Re: [TruthTalk] The Trinity

[Wm. Taylor]

Greetings John, welcome to the conversation. I am glad you are interested and want to participate.   For the sake of context, since it is I whom you are quoting, I would like to include the whole sentence here: I say, "The problems, it seems to me, that we get in to in these "Trinity" discussions arise not because of the threeness idea of the Trinity but because of the oneness idea we have about "God." Now that the context is established, I would like to ask you if you are even remotely as concerned when you hear the word "person" as you are when you here the word Trinity. I suppose I've seen biblicists use this word "person" dozens of times since coming to this site. People talk about the "person of Christ" all the time. Yet the word itself is not a biblical word. There was no Greek or Latin or Hebrew or Aramaic equivalent for this word in first century Judea. The idea simply did not exist. So, where did it come from? It came out of the same conversations about the Godhead and the Incarnation as did the word Trinity. The early church was confronted with questions that the New Testament churches had not yet encountered.   As the Jews became less and less involved with Christianity, and as Christianity moved farther and farther away from Jerusalem, the more the Hebrew ideas of oneness gave way to pagan ideas. Hence the early Church was confronted with the question, how do we answer polytheistic assumptions about the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit, without losing the beauty, the harmony, the integrity, the fellowship, and love that the Scriptures reveal about the Godhead? That is, How do we uphold the one - ness of God, without diminishing the threeness of the Father-Son-Holy Spirit relationship?   The answer was found in the development of a word which captured the uniqueness of the participants, while maintaining the essential attribute of relationality. That word is "persona" in the Latin church and "hypostasis" in the Greek speaking church. "Person" means, "a being in relation to another." I cannot be a "person" without being in relationship to others. To fail to be in relationship is to stop being a person. This same thing is what the early church realized about God. He could not rightly be called one God apart from the relationship of the persons of the Godhead. The oneness could only be grasped in the threeness of the persons.    Out of that realization, and the battles fought to preserve it, came the doctrinal language of Trinity.    It seems to me, if you are going to quibble over the word Trinity, because it is not in the Bible, you should be compelled to quibble as well every time you hear someone use the word person. Are you willing to go that far?   Bill Taylor   ----- Original Message ----- From: [EMAIL PROTECTED] To: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Sent: Tuesday, March 09, 2004 4:14 PM Subject: Re: [TruthTalk] The Trinity In a message dated 3/9/2004 1:55:49 PM Pacific Standard Time, [EMAIL PROTECTED] writes: we get in to in these "Trinity" discussions arise not because of the threeness idea of the Trinity but because of the oneness idea we have about "God." Another new guy on the list.  Hi.    I am thinking that such discussions arise because we insist on speaking in non-biblical terms.   "Trinity" is our word.   "Godhead" is the biblical word.  With  "Godhead" there is little doubt that a bunch of first century flat foots (the 12 apostles) would see a problem that was anywhere close to the first century issue of considering Christ to be God.  Let's not forget that in Old Testament scripture, God Almighty and the Spirit of God are everywhere but the Jews only thought in terms of oneness.   There were no "dualist" nor "trinitarians" in the Pentecost crowd the day of the first Christian sermon.    A second reason for the confusion (as I understand it) is that God did not chose to explain Himself to us.   Without "official" explanation, we have only conjecture.   Each of the three are there, in the inspired text.     I am afraid that if we try to explain what has not been fully revealed, we give the enemy another target.    John Smithson