Don't let the Bible get in the way of your Christian beliefs

Jesus said the Church would be rebuilt in 3 days which has nothing to do with the Trinity.

I gave you the evidence for the lack of belief in the Trinity. Either refute it or move on.

 

Of course it does. That would establish the earliest known or probable date at which time the church could exist; hence the earliest date at which could be used in determining whether or not members of the 'early church' believed or did not believe in such things as the Trinity. It would also establish the earliest known or probable date at which the church was existing. Now here is another question. Based on what you have stated above.. What was the name of that church that would have been "rebuilt in 3 days"? Also, who rebuilt that church?

 

Try to stay on Topic.

Christians, after Christ's death, did not believe the Trinity doctrine according to the evidence that exists.

 

The evidence is obviously wrong. The Trinity doctrine is still alive and well and has been since the time that Jesus rebuilt the temple. For 2000 years now. Where have you been?

BTW: I was on topic. You were talking about the early church and I wanted to establish some FACTS about the early church.

 

Some confusion perhaps about this "3 day". Reference John 2:18-22. Nothing to do with a church.

18 Then answered the Jews and said unto him, What sign shewest thou unto us, seeing that thou doest these things?

19 Jesus answered and said unto them, Destroy this temple, and in three days I will raise it up.

20 Then said the Jews, Forty and six years was this temple in building, and wilt thou rear it up in three days?

21 But he spake of the temple of his body.

22 When therefore he was risen from the dead, his disciples remembered that he had said this unto them; and they believed the scripture, and the word which Jesus had said.

 

The Trinity doctrine is alive and well because of Constantine.

 

And it was before Constantine. If it was not alive prior to Constantine, then the 'church' (the organization you reference) would not have called it 'heresy'. In order for that organization to refer to the doctrine as heresy, the doctrine had to exist and had to have been in practice.

Any more rationalizations (excuses) that you would like to attempt?

 

I have already explained to you a number of Times that Tertullian in around 200 AD was the first we know of so the doctrine existed. It was just not accepted by the Church at large.

It was not until Constantine that the Trinity ceased to be a heresy and became official Church doctrine.

 

It was not really herecy......There were simply a number of different churches with different views in the world.....There was no solid bible or solid unified belief until Constantine. The bible was put together by a council of Bishops from all over the world that was lead by Constantine. All of the different sects and faiths within Christianity were merged into a unified faith. One of the Bishops even had his own bible he wrote before hand that claimed that the god of the old testament was evil and that Jesus faught and overthrew him to become the new God.

 

There is that claim again.... Now prove that the doctrine was not accepted by the Church at large. Also, please explain what is the "Church at large"?

Well, who was it that called the doctrine 'heresy'? Are you suggesting that there was a schism that existed between groups where these groups had differing views regarding the doctrine. Well of course you do, else the one group could not be complaining about the alleged heretical practices of the other group.

 

There were a number of fellows over the years that proposed the Trinity but they were declared Heritics. Tertullian was the first that we know of.

.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tertullian

Later on Pope Dionysius speaks out against the heritics that were promoting the Trinity idea.

As you say there were all kinds unorthadox ideas out there .. and the Trinity was one of them.

Perhaps the beliefs were not as solid as today .. but in general those beliefs did not include the Trinity.

Not even Eusebius accepted the Trinity doctrine as proposed by Constantine and he refused to sign at first.

The Trinity doctrine was adopted for Political purposes and had little to do with the commonly held Christian beliefs at the time.

The Persians had been successful uniting a nation under monotheism (Zoroastrianism). Constantine was Emperor during troubled times and needed something to unite the nation.

He also wanted absolute power - that his word would be taken as the word of God aka Divine Right.

If there are many Gods .. one could always argue that Constantine spoke for a God other than mine !

This would not do. Constantine wanted one God for all and enforced this by the sword. It was constantine that subtituted the word "homoousios" into the Nicene Creed.

This made Jesus of the same substance as God. To the Greeks there were only two types of matter .. that of God, and everything else.

Pope Dyonisius had made it clear some years earlier that Jesus was not the same "substance" as God when speaking out against this heresy.

Constantine then proclaimed himself "Pontifex Maximus" Supreme Pope, Bishop of Bishops.

Then Constantine went out and started destroying any knowledge, people, institutions and so on that conflicted with the new state religion.

The Church continued this destruction of knowledge and persecution of folks with ideas that differed or conflicted with the official orthadoxy for 1000 years.

It took pretty much that long to wipe the past away.

 

I did not invent the claim. I gave you the link .. go do some research.

Pope Dyonisius for one, but there were many others.

It is no big secret that the Trinity was considered heresy.

Even Eusebius did not agree with it and refused "initially" to sign off on Constantines Nicene edict.

 

Why should I go do your research for you? You are the one who has made the claim on this forum, therefore it is your claim on this forum.

Ah, so the pope was the one making the accusations. Well, I guess when Constantine got finished with that bunch of people (the pope and his minions) Constantine set things aright.

Probably not among those who bow down to the pope and call the pope 'Father'.

Oh well, everyone is entitled to their OPINION. And you see, that is what I have been saying all along. All you have is opinion. You have no PROOF.

 

I already told you that I am not interested in reading more opinions. Get enough of those right here on the forum.

OK.. and your point?

But you allege that there is proof of a heresy and the heresy was teaching or preaching the doctrine of the Trinity. So in effect, the people charged with heresy were so charged based on something that allegedly did not exist. Well. the Pope needs to be charged with heresy based on the fact that he has no proof of any God, or gods, or Jesus, or Holy Spirit.,,,,, see how absurd the heresy charge really is.

 

Tertullian wasn't the first. He was the first to use the Latin word "trinitas" for trinity. Tertullian is often considered the father of Latin Christianity. Much of what he taught was in accord to the Church's teachings.

This heresy you are speaking of had to do with Tertullian's break with the Church on the issue of relapsed Christians due to severe Roman persecutions. The Pope believed that Christians could be forgiven after rejecting Christ. Tertullian did not. He then joined the heretical Montanist sect, and when it turned out that they weren't hard core enough for him, he created his own sect called the Tertullianists.

So, just because the Church declared him a heretic, does not mean he was wrong about everything, or even most of everything.

 

You do realize the Da Vinci Code was an act of fiction right?

 

why do some of you care about the trinity doctrine if you deny the existence or deity of Jesus Christ?

 

I would love to here the response to that one as well.

 

I'm sure you'll get some remarkable responses. I would go further. Why care about the scripture of the Holy Bible if you deny Jesus as your Savior?

They, like your name are misled. Many Christians are likewise misled.

 

The history of the world is mostly opinions .. same as the Bible.

If you are not intersted in opinions then the Bible is not for you !

The point is that according to the Pope Dyonisius .. The Trinity was a heresy. The Pope in 250AD, the leader of the Christian Church, did not hold the view that Jesus was the same substance as the Father.

This is the Popes opinion so it does not mean the Trinity is not true.

What is not "opinion" is that it was the Popes opinion that the Trinity was heresy.

You can say .. "perhaps the historians were lying about what the Pope said".

Given the folks that wrote the history were Christian apologists trinitarians, I find it highly unlikely that this would be an interpolation.

You are welcome to your own "opinion" of course and maybe you can make a sensible suggestion as to how it would be possible for the Church at large to believe in the Trinity and have the Pope call all of his flock heretics.

The Popes opinion is darn good evidence that the Pope believed the Trinity was heresy.

Especially given that the history of the Pope Dionysius was written, his writings transcribed, by Trinitarian Christian Apologists.

 

Christians aren't the ones misled. It's the atheist/secularist/humanists/miserablecreatures who are misled by satan. Although granted i've seen some on here that call themselves christian and have no idea what that means. okay. you're right.

 

Only one problem. Though you say the Bible is just opinions, and you may be right in calling it a book of opinions, but those opinions come from God. Aside from that, I like the Bible and don't like anything that attempts to ridicule and or otherwise abuse that Book.

 

Im not the one that calls it opinion. It is you that claims all history is opinion.

Where is your "objective emperical proof", the bar you use for everything else, that the opinions in the Bible come from God ?

 

Who was before Tertullian ? Certainly the Montanists were Christians and so one would expect them to have teachings similar to the Church.

The Trinity doctrine was not one of those similarities.

The heresy I speak of refers to the Tertullians Trinity Doctrine.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tertullian

The Trinity was not accepted as Christian orthadoxy until Constantine.

I did not comment on the rightness or wrongness of Tertullians doctrine. My comment is that the early Church did not believe in the Trinity doctrine.