The Evangelical Universalist Forum

Poll: Are you a Trinitarian?

Hi Alexander. My view is this (and I realize it may well have been put this way already and I did not find it in my quick -non- perusing of all the posts :laughing: )

John 1: In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. 2 [a]He was in the beginning with God. 3 All things came into being through Him, and apart from Him nothing came into being that has come into being. 4 In Him was life, and the life was the Light of men. 5 The Light shines in the darkness, and the darkness did not **comprehend it.

So if we take a different view about this, we can see that vs 2 says *He was in the beginning with God *which does show some separation.

Now let’s look at it like my own personal job. My boss wants to do something. He declares 'this … is what I want to do. Maintenance man, you are the one for the job, thus I am sending you. You will know everything I want accomplished, you have been here from the beginning, and you will have complete autonomy as my sole ambassador in this matter, and everything you say and proclaim will be as if it came from my own mouth.

I go to the meeting. I declare everything the boss has said and, as far as I am concerned, I am the boss. There is no appeal past me. I am the one they have to deal with.

(I still can’t believe no one has brought this scenario up and if so, so sorry)

Many of the people at the meeting consider me the boss. Though I am not technically the boss, everything I am and do and say is the soul of the boss. I even at some point may point out that I and the boss are one because of the assignment he sent me on, but I am still not the real boss. :laughing:

This is were it gets interesting: Some of the workers say “this guy is the real deal. The boss sent him to show us about this …” But some of the workers say, " This guy can not be the real delegate of the boss, because we know what the boss is really like and this dude is nothing like him" :astonished:

I hope you see the correlation here. There is separation. :smiley:**

Not only that - but it does not say ‘He’ was in the beginning with God.
It says the WORD was in the beginning with God, and was God. What is the Word? It was a common usage of the greek LOGOS, which means plan, intent, pattern - what has always been in the Father’s mind, the LOGOS - that plan intent pattern became flesh. Christ became at birth the full expression of God’s logos.

1 Like

So by your definition we have:

In the beginning was the Word,
and the Word was with God,
and the Word was God
The Word became flesh

In the beginning was the plan
and the plan was with God
and the plan was God
and the plan was made flesh

:unamused:

Wow, that was insightful :unamused:
You need to get up to speed. Whether trins are right or wrong, they do not have the high ground. There is a case to be made - ah I’m tired of talking -

Here, I’ll make it easy. There are better articles but we have to start somewhere.
christianmonotheism.com/medi … hn%201.pdf

And a short one:
trinities.org/blog/incarnation-g … ohn-11-18/

Though I hold that Jesus WAS the Logos (the expression) of God, the point at which people get confused lies in the clause “the Logos was God.”
The word “God” in that clause does not refer to the Father. If it did, the article would precede it, as it does when it says that the Logos was with God (with THE God).

Not only is the article absent, but the order of the words—placing “God” before “was” indicates that the word “God” in the clause “The Logos was God” is a QUALITY of the Word. Another way of saying the same thing would be “The Logos was divine.” We find exactly the same Greek construction in the phrase “God is love” The word “love” is placed before “is” and has no article,indicating that “love” is a quality—the very essence of God.

Jesus Himself didn’t consider Himself to be part of a Trinity, for He addressed His Father in prayer as “the ONLY true God” as recorded in John 17:3.
He then adds “… and Jesus Christ whom you have sent,” indicating that He Himself was someone OTHER THAN “the only true God.”

ntgreek.org/answers/answer-frame-john1_1.htm

James are you trolling us, or just being ignorant? Talking that way to Paidion is uncalled-for and your accusations are soooooooo wide of the mark. He’s proved his wisdom for many years and earned the admiration - if not full agreement - of everyone here.
You should apologize.

From a Greek scholar in response to Paidion:

That’s incorrect. In the Greek it reads “and God was the word” this organization of the wording is for emphasis. It implies that everything God is, the word is. The word contains the definite article because it is the subject. While he’s right that it carries with it the nature of essence, that is because it’s separating the person if the Word (i.e. Christ) from the person of God. If both contained the definite article we would be left with sabellianism.

Essentially what John is saying is that Jesus possesses all the attributes of the Father, but the lack of the definite article demonstrates that he is not the Father.

NM. I don’t want to get into a heated debate on this issue. I apologize for my tone so I deleted the comment. When it comes to stuff like this I’m passionate and sometimes way too passionate so I go off the rails. I keep forgetting that effective apologetics has to be done with humility and love. Something I need to tattoo on my arm or hand.

Lay off Paidion, James. There’s no call for that. I’m not qualified to say which of you is the better Greek scholar although I suspect it’s Paidion, who’s been studying Biblical Greek for probably longer than you’ve been alive. He and I differ greatly in our theology. I think he’s wrong and he thinks I’m wrong, but on the whole we manage to be respectful to one another and even agree on things once in a while. I’ve learned a lot from him.

As for heresy, here’s the definition:

I’m an heretic by that definition and so is Paidion and so, I assume, are you since you’re arguing for the Trinity rather than arguing against universalism. It’s perfectly fine for you to disagree with Paidion. That said, I’m a Trinitarian and while I do understand why I believe that, I seldom get into discussions with the non-Trins on that topic. First, they also know why they believe as they do and I respect that they’ve studied the matter in-depth (probably more-so than I have) and that they believe what they believe for what are to them very convincing reasons. Second, while I realize that in this case I am right and they are mistaken :wink: I respect their right to believe as they think best–and I respect the role of the Holy Spirit to lead all of us into all truth. I am not the Holy Spirit. I leave that sort of thing to more capable “hands” than mine. I suggest you do the same–especially if you find it difficult to show sufficient respect to those who disagree on this subject.

You mention your unfinished formal studies in the ancient languages which leads me to suppose you are fairly young and in college or seminary. Paidion is one of our elders here, and the subject of well-deserved respect from all of us–again, whether we agree with him or not. It’s fine to discuss and disagree with anyone here, including on the topic of biblical Greek. Just please try to do so with kindness and deference .

Blessings, Cindy

First Cindy I already apologized and deleted my comment. And second this is what Paidion said about how long he’s been studying Greek “I have studied Greek formally for 2 years and 2 months” but I digress it doesn’t matter since I already said I’m sorry and will do a more humble and loving way of apologetics.

Yes, I saw that after I posted my note–sorry to repeat what Dave had already well-said.

From another:

There’s always Dan Wallace’s blurb in the BBG,

We know that “the Word” is the subject because it has the definite article, and we translate it accordingly: “and the Word was God.” Two questions, both of theological import, should come to mind: (1) why was θεός thrown forward? and (2) why does it lack the article?

"In brief, its emphatic position stresses its essence or quality: “What God was, the Word was” is how one translation brings out this force. Its lack of a definite article keeps us from identifying the person of the Word (Jesus Christ) with the person of “God” (the Father). That is to say, the word order tells us that Jesus Christ has all the divine attributes that the Father has; lack of the article tells us that Jesus Christ is not the Father. John’s wording here is beautifully compact! It is, in fact, one of the most elegantly terse theological statements one could ever find. As Martin Luther said, the lack of an article is against Sabellianism; the word order is against Arianism

This verse is dealt with in more detail by Wallace, GGBB, pages 266–269."

Mounce, William D. Basics of Biblical Greek: Grammar. Ed. Verlyn D. Verbrugge. Third Edition. Grand Rapids, MI: Zondervan, 2009. Print.

Actually, James, the position of the author that you quoted above is similar if not identical to that of my own. In explaining my understanding, I too, have quoted that succinct statement of Martin Luther’s.

Here are two other Scriptural statements that employ the same inverted word order.
God is love [ I John 4:16] “‘o θεος ‘αγαπη ‘εστιν” (God love is). Love is the kind of thing God is, the kind of “stuff” of which He consists ---- His essence.

Your word is reality. [John 17:17]. “‘o λογος ‘ο σος ‘αληθεια ‘εστιν” (The word of you reality is) Reality is the kind of thing God’s word is. It’s the stuff of which His word consists — the essence of His word.

I lifted the above statements from an article I wrote some years ago. I immediately followed them by:

Thus: The Expression was Deity [John 1:1] “θεος ‘ην ‘ο λογος” (Deity was the Expression). Deity is the kind of thing that the Expression of God was. It is the stuff of which He consists ---- His very essence.

Martin Luther concurred with this understanding. Whatever else he might have been, Luther was a good Greek scholar. He put it quite succinctly, saying that the lack of an article is against Sabellianism and the word order is against Arianism.

I believe they are one in purpose but not one in essence. Christ is the image of the invisible God. An image depicts something accurately but is not what it is depicting. A picture of a chair accurately represents what a chair is but a picture of a chair is not, in itself, a chair.

How could one be the son to his own father, how could God himself die, how does 1+1+1=1, how God be both God and the mediator between man and Himself if mediator implies a middle personage between two parties, how would God be invisible if Christ was visible, why would God pray to himself, why does Christ make distinctions between himself and the father?

Personally ive found in most things,as a general rule, that when the majority agrees on something you should always be skeptical about it. Maybe im just paranoid. But I dont think appealing to its popularity would in itself justify it as true either way.

“The plan was God”
Could very well be a bold mataphor. A bold metaphor takes out the “like” or “as” to more boldly assert that one thing is another although they obviously arent.

For example “This bread is my body” does not mean that the bread was literally Christs body.

So in the example of “the plan was God” it very well could be equating the upmost goodness of both the plan and God beside each other. Stated less boldly it would/could have been “The plan was like God” i.e. good.

In the world of investing you would be a “Contrarian” which is a good thing IMO. I do believe in a variation of the Trinity which is at some point in time “The Spirit of God” & “The Word of God” came forth from God & are the essence of God but their divinity comes from the Father who is the source. So the one true God is the Father but Christ and the Holy Spirit are divine & made from God stuff!

Being a contrarian makes me all the rage at parties (not really, thats why im not invited to things anymore i suppose hahah)

I filled in “definitely yes” to the poll, but have this caveat: a better question is why the Bible uses the terms “Father, Son, and Holy Spirit” to speak of the divine. The earliest used of the term “Trinity” is found in Theophilus, bishop of Antioch (c. 180 CE); and his Trinity is unorthodox, consisting of “God, God’s Word, and Wisdom.” The later concept of “person” (Latin: “eersona”) is an imposition on the NT mindset, whether the term is understood with the nuance “person,” “mask” or “actor.”

A better way to examine the problem might include the following insights:
(1) The Holy Spirit is God’s saving power in action. One can experience the Spirit and exercise the gifts of the Spirit. But NT writers normally don’t think in terms of experiencing or knowing God. Paul prefers to think in terms of being known by God. True, the Psalms speak of knowing God, but mean something different from the wey Paul construes the concept. For the Psalms, knowing God generally means knowing God’s will, precepts, and nature, not a mystical connection with Him. God is present to us through the Spirit and the Spirit mediates our connection with God. For Paul, “the Holy Spirit” can be used interchangeably with “the Spirit of Christ” in this sense.