by minimus 43 Replies latest jw friends
For a hot second, when I fully realized that Watchtower was pretty much wrong about anything it said, I figured that mainstream "Christendom" probably had it much closer to correct and that God may have been a trinity.
But I have learned since then that religion can make the Bible say anything and it's all nonsense. If there was a Jesus anything close to the man of the Gospels, he was just a man and was made into a God later.
The WTS argues against a strawman definition of the trinity, much like they (and virtually every fundy religion) argue against a strawman version of evolution.
That said, I find it really a moot point.
Here's my thought: Assuming there is a God, if it were so almightily crucial to understand his nature (triune or not), he would have made it absolutely perfectly unambiguous. Instead, the debate continues after nearly 2000 years. If it is that unclear, how important can it be?
Here is/was my theory on the Trinity concept back when I cared one way or another.
Satan wanted Jehovah and Jesus to share their prominence with him. He thought that up while liaisoning with Adam and Eve in the garden.
God and Jesus rejected his proposition.
So ever since, Satan has used the concept of worshipping a "group of 3" to show God and Jesus how great the concept is and how humans are readily accepting of the idea.
a working theory on why people so readily accept this unique and non logical concept with such fervor
I think that “pronomono” has the best logical explanation, saying that “they are one in the sense they are working in a unified effort toward a common goal.”
The term “trio” (or trinity) can be used for a musical performance by three individuals, not some physically doubly-conjoined-since-birth scenario. As far as the Holy Trinity goes, I would think that the intended essence of that doctrine is that of three separate, individual entities which each manifest a distinctly different type of manifestation, aspect, or “mode” of the Divine God – including God Himself, who is the Almighty Creator; as well as his chosen human representative, his “son,” Jesus Christ; and his active force, his holy spirit – all three of which being physically, or substantially, separate, but all three such fundamental elements being united in an embodiment and manifestation of “the divine.”
Think of it this way: A composite of the fundamental elements, or manifestations, or “modes,” of a government could be the country’s president, a top military general, and a Tomahawk cruise missile system. The president is the fundamental element of the federal government administration, the top military general is the representative in the flesh you might see in a military operation, and the Tomahawk cruise missile system – well that is the actual tool used to physically administer the will of the government (the thing that manifests the power to go right up your ass and blow your body’s cells umpteen ways from Sunday if you’re one of those ISIS folks). All three elements (president, general, missile) are a trio, or trinity, of whoop-ass that gets the job done. Simple.
No. I reject any form of the trinity 100%.
Now I don't believe in Jesus at all, if he even existed. He was NOT the messiah.
I think that “pronomono” has the best logical explanation, saying that “they are one in the sense they are working in a unified effort toward a common goal.”
That isn't the trinity. It is a heresy called partialism.
Almost every christian I have ever met actually believes either partialism or modalism.
He was NOT the messiah.
...he was just a very naughty boy?
If you look at the plurality of god in the old testament, the new testament quotes using the tetragrammaton and the writings of Paul and who he thought Jesus was, I believe the writers believe Jesus co-existed with his father as Jehovah, Yahweh, LORD all caps in the old testament.
Does anyone fully understand it ?? Not really but who do you think the authors of the new testament believed Jesus was, God in the flesh or Michael the arc angel ?
Then if you think the bible is complete bullshit, so be it but the when the basis of your religion is the bible is wrong ( the name of god removed ) and it has been repaired by men we don’t know they are with copies of the bible we don’t know if they exist.
No knows. You have to be careful when being raised a JW. You tend to read the bible like you just got a speeding ticket and you are looking for a technicality to get off. JW generally seem to be so busy looking at the fine print they usually miss the big picture when studying the bible.
I'll reserve judgment about the nature of God, but "from the Biblical point of view", I do see some shortcomings to this basis of reasoning , that the notion of a Trinity is "un-biblical". It would appear that there is not so much a Biblical point of view as there is a point of view imposed on the Bible.
In the book of Genesis, chapter one, the Lord relates the events of the creation in the form of an editorial "we". "Let us make man in our own image and likeness..."
And then in chapter 18 of the same book starting from the first verse:
"Yahweh appeared to (Abraham) at the Oak of Mamre while he was sitting by the entrance of the tent during the hottest part of the day. He looked up and there he saw three men standing near him. As soon as he saw them he ran from the entrance of the tent to greet them and bowed to the ground. "My Lord, if I find favor with you, please do not pass your servant by. Let me have a little water brought...
"They replied, 'Do as you say.'
----------------
That would appear to me as quite clear from a Biblical point of view - and I have sat through hours of arguments that were of much more tenuous nature or connection to text.
Then, of course, there is nearly all the Gospel of John. A man who speaks of God as his Father, in the 8th chapter, 58th verse says that "before Abraham ever was, I am". His audience reportedly sensed the drift of what he was saying because they picked up stones from the Temple courtyard to express their rebuttal.
It is also in the Gospel of John that the Samaritan woman says to Jesus in chapter 4 that "I know that the Messiah is coming and when he comes he will explain everything." Jesus answers that "That is who I am, I who speak to you."
So, it is the contention of many who have replied to this query:
On the matter of a Trinity or even a Duality, how could Christians have ever been confused if they had studied their Bible?
In chapter 5 of John, it's almost as though Jesus laments in the text about the dilemma: "You pore over the scriptures, believing that in them you can find eternal life; it is these scriptures that testify to me, and yet you refuse to come to me to receive life!"
As sceptical as I am about many things I read, I do find it remarkable that this text predicts a Bible as it will someday be construed. For whenever a certain John put the text to scroll, there was a time before that that there was no Gospel of John and a message of a Messiah coming was all that much less clear.
But coming back to the subject, in combination with the citations John gives from Isaiah and other OT texts, as do other apostolic writers, and then the additional passages that they do not connect directly such as the ones I cited above, then you have the basis for a Trinitarian view of God.
I heard one time this explanation for the trinity:
One ELEMENT = H2O ---> but H2O can have one of the 3 conditions: water - ice - steam
