Ancient Monarchians and Trinitarians

[mizpeh]

Originally Posted by Believer

Well my new friends, I need to get off for the night. Its midnight and I've had a glass of wine. Oh.... wine won't send me to hell will it?

Not unless it only takes one glass to get you drunk!

[Praxeas]

Originally Posted by Daniel Alicea

Did Sabellius teach sequential modalism, Believer?

Do you mean successive modes? I don't know that he did, but it sounds more like his antagonists claimed he did

[BobDylan]

Originally Posted by Believer

I'm deleting some of this because its to long.

lets be clear... the church are not heretics, it is heretics that try to enter into the church and change its doctrine.

i.e. the catholic church and the trinitarian doctrine??? If you AGREE with the catholic church and dogma, then anything disagreeing with it would be heresy... but if you DO NOT agree with the catholic dogma, then NOT EVERYTHING that isn't compliant is necessarily heresy. Now let me ask you a question. Do you agree with, and wholeheartedly subscribe to, the dogma, decrees, and doctrines of the Catholic church? If not, then YOU sir (and ME) are a heretic in their eyes!!!!

Originally Posted by Believer

You seem to think that the 6th or 7th century Catholic church was the same church as the 1st-5th? The Church was given the name Catholic because it was universal. You're beef is with the Roman Catholic church.

The 6th or 7th century Catholic church preserved and venerated writings and teaching that supported it's conclusions then, and destroyed and disregarded writings and teaching that opposed it's perspective. The "history" was in effect "rewritten" in retrospect to support the 6th-7th century Catholic church's dogma...

This type of rewriting history has occurred many times in history. Think of the library in Alexandria being set ablaze? Entire volumes of human history was wiped out, to be rewritten by the victors.

Originally Posted by Believer

These men you hold in high esteem were consider heretics and were given the boot, just as the Oneness were by the AOG in 1916. The difference is, the teachings of Sebellius, Noetus died out. No matter how you slice this, the teaching of Oneness theology in whatever form you wish to present it, was only taught by very few men. It was never a Church doctrine!

Let's start by saying this: the men, whose early writing many trinitarians appeal to, were given the boot as well. For instance, Hippolytus was rejected and led a schismatic movement against Biship Callistus or Rome. Tertullian became a Montanist and the church of his day excommunicated him, Origen was excommunicated by the bishop of Alexandria etc. etc. etc. Which one of the "highly esteemed" trinitarians are we to appeal to in support of what is ecclesiastical doctrine? Actually, if you do a thorough study of history, Sabellius, Noetus, and monarchians were very properous in many areas of the world throughout history. Monarchianism WAS the only church doctrine until around the late 2nd century...

[BobDylan]

Originally Posted by Praxeas

ok...isn't 0-100 ad the first century? 101-200 the second? 201-300 the third?

yes, and 180 AD would be late second century (almost the beginning of the third century)...

[SDG]

Originally Posted by mizpeh

Not unless it only takes one glass to get you drunk!

CHEERS!!!

[mizpeh]

Originally Posted by Daniel Alicea

CHEERS!!!

Dan,

I don't want you to think something of me that isn't true. I don't drink alcoholic beverages. I abused it way to much growing up and my mom is an alcoholic. But I don't believe the Bible condemns it in moderation. But without a doubt, drunkeness is a sin.

[Praxeas]

Originally Posted by BobDylan

yes, and 180 AD would be late second century (almost the beginning of the third century)...

So then Tertullian and Praxeas would be third century.

[SDG]

Originally Posted by mizpeh

Dan,

I don't want you to think something of me that isn't true. I don't drink alcoholic beverages. I abused it way to much growing up and my mom is an alcoholic. But I don't believe the Bible condemns it in moderation. But without a doubt, drunkeness is a sin.

I don't drink either, Mizpeh. I tried alcohol a handful of times at around age 18-21. I hold the same position you do.

[pelathais]

Originally Posted by Believer

...

Hi Believer,

I'm just getting (sort of) caught up with this thread so please forgive me for jumping in. I've enjoyed the discussion, and thanks BD for the thread!

Believer- as I have understood the development of Trinitarian doctrine, the language of "Persons" was used at first in an analogous sense, and not that the Three were Three Persons literally. The "official" use of this language really comes up for the first time in pseudo-Athanasius (The Athanasius Creed) of c. 500 AD.

I find the analogous use of "Persons" or "persons" to be helpful in explaining the contradictions that can exist within a single indiviual being. For example, a person can be "of two minds" about an issue. That is, the one person is so divided as to which choice is to be made that a writer could speak analogously of that one person's mind being two. We don't need a clinical diagnosis of schizophrenia to describe inner turmoil, just a figure of speech.

The Bible has some examples of the figure of speech I'm trying to describe here.

Psalm 42:5 - David uses a pronoun-preposition-pronoun construction to speak of his own soul ("thou within me"). His soul was "cast down" to the point that it seemed that he needed a second person to encourage himself. Of course, that "second person" was he himself.

In his appearance many years ago on the John Ankerberg show, Cal Bisner took a lot of time to try and argue that such noun/pronoun-preposition-pronoun types of sentence structure formed a "law" of language that argued that there had to be at least two persons involved. No one really called him on it at the time though and Cal neglected to find the examples that I have here.

When the Prodigal "came to himself" is another example from scripture. "He (pronoun) to (preposition) himself (pronoun)." The point of the Gospel being of course, that the awareness of his lost condition contrasted so remarkably with the condition he had in his "father's house" that it was as if he were two completely different persons. Yet we know from the context that only one person was involved as the Prodigal.

My point being: There is one God Who is:

1) Above all
2) Through all, and
3) In you all (Ephesians 4:6, along with doxologies).

1) The transcendent God that is above all is so holy and pure that no sinner of this earth can reach out to Him ("there is no searching His understanding..." Isaiah 40:28).

2) Yet, in a seeming paradox, this same God is immanent ("He is not far from each one of us..." Acts 17:27-28).

3) And, all believers are indwelt by this same God (Ephesians 4:3-4; 1 Corinthians 12:13).

Taking each of these "three" to their reasonable extremes we will find that the same "Person" could not possibly be described as possessing such seemingly contradictory qualities in ordinary language. We need a figure of speech here.

The Bible plainly reveals a God who is capable of such "contradictions" in nature. To explain this in the vernacular of human speech it is only natural that we would use the "two or more persons" language as in the examples of David and the Prodigal.

Analogously, God does exist like this. I think where the "Oneness" people (both ancient and modern) draw the line is in requiring boiler-plate language that all believers must adhere to that includes apparently extra-Biblical statements like, "Eternally existing in three Persons..." For some people this leads to an inherently tri-theistic view of the Godhead. This is something that I'm sure you would not fall for, but there are a lot of examples of tritheism within Church history.

I appreciate your posts and look forward to hearing more from you.

[Praxeas]

Originally Posted by pelathais

Hi Believer,
The Bible has some examples of the figure of speech I'm trying to describe here.

Psalm 42:5 - David uses a pronoun-preposition-pronoun construction to speak of his own soul ("thou within me"). His soul was "cast down" to the point that it seemed that he needed a second person to encourage himself. Of course, that "second person" was he himself.

Thanks. I have made this point many times before. There is a flaw in "pronoun equals person" argument and as well where two pronouns are used with one "person" seemingly speaking to another. That does not mean, of course, that the bible shows persons speaking to other persons.

Good points