Apologetics needed!

[lukn4trth]

[url="http://www.geocities.com/Heartland/Valley/1873/trinity.html"]http://www.geocities.com/Heartland/Valley/1873/trinity.html[/url]

After reading that I felt very humilliated

[Jake Huether]

[quote name='lukn4trth' date='Mar 28 2005, 10:19 AM'] [url="http://www.geocities.com/Heartland/Valley/1873/trinity.html"]http://www.geocities.com/Heartland/Valley/1873/trinity.html[/url]

After reading that I felt very humilliated [/quote]
I've had to deal with the same thing. I have a friend who believes in the "oneness doctrine".

It's very easy to refute: A simple search on Google for "oneness doctrine" and "Church Fathers" will yeald quite a few web sites dedicated to stamping out this heresy.

In short, if God was only one person, it would make no sense for Him to pray to Himself, Talk to Himself, etc.

God / Human answers the questoin of What... What is Jesus? God and human. What is the Father? God. What is the Holy Spirit? God.

Jesus, the Father, the Holy Spirit; they answer the question of who. Who is God? He is the Father, He is Son and He is Holy Spirit.

The Nature is ONE. When Jesus said, I and the Father are ONE, He is refering to their Divine Nature. They are One God. But it would make no sense at all if they were the same Person, that Jesus would talk to the Father.

Jesus was answering the Apostles question, What. I and the Father are... what? ONE GOD. They already knew WHO Jesus was - He was the Father's Son - as prophesied in the OT.

Anywho... Here are a few sites from that google search - to make it easy on ya.

[url="http://www.velocity.net/~edju/web/Trinity1.htm"]http://www.velocity.net/~edju/web/Trinity1.htm[/url]

[url="http://www.cin.org/users/james/questions/q057.htm"]http://www.cin.org/users/james/questions/q057.htm[/url]

[url="http://www.letusreason.org/Onenes21.htm"]http://www.letusreason.org/Onenes21.htm[/url]

I mean, talk about a non-inclusive cult. They reject Catholicism as the Whore, and Protestantism as little Whores - having sprouted from Catholicism. In otherwords, everyone else is wrong, and they are right.

No worries, Bro. A house built on sand cannot last.

[Paphnutius]

In principo eart verbum...

In the beginning was the WORD. (Gospel according to St. Luke).

I am not sure if this guy would be open to listening...

Also we do not believe in modalism (grr). That was a hersey in the earlier centuries.

Ok Trinity theology here we go: Please keep in mind it is indeed a mystery.

We have several references where Jesus states the He and the Father are one etc... So there is biblical reference (he even used it himself) to support that the Father and the Son are one.

The Trinity is also known as the Divine processions: The Father begets the Son because of the Father's nature to love and for full self giving so He begot the Son to fully give. The Son is then begotten from the Father and fully recieves, it is then in the Son's nature to fully give back to the Father all that He has recieved. This continues for all of eternity from their love. The Spirit is the spirit that is proceeds from the act. I have heard that the Spirit is may be described as the love. So what you have is something like two arrows making a circle with eachother with another arrow proceeding from them. *wishes he had a blackboard*. It is commonly explained through call and response terms with us. The Father gives to the Son and the Son responds perfectly, and the Spirit proceeds from them. This would help him understand why God was not "lonely" before the Son was begotten. The Son was 1) always there, and 2) God is complete in Himself, because He is trinity.

He seems to leave out (rather convientnly for him) that the Son is also known as the Word of God. The Son prexisted time and creation. The Word was with God from the beginning, we see the Word's role in creation in Genesis. So that kinda shoots his deal about Christ being created so the Son cannot be eternal. The human nature of Jesus was not eternal, but His divine was.

We all know the triangle analogy. Three sides, one shape. So his deal with there not being three distinct parts in a whle is alos shot down.

He attacks the divine knowledge of God by saying we are already dead to Him. He needs to be introduced to the concept of transcending time.

He also makes a philosphical mistake concerning nature. He states that if one looses his legs his nature chages. That isnt true, because human nature is not contingent upon legs but rather free will and reason.

I could continue on, but those were the blaring mistakes I saw and remembered when I read it.

[Jake Huether]

Okay, so I'm reading his thing a little more closely now. It's all, as you might say, straw men.

He makes a statement in regards to Trinitarian belief, and he states it in a way that it's easy for him to refute. And on the outside it looks like he does a pretty good job. But if you really understand your faith, a closer look reviels not the ignorance of the Trinitarian, but his ignorance of God and his own belief.

Check it out:

[quote]He goes on to say "Although my nature decides what kind of operations are possible for me, it is not my nature that does them: I do them, the person" (52-53). He has applied dogmatic words to what ordinary people call personality, and what psychologists call mind. My mind urges me to do something, and my body reacts. Although there is a difference between my corporeal body and my mind, neither is capable of survival without the other. They are interdependent. If my legs were suddenly cut off, and I could no longer walk, would I have a different nature? Or be a different person? Absolutely not. [b]But according to his logic, I would then have two natures in one person. I would still be Lane, but I would now be an amputee, therefore changing my nature. [/b](This because he said nature determines what we can and cannot do, and if I cannot do something any longer, it stands to reason I have a different nature.)[/quote]

He sets up a straw man. Did you catch it? He is refering to Natures, but then states that one of his "natures" is Lane! But Lane is WHO he is, not what he is. If you are in an accident, then yes, your human nature is changed. You no longer have the capacity to walk. But it doesn't add a nature to you. His PERSON is still Lane, but his nature is now an amputee.

[quote]He claims that there is only one nature in God, and that the same nature in God the Father is the same nature that is in God the Son, etc. But is this true? It was Christ's nature to suffer, and the Holy Ghost's nature to comfort, and the Father's nature to create. This is three separate natures,[/quote]

More straw men. He throws out babble in hope that we won't realize he's actually proving the Trinitarian point. It was in God's nature to Suffer to comfort and to creat. But yet the Father didn't die - Although it was in His nature, it was the Son's Person that DID it. IT was in God's nature to comfort - Yet action is attributed to the Person of the Holy Spirit.

This guy just doesn't get the difference between Person and Nature.

[quote]He says that "the essence of being a son lies in these two elements: (1) the son is like in nature to the father and (2) that he receives his nature from his father" (58). On the same page he goes on to say that "the son of a man is a man, and the son of a horse is a horse." Therefore, he should have continued his analogy and said the son of a god is a god. But wait, that would make two gods, wouldn't it? [/quote]

Nope, It would do exactly what the Trinitarian believes. It would make two Persons, ONE God. There can only be One God, just like there can only be one infinity. So, if God has a Son and the Son is God, than Father and Son are One God, One in Being, yet two Persons - two "who's".

[quote]Next, he says that the Son, being like in nature to the Father, is therefore infinite, and eternal. This is anti-Biblical which claims Christ was borne of a woman as the law demanded. Furthermore, the Bible also says Christ was begotten. This very word implies a beginning. If Christ had no beginning, he was not begotten. Or, in the beginning with God, there must have been a goddess to birth Jesus. So, with this in mind, can we say that in the beginning, God was, and Mary was with God, and they had a child? I doubt that even the must profound worshipers of Mary would make such a claim.[/quote]

He's totally confused. It's really unfortunate. I'm beginning to realize how little he knows about God. Jesus, as we believe, is both God and man. Jesus, the Son of God, is eternal. Jesus' Flesh had a beginning. Jesus' Divinity is eternal. Jesus' humanity had a beginning. Mary gave birth to God, but she didn't create the Son. Just like my mom didn't create my soul at conception. God gave me my soul - but I don't say, my mom gave birth just to my flesh. She gave birth to ME, the WHO. Mary Gave birth to the WHO! JESUS, the Son. But she didn't create the "what", God. And begotten doesn't imply a beginning. It implies a relationship. The Son was begotten by the Father. But since the Father is eternal, if he beget's the Son, then the Son has to be eternal. Christ's humanity had a beginning. His Divinity is eternal.

[quote]He says that since God had such a perfect plan of Jesus Christ, and a perfect image of Jesus Christ, that plan became an actual second person. There is some bad logic in this assertion, though. By the same token, this means that since God had a plan for all of humanity from the beginning, the future already happened. Furthermore, since He knew we were all going to die, by his logic, we are all already dead. It is true God knows all things perfectly, but because he knows them perfectly, and thinks them perfectly, does not mean that they have already come to pass. Further, since God knows you and I perfectly, does this mean that we are eternal?[/quote]

He leaves out some important info in order to build his straw man. God the Father knows Jesus, the Son, perfectly, but Jesus, the Son, also knows the Father perfectly. Therefore their mutual perfect knowledge of eachother makes it essential that they be One in Being, although two in person. We on the other hand can never know God perfectly. So it doesn't matter that our Creator knows us perfectly; we cannot return the knowledge - as being created.

[quote]He claims on page 62 that Jesus has nothing "he has not received from the Father," and that "there is no shadow of inequality between them." But consider this, Jesus Christ had flesh, which the Father does not. He had to eat, sleep, drink, etc. none of which the Father has to do. Therefore, they do not have the same nature[/quote]

He keeps on showing his ignorance of the difference between person and being (or nature). He actually proves that Jesus had to be a different Person, and also touches on the fact that Jesus shared a human nature. He's right that God the Father doesn't have a human nature - proving the fact that they are different persons, but he does nothing to show us that Jesus and the Father don't share Their Divine Nature.

[quote]Moreover, Jesus had a will of his own. Remember that he prayed "Father, let this cup pass from me...nevertheless, thy will not mine, Lord." If, as this indicates, Christ had a will of his own, he was not the same nature of the Father.[/quote]

More confusion... Jesus did have a human will of His own, that He didn't share with the Father. But this isn't the all of what's going on. Jesus can pray to the Father precisely because He is a different WHO. He is a different person.

So this guy's building straw men by using Christ's Nature's (Divine and Human) and trying to prove that the Father doesn't have a Human nature. We know this! But we also know that Christ and the Father share their Divine nature - so he doesn't disprove the Trinity.



Ahh, then he brings on some low blows and pot shots, of course with no references... I'd like to see this paple bull where the Pope says that he's God... I did a quick search and found nothing using his quote and even just parts of it to broaden the search... Figures.

But hopefully I've helped a bit in debunking this bunk...

[Paphnutius]

I think anyone, Catholic or not, who knows the slightist bit of Trinitarian Theology, or , as you said, anythnig about personhood vs. being would be able to see this guy debunks himself. I thought the dragon was a nice touch though...