Posts by aqwsed12345

228

The point of existence and how it refutes the Trinity

by slimboyfat in

rowan williams, the former archbishop of canterbury gave an interesting answer to the somewhat stark question, what’s the point of us existing?

as a christian, my starting point is that we exist because the most fundamental form of activity, energy, call it what you like, that is there, is love.

that is, it’s a willingness that the other should be.

aqwsed12345

@slimboyfat

Quoting John 5:30—“I can do nothing on my own authority”—to deny Jesus' divine agency in His resurrection profoundly misrepresents the context and meaning of that passage. Far from being a statement of weakness or inferiority, it affirms the perfect unity between the Son and the Father in will, judgment, and divine action. Jesus is not saying that He lacks divine authority in Himself. Rather, He is speaking as the obedient Son, who, in perfect harmony with the Father, acts not independently in opposition to the Father but in concert with Him. The phrase “I can do nothing on my own” (οὐ δύναμαι ποιεῖν ἀπ’ ἐμαυτοῦ οὐδέν) is not a confession of incapacity but a declaration of inseparable unity. It echoes John 5:19, where Jesus says:

“The Son can do nothing of his own accord, but only what he sees the Father doing. For whatever the Father does, that the Son does likewise.”

This means that the Son does everything the Father does—in the same way, including resurrection:

“My Father is always at his work to this very day, and I too am working.” (John 5:17)
“As the Father raises the dead and gives them life, so also the Son gives life to whom he will.” (John 5:21)

And that includes judgment:

“The Father judges no one, but has given all judgment to the Son, that all may honor the Son, just as they honor the Father.” (John 5:22–23)

This is not subordinationism; this is divine identity. Hence Christ does not question that He is equal to God — which He would have had to do if He were not — but rather states that the divine works of the Son are also the works of the Father. The Son can only do what He beholds in His divine essence, which He received from the Father; and thus, He does everything that the Father does, insofar as the Son operates with the same divine power as the Father. They work equally, because they are completely equal in nature; only where there is no equality of being can there be no equality in mode of operation. That this refers exclusively to divine actions is self-evident, because those divine acts of the Son which were also human — for example, His sufferings — can only be called acts of the Father insofar as they were in accord with His will, but not as acts proper to Him; for the Father did not become man together with the Son. Insofar as the Incarnation introduced a certain distinction of being between the Father and the Son, the God-man’s actions could not be proper acts of the Father.

No mere creature can give life “to whom he will” or demand that all people give him the same honor as the Father. The claim that Jesus is merely an “agent” misunderstands what kind of agency He possesses. He is not like Moses or a prophet, temporarily commissioned and ontologically distinct from the Principal. He is the eternal Son, who has life in Himself, just as the Father does (John 5:26). This is a shared divine attribute—aseity—which no created being can possess.

So when Jesus says in John 5:30, “I can do nothing on my own authority,” He is expressing His perfect unity of will and action with the Father—not an inability, but an inseparability (cf. Perichoresis). Augustine rightly comments that this means Christ judges “not without the Father,” because all divine acts are performed in unity. He judges “as He hears,” not because He is an ontologically subordinate receiver, but because His hearing and judgment are part of His divine knowledge, which He possesses eternally from the Father. As the Church Fathers observed, the Son’s divine will is not “another” will; it is one with the Father’s. Furthermore, your objection ignores John 10:17–18, where Jesus says with absolute clarity:

“I have authority to lay down my life, and I have authority to take it up again. This command I received from my Father.”

Here, Jesus explicitly claims active authority in His own resurrection. The verb “take up again” (λαβεῖν) is not passive. It is set in parallel with “I lay it down,” both governed by the repeated phrase “I have authority.” This is Jesus’ own interpretation of His role—not as a passive recipient, but as one who acts with divine power. And when Jesus says He received a command, He is not denying His power. He is affirming the Trinitarian harmony of mission: the Son’s work is the Father’s work, but this mission is carried out with divine authority shared within the Godhead.

Your interpretation also conflicts with John 2:19, where Jesus says:

“Destroy this temple, and in three days I will raise it up.”
And John clarifies: “He was speaking about the temple of His body.” (John 2:21)

This is unambiguous: Jesus declares He will raise Himself from the dead. The Gospel of John affirms both the Father’s role (John 5:21; Acts 2:24), and the Son’s active role (John 2:19; 10:18), and the Spirit’s role (Romans 8:11) in the resurrection. This is not a contradiction. This is the Trinitarian unity: one divine action, one divine will, three Persons inseparably working together.

Lastly, the “agency” model some anti-Trinitarians invoke cannot explain this level of divine prerogative. Jewish agents never claimed to be honored as God is honored, to have life in themselves, or to judge the world on the Day of the Lord. Jesus does all these—and then says, “that all may honor the Son just as they honor the Father.” (John 5:23)

No created agent can receive the same honor due to God without blasphemy—unless that agent is Himself divine.

Therefore, John 5:30 does not diminish Jesus’ authority, nor does it conflict with His power to raise Himself. It affirms the Son’s divine identity, inseparable unity with the Father, and the perfect harmony of the Trinity in the work of salvation.

228

The point of existence and how it refutes the Trinity

by slimboyfat in

rowan williams, the former archbishop of canterbury gave an interesting answer to the somewhat stark question, what’s the point of us existing?

as a christian, my starting point is that we exist because the most fundamental form of activity, energy, call it what you like, that is there, is love.

that is, it’s a willingness that the other should be.

aqwsed12345

@slimboyfat

You claim that since Jesus says, “This command I received from my Father,” this implies that Jesus had no authority of His own, and merely received back His life passively. But this interpretation is inconsistent with both the language Jesus uses and the broader New Testament teaching.

Yes, the Greek word λαβεῖν (infinitive aorist active of lambanō) can mean both "to take" and "to receive", depending on the context. But context is king, and here Jesus clearly frames both laying down and taking back His life as active expressions of His own divine authority:

“I have authority (ἐξουσίαν ἔχω) to lay it down, and I have authority to take it up again.” (John 10:18)

This is not passive reception. Jesus is not being acted upon; He is acting. Moreover, the contrast Jesus draws is explicit:

“No one takes it from me, but I lay it down of myself.”
(οὐδεὶς αἴρει αὐτὴν ἀπ᾽ ἐμοῦ, ἀλλ᾽ ἐγὼ τίθημι αὐτὴν ἀπ᾽ ἐμαυτοῦ)
— John 10:18

So when Jesus says He “received this command from His Father,” He’s speaking of His Messianic mission, not of lacking power or agency. He is voluntarily submitting to the Father’s will — a will that He shares, as John 10:30 makes clear: “I and the Father are one.”

When Jesus says, “This commandment I received from My Father,” He is not suggesting ontological inferiority or dependence in essence. The Son, in His incarnate role, speaks as the obedient Servant, the one who fulfills the Father’s redemptive plan — freely, not under compulsion. Jesus’s whole life and mission are marked by loving submission to the Father — but it’s submission within the Trinitarian harmony, not because He is a lesser being. Philippians 2:6-8 makes this clear: “Being in very nature God… He humbled Himself…” That humility presupposes His divine nature.

You downplay John 10:18, but Jesus elsewhere reiterates His active role in His resurrection:

John 2:19 – “Destroy this temple, and in three days I will raise it up.”
John adds in v.21: “But He was speaking about the temple of His body.”
This is a straightforward, unambiguous claim by Jesus that He will raise Himself.
John 11:25 – “I am the resurrection and the life.”
That’s not something a mere creature says. That is a divine title.

So the claim that Trinitarians mistranslate λαβεῖν is false. The verb can mean “take,” “receive,” or “take up”, and in this context, Jesus’ clear emphasis on His own authority — “I have authority to take it again” — demands an active sense. It is entirely consistent in Scripture for:

The Father to raise Jesus (e.g., Acts 2:24),
The Son to raise Himself (John 2:19, 10:17–18),
The Spirit to raise Him (Romans 8:11).

This doesn’t suggest three gods or contradictions. It reflects the Trinitarian teaching: one God, three Persons, fully sharing the divine nature, power, and will. The Son shares the authority of the Father — not as a lesser being, but as the eternal Logos, the one who was with God and was God (John 1:1).

In conclusion, your reading of John 10:18 fails to account for:

The contextual force of Jesus’ declaration of authority,
The active voice and theological intention of the verb λαβεῖν,
The consistency of Trinitarian involvement in the resurrection across Scripture,
And the unique self-consciousness of Jesus, who claims what no mere creature ever could.

Jesus did not just “receive” His life back in passive obedience — He laid it down and took it up again with divine authority. That’s what He said. And we must take Him at His word.

228

The point of existence and how it refutes the Trinity

by slimboyfat in

rowan williams, the former archbishop of canterbury gave an interesting answer to the somewhat stark question, what’s the point of us existing?

as a christian, my starting point is that we exist because the most fundamental form of activity, energy, call it what you like, that is there, is love.

that is, it’s a willingness that the other should be.

aqwsed12345

@slimboyfat

You’re misrepresenting both Philo and Christian doctrine by conflating categories and assuming that Christian Trinitarianism is somehow rooted in or derived from Philo’s allegedly “creaturely” Logos. First of all, Alan Segal is not a Church Father — nor a neutral observer of Christian theology. Yes, Segal’s Two Powers in Heaven is a landmark academic work. But quoting Segal on how Philo viewed the Logos does nothing to undermine Trinitarianism, because Christianity does not derive its doctrine of the Logos from Philo. Philo is not a proto-Christian, nor did he speak with theological authority on Christian doctrine. Segal himself is not claiming that John intended to copy Philo’s Logos. He’s describing the philosophical context, not affirming the truth of the theology. In other words: what Philo or Segal thought about the Logos has no binding weight on what the Church confesses about the Word made flesh (John 1:14). Christian theology reinterprets and corrects the philosophical milieu in light of divine revelation — it doesn't merely absorb it.

Your use of Segal actually confirms my point: that there were varied Jewish speculations about mediators, wisdom, and divine action — but that does not mean those ideas are equal to or source material for the Christian Logos doctrine. Segal writes:

“So the logos, defined as the thinking faculty of God, can easily be described also as an incorporeal being, created for the purpose of carrying out His thoughts…”

Yes, and this exactly proves my earlier argument: Philo’s Logos was not a divine person consubstantial with God, but rather a philosophical abstraction adapted to a Jewish worldview — a kind of cosmic intermediary. This is the very contrast with John’s prologue.

John 1:1–3 corrects and transcends Philo:

“In the beginning was the Logos” — eternal preexistence, not created.
“The Logos was with God” — personal distinction.
“The Logos was God” — shared divine essence, not just an intermediary.

Nowhere does Philo say “the Logos was God” in the same sense. He may assign divine functions to the Logos (as the Stoics and Middle Platonists often did with their intermediate agents), but he never crosses the threshold of identifying the Logos with the very essence of YHWH. John does — unequivocally. So Alan Segal’s reading of Philo simply reflects Jewish philosophical development, not apostolic revelation.

The Logos in Christianity is not “a creature outside of God’s being” — this is your Arian lens speaking, not Christian orthodoxy. Even if Philo believed the Logos was a “creature outside of God’s being,” that says nothing about what the Gospel of John or the Christian Church teaches. Christian orthodoxy affirms, that the Logos is

begotten, not made (John 1:14, Nicene Creed),
homoousios with the Father — of the same being,
not subordinate in nature, even if functionally sent.

To say that John “adopted” Philo’s idea of a created Logos and applied it to Jesus is not only speculative and historically unjustified, it contradicts:

The prologue of John (1:1–18),
The worship of Jesus by NT authors (e.g. Philippians 2:9–11),
The early Christian rejection of subordinationist heresies (e.g. Arius),
And the unbroken patristic witness that Jesus Christ is God in the fullest sense.

Even within Philo’s thought, the Logos is not easily reduced to “creature”. Philo is notoriously ambiguous on the status of the Logos. Sometimes he speaks of the Logos as the first-born Son (e.g., De Confusione Linguarum, 146), other times he calls it the image of God, or even “a second God” (De Somniis, I.229–230). In short: Philo wasn’t offering a systematic theology, and he didn’t hold a consistent view of the Logos. He was a Platonizing Jew wrestling with transcendence and immanence. But John's Logos is not Philo’s Logos — and the Church Fathers knew that.

You’re reading Christian doctrine through the lens of Arianism, not Scripture. Let’s say it clearly: Christian doctrine doesn’t teach the Logos is a “second God” or “lesser God.” We don’t affirm two gods, nor a created demiurge. Rather: "the Logos was God… and the Logos became flesh" (John 1:1, 14) — not a creature that later earned divine status. You are importing Arian categories (created Logos, exalted being) into the text — a position that was explicitly condemned at the Council of Nicaea in 325 and is refuted in Scripture:

Hebrews 1:3 – The Son is the exact imprint of God's nature.
Colossians 1:16–17 – All things were created through Him and for Him.
Revelation 5 – The Lamb receives the same worship due to God the Father.

This cannot be said of a created being. The Fathers were not dupes of Hellenism — they were careful exegetes of divine revelation who rejected the very idea you’re proposing: that the Logos is a creature.

While it's true that early Christianity emerged in a religious environment where various Jewish groups speculated about divine agents—Wisdom, the Logos, the Angel of the Lord—this in no way means that the Christian view of Christ was merely one more version of a “primary angelic helper” idea. The apostolic writings of the New Testament go far beyond any Second Temple Jewish model by affirming not just functional agency but ontological divinity. The Gospel of John opens not by calling Jesus an angelic mediator, but by declaring, “In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God.” No Jewish mystical group ever made that claim. The Word is not merely with God, like a servant or angel, but is God in essence—eternally preexistent, the one through whom all things were made (John 1:3).

Similarly, Philippians 2:6-11 presents Jesus as “existing in the morphḗ of God,” not as a creature promoted to divine status. The early Church Fathers, such as Ignatius of Antioch, Justin Martyr, and Irenaeus, explicitly affirmed the divinity and preexistence of Christ long before the Council of Nicaea. They did not describe him as an angel, nor as a created intermediary, but as “our God Jesus Christ” (Ignatius, To the Ephesians), and as the one who is “eternally co-existent with the Father” (Irenaeus, Against Heresies 2.30.9).

Moreover, the idea that Nicene Trinitarianism “replaced” a supposedly earlier angelic Christology is a distortion. The Council of Nicaea did not invent the divinity of Christ—it formally clarified what the Church had always confessed in the face of the Arian heresy, which was a novel deviation, not a recovery of earlier tradition. The creed articulated the eternal generation of the Son, “begotten, not made,” and insisted on his consubstantiality with the Father, because this is what had been taught by the apostles and preserved in liturgical and theological traditions.

Gnostic sources, moreover, are not reliable witnesses to apostolic Christology. They represent radical departures from Judaism and Christianity alike, often blending pagan cosmologies, Platonic dualism, and speculative myth with borrowed Christian language. To argue that their portrayal of Christ as a divine intermediary reflects the mainstream Christian view prior to Nicaea is to mistake fringe sectarian distortions for apostolic teaching.

Alan Segal’s observation that some Jews and Christians posited divine agents does not prove that Christianity originally saw Jesus as a high angel. Rather, it proves that the category of divine agency was present and provided a context for early Christians to understand and redefine those roles in light of the Incarnation. The New Testament writers do not reduce Jesus to the level of a helper—they worship him, call upon his name, and equate him with YHWH himself, as seen in texts like Romans 10:13 and Hebrews 1, where the Son is declared superior to the angels, worshiped by them, and addressed by the Father as God.

In short, the claim that Jesus was viewed "primarily" as a high angel until the fourth century is contradicted by both Scripture and the earliest patristic testimony. The Church did not "evolve" from an angel-Christology into Trinitarianism; it defended the eternal divinity of Christ from the beginning and rejected any reduction of him to a creature—no matter how exalted.

228

The point of existence and how it refutes the Trinity

by slimboyfat in

rowan williams, the former archbishop of canterbury gave an interesting answer to the somewhat stark question, what’s the point of us existing?

as a christian, my starting point is that we exist because the most fundamental form of activity, energy, call it what you like, that is there, is love.

that is, it’s a willingness that the other should be.

aqwsed12345

@Halcon

It's a common misunderstanding to think that the doctrine of the Trinity excludes Jesus from participating in His own resurrection. In reality, the Bible teaches that all three Persons of the Trinity were involved in the resurrection of Christ, and that includes Jesus Himself.

Jesus clearly claimed He had the authority to lay down His life and to take it up again. In John 10:17-18, He said: “I lay down my life that I may take it up again… I have authority to lay it down, and I have authority to take it up again.” That is not a passive role—it’s an explicit declaration of divine power over life and death. Moreover, in John 2:19, Jesus says, “Destroy this temple, and in three days I will raise it up.” Verse 21 explains that “He was speaking of the temple of His body.” After the resurrection, John 2:22 says that His disciples remembered He had said this and believed.

This is not in contradiction to the Father raising Him from the dead, as seen in verses like Acts 2:24 or Romans 6:4. It simply shows that the resurrection is a divine act of the whole Godhead—Father, Son, and Holy Spirit (Romans 8:11). Each Person is fully God and shares in the work of redemption, including the resurrection.

The fact that Jesus says, “I am the resurrection and the life” in John 11:25 reinforces this: He is not merely the recipient of resurrection power but its very source. That statement has no place on the lips of a mere creature—it reveals divine identity.

So, to answer your question: No, it's not accurate to say Jesus didn’t raise Himself from the dead per Trinitarian teaching. On the contrary, the Trinitarian framework fully affirms what Jesus Himself said—that He had the divine authority and power to rise from the dead. Any doctrine that denies Jesus’ role in His own resurrection stands in opposition to His own words.

6

Baptism on Fire

by peacefulpete in

going through justin martyr's dialogue with trypho yesterday, i found a variation on the baptism scene :.

88. and let this be a proof to you, namely, what i told you was done by the magi from arabia, who as soon as the child was born came to worship him, for even at his birth he was in possession of his power; and as he grew up like all other men, by using the fitting means, he assigned its own [requirements] to each development, and was sustained by all kinds of nourishment, and waited for thirty years, more or less, until john appeared before him as the herald of his approach, and preceded him in the way of baptism, as i have already shown.

and then, when jesus had gone to the river jordan, where john was baptizing, and when he had stepped into the water, a fire was kindled in the jordan; and when he came out of the water, the holy ghost lighted on him like a dove, [as] the apostles of this very christ of ours wrote.

aqwsed12345

Baptism of blood, that is, martyrdom, substitutes for water baptism. It is granted to those who suffer martyrdom for their Christian faith or for the defense of a Christian virtue, since the Lord said: “But whoever loses his life for my sake will find it.” (Mt 10:39) According to the universal teaching of theologians, martyrdom is the patient (non-resistant) endurance of mortal torments for Christ. If any one of the three elements indicated here is missing, it can no longer be considered martyrdom (e.g., the suffering and death of soldiers in war) (cf. Thom. III q. 124 a. 3; cf. Supl. q. 96 a. 6 ad 11; August. Epist. 89, 2; in Ps 34, 2.13; cf. I 153). However, neither desire nor baptism of blood has the sacramental character of baptism. These are rather expressions of the desire for baptism than of the actual sacramental baptism itself.

Already in the Sermon on the Mount, Christ proclaims: “Blessed are those who are persecuted for righteousness’ sake, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven.” (Mt 5:10; cf. Mk 10:38; Lk 12:50) Then: “Whoever acknowledges me before men, I also will acknowledge before my Father who is in heaven.” (Mt 10:32; cf. Mt 10:39; 16:28; Mk 8:35) “Whoever loses his life for my sake will save it.” (Lk 9:24; cf. Jn 12:25) “Greater love has no one than this, that someone lay down his life for his friends.” (Jn 15:13) The Revelation sees the martyrs in the triumphal procession of the heavenly Jerusalem: “These are they who have come out of the great tribulation; they have washed their robes and made them white in the blood of the Lamb. Therefore they are before the throne of God and serve him day and night.” (Rev 7:14–15)

Tradition gives expression to this conviction both in theory and in practice. In theory: “We also have a second bath, which is also unique, namely the bath of blood, of which the Savior says: I have a baptism to be baptized with, and how great is my distress until it is accomplished.” (Lk 12:50) “This is the baptism which replaces the water baptism not received, and restores the one that was lost.” (Tertullian, De Baptismo 16) Cyprian says of the catechumen martyrs: “They are not deprived of the sacrament of baptism, but are baptized in the most glorious and effective way, in the baptism of blood.” According to Saint Augustine, martyrdom has the same efficacy for the forgiveness of sins as water baptism (Cypr. Epist. 73, 22; August. De Civitate Dei XIII 7; Epist. 265, 4; Symbolum ad catechumenos 3, 4). The Greeks speak in the same way (Irenaeus III 16, 4; Cyril of Jerusalem, Catechesis 3, 10; Chrysostom, Homily on the Martyrdom of Lucian 2 [M 50, 522]). This profession of faith is confirmed by the Church’s practice: unbaptized martyrs were honored equally with the baptized (Martyrdom of Perpetua and Felicity 21; Emmerentiana – foster sister of Saint Agnes); and in the feast of the Holy Innocents, from the beginning, it was precisely martyrdom and the heavenly crown gained through martyrdom that were celebrated: “age still unfit for battle was already fit for victory.” (Cypr. Epist. 56, 6; cf. Iren. III 16, 4)

The Roman Martyrology reports on many saints who received only baptism of blood, for when they converted after seeing the martyrdom of Christians and professed themselves as Christians, they were immediately seized and executed. Even young children can receive baptism of blood if they are killed for Christ or for their Christian faith. Such were the infants of Bethlehem, whom Herod had killed, and whose feast the Church celebrates on December 28.

The believing mind first establishes the fact: According to Saint Thomas Aquinas, the power of baptism comes from its identification with the Passion of Jesus Christ and its connection with His cross (Thom. III q. 66 a. 11). This may happen in the ordinary, sacramental way through water baptism; or in an extraordinary, psychic way through perfect love, in which one gives oneself without reserve; and finally, by a special privilege of God, through suffering willingly undertaken for Christ and borne in His spirit, as the greatest proof of love: “Greater love has no one than this, that someone lay down his life for his friends.” (Jn 15:13)

Then it establishes its efficacy:
a) Baptism of blood agrees with baptism of desire in that it does not impart the sacramental character; but it agrees with water baptism in that it remits all sins and punishments. This is sufficiently indicated by the previously cited statements of Scripture, and is confirmed by the ancient proverb: “He is unjust to the martyr who prays for the martyr.” (August. Sermo 159, 1; cf. In Joannem 84; Thom. III q. 66 a. 12 ad 1)
b) It exercises this efficacy almost as a physical effect (Thom. III q. 87 a. 1 ad 2; cf. II-II q. 124 a. 1 ad 1). If it did not operate with the force of a quasi-physical effect, it would not justify infants, and it would be difficult to understand how it remits all sins and punishments (as water baptism does). When we attribute this efficacy almost as a physical effect, we mean that the torturers are not the instruments chosen by God for the communication of grace, as is the sacramental sign. Why was baptism of blood not included by the Council of Trent in the enumeration of the means of rebirth, along with water and desire baptism? Clearly because baptism of blood always presupposes the wickedness of persecutors, which God does not will; and therefore martyrdom cannot simply and in all respects (simpliciter) be regarded as an instrument of spiritual rebirth willed by God. Martyrdom belongs to the category about which Saint Augustine says: “God prefers to bring good out of evil than to allow no evil at all” (I 484): “For those who love God, all things work together for good.”

228

The point of existence and how it refutes the Trinity

by slimboyfat in

rowan williams, the former archbishop of canterbury gave an interesting answer to the somewhat stark question, what’s the point of us existing?

as a christian, my starting point is that we exist because the most fundamental form of activity, energy, call it what you like, that is there, is love.

that is, it’s a willingness that the other should be.

aqwsed12345

@slimboyfat

In the intertestamental and Second Temple periods, Jewish literature explored a wide range of theological ideas, including personalized portrayals of Wisdom (cf. Proverbs 8), the Logos (notably in Philo), the Memra (in Targums), the Shekinah (Divine Presence), and the Angel of the Lord in Genesis and Exodus. However, it is crucial to recognize that these were literary, not doctrinal, developments. Judaism at that time had no central theological authority defining the nature of these concepts. Instead, we find a variety of Jewish voices wrestling with how to maintain monotheism while affirming God’s activity within the world in tangible, personal terms. Importantly, some of these figures are depicted in personal terms, despite the claim to the contrary. For example:

Wisdom in Proverbs 8 speaks and acts as an agent in creation (vv. 22–31).
The Angel of the Lord speaks as God, bears God's name, forgives sins (cf. Exodus 23:20–21), and is identified as YHWH himself in multiple passages (e.g., Genesis 16:10–13; Exodus 3:2–6).
Philo’s Logos functions as God's agent in creation, providence, and revelation, and while not personal in the Christian sense, he is more than a mere metaphor.

These Jewish ideas laid the intellectual and theological groundwork for Christian Trinitarianism. They were not a contradiction of it, but a seedbed in which the doctrine later found mature expression after the Incarnation and Resurrection of Christ forced the early Church to articulate more precisely who Jesus is.

The argument assumes a false dichotomy: that if something is personal, it must be created and subordinate to God, and if it is uncreated, it must lack personhood. This is a philosophically and theologically unjustified leap. Trinitarianism, grounded in divine revelation and clarified over time, does not argue that God is three beings but that God is one being in three persons — a distinction rooted in the ontological unity of the divine nature and the relational distinctions among the persons. The early Church concluded from the evidence of Scripture that:

The Father is God.
The Son is God (John 1:1; 20:28; Colossians 2:9).
The Spirit is God (Acts 5:3–4; 1 Corinthians 2:10–11).
Yet there is one God (Deut. 6:4; 1 Cor. 8:6).

This is not derived from pagan ideas or philosophical speculation alone but from grappling with revelation — particularly in the person of Jesus Christ.

The claim that subordination of the Son (or Wisdom, or Logos) implies inequality of nature misunderstands both Jewish categories and the doctrine of the Trinity. Within the Trinity, functional subordination (e.g., the Son is sent by the Father, the Spirit proceeds from the Father and the Son) does not imply ontological inferiority. Jesus himself declared: “The Father is greater than I” (John 14:28) — but this was said in the context of his incarnation, not of his eternal divine nature. Philippians 2:6–7 is explicit: though Jesus was in the form of God, he humbled himself, taking on the nature of a servant. His subordination was voluntary, rooted in the economic (salvific) order, not the ontological order of the Trinity.

The objection falsely claims that early Christianity, up until the 4th century, held that Jesus was a created being — a position compatible with Jehovah’s Witnesses’ theology. This is historically inaccurate. Well before the Council of Nicaea (325), Church Fathers affirmed the eternity and deity of Christ:

Ignatius of Antioch (early 2nd century): “[Jesus Christ] is God in man, life in death, … the Son of Mary and of God.” (Letter to the Ephesians, 7.2)
Justin Martyr (mid-2nd century): refers to Christ as “God” (Dialogue with Trypho, 128).
Irenaeus (late 2nd century): says the Son is “eternally co-existing with the Father.” (Against Heresies, 2.30.9)

The idea that the Son is begotten of the Father does not imply createdness. The Nicene Creed clarified this: “begotten, not made, consubstantial with the Father.” The Church rejected Arius’ claim that “there was a time when the Son was not” — a claim much closer to JW theology than anything biblical or apostolic.

The claim that Jesus is “the firstborn of all creation” does not mean he is the first created being. The Greek word prōtotokos (πρωτότοκος) often means preeminent heir, not necessarily first in time. Psalm 89:27 calls David “firstborn,” though he was the youngest son of Jesse. In Colossians 1:15–17, Jesus is said to be the one “through whom all things were created” and who holds all things together. That cannot be said of a creature.

228

The point of existence and how it refutes the Trinity

by slimboyfat in

rowan williams, the former archbishop of canterbury gave an interesting answer to the somewhat stark question, what’s the point of us existing?

as a christian, my starting point is that we exist because the most fundamental form of activity, energy, call it what you like, that is there, is love.

that is, it’s a willingness that the other should be.

aqwsed12345

“And even if there be not as yet any one who is worthy to be called a son of God, nevertheless let him labour earnestly to be adorned according to his first-born word, the eldest of his angels, as the great archangel of many names; for he is called, the authority, and the name of God, and the Word, and man according to God's image, and he who sees Israel.”
— Philo, On the Confusion of Tongues, §146 (English from C.D. Yonge translation)

This passage has been misinterpreted to argue that the Logos is a created angel or the first created being—the very claim of Arians and modern Jehovah’s Witnesses. However, Philo is not describing a created being but rather a divine manifestation of God's activity, functioning as an intermediary—not a literal creature. In §145, he says:

“The Word is the eldest-born image of God.”
“πρωτότοκος εἰκὼν τοῦ θεοῦ λόγος”

Here “πρωτότοκος” (firstborn) is used metaphorically, in the Hellenistic Jewish Platonic tradition, not in a biological or ontological sense of creation. Philo often personifies Logos (λόγος) as God’s instrument in creation, not as a created being. For Philo, the Logos is:

God’s rational principle,
His image,
The instrument through which the visible world was fashioned.

Compare §148:

“For the Word is the eldest-born image of God.”

This echoes Wisdom 7:25–26 and Proverbs 8, where Wisdom is God’s agent but not a creature. The firstborn language is figurative: the Logos is the chief, the archetype, not the first in a sequence of created beings. Yes, Philo calls the Logos:

“the eldest of his angels, the archangel of many names…”
Greek: “πρεσβύτατος τῶν ἀγγέλων… ἀρχάγγελος πολλῶν ὀνομάτων”

But Philo is not saying the Logos is one of the angels. Rather, in Hellenistic thought, “angel” could denote a messenger, and Philo uses angelic language metaphorically to describe divine intermediaries. The Logos is above angels and serves as their archetype:

He is the Word through whom God speaks.
He is the Image of God.
He is the archangel in the sense of being the highest manifestation of God’s revelation—not a being created alongside angels.

As David Winston (in Logos and Mystical Theology in Philo of Alexandria) rightly notes, Philo's Logos is “an ontological bridge between the ineffable God and the material world” – not a created creature. In De Somniis II, §242, Philo says:

“For the Father of the universe has caused him [the Logos] to spring up as the eldest son, whom he (God) calls his firstborn…”

This does not make the Logos a creature. It mirrors Hebrews 1:3, where the Son is “the radiance of God’s glory and the exact imprint of His nature.” And in Legum Allegoriae III.96:

“To his Logos, God says: ‘Behold, I give you as a covenant to the nation, as a light to the Gentiles.’”

Again, the Logos functions as God's agent, but not as a created subordinate.

The genitive in “πρωτότοκος πάσης κτίσεως” (Col 1:15) is not partitive, as Arian exegesis claims. It is a genitive of subordination, as even D.B. Wallace notes in Greek Grammar Beyond the Basics, pp. 103–104. Paul means “the Firstborn over all creation,” not “the firstborn among created things.” That parallels Psalm 89:27 (LXX): “I will make him the firstborn, the highest of the kings of the earth.” The term denotes rank and authority, not origin.

To sum up, Philo’s use of “firstborn” and “archangel” language is Platonic, metaphorical, and theological, not ontological in the Arian sense. The Logos is:

Not created/made/came into being,
Not subordinate by nature,
Not one among angels, but the supreme manifestation of God’s wisdom and power.

Therefore, to quote Philo to support Arianism is a category mistake—it confuses figurative philosophical language for literal ontological claims.

228

The point of existence and how it refutes the Trinity

by slimboyfat in

rowan williams, the former archbishop of canterbury gave an interesting answer to the somewhat stark question, what’s the point of us existing?

as a christian, my starting point is that we exist because the most fundamental form of activity, energy, call it what you like, that is there, is love.

that is, it’s a willingness that the other should be.

aqwsed12345

One of the most controversial verses in the Arian-Nicene debate about the nature of Christ is Colossians 1:15, where Paul calls Jesus “the Firstborn of all creation” (prototokos pases ktiseos). A common argument from those who reject Christ’s deity is that this verse means Jesus was the first created being, based on the assumption that prototokos "always" (?) denotes a temporal or biological priority. However, an examination of how the early Church, particularly apostolic disciples like Polycarp, understood and used this term provides invaluable insight into how prototokos was meant to be understood by those closest to the apostolic tradition.

Polycarp, the bishop of Smyrna, was not just a second-century Christian; he was a disciple of the Apostle John himself and a key transmitter of the apostolic faith. His connection to the apostolic age gives his writings and reported sayings immense theological weight. In his Epistle to the Philippians (7:1), he writes:

“Whosoever shall pervert the oracles of the Lord to his own lusts and say that there is neither resurrection nor judgment, that man is the firstborn of Satan.”

The Greek phrase is striking: houtos prototokos estin tou Satana. Polycarp uses the exact word prototokos, “firstborn,” not in a biological sense, but in a moral and symbolic one. The heretic is not literally Satan’s first biological offspring; rather, he is called the “firstborn of Satan” because he is the foremost in error, the most prominent in rebellion, the exemplar of heresy.

This usage proves that prototokos in early Christian literature, even among the closest apostolic successors, had a clearly metaphorical and hierarchical meaning. To be “firstborn” could mean preeminent, representative, foremost—not merely the first to be created. When Paul calls Christ the prototokos of all creation in Colossians 1:15, he is not placing Christ within the category of creation, but above it. The following verses reinforce this interpretation: all things were created through Him and for Him, and He is before all things, and in Him all things hold together (Colossians 1:16-17). Far from being part of creation, Christ is its source, its sustainer, and its goal.

Polycarp’s use of the term prototokos in reference to a heretic as the “firstborn of Satan” makes it clear that the word denotes rank or representative identity rather than temporal order. Just as the heretic is the leading figure in evil, so Christ is the supreme figure over creation. Moreover, Polycarp’s rebuke of Marcion as the “firstborn of Satan,” recorded by Irenaeus in Against Heresies 3.3.4, demonstrates the polemical and theological use of prototokos to convey primacy in a qualitative, not merely chronological, sense.

This understanding of prototokos aligns with the consistent witness of the early Church Fathers and the context of Colossians itself. The term is used again in Colossians 1:18 to describe Christ as the “firstborn from the dead,” clearly indicating preeminence in resurrection and glory rather than mere sequence. The context is not biological generation, but cosmic lordship. Paul’s intention is to magnify Christ as sovereign Lord, the visible image of the invisible God, not to place Him among the created beings. And this is exactly how Polycarp, a man instructed directly by the Apostle John, used the same term in his own writings and teachings.

In conclusion, the use of prototokos by Polycarp offers strong lexical and theological evidence that the term in Colossians 1:15 denotes preeminence, not creation. It reinforces the traditional, Trinitarian understanding of the passage: that Christ is supreme over all creation because He is its source, its sustainer, and its Lord. To read this verse as teaching Christ’s creation is not only a misreading of Paul’s intent but a contradiction of the very way the apostolic Church interpreted and applied the language of “firstborn.”

65

The unending and fruitless argument on Trinity

by Longlivetherenegades in

those who say they are christians or follow christianity needs .

1. father .

2. jesus .

aqwsed12345

@MeanMrMustard

You objected to my statement that certain truths about God's nature are necessary for salvation, characterizing it as a "sneaking in" of doctrine without clear scriptural command. However, the principle (Veritas fidei est de necessariis ad salutem) does not "sneak in" the Trinity but explicitly highlights that true saving faith requires belief in God as He has revealed Himself. Belief in Christ necessarily implies belief in the Trinity, as the very revelation of Christ includes the Father sending the Son, and the Spirit proceeding from both. The Trinity isn't an “arbitrary” addition but the foundational truth of God’s self-disclosure. Thus, recognizing the Trinity as essential for salvation flows logically and scripturally from the divinity of Christ and the Holy Spirit explicitly taught in Scripture (e.g., John 1:1, Matthew 28:19, Hebrews 1:3).

You described my explanation as "word salad," objecting particularly to terms like "habit" and "infused by grace." The term "habit" (Latin: habitus) does not imply mere repetitive behavior (works), but rather an enduring disposition of the soul. Faith is precisely this: a stable, supernatural disposition enabling the intellect and will to assent freely to revealed truths. "Infused by grace" refers specifically to the divine origin of faith—it is not a natural human capacity but a supernatural gift given by God. This understanding isn't vague; rather, it's a precise philosophical-theological clarification rooted deeply in the biblical idea that faith itself is a gift (Eph. 2:8).

You questioned the object of saving faith, implying that focusing on God’s revealed identity somehow diverts from salvation’s purpose. However, salvation precisely consists in union with God as He truly is—not a generalized deity. Saving faith must therefore assent to the truths God has explicitly revealed about Himself (Hebrews 11:6). If God has revealed Himself as triune—Father, Son, and Holy Spirit—then authentic faith requires accepting this. Rejecting the clearly revealed nature of God means rejecting God’s own self-disclosure, not merely an interpretation.

You rightly point out that sincere believers can define terms differently. However, sincerity alone does not guarantee correctness. Objective truth does matter. Terms like "nature," "essence," "person," and "substance" have precise philosophical meanings. Classical theology uses these terms to clarify—not complicate—what Scripture explicitly affirms: the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit are each fully divine yet distinct. The terms are intended precisely to prevent misunderstandings (such as modalism or tritheism) and are not arbitrary but deeply grounded in both scriptural revelation and logical coherence.

Raymond Franz’s concern about dogmatism and judgmentalism is valid in spirit. Many people who misunderstand or reject the Trinity may do so out of ignorance rather than willful obstinacy, which mitigates personal culpability. However, the Church maintains that the truth itself—once clearly understood and explicitly rejected—becomes a serious matter, as it pertains directly to the nature of God and thus salvation. It is not dogmatic arrogance to clarify essential truths clearly; rather, it is a charitable duty. Classical theology itself emphasizes humility and charity in discussing truths of faith, never condoning harsh judgmentalism. Distinguishing clearly between objective truth and subjective culpability is critical. Thus, the insistence on precise theological truth (such as the Trinity) is not arrogance but fidelity to God’s revelation.

In conclusion, your critique is valuable because it highlights the need for clear definitions and charitable dialogue. The Trinity is not "word salad" nor an arbitrary dogmatic hurdle, but the deepest reality of God’s revealed identity. Far from undermining salvation or adding extraneous requirements, it is the foundational truth necessary for true faith in the real, self-disclosing God. While recognizing human limitations and the mystery involved, classical theology maintains that rational clarity about God's revealed nature is both possible and necessary, precisely because God has revealed Himself as Trinity.

228

The point of existence and how it refutes the Trinity

by slimboyfat in

rowan williams, the former archbishop of canterbury gave an interesting answer to the somewhat stark question, what’s the point of us existing?

as a christian, my starting point is that we exist because the most fundamental form of activity, energy, call it what you like, that is there, is love.

that is, it’s a willingness that the other should be.

aqwsed12345

You mean, apart from you and your one-man "church"? There are a several Arian groups whose writings I follow, Biblical Unitarians, Church of God, Christadelphians and several YouTubers / Bloggers, and some non-mainstream Messianic Jews, etc.