I'm not ready to throw away the Bible just to be a unitarian. I partly was following threads if per chance someone had a better representation of the divinity of Christ than found in the Trinitarian doctrine. All I found was one-verse unitaraians who denied the testimony of Christ's divinity. The unitarians cannot even explain away the divinity of Christ in John 1.
All Claims of The Son's Deity
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Runningman
Active Member
You believe that, contrary to he Bible explicitly defining Lord God Almighty as only the Father, that Unitarians are wrong for believing that and that you would have to throw away the Bible to believe the Bible? Sorry, I am trying to be polite but that's ridiculous. I would definitely be a Trinitarian if God was ever defined or described as three persons. If the rest of the Bible was ignored, one may be able to argue a Binity version of God in John 1, but the Trinity version of God is too fractured and debatable.
Unitarianism can't be debunked because it works well with the entire Bible. We pretty much have full reign over the entire Scriptures since God is, without exception, described and identified with singular personal pronouns from cover to cover.
Unitarianism can't be debunked because unitarians reject scriptures that speak against their view. I keep on noting that you have not yet made arguments sufficient to deny the divinity of Christ. I can see that you expect some verses determine the restrictions against the revelation of the rest of scripture. Like I share often, the passages that share the humanity of Christ are not in dispute because Trinitarians recognize the humanity of Jesus.
I can recognize that there are passages that speak of God the Father as distinct from Christ Jesus as Lord. I relied on those alone for awhile into falling into a unitarian concept. Yet, it is the fact of Jesus being identified alongside God that shows Christ's equality with God, not just his distinctive identity. Nor do we expect that the Spirit is sent to people but is not of God. So it is unlikely that some theory is going to put aside the Trinitarian concept, especially if that alternative theory does not deal with all the facts.
The greatest element is that ambiguity exists. I just find a denial of that ambiguity by unitarians. And they are unable to push that ambiguity into a strict rejection of the divinity of Christ and the existence of the Spirit. Go ahead and take books that explain the Trinity and list the passages in its evidence. Show how those do not show the Trinitarian aspect of God.
There. I have tried to treat you a little better despite all that you have pushed here.
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Runningman
Active Member
I think you're just pushing a narrative at this point because it helps the team you play for, but Trinitarianism is one of the most convuluted and incomprehensible philosophies ever proposed about who God is. The Bible doesn't define or describe God the way trinitarins do, i.e., the Bible never says God is three persons or multi-person, but rather as a singular person. (Deut. 6:4, Isaiah 44:6, 1 Cor. 8:4-6, John 17:3, etc)
The best and most famous scholars in Trinitarianism are on record acknowleding this very fact. St. Augustine said the trinity is a "great mystery" in De Trinitate. John Calvin agreed in his Institutes of the Christian Religion. Athanasius himself wrote it into his creed, saying "...the Father incomprehensible, the Son incomprehensible, and the Holy Ghost incomprehensible." There are tons of people who just fessed up and basically said "We don't understand this at all, but this is what we believe." So contrary to the Bible saying we can know God, contrary to the Bible saying Jesus revealed who God is, the rule of thumb in Trinitarianism is that God is unknowable and you all understand the Bible using a mystery, which is actually no way to understand God or the Bible at all.
So I find it really ironic you say that Unitarianism is ambiguous comntrary to the Bible plainly stating that the only true God is the Father. As I said, you're pushing a narrative at this point, but it isn't convincing.
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You missed my point. I was not saying unitarianism is ambiguous. No. That is hyper-literalist developed on interpreting the whole bible based on their reading of one or two verses they hold as the key to understanding God.
The ambiguity of verses in scripture reflect both the divinity of Christ, which I clarify as being in the Godhead, and his humanity. For some reason, the divinity of Christ remains invisible to the unitarians and they just deny the divinity instead of dealing with those passages properly.
Runningman
Active Member
Starting in Genesis 1, right off the bat, God is a singular person. Unitarianism isn't a one or two verse wonder. It is explicit throughout the entire Bible. This is why throughout the Bible God is identified as a singular person, i.e., He, Him, His, etc. It's why God speaks to the angel of the Lord, why God speaks to Jesus, who God speaks to others, and why in every context God is distinct from everyone else. And yes, of course, God is explicitly defined as the Father (YHWH) who created alone on several occasions.
Thanks for that excellent example of overlooking the ambiguity. I can use that on presentations about the unitarian's tunnel vision.
civic
Active Member
Wrong right off the bat in Genesis God said let US plural pronoun make man in Our image, plural again
Runningman
Active Member
If God is an "us" why did no one keep on calling God a they or them? Everyone kept on saying God is a singular He or Him. You are making too many assumptions with the "Us" theory. Who the "Us" is is not explicitly identified and the fact that no one kept calling God a they or them means they don't agree with your premise that God is a multi-person being. The "us" God was with in Genesis is not a trinity. Read the rest of Genesis and the Bible; God is identified as a singular person (He, Him, His) who ALONE created.
Runningman
Active Member
Please do it. Hopefully God will use it to convert others to Christianity.
Maybe God first had to remove the concept of many gods existing (such as each people having their own god) before God could reveal his Triune nature in a clearer fashion through his Son. So the errors about the nature of God can be of a god among many or the opposite sense of God existing in a singular form. Both are deficient in the ultimate understanding of God.
Runningman
Active Member
That's a bunch of theory and speculation that the Bible never invited you to make. The Bible exhaustively calls God a He, Him, His, says there are no Gods but YHWH, that YHWH created alone, that the Father is the one and only God. Teach that to your class.
Here's a little challenge for you. Did anyone ever say God is a they or them in the Bible?
You asked for a reason. I gave you a real problem that people fell into in the Old Testament. Like mentioned so many times, the unitarian is a hyper-literalist and cannot perceive deeper details of scripture. I think some people noted the similarity to the Sadducees.
Great that you continue the tunnel vision examples. Maybe someone will be able to collect these together. What you need is someone who used to be a dedicated Trinitarian who then can explain why he became a unitarian.
Runningman
Active Member
I think the plain language of the Bible is the enemy of your religion. How ironic. You all have to make a bunch of interpretations and redefine words to make your religion work. That's why you all have to indoctrinate your new recruits, but I just say "Look what the Bible says" and it plainly says God is a singular person everywhere.
I didn't think you would take up that challenge. Noted. You can privately admit that God is never referred to as as they or them in the Bible; that's good enough.
Runningman
Active Member
I guess we have to erase the accounts of Moses seeing the bush on fire and of Abraham encountering several men -- maybe both around the promise of Sarah's pregnancy and of the destruction of Sodom and Gomorrah. Then Genesis 1 will have to be removed since God speaks in plurality here --leaving this clearly ambiguous until we are told of Christ Jesus. If you have other passages that need to be removed for the unitarian gnostic bible (UGB), let us know.
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civic
Active Member
I’m at work
Runningman
Active Member
Never read that in any Bible. I have seen you guys present those interpretations and arguments, but Scripture stands its ground just fine without any sort of "Unitarian" bias added to it.
First of all, the angel of the Lord and God aren't the same person. You're making unsupported assumptions. We'll deal with your misunderstanding of that one first instead of all of them at once so we can exhaust all of your excuses before moving to the next point.
The angel of the Lord and the Lord speak to each other, showing that the angel of the Lord is not God:
Zecahariah 1
12Then the angel of the LORD said, “How long, O LORD of Hosts, will You withhold mercy from Jerusalem and the cities of Judah, with which You have been angry these seventy years?”
13So the LORD spoke kind and comforting words to the angel who was speaking with me.
I can understand your blindness to the ambiguities or mysteries shared in these passages. It does become odd that you try to use a passage where it might be an instance where the Angel of the Lord is not specifically speaking as Yahweh or being mentioned as Yahweh after the encounter. That is clever diversion on your part. That helps raise the suspicions about the unitarians.
It is interesting how this Angel of the Lord MANifested as a man among the myrtle trees thus anticipating the incarnation
Zechariah 1:8–11 (ESV)
8“I saw in the night, and behold, a man riding on a red horse! He was standing among the myrtle trees in the glen, and behind him were red, sorrel, and white horses.
9Then I said, ‘What are these, my lord?’ The angel who talked with me said to me, ‘I will show you what they are.’
10So the man who was standing among the myrtle trees answered, ‘These are they whom the LORD has sent to patrol the earth.’
11And they answered the angel of the LORD who was standing among the myrtle trees, and said, ‘We have patrolled the earth, and behold, all the earth remains at rest.’
This is not clear evidence of the Son of God in his pre-existence but is a possible one. Even a unitarian can remind people of passages that could enhance the recognition of the Triune God in the OT.
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Runningman
Active Member
When two different persons speak to one another it means they aren't the same person. You act as if men, angels, and God can't be in the same location or vacinity at the same time. There is nothing that clearly states that the angel of the Lord is YHWH Himself. It's also nonsensical that the LORD would be His own messenger because being a messenger implies giving messages for someone else. Someone who is speaking on their own behalf is not a messenger.
Also, Jesus and the angel of the Lord are in the same context yet not the same person. So we can rule out Jesus being the angel of the Lord.
Matthew 28:2
And, behold, there was a great earthquake: for the angel of the Lord descended from heaven, and came and rolled back the stone from the door, and sat upon it.
Luke 22:43
"And there appeared an angel unto him from heaven, strengthening him."
