples make, may not be so clear: 7 oranges, is wrong, as is 7 apples. Individual children may catch on to the answer; some sooner than others. Who is right, if any of them, needs to be pointed out by someone equipped to tell them. Which is what Nicea did in 325. As did the Jerusalem Council of Acts 15.

This does not take place in a vacuum, but in the Church’s history, as a reaction to the events in that history: by encountering beliefs she sees cannot be true if her preaching is true, the Church is better able to define (= delimit) what she believes. So it comes into sharper focus. We see this in the NT itself: St. Paul rejects the doctrine of the Judaisers, not because he had an NT that said what was to be believed, but because if what he believed was true, the Judaisers could not be right. But nowhere in the NT account of the time before his rejection of the doctrine of the Judaisers do we read that they are wrong. If there had been no Gentile mission & no Council of Jerusalem, they would probably have been in the right.

That’s greatly over-simplified, but I hope it helps.

 

[savedsinner]

I didn’t cover this in the other thread but the Bible does claim that everything we need for salvation or any other thing pertaining to faith or morals is written there. That’s the logic; the claim Scripture itself makes!

But the bible doesn’t claim that we can understand everything which is contained in its pages without the assistance of the church.

In fact it teaches quite the opposite, when St. Peter writes in his 2nd epistle about the writings of St. Paul:
“There are some things in them hard to understand, which the ignorant and unstable twist to their own destruction, as they do the other scriptures.”

 

[Old_Scholar]

Why? Because you are always right no matter what. Whats the point in that?

If everyone agreed, would we have a forum?

 

[Old_Scholar]

Is that all you have to say in regards to the article? I am surprised you are not trying to outwit Mr.Hahn and say how wrong he is

I have come to the conclusion that no matter what someone tries to say,you always have a comeback answer where you always end up with the “upper hand” in the conversation. Good luck with that.

I am still surprised that you will not give us your religious affiliation. Wait…no I’m not. You are afraid someone will poke holes in it and you will,once again, have to change churches.

Actually I could say a great deal about Mr. Hahn but this is not the post for it.

 

[Old_Scholar]

ISTM that it’s up to those who think he did, to say why. Even if he did know, where is the evidence he knew ? Evidence of knowledge of his Apostolic authority is certainly present - but knowledge of that is not necessarily evidence of knowledge that he was writing Holy Scripture. Does the truth & value & Divine inspiration of (say) Romans depend on its author’s knowledge of its (future ?) Scriptural status ?​

AFAICS, it is wishful thinking to suppose he knew. I don’t suppose St. Augustine knew he would be recognised as a Doctor of the Church in 1295 - that is not a reason not to think him one. Neither does a lack of awareness by a God-inspired author make him any less God-inspired.

As Scripture ? No. The author of that passage uses the phrase “…other graphai…” - which does not even clearly imply that they are “God-breathed”. I’ve explained already why the use of the word graphe does not show that a text must necessarily be Holy Scripture.​

This “commission” - where is it ? Thank you.

…more…

You need to read Ephesians and you will find that Christ made known to Paul His will and all wisdom and prudence.

 

[Old_Scholar]

##Because there is no reason to think he did. That we know this is not a reason to attribute to him - or to any other NT writer - the knowledge of later ages.

---

Maybe because that argument is good logic. If it’s invalid or otherwise wrong, please explain how That second sentence has torpedoed your own argument, blown it up amidships, & sunk it without trace. A NT that does not yet exist, cannot be used to support doctrine - any doctrine. What’s the use of telling a Christian to read as Scripture a book that​

• has not been written
• has not been recognised as inspired by God
• is rejected as a Gnostic forgery
  In several churches, Revelation had the same status as the Urantia Book or the Book of Mormon has among Christians today. Others accepted it as Scripture.
  “The 27 books existed in the local churches” =//= “all the books were at once accepted as Holy Scripture”; they all came to be accepted as Holy Scripture, in the local churches & in the Church Universal (though to this day there are some - the Ethiopian Church ? - who don’t include Revelation in the canon). Their final recognition is no proof at all that they were never recognised as anything but Holy Scripture: whether singly, as groups, or as an entire body. Revelation wasn’t. Hebrews wasn’t. Likewise others

Any honest but mistaken man, charlatan, lunatic or liar can claim his books are Divinely inspired - Mohammed & Joseph Smith do so, but it is not exactly clear how they can be made to agree. Maybe a fight is the way to settle whom to believe: grudge-match.com

Why should it be ? ## Let’s go through this:​

• “Book X is written by an Apostle” does not show that Book X is inspired
• still less is it proof of Divine inspiration.
• And even that is no proof that it is to be kept permanently by a local church
• let alone by the entire Church
  I have read them.

## “Scriptural” in what sense though ? Clarification is needed before this can be answered
## St. Paul, like Jesus, constantly “goes against Scripture”. Deuteronomy 21.23 says: “Cursed is he who hangs upon a tree”. St. Paul is untroubled - he makes the Biblical disproof of the validity of the claims made for Jesus into an argument for the truth of those very claims. See 1 Corinthians 1

If we reason only from the Tanakh-OT, Jesus was exactly the “deceiver” His enemies claimed. They found arguments against Him in the OT. In the year 30 or so, Scripture demolishes the claims made for Him. The Jews look in the OT - & they don’t see Him as Messiah. There is no reason they should.

As for “question[ing] what was written by an apostle of Christ” - I’m not: I am questioning dubious reasoning. And I’ve already explained that in his lifetime St. Paul was no more than “a mortal man”. And his own letters are evidence of this - not they are needed to show it. So when they believed what he said, his hearers were believing “a mere man”. To many of his hearers he was not a writer of Divine Scripture at all. He is to later generations, because his writings have had time to be received by the churches.

Some Judaising Christians claimed to be apostles - he didn’t accept that they were. To make claims is no proof at all of their truth. In his lifetime, he was no more than any priest or Pope or other Christian teacher is today - unless everything he ever said is in the Bible, which there is no to believe.

Christ made known all things to Paul that is sufficient for His will and all things necessary for faith and morals. If you don’t really believe this then you don’t believe Scripture because it tells us this. Christ commissioned all the apostles and gave them special power and authority but that all ended with their death. That is why it was all written down, so that we could not “foul it up.” But that is what some have done, isn’t it…

 

[Old_Scholar]

No, I’m not saying that.​

As we are Catholics, others are able to have some notion of what we believe: Catholics are unlikely to hold to the beliefs of the JWs. Just as Calvinists are unlikely to believe in the perfectibility of human nature, or JWs, to be zealous asserters of the Deity of Christ.

As you might be anything imaginable it is impossible to have more than a very vague idea of your beliefs. I’m guessing you’re a Messianic Jew. If you’re not, the wrong guess is your fault for not giving some indication of your own doctrinal background.

That is not an attempt to avoid a discussion - but to clarify it & help it forward.

I hope that explains matters

Do you believe that everything the JWs say and teach and the LDS’ teaching is all wrong?

 

[Old_Scholar]

Yes, insofaras He is​

• Man
• not yet glorified
  What I reject is any notion that He is inferior in His Person. He is inferior in His Offices of Prophet, Priest, & King. It does not follow that the Man Who exercises them is not truly God.

I would never say Jesus was not God. But we are told that Jesus is God’s “begotten” Son. What do you make of that?

 

[Old_Scholar]

“Scholar”? Sounds like someone doesn’t know what they are talking about after all, but then I think we had determined that long ago.

Polygamy, to the best of my knowledge, is an old LDS (Mormon) doctrine, and the SDA have never taught it.Unfounded huh? Let’s just have a look at exactly wjhat you posted.No… I have refuted you and exposed your own agenda. That is not an attack, that is a factual refutation.
You do? I can’t tell from your post.I disagree, and that is another matter that has been discussed and refuted quite a bit. Search for it if you are interested.Joseph Smith had nothing to do with the SDA…he founded the Mormons. They are not the same thing.Off topic. I will not respond. make another thread on it if you want an answer.Again… as I showed earlier (if you had read my posts) Deuteronomy 6:4 actually cannot be used to support the non-trinitarian position because (as I showed earlier) There’s your answer. Again, showing that your “scholarship” isn’t all you seem to think it is.

And you claim*** “I” ***don’t know anything…Joseph Smith did indeed “found” the Mormon faith. Who do you suppose wrote the book of Mormon? Do you believe Moroni wrote it and then gave it to Smith? Or did Moroni tell Smith what to write?

Whatever gave you the idea the LDS and the Mormons are not the same? Where did you learn history?

 

[Old_Scholar]

Maybe this is something for a new thread.​

Apart from the self-refuting nature of that claim, it would be interesting to know what Biblical texts or ideas your post bases that claim on.

2 Tim 3:16 *All scripture is given by inspiration of God, and is profitable for doctrine, for reproof, for correction, for instruction in righteousness: 17) that the person dedicated to God may be capable and equipped for every good work.
*

Can you refute that?