I just mentioned it because it’s a doctrine that many people find even more difficult to digest than the Trinity. And yet I (and i’m definitely not the only one) believe that the Eucharist is literally the last barrier between us and the events of the book of Revelation Doubt & Faith - Evolution, Afterlife & History - #146 by 1Cor15.54
Well, I guess so. I mean if you basically convert to Islam (which was built upon the negation of the divinity of Jesus) why wouldn’t they “accept” it? LOL.
Just for your information they already accept Jesus as the Messiah, they think He will descend as a just judge and defeat the Antichrist (whom they call al-Dajjal).
Wonder what they do not accept?
- Miekhie, I basically agree with your sequencing point: evangelism doesn’t start with a technical lesson on ousia/hypostasis. Most Christians couldn’t define that language cleanly, and Muslims often hear “Trinity” as “three gods,” which is just a category error.
- That said, I think you’d appreciate someone who lived this exact conversation from the Muslim side and describes both the pastoral and intellectual stakes: Nabeel Qureshi (raised Ahmadi Muslim; later became a Christian apologist).
- His memoir Seeking Allah, Finding Jesus is basically a case study in what you’re arguing for: he didn’t begin with abstract Trinitarian formulas; he began with Jesus, the gospel, and the evidence. But the “who is Jesus?” question doesn’t stay optional for long, because the NT’s proclamation of “Jesus is Lord” ends up forcing the issue.
- Also—re your earlier point about Muslims misunderstanding “three gods”: Qureshi’s story is useful precisely because he takes Muslim objections seriously while still explaining why the Christian claim about Jesus isn’t merely “a prophet plus resurrection,” but something much thicker.
- If you’re open to it, I’d recommend starting with the memoir rather than jumping straight into doctrinal debates: Seeking Allah, Finding Jesus.
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Of course. I trust the Holy Spirit completely. It is human that caused division. Do you think that Athanius had more Holy Spirit indwelling than Arius? How about Paul and Barnabas?
Holy Eucharist is actually much simpler to understand. However, since you are catholic then your definition of Holy Eucharist had pretty much rejected in the evangelical circle.
There is indeed a divider, but he is not human, he is angelic. A parasite towards the good, murderer from the beginning.
Trusting the Holy Spirit would be null and void if I didn’t believe His promises to preserve the Church from leading the children of God astray.
Arius was an arch-heretic and no; I certainly don’t believe that the Holy Spirit can teach heresy.
What do you mean by “started”? There was never a time/state when there wasn’t love between the Father and the Son.
It had to cease: the promise was made to “y’all”, to the Apostles as a group. The moment the successors of the Apostles split, that group was no longer whole and thus no longer able to access the promise.
There have been no ecumenical councils since (arguably) Chalcedon, which was a flawed council in that it was decided on political reasons.
Of course it’s irrevocable – but if the group it was made to is broken, then the promise cannot operate.
Never intended to be like a time. It is just as presented, the love flow from the Father to the Son as the love of the Son flow to the believer. Isn’t that the analogy presented in the passage.
This argument is deeply flawed, imho.
Your argument rests on a key premise: that Christ’s promise in John 16:13, namely that the Spirit would guide the Apostles “into all truth” , was made to the Apostles as a collective body, and that once that body was fractured (whether at Chalcedon or in 1054), the promise could no longer operate.
That claim does not hold theologically, biblically, or historically.
First off let’s address the nature of the promise: temporary or perpetual? In John 16:13, Christ says: “When the Spirit of truth comes, he will guide you into all the truth.” The “you” is indeed plural. But the question is not grammatical, it is ecclesiological.
Was this promise limited to the lifespan of the Twelve? Or does it extend to the apostolic Church?
In Matthew 28:20, Christ declares: “I am with you always, to the end of the age.”
This promise is explicitly eschatological. The Apostles themselves would not live “to the end of the age.” Therefore, the promise necessarily extends beyond their biological lives to their apostolic office and its continuation.
St. Irenaeus makes precisely this point in Against Heresies, Book III, Chapter 3, §1 : “The tradition of the apostles, manifested throughout the whole world, is present in every Church for all who wish to see the truth.”
For Irenaeus, apostolic truth is not confined to a first-century group but persists in the episcopal succession.
The early Church clearly believed that apostolic authority continued through succession.
St. Cyprian of Carthage writes in On the Unity of the Catholic Church, §5: “the episcopate is one, each part of which is held by each one for the whole.”
Cyprian’s ecclesiology presupposes continuity of apostolic authority in the bishops collectively. If the promise of the Spirit depended on permanent structural unanimity, then any schism would nullify the Church’s capacity to teach truth, a conclusion no Father draws.
Even Augustine, writing during the Donatist schism, insists that the Church’s authority does not collapse because of division. In Against the Letter of Parmenian, Book III, Chapter 4: “The Church is not overcome by the sins of some, nor is the authority of Christ defeated by the crimes of men.”
This principle applies equally to later schisms.
Also your argument suggests that once the successors of the Apostles divided, the “group” ceased to exist in the relevant sense, and thus the promise became inoperative.
But this implies that divine assistance is contingent upon flawless human cohesion.
Paul writes in Romans 11:29: “For the gifts and the calling of God are irrevocable.”
If Christ’s promise to guide His Church into truth can be nullified by schism, then it was not irrevocable in any meaningful sense.
Thomas Aquinas addresses the indefectibility of the Church in Summa Theologiae, Supplement, Q. 25, Art. 1: “The Church cannot err in those things which pertain to faith, for she is taught by the Holy Ghost.”
Aquinas does not qualify this by saying “provided no schism ever occurs.” The Church’s indefectibility rests on divine assistance, not sociological unity.
And your claim that there have been no true ecumenical councils since Chalcedon assumes that ecumenicity requires universal participation of all patriarchates.
Yet the early councils themselves were not universally received immediately. Even Nicaea faced prolonged resistance.
John Henry Newman addresses this dynamic reception in An Essay on the Development of Christian Doctrine, Part II, Chapter 5: “The Church has ever had a difficulty in defining the truth; she has never had a difficulty in preserving it.”
Reception unfolds historically; it is not the precondition of truth.
The real problem here, Roymond, are the logical consequences of your position, because If the promise ceased in 1054 then the Church lost divine guidance nearly a millennium ago, neither East nor West can claim reliable doctrinal continuity and, most importantly, Christ’s assurance of abiding presence failed historically.
But neither Catholic nor Orthodox theology affirms such a collapse.
Even Orthodox theologian Georges Florovsky writes in Bible, Church, Tradition, Chapter 3: “The Church is indefectible, not because of historical success, but because Christ abides in her.”
If Christ abides, the Spirit continues to act.
The fundamental flaw in your reasoning is treating the Apostolic “group” as a fragile historical configuration rather than as a divinely instituted, enduring ecclesial reality.
The promise was not made to a sociological unit that could dissolve. It was made to the apostolic Church as such.
Schism wounds unity.
It does not revoke divine assistance.
If human division could suspend the Holy Spirit’s guidance, then the gates of hell would, in fact, have prevailed.
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Given that sola scriptura comes from various Fathers, it can’t collide with scripture. Nuda scriptura does, but not sola.
How is it a “leap of logic” to repeat what the scriptures say?
The scriptures show that there are three Who are Yahweh, yet only one Yahweh. That’s not a leap of logic, it’s what the text says.
Why? You don’t believe that God intends for us to use our brains? When He is One Who can say, “Let us reason together” and is the Logos?
Nothing does contradict it – it covers all the instances.
Besides which, you are making the assumption that human language is infallible.
Irenaeus was writing before the church was split.
But when there is no collectivity, that authority is broken. It’s like having a soccer team split into three groups who refuse to play together yet still expect to achieve victory.
No, it wouldn’t. What has been taught before and always would remain.
Which is what the Gospels tell us: If Jesus could do no miracles because of the unbelief of a village, then the Spirit will not speak through fragments of what is supposed to be unified.
That’s what “ecumenical” means – the whole household, not just fragments!
You are confusing ongoing guidance with what has already been given. The Nicene Creed did not stop being true because the church split.
And the orthodox are honest enough to recognize that there have been no ecumenical councils since 1054.
See, the problem here is that your post still assumes something that neither Scripture nor the Fathers actually teach: that the promise of the Spirit ceases to operate once visible unity is broken. But that premise itself needs proof, and the arguments you provide do not establish it.
You write that: “Irenaeus wrote before the Church was split”
While that is true historically, it still does not solve the problem. Irenaeus of Lyons is not merely describing a temporary historical situation; he is articulating a principle of ecclesiology: that apostolic truth is preserved through succession in the churches.
In Against Heresies, Book III, Chapter 3, §2, he writes that the apostolic tradition is preserved through the succession of bishops in the churches. The argument only works if apostolic continuity persists through history, not merely while the Church happens to remain sociologically unified.
Otherwise the entire appeal to succession collapses the moment a schism appears—which would make Irenaeus’ argument historically fragile.
And the analogy you made with the soccer team fails. Your analogy assumes that apostolic authority exists only when all bishops act together as a single operational body.
But the Fathers do not describe authority that way.
Cyprian of Carthage writes in On the Unity of the Catholic Church §5: “the episcopate is one, each part of which is held by each bishop for the whole.”
Notice what Cyprian actually says: each bishop holds the episcopate in solidum (in its entirety), not merely as a fragment that becomes meaningless outside perfect coordination.
Schism wounds unity, but Cyprian never argues that episcopal authority ceases to exist when communion is broken.
And I’m sorry but even your miracle analogy doesn’t work. You appeal to the Gospel passage where Christ performs few miracles because of unbelief.
But that passage concerns miraculous signs, not the indefectibility of the Church.
The Church Fathers explicitly distinguish between human sin and the failure of divine promises.
For example, Augustine of Hippo argues against the Donatists that the sins or divisions of Christians do not nullify Christ’s promises to the Church. In Against the Letter of Parmenian, Book III, Chapter 4, Augustine insists that the authority of the Church does not collapse because of human failures.
If it did, the Church would have ceased to exist already in the 3rd century during the Donatist schism.
You then argue that an ecumenical council must involve the entire Christian world.
Historically, however, councils were not universally accepted immediately.
For instance, the Council of Chalcedon itself was rejected by large portions of the Christian world (the Oriental Orthodox churches) almost immediately.
Yet both Catholics and Eastern Orthodox still call it ecumenical.
Therefore, universal participation has never been the historical criterion for ecumenicity.
And your Nicene Creed argument misses the point
I mean…of course the Nicene Creed did not stop being true after the schism.
But the question is not whether previously defined truths remain true.
The question is whether the Church continues to possess the Spirit’s assistance in safeguarding and clarifying the apostolic deposit.
If that assistance stopped in 1054, then Christianity effectively lost its living authority at that point.
But neither Catholic nor Orthodox theology actually accepts that conclusion.
The problem with your argument is that it implicitly requires the following proposition:
A human schism can suspend the operation of a divine promise.
But that would mean that Christ’s assurance in Matthew 28:20 “I am with you always, to the end of the age” would be contingent upon perfect human unity.
The New Testament never presents Christ’s promises in that way.
Schism is a tragedy. But it does not have the power to revoke divine assistance.
AND LET ME ASK YOU A QUESTION
If universal participation of the whole Church is required for a council to be ecumenical, how do you explain the status of the Council of Chalcedon?
The Council of Chalcedon was rejected almost immediately by the churches that today form the Oriental Orthodox communion (Coptic, Syriac, Armenian, Ethiopian, etc.). That was not a small group but a very large portion of the Christian world.
Yet both the Catholic Church and the Eastern Orthodox Church still regard Chalcedon as an ecumenical council.
So if a council can still be ecumenical even when large parts of the Christian world reject it, then universal participation cannot be the historical criterion for ecumenicity.
And if universal participation is not required for Chalcedon to be ecumenical, why would it suddenly become a necessary condition after the eleventh century?
Not when the subject matter is unknowable. Please tell me just one thing with your smart human brain about God that didn’t come by revelation?
I am sure that with your vast study, you know the struggles that the doctrine of trinity came to be accepted. Why was that? because it was such a clear teaching that at one time that a lot of clergy rejected the trinitarian formula. Of course, once you see all the passages of the Bible thru the lens of the trinitarian doctrine, you could not see anything else.
When they confuse this with a belief in 3 gods? Absolutely.
Your amazement suggests to me I know more about this religion than you do, and makes me wonder how much you know about Christianity also. To be sure Islam has interested me less than most religions, but I have frequently investigated the differences from Christianity. In any case, it is clear both religions are wide spectrums of belief with different groups who emphasize different things. But there are many who oversimply both of these religions down to simple minded characterizations, and I consider it a duty to honesty to reveal the distortions involved in doing this.
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and perhaps you do know much more than I do. I am still learning.
Do you know that most muslim don’t even have any idea what the Bible is teaching, much less about a belief in 3 gods? How would they know this? Perhaps from misguided overzealous christians who think that the doctrine of trinity is the first pillar of faith need to be shared to non believers.
I agree Christians sometimes explain poorly, but I think it’s also important to note that many Muslims’ baseline picture of “Trinity” comes directly from the Qur’an’s own polemics (“do not say three,” “third of three,” and the Jesus/Mary passage). So even a perfectly clear Christian explanation can still collide with what their Scripture already tells them Christians believe.
You accept and defend the teachings of the RCC, which is understandable and ok as you are a member of that church.
There are many of us (half of the Christians) who have differing interpretations despite and because we take the early apostolic tradition seriously. We agree in some points but reject some other interpretations and we have justifications for why our interpretations differ. The fact is that there is a diversity of interpretations. The interpretations need to be justified, rather than swallowed as a given packet without questioning. In this, my opinion differs from what the RCC demands.
Despite all the differences, we all try to follow our Lord with the understanding we have. If we have differing interpretations in some matters that are less important than Jesus Christ, that does not make us non-Christians. In these matters, we just need to agree to disagree and then continue towards the goal that should be the same for all of us Christians.
Absolutely!
The only “non-Christians” are those who don’t recognize Jesus as God.
Anyone who confesses Jesus as our Lord, God, and Savior is my brother or sister in Christ, even if we disagree on other doctrinal or ecclesiological matters.
Definitely. 
Obviously I love debates but defending my view and bringing arguments for it it’s just that: a defense of my view and its reasonableness. Not a tentative to forcefully impose it on others.
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