The word “personal” is not in my post, so your claim about me is false.
No, those are questions which you could not answer!
No, I use him as an example of the divisiveness of insisting on the specifics of the doctrine of the Trinity.
This is not a difficult concept, and you seem to be reading in things that aren’t there.
If a person in your local church questioned whether the descriptions of “consubstantial persons” and “hypostases” could be know with certainty, would you cast them out of the church?
I also use his acceptance by another part of the church to show that the doctrine of the Trinity as defined around 400 AD was only accepted by a part of Christendom.
Not at all. To be sure many people do think these texts hold truths about God. But I personally do not know that this is the case and I never assume that people know what they are talking. My interest in them is also extremely limited. They do not speak my language – and I am not talking about English but religious language, for each religion has their own terminology. I would tend to have similar problems with a sermon by a southern Baptist minister. But none of this means that they do not hold any truths about God either. This is for God alone to say and there may be no reason for God to inform be of this – that is for Him to judge. But I certainly do think there is a great deal of truth, even about God, in science – that is another body of revelation which speaks to me in a language I can understand.
This does not make sense when they are things which Nestorius defended himself. Sorry no.
This is like saying that because we have found some of the postulates of geometry by Euclid to be variable giving rise to non-Euclidean geometry then this somehow means that we cannot hold to any of the other postulates of geometry. It does not logically follow and it amounts throwing away geometry altogether.
So no, the example of Nestorius does not justify throwing out the doctrine of the Trinity when this is what defines Christianity as a religion different from other religions.
Churches generally do not throw people out for questioning things. There is only a problem when they take it upon themselves to teaching contrary things in the name of the church – and this is exactly what the early church was facing when they convened those first ecumenical councils. This was even the case with Nestorius, testified to by his own words – though I would tend to agree with you that it was still probably excessive in his case.
Furthermore, let me remind you where OUR discussion began – my minimal statement of the doctrine of the Trinity as follows: “the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit are three distinct persons but only one God.” This was while you were quoting a far less minimal statement of the Trinity from Wikipedia. ErikNelson incorrectly claimed my statement of the Trinity was too strong, and I objected to you that Wikipedia was hardly the final authority on the proper statement of Christian doctrines. So I went to the agreement of the ecumenical council of Nicea in 325 AD (57 years before the Bible was even canonized) as the oldest, most authoritative and minimal statement of the doctrine. This is where you made accusations that Nicea didn’t represent all of Christendom, which I demonstrated were false.
The point being that your dislike of the terms consubstantial and hypostases never had anything to do with me in the slightest – not in my minimal statement of the doctrine of the Trinity nor in the creed of Nicea 325 AD.
And I never gave any support whatsoever to the later councils of Ephesus 431 and Chalcedon 451 which rejected Nestorianism. What I have consistently objected to is you using this as a excuse to diss and denounce the earlier decision of Nicea 325 with which Nestorius and the Church of the East were completely in agreement with. You need to exercise a little more discernment in dealing with the vast spectrum of belief and opinions within Christianity.
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Mathematicians studying or seeing value in non-Euclidean geometry are not excommunicated from the community of math. But Nestorius was excommunicated. So your analogy fails.
Do you think Christians who don’t embrace the specifics of the doctrine of the Trinity should be excommunicated?
As for “throwing out the doctrine of the Trinity,” you imagine I wrote that but I did not. I propose not throwing out people who disagree with it. Why do you exaggerate or misrepresent?
That is not the doctrine of the Trinity. That is your rewriting it to make it less specific and less objectionable.
Why do you exaggerate and misrepresent me by responding to only the tiniest part of my post and completely ignore everything else in order to make accusations contrary to what I have already written. It makes a discussion with you seem like a complete waste of time.
Sorry but you have already PROVEN yourself to be a VERY unreliable source for things like this. I have backed up my claims with far more substance than a quote from Wikipedia as you have.
I am not the one who wants to require an adherence to the specifics of the doctrine of the Trinity, nor am I the one who wants to present an inaccurate description of the doctrine.
I am not the one rewriting the doctrine of the Trinity. That is unreliable!
I suggest you continue your discussion with Wikipedia since that is the only one you apparently are willing to listen to.
Yes you are. The doctrine of the Trinity is first stated officially in Nicea 325 AD not in Wikipedia 2001 AD.
I would also like to point to an earlier post of mine where in did a numerical measure of how Trinitarian various source can be considered to be.
So you want to fight everyone but now play the Brothers in Christ card?
Do you embrace the beliefs of Nestorius? What church do you attend?
I believe that Mary was the “god-bearer” and that Jesus was divine from the moment of his conception. That is, he didn’t somehow acquire deity later in his life. Along with Roman Catholics, Eastern Orthodox, and mainline Protestants I accept the definition of the faith as set forth in Chalcedon.
Here’s a partial quote:
"Therefore we confess that our Lord Jesus Christ, the only-begotten Son of God, is complete God and complete human being with a rational soul and a body. He was born from the Father before the ages, as to his deity, but at the end of days the same one was born, for our sake and the sake of our salvation, from Mary the Virgin , as to his humanity. This same one is coessential to the Father, as to his deity, and coessential to us, as to his humanity, for a union of two natures has occurred, as a consequence of which we confess one Christ, one Son, one Lord. In accordance with this concept of the unconfused union, we confess that the holy Virgin is Mother of God, because the divine Logos was made flesh and became a human being and from the moment of conception itself united to himself the temple which he took from her."
You would be welcome to visit my church and probably most other churches. But you wouldn’t be allowed to teach or spread the views of Nestorius as truth. We have the right to be taught orthodox beliefs, just as Nestorian churches have the right to be taught Nestorian beliefs. Church isn’t a survey of religions course.
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Can someone explain how denying Christ deity and connection to the Father doesn’t automatically puts us as pagans? Its literally like believing in two different gods(which is fine if you want to of course) but Christianity is a monotheistic faith
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I am disagreeing, “fighting” as you call it, with the divisiveness that alienates Christians from one another.
You must have missed some of my posts, as I have stated clearly that:
- I don’t know if Nestorius was right or wrong.
- We aren’t qualified to define God.
- People should not be excommunicated for disagreeing on the specifics of the doctrine of the Trinity.
I go to North Point Community Church.
What church do you attend, beaglelady?
We disagree on the appropriateness of calling Mary the Mother of God. Do you think it is appropriate to excommunicate people who refuse to call Mary the Mother of God?
Nick, who is denying the deity of Christ and his connection to the Father?
You don’t think I did that, do you? Because I did not.
No but whoever says God is not triunue is like doing that
While this is somewhat off-topic, it is interesting, Nick.
You think whoever says God is not triune denies the deity of Christ?
Does this mean you think a person who believes in God the Father, God the Son, and God the Holy Spirit, and that they are one, but is unwilling to use the word “triune” or “Trinity” in describing them is a pagan?
You seem to misunderstand me or twisting my words. If theu believe in a connection of The Son The Father and The Holy Spirit not using the term triune its fine
But not believing Jesus to be God or be apart from the pther persons of the Trinity then i dpnt see a difference between you and a polytheist
Or accepting that Christ is God but is distinct from the Father and the Holy Spirit
Ahhh!!! That explains a lot about this conflict which I didn’t understand before. Of course I agree 100%!
But perhaps part of my agreement with this is the distinction between “Mother of God” and “God-bearer”. The former sound too much to me like Mary created God, while the latter is little bit more like she was a surrogate which is closer to the truth, don’t you think?
Where are you getting that from? Does anybody here believe that stuff?