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----- Original Message -----
Sent: Tuesday, March 09, 2004 7:46 PM
Subject: Re: [TruthTalk] The Trinity
John,
By the way, the closest equivalent that koine Greek
has to the idea of person, as I've laid it out below, is the word soma.
This word is translated in English translations as "body." The good thing about
this word, that is missed in the English, is that it speaks of the wholeness of
what it means to be a human being. It includes psyche, personality, temperament,
character, and emotions, and intellect, among other things. The problem
with it, and the one which led the early church away from using it in its
language about God, is that soma, while inclusive of these other
things, also carries with it the idea of physicality. The Church new that it
could not be true to Scripture in its God language if it used this word to talk
about the participants in the eternal relationship of the One God.
It is helpful to us to know this about the word
soma, nevertheless, because it is quite appropriate to speak of humans
as "bodies," just as the Apostles did, without diminishing from the idea
of personhood.
Bill Taylor
----- Original Message -----
Sent: Tuesday, March 09, 2004 5:22
PM
Subject: Re: [TruthTalk] The
Trinity
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 -----
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
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