Do serve God...or a 'Trinity'?
- Thread starter theMadJW
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Or neither!
@theMadJW
Try these quite recent discussion threads for Trinity, Arius, Constantine and Nicea, etc. There are many older threads on the subject too:
Arian Christology
Oral Torah, Sacred Tradition, Ahadith
The Trinity: Genesis of a Doctrine
Did Most Early Christians Believe the Divinity of Christ?
Try the Trinity
But you knew that already, before starting this new thread, didn't you?
OK .. so you know what Catholics teach about it then?
Is Mary the mother of G-d? Hmm..
No, that's a 'false binary' logical fallacy.
(The One) God is Trinity (in Three Persons) in relation to Creation ... (The Three Person) Trinity is (One) God to Itself.
No, she's not.
Tony Bristow-Stagg
One Planet One People Please
My observation Thomas is that the Trinity has put limits on God, trying to define the unknowable and unapproachable God has the undesired consequence of making God in our own image, restricting Christ to a Name Jesus.
As a consequence I would offer the 'Glory of God' is not able to be embraced, a Glory far beyond any limitation of a doctrine. To me this is why the Quran tells the Christian to cease with the Trinity.
Regards Tony
TheLightWithin
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Wait, doesn't the trinitarian formula pretty much imply the idea that Mary is the Mother of God?
My observation, Tony, is that restricting the power of God to communicate with the human race to the self-declared 'ascended' new messiah Baha'u'llah for the next thousand years, puts limits on God, etc ...
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Tony Bristow-Stagg
One Planet One People Please
Indeed
You can vow unquestioning fealty to your self-declared new messiah if you want to. However I don't at all believe Baha'u'llah comparable to Jesus.
And Christians do not accept the authority of the Quran to tell them what to believe
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The issue is not the right of Baha'i to believe in their new Christ, but about them assuming the right of authority over not only Trinitarian Christians, but over all other faiths, to tell them what they need to believe.
Imo it's the whole problem with the Baha'i faith that purports in the same breath to include and support the authenticity of other world religions?
Imo it's the whole problem with the Baha'i faith that purports in the same breath to include and support the authenticity of other world religions?
That surprises me, because it's really not the case.
The Church has declared in Council that our knowledge of God – and indeed the Doctrine of the Trinity – rests on inevitably inadequate concepts, human comprehension being limited and imperfect with regard to the totality of the Divine Nature. "How incomprehensible are His judgments, and how unsearchable His ways!" (Romans 11:33) – Only God comprehends God; an Infinite Being can be completely comprehended by an Infinite Intellect.
I'm surprised, because the usual critique of the doctrine is that is eventually defends itself by declaring 'it's a Mystery', I've never met anyone say that the Trinity limits God.
That being said, I do not accept God as unknowable and unapproachable – the whole Bible is a Revelation of God who seeks to make Himself known. As St Paul said to the Athenians: "For passing by, and seeing your idols, I found an altar also, on which was written: To the unknown God. What therefore you worship, without knowing it, that I preach to you." (Acts 17:28).
Rather than limiting, St Thomas in his Summa defends the idea that the knowledge of God is, in fact, infinite: "God whose Being is infinite, is infinitely knowable. No created understanding can, however, know God in an infinite manner."
The term "Mother of God" appears in a prayer dated to around 250AD: "Under thy protection we seek refuge, Holy Mother of God".
This 'Marian Doctrine' as we call it was first defined at the Council of Ephesus in 431. She was declared 'theotokos' – an adjectival compound of two words Theos, 'God' and tokos, 'childbirth, parturition; offspring'. A close paraphrase would be "(she) whose offspring is God" or "(she) who gave birth to one who was God". The usual English translation is simply "Mother of God".
The wording of the document goes on: "... the Mother of God, not as if the nature of the Word (Logos) or his divinity had its beginning from the holy Virgin, but because of her was born that holy (human) body with a rational (human) soul, to which the Word (Logos) being personally united is said to be born according to the flesh." (text in brackets mine by way of clarification)
(Scriptural basis for the dogma is found in John 1:14, Galatians 4:4 and the early chapters of Luke.)
So Mary is the mother of the human person who is the Incarnate Word (Logos) of God – she bore the man who is God, so as such is the mother of God, but not the source of His divinity.
Hope that helps?
Tony Bristow-Stagg
One Planet One People Please
I can offer that I see this is the result of the doctrine, not the intent of the doctrine. This is because of my real world experiences with my mother who became a 'Born Again Christian' and our conversations we had after I saw the same light of Christ in Muhammad, the Bab and Baha'u'llah. The conversations were terminated by quoting the Trinity, thus doctrine prevented my mother (and two of my sisters) from continuing any meaningful conversations.
I see Jesus who came in the flesh, as a Messenger of God, Annointed (Christ) with the Holy Spirit of God, in the Station of the Son. I acknowledge God, the Holy Spirit and Jesus who came in the flesh only because I found this in Baha'u'llah and what Baha'u'llah offered about Jesus.
Which to me was made clear by this passage.
1 John 4 "Beloved, believe not every spirit, but try the spirits whether they are of God: because many false prophets are gone out into the world.
2 Hereby know ye the Spirit of God: Every spirit that confesseth that Jesus Christ is come in the flesh is of God:
3 And every spirit that confesseth not that Jesus Christ is come in the flesh is not of God....."
All the best Thomas, I hope all health issues come good for you and family.
Regards Tony
Tony, you're quite confused if you believe Muhammad (pbuh) believed himself to be a carrier of the light of Christ. Muhammad did not conflate himself in any way with Jesus, or profess himself to be a messiah or a Christ, equal or even greater than Jesus, in the way that Baha'u'llah does, imo
Tony Bristow-Stagg
One Planet One People Please
Thank you RJM, I am able to balance this with many other things Baha'u'llah has offered on this topic.
Personally, and I stress personally, I see that Muhammad's Revelation enables us to consider how the Trinity makes it difficult for Christains to embrace the 'Day of God'. One could say Muhammad toned down the connection of the Messengers with God. (I see that connection is recorded in the Quran)
At the same time Muhammad Identified as all the Prophets and Allah (We), Identified as the First and the Last.
16:36 "We did raise a messenger among every people, with the message: “Worship Allah and stay away from the Rebel (the Satan).” Then, there were some among them whom Allah guided, and there were others against whom deviation (from the right path) was established. So, travel on earth and see how was the fate of those who rejected (the prophets)."
Regards Tony
I know. You have to try to make it suit your drift, although it says the opposite of what you want it to -- just your continuing manipulation of other scriptures, imo