A Trinitarian Statement

[Praxeas]

This is a statement found on a website
Spirit of Fire Evangelistic Ministries

We Believe:
In the One True God, who reveals Himself in three distinct persons; God the Father, God the Son, and God the Holy Spirit. The Three being one and equal and eternally self existent as the Great "I AM."
http://www.spiritoffire.org/statementoffaith.html

I wonder how many Trinitarians agreed?

My question here is this...if a "he" is a person why do Trinitarians so often say "reveals HIMSELF in three distint persons"? as though God is one person revealed in three persons? Why not say "reveals itself"? Or why say that at all since revealing might be best said to be an attribute of a person....why not say "Father, Son and Holy Ghost reveals themselves as God"?

[Darcie]

Originally Posted by Praxeas

This is a statement found on a website
Spirit of Fire Evangelistic Ministries

We Believe:
In the One True God, who reveals Himself in three distinct persons; God the Father, God the Son, and God the Holy Spirit. The Three being one and equal and eternally self existent as the Great "I AM."
http://www.spiritoffire.org/statementoffaith.html

I wonder how many Trinitarians agreed?

My question here is this...if a "he" is a person why do Trinitarians so often say "reveals HIMSELF in three distint persons"? as though God is one person revealed in three persons? Why not say "reveals itself"? Or why say that at all since revealing might be best said to be an attribute of a person....why not say "Father, Son and Holy Ghost reveals themselves as God"?

Because as many have said in the past, not too many "Trinnies" believe in 3 Gods!

[Praxeas]

Originally Posted by Darcie

Because as many have said in the past, not too many "Trinnies" believe in 3 Gods!

Im not sure how that pertains to my point or question. If the pronoun HE refers to person as is often said by Trinitarians, then aren't they saying One person is Three persons? Not sure where the three gods comes into this.

[Darcie]

Originally Posted by Praxeas

Im not sure how that pertains to my point or question. If the pronoun HE refers to person as is often said by Trinitarians, then aren't they saying One person is Three persons? Not sure where the three gods comes into this.

Most use persons like we use manifestations. I guess I didn't read throughly, (sound familiar?).

[mizpeh]

Originally Posted by Praxeas

This is a statement found on a website
Spirit of Fire Evangelistic Ministries

We Believe:
In the One True God, who reveals Himself in three distinct persons; God the Father, God the Son, and God the Holy Spirit. The Three being one and equal and eternally self existent as the Great "I AM."
http://www.spiritoffire.org/statementoffaith.html

I wonder how many Trinitarians agreed?

My question here is this...if a "he" is a person why do Trinitarians so often say "reveals HIMSELF in three distinct persons"? as though God is one person revealed in three persons? Why not say "reveals itself"? Or why say that at all since revealing might be best said to be an attribute of a person....why not say "Father, Son and Holy Ghost reveals themselves as God"?

If they want to be consistent, then maybe it should be worded like this: In the One True God, who is revealed in three distinct persons; God the Father, God the Son, and God the Holy Spirit. The Three being one and equal and eternally self existent as the Great "I AM".

No matter how you slice it, it doesn't make sense. Three distinct persons who can each say "I AM", but yet there is only one "I AM"

Do you notice how they also use the words, one and God, with multiple meanings in the same two sentences? Ambiguity and equivocation. The One True God....One as in Number, God as in nature.... and then...one and equal...one as in unity...and then God the Father.....God as in identity! It makes your head spin.

Originally Posted by Praxeas

This is a statement found on a website
Spirit of Fire Evangelistic Ministries

We Believe:
In the One True God, who reveals Himself in three distinct persons; God the Father, God the Son, and God the Holy Spirit. The Three being one and equal and eternally self existent as the Great "I AM."
http://www.spiritoffire.org/statementoffaith.html

I wonder how many Trinitarians agreed?

My question here is this...if a "he" is a person why do Trinitarians so often say "reveals HIMSELF in three distint persons"? as though God is one person revealed in three persons? Why not say "reveals itself"? Or why say that at all since revealing might be best said to be an attribute of a person....why not say "Father, Son and Holy Ghost reveals themselves as God"?

Because God is one Being.

In Christianity, the doctrine of the Trinity states that God is one being who exists, simultaneously and eternally, as a mutual indwelling of three persons: the Father, the Son (incarnate as Jesus of Nazareth), and the Holy Spirit.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Trinity

Does that help any?

I guess a Trinitarian could ask why you ignore the distinctions between the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit when they are clearly seen in scripture?


Joh 14:26 "But the Helper, the Holy Spirit, whom the Father will send in My name, He will teach you all things, and bring to your remembrance all that I said to you.

Originally Posted by mizpeh

If they want to be consistent, then maybe it should be worded like this: In the One True God, who is revealed in three distinct persons; God the Father, God the Son, and God the Holy Spirit. The Three being one and equal and eternally self existent as the Great "I AM".

No matter how you slice it, it doesn't make sense. Three distinct persons who can each say "I AM", but yet there is only one "I AM"

Do you notice how they also use the words, one and God, with multiple meanings in the same two sentences? Ambiguity and equivocation. The One True God....One as in Number, God as in nature.... and then...one and equal...one as in unity...and then God the Father.....God as in identity! It makes your head spin.

You mean like one cluster of grapes means there is only one grape? Or, like one body of Christ is only one person? Or how a man and a woman becomes "ONE" flesh? (speaking spiritually not physically).

Originally Posted by Praxeas

This is a statement found on a website
Spirit of Fire Evangelistic Ministries

We Believe:
In the One True God, who reveals Himself in three distinct persons; God the Father, God the Son, and God the Holy Spirit. The Three being one and equal and eternally self existent as the Great "I AM."
http://www.spiritoffire.org/statementoffaith.html

I wonder how many Trinitarians agreed?

My question here is this...if a "he" is a person why do Trinitarians so often say "reveals HIMSELF in three distint persons"? as though God is one person revealed in three persons? Why not say "reveals itself"? Or why say that at all since revealing might be best said to be an attribute of a person....why not say "Father, Son and Holy Ghost reveals themselves as God"?

The reason it is said like that is because Trinitarians believe in one God... They stick to the trinitarian terminology out of tradition...

The way to understand the trinity is to look back at Nicea when they adopted it and understand who/what they were fighting when they adopted it and why they adopted it...

The groups they were trying to eliminate were ones that were teaching that Jesus was not God at all, but the first created thing that then created the Holy Spirit and God gave Jesus all his god-powers who then gave the Holy Spirit all the god-powers, too... (Arians)

There were other groups saying that Jesus wasn't human but some sort of divine vision everyone saw but wasn't really there since God can't become part of the natural world because the natural world was evil and was actually created accidentally by demons (long story)... (Gnostics)

There was still another group that taught that Jesus' Father was not actually YHWH of the Old Testament but that YHWH was evil and a satan-like figure... (Marciuns)

These are the kinds of groups they were fighting in those early days... and they are the kinds of groups the Trinity was adopted to fight... Look at the basics of the Trinity:

1. The Father is God
2. The Son is God
3. The Holy Spirit is God
4. There is one God

that's the jist of it... everything else is just trying to make those 4 statements all be true and make sense...

[Praxeas]

Originally Posted by Darcie

Most use persons like we use manifestations. I guess I didn't read throughly, (sound familiar?).

Im gonna see if I can persuade Dan to take a quick pic or your knees

[Praxeas]

Originally Posted by Believer

Because God is one Being.

In Christianity, the doctrine of the Trinity states that God is one being who exists, simultaneously and eternally, as a mutual indwelling of three persons: the Father, the Son (incarnate as Jesus of Nazareth), and the Holy Spirit.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Trinity

Does that help any?

I guess a Trinitarian could ask why you ignore the distinctions between the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit when they are clearly seen in scripture?


Joh 14:26 "But the Helper, the Holy Spirit, whom the Father will send in My name, He will teach you all things, and bring to your remembrance all that I said to you.

That seems like an equivocation fallacy though. On the one hand a personal pronoun, such as "he" designates a person. On the other hand it designates a being.

Let's stay on track here. That statement...do you as a Trinitarian agree with it? How do you explain the equivocation where a masculine personal pronoun indicates a person and then later it designates not a person but a being. I'm kinda confused as to how Trinitarians can refer to Father as a HE (person) but then refer to the Trinity as a whole as a He (Person?) or to the Being as a He that is revealed as three He's (persons).

it seems that to some degree Trinitarians see the Trinity as a person on one level that exists as persons on another level....