The truth about Trinity

[Amergin]

Can I not express what I currently know even if it is wrong? Arguing is rambling on and on, disregarding insightful replies altogether. I can understand the irritation of spending hours learning about a particular religion, and, in my case, having someone say Baha'is worship the Sun despite evidence that says otherwise. Do I continue to say Jesus is the Trinity? No.

Tradition does change even though religious people often deny that. History shows that Traditional faith does evolve and change. In some cases, religion may amend the myth so that it fits with real scientific findings or the literary mythology is regarded as allegorical or metaphorical. Some European Christians regard the virgin birth of Jesus, his divinity, crucifixion, and resurrection as metaphors for a philosophical world view. Literal scriptures do not change. Interpretation of scriptures can change if linguistic experts correct prior mistakes, or the stories are viewed metaphorically rather than literally.

Step into my shoes for a minute.

Last year I attended a Baptist service on the fourth sunday. It is when the sunday school teacher, sitting at the front of the church, teaches the children, who gather around the altar, before the entire congregation. What did he teach? Evolution is a "man-made" doctrine: it is not what the Bible teaches.

Evolution is not a man made doctrine. It is actual biological fact proven by many overlapping sciences. What is man made about the Fact of Evolution is Darwin's Theory of Natural Selection. Ancient Greeks proved the world was a sphere by accurate empirical measurements of shadows cast by two poles in Egypt at Noon. Celts believed Earth was egg shaped. In 412 CE, after the Christians took control of the Roman Empire, the knowledge that the Earth was a sphere was considered heresy against the teachings of the Bible interpreted literally. Greek spherical geology and heliocentrism were suppressed in favour of Christian geocentrism and flat Earth.. The torture and murder of female scientist-philosopher, Hypatia of Alexandria, those discoveries of the Greek thinkers died. It was the beginning of the Dark Ages that lasted more than a millennium. For believers to accommodate to the facts required a flexibility and metaphorical re-interpretation of scriptures = new tradition.

In other words, Adam (and Eve) did not have a corrupt "substance" (or "nature"), and, before the "Fall," they were not subject to the law of death. After the Fall this corruptible substance was passed on throught sex. Jesus escaped this inheritance because he was of the same substance as Adam and Eve before the Fall. This model of the Incarnation presupposes humanity is fixed. This was taught to me in my Batist Church while I was growing up. In this model of Incarnation Jesus repairs a damaged world, which was brought into being through the disobedience of the first parents (Gen. 2-3).

I have long regarded the Genesis myths and original sin from a different point of view. Rather than dismissing it all as primitive superstition as do most Atheists and Agnostics, I take a different view.

To me Genesis is the story of mankind's ascent not a fall. It begins with the Garden of Eden metaphor. It was the remembered stories of Hunter-gathering. In the garden (hunter-gatherers) man and woman could just pluck fruit from the trees. There was no need for work. It was truly a paradise in the memories passed down.

To a Stone Age farmer tilling the soil in Iraq under the hot sun, sweating, wearing blisters on his hands with the plow handles, it must have seemed that we lost something.

There were the stories passed down for ages about the Hunter-Gatherer days. In retrospect those memories of hunter gathering must have seemed like paradise. No need to till the soil, just live off of the land's abundance. Why did we lose that? It must have been a magic garden. We are now tilling the hot dusty soil to survive. We must have screwed up to be kicked out of that ancient garden.

Forgotten were the harsh realities of hunter gathering life, starvation, and limited populations. The "Good Old Days" are always better in the memory than in reality. Man must have been kicked out for some reason.

It must have been some offence to the gods or God. What would offend the gods the most? Attempting to be as smart as the gods or to become gods? The fruit of the Tree of Knowledge is the challenge to the God severe enough to be kicked out of the magic garden. Man then had to fend for himself.

Athanasius believed this. So did Augustine. In the Literal Interpretation of Genesis Augustine believes paradise was free from suffering, from death, from illness. In the City of God Augustine believes Adam and Eve, if they would of not taken of the knowledge of good and evil, would of had sex free from lust. This model of Incarnation also influenced John Calvin and Thomas Aquinas.

There is no evidence that the world was a peaceful free of suffering at any time in the past 1.2 billion years. Cambrian animals attacked and ate each other. There were predators and prey back to the Ediacaran Period. Humans have suffered as far back as 4 million years ago. Australopithecus skulls were found with the holes from a death dealing Leopard bite. Humans were on the menu of savage predators for the past 4 million years. The lion never lay next to the lamb, except while eating out the lamb's entrails.

There was a golden age of peace and non-violence a couple billion years ago in the early Proterozoic. At that time there were bacteria (Archaea) and blue green algae that made the first oxygen atmosphere. There were no animals yet. There could be no predators then. Anaerobic bacteria may have suffered from the toxic effects of oxygen production. Who knows if single cell proto-plants and bacteria experience suffering. When the first multicellular creatures evolved after 600 million years ago, predation, pain, and a mindless food chain was not a fun place to live. Hominids arising from early apes (15-11 MYA – Pierolapithecus catalaunicus) through Sahelanthropus to Ardipithecus to Australopithecus to Homo habilis to Homo sapiens all suffered from disease processes (arthritis, osteomyelitis, structural deformities, and likely many infectious diseases), predators, and human vs human fighting for at least 300,000 years.

Amergin

 

[Amergin]

However, the Incarnation as a response to "the Fall" has not always been upheld. Irenaeus paints Adam and Eve as ignorant, innocent children. Of course, the origin of humanity from a literal garden was still believed in, but the goal of the Incarnation was different. The Incarnation was not a response to the failure of Adam and Eve.

There was no Fall. What was remembered was "the good old days" of hunter gathering. Good old days typically edits out the bad parts and exaggerates the few good parts. Adam and Eve were like ignorant children if they represented early hunter gatherer people (H. sapiens idaltu and H. sapiens sapiens. But their eating from the tree of Knowledge allowed them to leave the garden (progress from hunter-gathering to pasturalism and agriculture. I am not sure how the Incarnation is viewed from an evolutionary standpoint. Perhaps the Incarnation was a metaphor for rapid growth of knowledge that began in the Bronze Age or Early Iron Age. It seemed like divinity inspired humans in growth of languages and abstract thought and 20,000 year old cave paintings.

Eastern Orthodox theology took this side. This is popular, I imagine, with Catholics too. This is why Thomas does not accept the purpose of Incarnation I proposed earlier (in which the Incarnation is for the rescue of humanity).

I see. Incarnation was the time when hunanity showed great advances in contrast to the non-human animals. It took hundreds of thousands of years but primitive people imagined it as a single instant. Such a single incident made people consider intervention of some great sky god.

As you point out, evolutionary biology or any other scientific discovery does not undermine the creed, which holds Jesus was both divine and human. Creed is the tradition, I learned, not the theological reflection of various Church Fathers.

What Christians need to understand is that evolutionary biology that includes the evolution of humans can be accepted as much as the spherical globe, heliocentric solar system, a universe of a billion billion galaxies each containing billions of stars and unimaginable numbers of planets is scientific reality. It does not require one to abandon his/her god(s). Did you know Francis Collins directed the National Institutes of Health National Human Genome Research Institute efforts. I met him. He is a Christian. Bob Bakker, one of the greatest Mesozoic Dinosaur Palaeontologists, is a Christian.

Anyway, I do not ask you questions about your tradition; I discovered you do not tailor your teaching for the learner. For example, I recall that earlier I asked for you to articulate the Incarnation without reference to substance metaphysics, and so you provided phenomenoligical (is that a word?) language, but to no avail! No tailoring for the learner, so I seek out the answer for myself from other writers. Perhaps their is little space for moving in articulating the Incarnation.

Sorry, mates, but you tend to lose me in all of the Philosophy lingo. I never took philosophy in college. My curriculum was packed with math, physics, chemistry, quantum mechanics, geology, and biology leaving only some room for history and literature.

I do not see its significance. Willingly blind, I suppose? Arthur Peacocke is critical of the virgin birth. Either God created the sperm or a fertilized ovum was implanted into Mary. Either option means that Jesus' humanity was not in continuity with the emergence of Homo sapiens.

A virgin birth has never been shown to occur in humans or other primates. The problem is that Jesus to be virgin born would mean that he only had Mary's DNA with two X chromosomes and no Y chromosomes so that Jesus' parthenogenesis would require that Jesus be a female.

To me, I value the teachings of Jesus for their content, morality, wisdom, and compassion. The incarnation and resurrection are unnecessary and unfortunately distracted Christians after 400 CE from his real message.

Amergin

 

[Ahanu]

Evolution is not a man made doctrine. It is actual biological fact proven by many overlapping sciences. What is man made about the Fact of Evolution is Darwin's Theory of Natural Selection. Ancient Greeks proved the world was a sphere by accurate empirical measurements of shadows cast by two poles in Egypt at Noon. Celts believed Earth was egg shaped. In 412 CE, after the Christians took control of the Roman Empire, the knowledge that the Earth was a sphere was considered heresy against the teachings of the Bible interpreted literally. Greek spherical geology and heliocentrism were suppressed in favour of Christian geocentrism and flat Earth.. The torture and murder of female scientist-philosopher, Hypatia of Alexandria, those discoveries of the Greek thinkers died. It was the beginning of the Dark Ages that lasted more than a millennium. For believers to accommodate to the facts required a flexibility and metaphorical re-interpretation of scriptures = new tradition.

The Bible seems ambiguous on the shape of the Earth: it could be read either way. I do not know how all the Church Fathers read it.

In the garden (hunter-gatherers)

This could be a possible reading. That makes sense to me.

There is no evidence that the world was a peaceful free of suffering at any time in the past 1.2 billion years.

I agree.

Sorry, mates, but you tend to lose me in all of the Philosophy lingo. I never took philosophy in college. My curriculum was packed with math, physics, chemistry, quantum mechanics, geology, and biology leaving only some room for history and literature.

I slightly misconstrued the past there. Phenomenology was in our discussion of the glorified body, but, still, it remains that the Incarnation and the substance abuse of conservative Christian theologians is just too much. It needs to be articulated in another way. They talk about God entering the world, but how is it that a believer arrives at the truth that God enters? Entering is something people do. Does God enter? I find it strange that after millions of years of evolution God would enter into creation in the 1st century.

 

[Nick the Pilot]

I found an interesting video on the inherent triplicity of the universe. Go halfway down the page and click on the video called Ageless Foundations.


Auguries of God | Theosophy Watch
　

 

[Ahanu]

I found an interesting video on the inherent triplicity of the universe. Go halfway down the page and click on the video called Ageless Foundations.


Auguries of God | Theosophy Watch
　

Yes, but this trinity does not include the "Ultimate Reality," or "the Essence of God." It is different from the Catholic's Trinity.

So for theosophy the trinity is the subjective ("unconditional consciousness"), the objective ("the root of matter"), and the interaction between these two, right? I thought the video of the magnet's force field explained this clearly.

 

[Ahanu]

Also, Nick, I'm wondering if you have any thoughts to share on the relationship between God and nature.

I'm still struggling with that question from Baha'i writings, but I'm open to what others have to say on this.

Does your trinity comment on this relationship?

 

[Nick the Pilot]

Ahanu,

I am not a theist, so I'm not sure what you are looking for. In what way is this question a struggle for you?

But to answer your question, for the relationship of God to nature, I see God as the First Cause which causes nature to manifest/appear.

Which begs the question: what is nature? I see nature as a set of physical, astral, etc., laws, plus the process by which physical, astral, etc. atoms appear. Nature also has the characertistics of coming and going in cycles -- the idea here is that universes come and go, and there is no such thing as "nature" (atoms, electricity, etc.) during intervals between universes.

What is your definition?

 

[Amergin]

Also, Nick, I'm wondering if you have any thoughts to share on the relationship between God and nature.

I think that Nature is all that exists in multiple forms following properties or physics. All natural science is based on physics. We intuitively recognised the interrelationships that constitute nature. Primitive humans knowing only other humans personified the laws of nature into human-like gods who reside invisibly in the sky. All phenomena had to be the work of those invisible spirits-gods. Some gods may be called the Great Spirit and Holy Spirit.

As human inquiry advanced and found natural causes, gods began to diminish in importance. Eventually gods merged into one god. That god had only one function not yet explained by human inquiry, creation. Quantum Physics is dangerously close to eliminating the need for a hypothetical anthropomorphic god creator.

Does your trinity comment on this relationship?

I believe that the Trinity is simply the confusion resulting from an attempt at Monotheism on the structure of Polytheistic Indo-European Paganism. Perhaps God is a metaphor for things not yet explained. Trinity is a backward step.

Judaism achieved the first surviving Monotheism. It passed this on to Islam. However, in the Roman Empire, entrenched polytheism would not die peacefully. It took the Jewish prophet, Jesus, and deified him. It included the Jewish God JHWY and added the Zoroastrian Spenta Maingu (Holy Spirit) to form a Trinity. Christianity differed little from other Celtic, Roman, Teutonic, Greek, Illyrian, Iranian, Hittite, and Hindu polytheisms.

From the point of view that Monotheism represented a cultural advancement manifested in Judaism, Atenism, and Islam. Christian Tritheism was a step backward.

Amergin

 

[Ahanu]

In what way is this question a struggle for you?

But to answer your question, for the relationship of God to nature, I see God as the First Cause which causes nature to manifest/appear.

So God is outside of nature as a computer programmer is outside his program?

I think nature is not out there. Instead, nature is relative to the observer, whether it is a flower, dragonfly, or human. During an opera performance with Robert Lanza, Loren Eiseley, a poet, points to a Cecropia moth moving from light to light above the actors, saying:

"He doesn't know. He's passing through an alien universe brightly lit but invisible to him. He's in another play; he doesn't see us. He doesn't know. Maybe its happening right now to us."

This is the biocentric view: nature is in our heads, not outside our heads.

This would render the universe with no beginning, no end. It is a whirl of information, much like the information in your favorite audio CD, or DVD. Consciousness, like the DVD player, animates the world around us.

The external world, according to this view, is an old, outdated idea.

I'm not sure about God's relationship to nature in this view.

 

[Nick the Pilot]

Ahanu,
　
I’m sorry to take so long to get back to you, but I just got back from a three-day vacation to Shanghai, the biggest city in China!
　
I do not like to use the Christian idea that God created the universe, like some kind of artist who creates a masterpiece. This gives us the feeling that God is over there, the universe is over here, with a sense that the two are somehow separate. Instead, I like to use the term ‘emanated,’ the idea that nature (the universe) emanated from the Absolute, and that the two are inseparable.
　
I like to use the analogy of a tree and its leaves. The tree has branches, the branches have smaller branches, and the smaller branches have leaves. The tree is not the leaves, but the leaves cannot exist without the tree.
　
I definitely see universes as beginning and ending. Trees go through cycles of having leaves and not having leaves, just as universes go through cycles of appearing and disappearing.
　
How would you see God’s relationship to nature in this view?

 

[Ahanu]

How would you see God’s relationship to nature in this view?

Sounds like panentheism.

Nature is a part of God, but God is also beyond nature.

I’m sorry to take so long to get back to you, but I just got back from a three-day vacation to Shanghai, the biggest city in China!

Kool.

 

[Nick the Pilot]

Ahanu,

You said,

"Sounds like panentheism."

--> Panentheism is an important part of my belief system.

"Nature is a part of God, but God is also beyond nature"

--> I agree.

 

[Saltmeister]

I do not like to use the Christian idea that God created the universe, like some kind of artist who creates a masterpiece. This gives us the feeling that God is over there, the universe is over here, with a sense that the two are somehow separate. Instead, I like to use the term ‘emanated,’ the idea that nature (the universe) emanated from the Absolute, and that the two are inseparable.

I do not think this concept is absent from Christianity. Actually the Logos concept probably came from Philo Judaeus, who suggested that the prophets and sages were emanations of God.

I think of the Logos as a phenomenon emanating from the words of God in scripture, influencing everyone who reads them, as well as the words surrounding the words of God in scripture. Scripture itself is about people influenced by God, acting autonomously, interacting with God and responding to Him. God took these people on a journey, influenced their lives and their stories went into the Bible.

The words of the Bible enter the minds of its readers, projecting itself (as memes) further into the social, political and economic realm. It transcends the physical and material, becoming an invisible force and phenomenon. This is the Logos, the emanation of God, flowing and projecting itself from human to human, an intermingling of various social, political and economic influences.

The Logos is an earthly phenomenon with a divine source.

 

[Nick the Pilot]

Salty,

You said,

"God took these people on a journey..."

--> This is the very epitome of God-is-over-there and these-people-are-over-here language that I refuse to use.

 

[Nick the Pilot]

Ahanu,

Did you find an answer to your God vs. nature dilemma?

 

[Ahanu]

Ahanu,

Did you find an answer to your God vs. nature dilemma?

Oh, I'm still shopping around for a God and nature model, but I may come back later.

I have more questions.

So why do you not accept Thomas' view of Incarnation? Why does your panentheistic model of God and nature not allow for an Incarnation of God Itself?

Afterall, your trinity is not the same as Thomas' Trinity.

 

[bob x]

Why does your panentheistic model of God and nature not allow for an Incarnation of God Itself?

Because everything is already the incarnation of God. Singling out ONE particular entity, and saying "this one IS God, and everything else ISN'T" is meaningless in panentheistic terms.

 

[Ahanu]

So how does a person determine if God has Incarnated Itself?

 

[Amergin]

So how does a person determine if God has Incarnated Itself?

To me the question is illogical. The universe is 13.7 billion years old (maybe older) and there was no indication of a conscious entity moving things around. Formation of atoms from smaller particles, the weak and strong atomic forces is explained by physics. There was no evidence of this hypothetical cosmic being until humans evolved so rapidly with rapid doubling of the brain size that they asked questions.

Now knowing any physics, chemistry, or biology, they could not answer most inquiry about nature. Unsatisfied with "we don't know," humanity invented spirits and gods to be the invisible forces of nature. Spirits merged into gods, which later merged into One God in Judaism and Islam.

God is essentially a metaphor for all of the continuing mysteries in nature. God is not a demonstrable being with intelligence. Incarnation is irrelevant. In a real sense, Nature itself is its own God. Everything that we know exists is matter and its components of energy.

Man asked a question. How did we get here on Earth? I do not know, so it must have been a powerful but invisible sky entity. Man asked how this hypothetical entity works. It must be intelligent. It must be like a gigantic human being who though invisible, thinks like a human being. That is why almost all Gods are jealous, vindictive, capricious, hateful and loving, angry, and demanding total submission of its created beings. In other words, God was invented. God did not invent anything. We invented God to fill in the gaps of our knowledge. It is like using a letter constant in math.

We patterned God based on the likely image of a Stone Age to Bronze Age Clan or Tribe warlord. In addition, the warlords may have contributed to defining god as a tool to maintain power over the people he ruled. Fear of gods is the foundation of human civilisation. Happy gods do not survive long.

The Trinity is simply a throwback to Indo-European Trinity Religions and does not come from Judaism other than pretending that it does.

The Natural Universe of Stars, Black Holes, Quasars, Galaxies, Gama bursts, mega stars, white dwarfs, neutron stars, Gravity, electromagnetism, atoms, sub-atomic particles, Dark Matter, and Dark Energy are all that we know exists. Anything else is speculative imagination.

I do not rule out that some reality exists beyond our universe or our dimensions. However, I see no evidence to assume that unknown nature is conscious or cognitive. Most of the known universe seems to get along just fine without a thinking brain.

Amergin

 

[Ahanu]

However, I see no evidence to assume that unknown nature is conscious or cognitive

I disagree. Think of the human body; its organs and other parts, like your feet. The mind unifies all these diverse parts. Think of the universe; its galaxies, plants, animals and other parts. I think of God as the "unknown nature" that unifies them all. This God is not without intelligence, for how can the whole (God) be without the part (intelligence)? This is not to say God has a human-like intelligence, just that God does not lack intelligence.

Interestingly, in the Baha'i Faith, the three central figures saw everything in the universe as having a mirroring nature, so Incarnation is impossible.

I'm still interested in better understanding others views even if I disagree.