Arian Christology

RJM Corbet said:
I rest my point. What has what you see about the Quran got anything at all with what Christians believe? It's totally irrelevant.
Click to expand...

So where does that leave Jesus the Christ.

In the minds of only Christain doctrine?

The first will be last is a thought.

Regards Tony
 
Tone Bristow-Stagg said:
So where does that leave Jesus the Christ.

In the minds of only Christain doctrine?

Regards Tony
Click to expand...
You mean apart from what the Quran says?

As you keep saying ... there's a lot.

The Quranic view of Jesus doesn't matter. It's irrelevant. So cut my head off
 
Last edited:
Tone Bristow-Stagg said:
I see we do that to our own selves by the way we approach these conversations.

Regards Tony
Click to expand...
Again: irrelevant what Quranic Islam lays down upon what Jesus has to be.

Surely you're not asking me to expound 'so where does that leave Jesus the Christ. In the minds of only Christian doctrine' in just a few words here?

Christian doctrine is all that matters when it comes to Jesus the Christ. What 'non-Christians' like to make of it or decide about it, or want or limit it to be is totally irrelevant.

Why do you have to keep banging on about Jesus all the time? Don't you have your own stuff to get on with?
 
RJM Corbet said:
Christian doctrine is all that matters when it comes to Jesus the Christ. What 'non-Christians' like to make of it or decide about it, or want or limit it to be is totally irrelevant.

Why do you have to keep banging on about Jesus all the time? Don't you have your own stuff to get on with?
Click to expand...

That is what a Baha'i Faith is, a defender of all faiths, the pursuit of all virtue.

I agree with you, Christian Doctrine is all that now matters to a Christain when it comes to Jesus the Christ and the Word in the Bible.

It matters not to many Christians that the doctrines may have become the clouds that Christ was to return upon.

It is a big topic that requires level heads and level thinking.

Regards Tony
 
Cino said:
I love the light.

I don't agree about your claim regarding the One, though. Numerology is all well and good, but why this particular number?
Click to expand...

I see different colours are our perception of life as seen through a lens and interpreted by our mind in our given capacity.

The source of light contains all light wave lengths which are seen as all the colours when refracted through a prisim and then interpreted.

One of the prayers of the Bab talks about this

"O Divine Providence! This assemblage is composed of Thy friends who are attracted to Thy beauty and are set ablaze by the fire of Thy love. Turn these souls into heavenly angels, resuscitate them through the breath of Thy Holy Spirit, grant them eloquent tongues and resolute hearts, bestow upon them heavenly power and merciful susceptibilities, cause them to become the promulgators of the oneness of mankind and the cause of love and concord in the world of humanity, so that the perilous darkness of ignorant prejudice may vanish through the light of the Sun of Truth, this dreary world may become illumined, this material realm may absorb the rays of the world of spirit, these different colors may merge into one color and the melody of praise may rise to the kingdom of Thy sanctity.
Verily, Thou art the Omnipotent, and the Almighty!"

Baha'u'llah also wrote of the merging of Names into One.

It is indeed a big topic to pull a thought for here and there on, it is man's greatest mystery, the source of creation.

Regards Tony
 
Whether the earliest Church Fathers believed in the Trinity is a subject for debate.
...
Origen's On First Principles (De Principiis or Peri Archon) is the oldest extant Christian theological treatise.
Origen's theology of the godhead is developed in this treatise, which reveals that by this time the use of the word Trinity to refer to Father, Son and Holy Spirit is standard in orthodox churches. However, it is argued that the word still did not have its later, Trinitarian meaning.
Click to expand...

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Trinitarianism_in_the_Church_Fathers

..and on and on and on..
 
Tone Bristow-Stagg said:
these different colors may merge into one color
Click to expand...
Can't paint a picture if there is just white for color. Can't sing if there is only white noise for a note. Creativity requires diversity.

I get the mystical sense of union. Isn't it that which the prayer expresses?

Do you know the "Ox-Herding" Zen Pictures?

https://ordinaryzensangha.org/ten-oxherding-pictures/

Number eight is a picture of a single color. Our world, however, is one of more than one color.
 
  • Like
Reactions: RJM
Last edited:
#7
What I think:

I said:
Part of it may be literal human use and understanding of the words Father and Son, to express the God/Christ relationship? God extends far beyond the human conception of Father, as does Christ beyond the human conception of Son.

Perhaps it is more like a way of trying verbally to express the never ending movement between the eternal unbegotten vertical (non)polarity of Spirit as it weaves and begets the time-bound horizontal polarity of nature?

Like trying to explain quantum mechanics, using grade school arithmetic ...
Click to expand...
Christ is not limited to the Jesus of the Quran
 
Last edited:
RJM Corbet said:
So your work is to convince trinitarian Christians their belief is polytheist and therefore false, because the Quran insists on one God without attributes -- therefore Christians should believe the same as you do -- in order to prevent Islam going to war against Christianity?

Does that sum up your meaning over these threads?
Click to expand...

No .. I just think that it is fair to point out that non-trinitarians have just as much credibility as trinitarians .. nothing to do with the Qur'an.
People don't have to believe the same as I do. I'm not a prophet. I'm not an authority. I'm just another fallible human being.

I don't see it as one religion going to war against another. It is people who fight wars .. not religions,
..so why should anybody insist on God being a trinity? It is clearly divisive.
Why create division?

Irenaeus (c. 130–202) was the first to argue that his "proto-orthodox" position was the same faith that Jesus gave to the apostles, and that the identity of the apostles, their successors, and the teachings of the same were all well-known public knowledge. This was therefore an early argument supported by apostolic succession. Irenaeus first established the doctrine of four gospels and no more, with the synoptic gospels interpreted in the light of John.
Click to expand...

Orthodox Christianity evolved over centuries. It is not as straightforward as many would have us believe.
 
Last edited:
I think @Tone Bristow-Stagg is right .. it's a quandary.

For sake of example, let's say that a major Christian church leader told their flock that "the trinity" is not what their faith was all about?
What would happen to them?
I do have a lot of sympathy for any sincere believer in God .. I am not "attacking Christians" as such.
 
muhammad_isa said:
why should anybody insist on God being a trinity?
Click to expand...
Why should you insist on God not being a trinity?
muhammad_isa said:
It is clearly divisive.
Click to expand...
To whom?
muhammad_isa said:
No .. I just think that it is fair to point out that non-trinitarians have just as much credibility as trinitarians
Click to expand...
There are non-trinitarian Christians. JW are non trinitarian. People are free to join any church they want.
muhammad_isa said:
Why create division?
Click to expand...
Why not get on with your own religion and stop trying to interfere with another?
 
Last edited:
RJM Corbet said:
Why not get on with your own religion and stop trying to interfere with another?
Click to expand...

Jesus said I have more sheep that are not of this fold (not Christains) but in the last days there would be one fold.

The Message of Christ is for me, a Hindu, A Jew, a Muslim and all people of all Faiths.

An exclusive Christ has only been fabricated by years of conflict and turmoil. It a hard lesson we all have to learn, but many Christains now choose not to be exclusive.

Regards Tony
 
Tone Bristow-Stagg said:
Jesus said I have more sheep that are not of this fold (not Christains) but in the last days there would be one fold.

The Message of Christ is for me, a Hindu, A Jew, a Muslim and all people of all Faiths.

An exclusive Christ has only been fabricated by years of conflict and turmoil. It a hard lesson we all have to learn, but many Christains now choose not to be exclusive.

Regards Tony
Click to expand...
If you are talking about the American style prosperity-preaching televangelist We Christians Club -- imo they turn people away from the true message of Christ. But that is not what is being discussed here? The discussion here is about (traditional) Christianity, and particularly about the role of the trinity within it?

If anyone is saying that in order to not be exclusive they should re-invent themselves in order to satisfy Muslims and others, in order to avoid war, that is something else?
 
Last edited:
My point, repeated: Why are (some) Muslim and Baha'i so obsessed about what Christians believe? To the point of threats, veiled or plain open. Do they not have enough their own business to get on with?
 
RJM Corbet said:
The discussion here is about (traditional) Christianity, and particularly about the role of the trinity within it?
Click to expand...

Yes .. the Arian conflict was all about the trinity.
This theological construct which was first established in the Roman church at Nicea still haunts us today.

..so the argument is about what really happened in the first few centuries AD?

RJM Corbet said:
Why not get on with your own religion and stop trying to interfere with another?
Click to expand...

Fair point .. what would you rather talk about .. the weather? ;)
 
Last edited:
muhammad_isa said:
I think @Tone Bristow-Stagg is right .. it's a quandary.

For sake of example, let's say that a major Christian church leader told their flock that "the trinity" is not what their faith was all about?
What would happen to them?
I do have a lot of sympathy for any sincere believer in God .. I am not "attacking Christians" as such.
Click to expand...

But there are modern-day unitarian Christian denominations. Jehova's Witnesses, the Universalist Unitarian Association, are examples.

If a church leader would declare his denomination to no longer be trinitarian, my guess is there would be a schism in that group, with "old believers" who would adhere to the previous ways. Not exactly a way to produce unity!
 
  • Like
Reactions: RJM
muhammad_isa said:
Yes .. the Arian conflict was all about the trinity.
This theological construct which was first established in the Roman church at Nicea still haunts us today.

..so the argument is about what really happened in the first few centuries AD?
Click to expand...

I found Thomas' explanations quite good and very interesting reading.

Did you read them, especially the one where he explained what Nicea was all about, and the one where he painstakingly assembled fragments of Arian writings which demonstrate that Arius and presumably those who followed his teachings were not even opposed to the Trinity, but had different ideas about its detailed configuration?
 
  • Like
Reactions: RJM
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top