Why Do Protestants Believe In The Trinity?

[Hananiah]

Because Salvation in the Catholic Church is attained by faith and works.

Hey, are you the same brother Adam that posts on Baptistboard? I'm sort of a lurker there. I've even corresponded with Carson a bit. Anyway, I remember you posted a list of Catholic doctrines you have trouble with a while back. If you want to discuss them with me you can e-mail me at bmd175@psu.edu

God Bless

Ben

By the way, I'm planning on writing an apologia pro Catholic soteriology pretty soon. I will give you the link when I finish, if you're interested.

[Aloysius]

yeah, he's the same guy i'm pretty sure

the guy that's just itchin to be Catholic ^_^ :D :P

[Hananiah]

I've tried to join that board a couple of times. Apparently they stopped letting Catholics on.

Idiot that I am I decided to join the NTRMin discussion board instead where I was outnumbered 10:1 That board was exhausting. Then I got banned. One of them called me a de facto Protestant so I told him I was going to pray to blessed Mary, ever virgin Mother of God and Mediatrix of all grace that he learn the error of his ways and realize that we are justified by works and not by faith alone, that baptism saves, that there is no salvation outside the Church, etc. That seemed to tick off ole Mr. Svendsen. He's been pretty ornanry ever since his heos hou thesis was refuted numerous times.

[Jake Huether]

To keep this on track...

So, if one cannot "interpret" the Trinity from the Bible on their own, then who told them. And then the question should be asked, who told them. And so on.

Try and find the root of who was the first to rightly interpret the doctrine of the Trinity.

Betchya it's the Catholic Church.

And if they got that one right...

[Jake Huether]

And if there is someone out there who believes in "re-baptism", can they show us in Scripture where someone is "re-baptised".

[Laudate_Dominum]

Hey, are you the same brother Adam that posts on Baptistboard? I'm sort of a lurker there. I've even corresponded with Carson a bit. Anyway, I remember you posted a list of Catholic doctrines you have trouble with a while back. If you want to discuss them with me you can e-mail me at bmd175@psu.edu

God Bless

Ben

By the way, I'm planning on writing an apologia pro Catholic soteriology pretty soon. I will give you the link when I finish, if you're interested.

Brother Adam - you can PM or email me anytime too, I love talking about Catholicism.

Hananiah - I would like that link too if you don't mind, I'm interested in Soteriology myself.

Peace

[Brother Adam]

That comment was sarcastic. I'll talk more when i get home this afternoon

[Laudate_Dominum]

That comment was sarcastic. I'll talk more when i get home this afternoon

LOL! Good, I was kind of surprised by it.

I was like "he should know better than that!"

You're phunny.

[Brother Adam]

And if there is someone out there who believes in "re-baptism", can they show us in Scripture where someone is "re-baptised".

I was rebaptized. One such example can be found in the book of Acts.

Only problem with my argument was that the rebaptism in the book of Acts was due to the original baptism being that of Johns and not a Christian baptism. There, I debunked myself.

Oh, Catholics do very much believe in a "works" based salvation the way Protestants see "works". They just haven't figured out yet that they believe in a works based salvation too.

[Laudate_Dominum]

Oh, Catholics do very much believe in a "works" based salvation the way Protestants see "works". They just haven't figured out yet that they believe in a works based salvation too.

Hehe.. Discussing works, faith and all that is so fun (sarcasm).

:)

[Circle_Master]

So, if one cannot "interpret" the Trinity from the Bible on their own, then who told them.  And then the question should be asked, who told them.  And so on.

Aye, everyone should understand how blatant it is in Scripture.

Try and find the root of who was the first to rightly interpret the doctrine of the Trinity.

Betchya it's the Catholic Church.

And if they got that one right...

A statement like that of course doesn't help anything because the Catholic Church has changed over time. What defines it as the same church as the one from the 1st century church? You say because the ordination has passed down through it, and even that is controversial as the east-west schism had ordained priests on both sides, and even the protestant splits had ordained priests within them. If the ordination of apostolic authority is not what makes the Catholic Church what it is today, then what is it? What else would define the Catholic Church as "Christ's Church?"

And here are a few verses

The Holy Spirit is God

Acts 5:3-4; 2 Cor. 3:17-18

Jesus Christ is God

Acts 5:3-4; 2 Cor. 3:17-18; John 1:1; John 1:18; John 20:28; Acts 20:28; Rom. 9:5; Titus 2:13; Heb. 1:8; 2 Pet. 1:1; 1 John 5:20

The Father is God

John 6:27; 80,000,000 other verses - this one is a nobrainer.

God is one

Dt 6:4; 1 John 5:20; 7000 times God is refered to as singular in Old Testament

If you want a more complete article check out either

http://www.apologetics.com/default.jsp?bod...an-trinity.html

-or-

http://www.christian-thinktank.com/trin01.html

(I'll add this link as well http://www.onlinetrinity.com/ - an entire site devoted to the trinity)

Of course, that is if you are actually interested and not just asking thinking that protestants are stupid and actually have no reason for believing in the Trinity.

Edited February 14, 2004 by Circle_Master

[Circle_Master]

miss me?

sorry, i'll probably be disappearing again. I have no life. school, work, sleep, work, school, work, sleep, etc. and once in a while I find time for a meal.

[jasJis]

Yes! We did miss you! You've been mentioned in kind terms by us.

And I mean that I missed you sincerely, because I believe that sometimes you really want to be here to learn, teach, and grow with us in Grace. (I don't want you to have doubts because I was certainly not welcoming to "you-know-who")

[Circle_Master]

thanks JisJas, I criticize many other non-Catholics at my school weekly for misrepresenting Catholic doctrines on semantic and understanding issues. You would be proud of me! ;)

[cmotherofpirl]

Anytime you defend truth we are proud of you.

And yes you have been missed. :)

[Brother Adam]

The point still remains that the Trinity is not taught directly or indirectly in scripture- you must interpret this doctrine from the scriptures.

[Laudate_Dominum]

Aye, everyone should understand how blatant it is in Scripture.

A statement like that of course doesn't help anything because the Catholic Church has changed over time. What defines it as the same church as the one from the 1st century church? You say because the ordination has passed down through it, and even that is controversial as the east-west schism had ordained priests on both sides, and even the protestant splits had ordained priests within them. If the ordination of apostolic authority is not what makes the Catholic Church what it is today, then what is it? What else would define the Catholic Church as "Christ's Church?"

And here are a few verses

The Holy Spirit is God

Acts 5:3-4; 2 Cor. 3:17-18

Jesus Christ is God

Acts 5:3-4; 2 Cor. 3:17-18; John 1:1; John 1:18; John 20:28; Acts 20:28; Rom. 9:5; Titus 2:13; Heb. 1:8; 2 Pet. 1:1; 1 John 5:20

The Father is God

John 6:27; 80,000,000 other verses - this one is a nobrainer.

God is one

Dt 6:4; 1 John 5:20; 7000 times God is refered to as singular in Old Testament

If you want a more complete article check out either

http://www.apologetics.com/default.jsp?bod...an-trinity.html

-or-

http://www.christian-thinktank.com/trin01.html

(I'll add this link as well http://www.onlinetrinity.com/ - an entire site devoted to the trinity)

Of course, that is if you are actually interested and not just asking thinking that protestants are stupid and actually have no reason for believing in the Trinity.

Circle! You're back! Woohoo!

Anyway, about the Trinity, I would agree that the scriptural evidence is highly in favor of this doctrine, but still the fact remains that the formal concept of the Trinity is not explicit in the Scriptures nor is the word Trinity a scriptural term. The formal concept and term are a part of Tradition that survived in protestantism (although there certainly are bible-only christians who reject the doctrine altogether or have deviant understandings of it). The defenders of heresies such as arianism and sabellianism always used Scripture to defend their doctrines and claimed that this was in fact what Scripture says. And clearly the reason the protestant tradition for the most part accepts the doctrine is because the reformers did not start with the Bible alone. They started out with Catholic Tradition and more or less went through the old pick and choose routine. Protestants are not without a tradition that informs their hermeneutic, this is the point. Protestantism is not Bible-only in the sense of starting out with no preconcieved doctrines or ideas and just figuring out what Christianity is from an objective reading of the Sacred Scriptures.

This is a silly idea anyway since the Bible is not, and has never been intended as a blue-print for Christianity divorced from Tradition or the life of the Church Christ instituted. The Jews were Jews first of all because they belonged to the Jewish community, the Bible (OT) was the main authoritative collection of books representing their tradition, it was the heart and soul of their religion but it wasn't the totality of their religion by any means. And the concept of a lone Jew figuring out Judaism for himself from the OT without reference to the historical Jewish community is completely foreign. This is true also for fulfilled Judaism in the Church Christ established.

Another tough call for protesants who want to claim that they are strictly "bible-only" is the fact of Sunday worship. Where is that in the Bible? The Bible says that the Sabbath is the seventh day, namely Saturday. Why do protestants worship on Sunday? Maybe groups such as the Seventh Day Adventists are more bible-only, but hey, they still have quite a few extra-biblical protestant traditions even if they won't admit it, and you'll have to get used to the teachings of William Miller and Ellen Gould White. And you'll have to follow some dietary restrictions based on the mosaic law and forget about hell because the damned are in fact anihilated by the teachings of this sects founders.

And about your last statement, it seems to reflect a lack of clarity. For one the Orthodox Churches are in schism, but they still have the true faith. And there is a degree of unity between the East and West to this day. And the protestant splits that had not gone totally off the deep end (valid Holy Order, Sacraments, etc) could also be said to have the Apostolic Faith and be a schism (such as the Anglicans), at least in the early days. These churches have deviated more and more as time has gone. But there is one Church of Jesus Christ and it is the Catholic Church. This is the Church is which the fullness of the Faith resides. The further an ecclesial body gets from this Church the further it gets from the true faith.

And you're basically right about the early Church. It is the apostolic succession and in a unique way the office of the Pope that safeguards the Church's unity of faith. This is based on Christ's promises and the action of the Holy Spirit. And of course doctrine develops. The whole substance of the faith existed in the first century but things develop and change. The essence does not change.

Even in the earliest centuries you have differences from culture to culture and region to region. But they were all one Catholic and Apostolic Church. This unity was professed on the basis of being united through the hierarchy of Bishops, unity with the Pope is the fullest kind of unity in the Church. The Eastern Churches do not deny this, they believe in Papal supremacy (they'd better, it's part of their Tradition). The schism has many factors and will be healed. It does not take away from the fact that the unity of Christ's Church is now, and has always been centered on the Church's authoritative hierarchy.

If a Christian from the first centuries were to be transported into our day he would look for the Church of the Apostles, he would look for the successors of the Apostles. He would naturally consider christian groups that were not in union with the authoritative hierarchy to be heretical sects.

Irenaeus

"It is possible, then, for everyone in every church, who may wish to know the truth, to contemplate the tradition of the apostles which has been made known to us throughout the whole world. And we are in a position to enumerate those who were instituted bishops by the apostles and their successors down to our own times, men who neither knew nor taught anything like what these heretics rave about" (Against Heresies 3:3:1 [A.D. 189]).

"But since it would be too long to enumerate in such a volume as this the successions of all the churches, we shall confound all those who, in whatever manner, whether through self-satisfaction or vainglory, or through blindness and wicked opinion, assemble other than where it is proper, by pointing out here the successions of the bishops of the greatest and most ancient church known to all, founded and organized at Rome by the two most glorious apostles, Peter and Paul—that church which has the tradition and the faith with which comes down to us after having been announced to men by the apostles. For with this Church, because of its superior origin, all churches must agree, that is, all the faithful in the whole world. And it is in her that the faithful everywhere have maintained the apostolic tradition" (ibid., 3:3:2).

"Polycarp also was not only instructed by apostles, and conversed with many who had seen Christ, but was also, by apostles in Asia, appointed bishop of the church in Smyrna, whom I also saw in my early youth, for he tarried [on earth] a very long time, and, when a very old man, gloriously and most nobly suffering martyrdom, departed this life, having always taught the things which he had learned from the apostles, and which the Church has handed down, and which alone are true. To these things all the Asiatic churches testify, as do also those men who have succeeded Polycarp down to the present time" (ibid., 3:3:4).

"Since therefore we have such proofs, it is not necessary to seek the truth among others which it is easy to obtain from the Church; since the apostles, like a rich man [depositing his money] in a bank, lodged in her hands most copiously all things pertaining to the truth, so that every man, whosoever will, can draw from her the water of life. . . . For how stands the case? Suppose there arise a dispute relative to some important question among us, should we not have recourse to the most ancient churches with which the apostles held constant conversation, and learn from them what is certain and clear in regard to the present question?" (ibid., 3:4:1).

"t is incumbent to obey the presbyters who are in the Church—those who, as I have shown, possess the succession from the apostles; those who, together with the succession of the episcopate, have received the infallible charism of truth, according to the good pleasure of the Father. But [it is also incumbent] to hold in suspicion others who depart from the primitive succession, and assemble themselves together in any place whatsoever, either as heretics of perverse minds, or as schismatics puffed up and self-pleasing, or again as hypocrites, acting thus for the sake of lucre and vainglory. For all these have fallen from the truth" (ibid., 4:26:2).

"The true knowledge is the doctrine of the apostles, and the ancient organization of the Church throughout the whole world, and the manifestation of the body of Christ according to the succession of bishops, by which succession the bishops have handed down the Church which is found everywhere" (ibid., 4:33:8).

Tertullian

"[The apostles] founded churches in every city, from which all the other churches, one after another, derived the tradition of the faith, and the seeds of doctrine, and are every day deriving them, that they may become churches. Indeed, it is on this account only that they will be able to deem themselves apostolic, as being the offspring of apostolic churches. Every sort of thing must necessarily revert to its original for its classification. Therefore the churches, although they are so many and so great, comprise but the one primitive Church, [founded] by the apostles, from which they all [spring]. In this way, all are primitive, and all are apostolic, while they are all proved to be one in unity" (Demurrer Against the Heretics 20 [A.D. 200]).

"[W]hat it was which Christ revealed to them [the apostles] can, as I must here likewise prescribe, properly be proved in no other way than by those very churches which the apostles founded in person, by declaring the gospel to them directly themselves . . . If then these things are so, it is in the same degree manifest that all doctrine which agrees with the apostolic churches—those molds and original sources of the faith must be reckoned for truth, as undoubtedly containing that which the churches received from the apostles, the apostles from Christ, [and] Christ from God. Whereas all doctrine must be prejudged as false which savors of contrariety to the truth of the churches and apostles of Christ and God. It remains, then, that we demonstrate whether this doctrine of ours, of which we have now given the rule, has its origin in the tradition of the apostles, and whether all other doctrines do not ipso facto proceed from falsehood" (ibid., 21).

"But if there be any [heresies] which are bold enough to plant [their origin] in the midst of the apostolic age, that they may thereby seem to have been handed down by the apostles, because they existed in the time of the apostles, we can say: Let them produce the original records of their churches; let them unfold the roll of their bishops, running down in due succession from the beginning in such a manner that [their first] bishop shall be able to show for his ordainer and predecessor some one of the apostles or of apostolic men—a man, moreover, who continued steadfast with the apostles. For this is the manner in which the apostolic churches transmit their registers: as the church of Smyrna, which records that Polycarp was placed therein by John; as also the church of Rome, which makes Clement to have been ordained in like manner by Peter" (ibid., 32).

Eusebius of Caesarea

"At that time [A.D. 150] there flourished in the Church Hegesippus, whom we know from what has gone before, and Dionysius, bishop of Corinth, and another bishop, Pinytus of Crete, and besides these, Philip, and Apollinarius, and Melito, and Musanus, and Modestus, and, finally, Irenaeus. From them has come down to us in writing, the sound and orthodox faith received from tradition" (Church History 4:21).

Pope Clement I

"Then the reverence of the law is chanted, and the grace of the prophets is known, and the faith of the Gospels is established, and the tradition of the apostles is preserved, and the grace of the Church exults" (Letter to the Corinthians 11 [A.D. 80]).

"Through countryside and city [the apostles] preached, and they appointed their earliest converts, testing them by the Spirit, to be the bishops and deacons of future believers. Nor was this a novelty, for bishops and deacons had been written about a long time earlier. . . . Our apostles knew through our Lord Jesus Christ that there would be strife for the office of bishop. For this reason, therefore, having received perfect foreknowledge, they appointed those who have already been mentioned and afterwards added the further provision that, if they should die, other approved men should succeed to their ministry" (Letter to the Corinthians 42:4–5, 44:1–3 [A.D. 80]).

Clement of Alexandria

"Well, they preserving the tradition of the blessed doctrine derived directly from the holy apostles, Peter, James, John, and Paul, the sons receiving it from the father (but few were like the fathers), came by God’s will to us also to deposit those ancestral and apostolic seeds. And well I know that they will exult; I do not mean delighted with this tribute, but solely on account of the preservation of the truth, according as they delivered it. For such a sketch as this, will, I think, be agreeable to a soul desirous of preserving from loss the blessed tradition" (Miscellanies 1:1 [A.D. 208]).

 

Origen

"Although there are many who believe that they themselves hold to the teachings of Christ, there are yet some among them who think differently from their predecessors. The teaching of the Church has indeed been handed down through an order of succession from the apostles and remains in the churches even to the present time. That alone is to be believed as the truth which is in no way at variance with ecclesiastical and apostolic tradition" (The Fundamental Doctrines 1:2 [A.D. 225]).

Augustine

"[T]here are many other things which most properly can keep me in [the Catholic Church’s] bosom. The unanimity of peoples and nations keeps me here. Her authority, inaugurated in miracles, nourished by hope, augmented by love, and confirmed by her age, keeps me here. The succession of priests, from the very see of the apostle Peter, to whom the Lord, after his resurrection, gave the charge of feeding his sheep [John 21:15–17], up to the present episcopate, keeps me here. And last, the very name Catholic, which, not without reason, belongs to this Church alone, in the face of so many heretics, so much so that, although all heretics want to be called ‘Catholic,’ when a stranger inquires where the Catholic Church meets, none of the heretics would dare to point out his own basilica or house" (Against the Letter of Mani Called "The Foundation" 4:5 [A.D. 397]).

[Aloysius]

thanks JisJas, I criticize many other non-Catholics at my school weekly for misrepresenting Catholic doctrines on semantic and understanding issues. You would be proud of me!

hmmm do we have a brother adam jr. forming in our midst? :P

[Laudate_Dominum]

hmmm do we have a brother adam jr. forming in our midst?

The more the merrier! I never knew protestants and catholics could actually get along while having discussions on religion until I met Brother Adam.

;)

[IcePrincessKRS]

The more the merrier! I never knew protestants and catholics could actually get along while having discussions on religion until I met Brother Adam.

I never knew a Protestant who sincerely tried to leard what Catholics believe and properly present that to his non-Catholic friends and family, etc., even if he didn't agree with it until I met Adam! :)