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You mention the apostles but ignore what they wrote about the fact that what they taught was the word of God. You continue to ignore the fact that the book of Revelation plainly states that God gave the Revelation to Jesus who communicated it to John.
Your opinion that if you acknowledge the authority of the Bible you must ignore the authority of the Holy Spirit is simply not true.
You seem to deliberately misunderstand the role of the Holy Spirit and why we have such detailed descriptions of it. We are supposed to test the spirit of everything "written in ink" against those detailed characteristics of the Holy Spirit and reject anything that contradicts or is inconsistent with those characteristics of the Holy Spirit. You do not. You blindly accept everything "written in ink" and ignore what God has "written in our hearts." You reject the New Covenant and the Comforter sent in Christ's name to guide us. You do not seem to believe that Jesus abides with us. You remain under the Old Covenant "written in ink and stone."
You seem to deliberately misunderstand the role of the Holy Spirit and why we have such detailed descriptions of it. We are supposed to test the spirit of everything "written in ink" against those detailed characteristics of the Holy Spirit and reject anything that contradicts or is inconsistent with those characteristics of the Holy Spirit. You do not. You blindly accept everything "written in ink" and ignore what God has "written in our hearts." You reject the New Covenant and the Comforter sent in Christ's name to guide us. You do not seem to believe that Jesus abides with us. You remain under the Old Covenant "written in ink and stone."
No, I am not the one who misunderstands the role of the Holy Spirit. And no, we are not supposed to test the Bible against the Holy Spirit to determine if something in the Bible is true. That's the excuse you and those of your ilk use to dismiss whatever you don't like in the Bible.
You do love telling people what they do and don't do don't you?
No, I am not the one who misunderstands the role of the Holy Spirit. And no, we are not supposed to test the Bible against the Holy Spirit to determine if something in the Bible is true. That's the excuse you and those of your ilk use to dismiss whatever you don't like in the Bible.
You do love telling people what they do and don't do don't you?
There is nothing supernatural in the Scriptures that have to do with the twisted path of the serpentine, except the mythological creatures that you have absorbed into your own mind which haven't anything to do with reality. And nowhere close to being rational. However, love is a reality that can overcome all that nonsense, but you have to operate from that position without falsely accusing others of doing that which you do yourself.
Everything I said is true. People do look for proof; Bible is supernatural. The Bible tells us who God is, who we are, and why the World is messed up. It hasn’t been proven false. And prophecies written centuries actually came to fruition.
Your made up idea of religion breaks the first and most important Commandment, worshiping a false god. So put away the silliness and get right with God before it is too late.
No, it is not supernatural, but it does deal with human thought from a human perspective.
Everything I said is true. People do look for proof; Bible is supernatural. The Bible tells us who God is, who we are, and why the World is messed up. It hasn’t been proven false. And prophecies written centuries actually came to fruition.
Your made up idea of religion breaks the first and most important Commandment, worshipping a false god. So put away the silliness and get right with God before it is too late.
The bible being supernatural is an idea born out of the religion Jesus forewarned us about. The bible is the false god worshipped by American fundamentalists and by whoever in the world have bought into their belief system.
There is nothing supernatural in the Scriptures that have to do with the twisted path of the serpentine, except the mythological creatures that you have absorbed into your own mind which haven't anything to do with reality. And nowhere close to being rational. However, love is a reality that can overcome all that nonsense, but you have to operate from that position without falsely accusing others of doing that which you do yourself.
Rationality is the god you worship. And there's more to reality than love. And yes, there is a supernatural realm.
Wikipedia is not a source that I would rely on concerning Christianity . Some of their articles are biased and unfounded opinions concerning the Christian doctrine.
Creeds concerning Jesus can be dated back to within a few decades after His resurrection .
I simply posted the words from that site. They are the words of the creed. Other than in Scripture no creeds existed until the 2nd century and even then nothing like the Nicene Creed.
True, there were some that disagreed with the Nicene Creed. But they were only a handful, some which were Gnostics. That vast majority of Christians used Scripture as their doctrine. Constantine merely collected the books used and compiled them.
The majority did not believe in the Trinity for centuries. It was an offshoot of Gnosticism and Platonism. Historians including from the Catholic Church admit this. The idea it was prevalent is simply a lie.
When one does speak of unqualified [unlimited] Trinitarianism, one has moved from the period of Christian origins to, say the last quadrant of the 4th century ... Herein lies the difficulty. On the one hand, it was the dogmatic formula “one God in Three Persons” that would henceforth for more than 15 centuries structure and guide the Trinitarian essence of the Christian message...On the other hand, the formula itself does not reflect the immediate consciousness of the period of origins; it was the product of 3 centuries of doctrinal development. (e.a.)-New Catholic Encyclopedia, 1967, Vol. XIV, p. 295.
Trinity. The trinity of God is defined by the [Roman Catholic] Church as the belief that in God are three persons who subsist in one nature. The belief as so defined was reached only in the 4th and 5th centuries AD and hence is not explicitly and formally a biblical belief. The trinity of persons within the unity of nature is defined in terms of “person” and “nature” which are G[ree]k philosophical terms; actually the terms so not appear in the Bible. In the N[ew]T[estament] the Father is “the God” (G[ree]k - ho theos), and Jesus is “the Son of God” (ho hyios tou theou). The Spirit is “the spirit of the God” or “the holy spirit,” in this context a synonymous term. Deity [in the Bible] is conceived not in the G[ree]k [philosophical term] of nature but rather as a level of being ... What is less clear about the Spirit [in the Bible] is His personal reality: often He is mentioned in language in which His personal reality is not explicit....The O[ld] T[estament], does not contain suggestions or foreshadowing of the trinity of persons. (e.a.)-Dictionaryof the Bible, John McKenzie, S.J., (Society of Jesuits) 1965, pp. 899-900.
The formulation “one God in three Persons” was not solidly established, certainly not fully assimilated into Christian life and its profession of faith, prior to the end of the 4th century...Among the Apostolic Fathers [Clement of Rome, Mathetes, Ignatius of Antioch, Polycarp, Papias, Barnabas(?)] there had been nothing even remotely approaching such a mentality or perspective [of a Trinity doctrine].- (e.a.), Vol. XIV (14), p. 299.The New Catholic Encyclopedia
The majority of N[ew]T[estament] texts reveal God’s spirit as something, not some- one; this is especially seen in the parallelism between the spirit and the power of God. When a quasi-personal activity is ascribed to God’s spirit, e.g., speaking, hindering, desiring, dwelling (Acts 8.29; 16.7; Rom 8.9) one is not justified in concluding immediately that in these passages God’s spirit is regarded as a Person; the same expressions are used also in regard to rhetorically personified things or abstract ideas (see Rom 8.6; 7.17). Thus, the context of the phrase ‘blasphemy against the spirit’ (Mt 11.31; Lk 11.20, shows that reference is being made to the power of God....The Apologists spoke too haltingly of the Spirit; with a measure of anticipation, [of the Trinity doctrine to be introduced later] one might say too impersonally.-New Catholic Encyclopedia, Vol. XIII, p. 575; Vol. XIV, p. 296.
The idea of the Holy Spirit, of the Spirit of God, was derived from Judaism, and it was generally believed among the early Christians that the Spirit was especially active in the Christian church. They did not speculate about the nature of the Spirit or about itsrelation to God and Christ. They commonly thought of it not as an individual being or person but simply as the divine power working in the world and particularly in the church....Apparently he was usually thought of in the early days as a mere divine power or influence. Often the term was employed simply to express the presence of God among his people. As time passed the tendency grew to think of him in personal terms, as the Father and Son were thought of...by the fourth century the idea of the Spirit as a separate person was practically universal. This did not mean that the impersonal use of the term, to signify the divine presence and activity, was abandoned. Indeed it has never been abandoned, with the result that the word is beset with ambiguity. Even after it had come to be generally taken for granted that the Spirit was a special person or hypostasis, his nature and the relation to the Father and Son remained in doubt. By some he was thought of as an angel, by others as a divine being inferior only to the Father and the Son, by still others as of equal rank and of one nature with them.-Arthur Chusman McGiffert, A History of Christian Thought, London, New York, Charles Scribner’s Sons, 1954, pp. 111, 127.
This does not mean however, that we consider the traditional Scripture proof text method as mandatory or even possible. In the sense of a definition the doctrine of the Trinity is stated nowhere in Scripture TheEncyclopedia ofthe Lutheran Chruch, 1965, Vol. III, p. 2414.
Justin Martyr developed the first Christology, though not as a novelty, but in consciousness of its being generally held by Christians...The act of procession of the Logos from God...took place before the creation of the world...This begotten, ante-mundane although it would seem not strictly eternal) Logos he conceives as a hypostatical being, a person numerically distinct from the Father.…he at one time asserts the moral unity of the two divine persons, and at another decidedly subordinates the Son to the Father;-Grand Rapids, Wm. Eerdmans Publishing Company, fifth edition, 1889, printing of June 1976, Vol. 2, “Ante-Nicene Christianity”, pp. 449-50. History of the Christian Church by Philip Schaff
THE ENCYCLOPEDIA BRITANNICA:
Even after the elimination of Gnosticism...the Trinitarians and the Unitarians continued to confront each other, the latter [the Unitarians] at the beginning of the 3rd century still forming the large majority. (e.a.)-11th edition, 1910-11, Vol. XXXIII (33), p. 963; and ibid., 1892, Vol. XXI (21), p. 127.
THE ENCYCLOPEDIA AMERICANA:
Unitarianism as a theological movement ... antedated Trinitarianism by many decades. Christianity derived from Judaism and Judaism was strictly Unitarian. The road which led from Jerusalem [the location of the first Christian congregation] to Nicea was scarcely a straight one. Fourth century Trinitarianism did not reflect accurately early Christian teaching regarding God; it [Trinitarianism] was, on the contrary, a deviation from this [early Christian] teaching. It [Trinitarianism] therefore developed against constant Unitarian or at least anti-Trinitarian opposition, and it was never wholly victorious...Earl Morse Wilbur, in the introduction to his History of Unitarianism enumerates a number of anti-Trinitarian groups whichdeserve attention in this connection; among others he refers to the Ebionites, the Sabellians, the Samosatanians, and the Arians...it must
be reemphasized that the concept God, understood as a single, undivided personality, precedes the Nicean notion of a Deity defined as three persons sharing one essence. Unitarianism is the early norm, Trinitarianism alatter deviationfrom this norm. It is therefore more proper to speak of Trinitarianism as an anti-Unitarian movement than of Unitarianism as an anti-Trinitarian mode of theological speculation. (e.a.)-1956, Vol. 27, p. 294L.
Arius denied that Christ was an unoriginated being, but was created out of nothing and therefore in essence must be different from the Father. He also affirmed that though Christ were the Son of God ... were he in the truest sense a son, he must have come after the Father, therefore the time obviously was when he was not, and hence [the Son was] a finite being. These doctrines...contained nothing essentially new or original in thought and had been more or less prevalent in the Chruch for three or four generations. (e.a.)-ibid., Vol. 2, p. 250.
Christianity and the Roman Empire, by noted Roman Catholic scholar William Edward, says;
The bulk of Christians, had they been let alone, would have been satisfied with the old belief in one God the Father, and would have distrusted ‘the dispensation,’ as it was called, by which the sole deity of the Father expanded itself into the deity of the Father and the Son....Tertullian...‘All simple people,’ he writes, not to call them ignorant and uneducated, (and these always form the greater part of believers) since the rule (of faith) itself transfers them from the many gods of the world to the only true God, take fright at the dispen- sation....They will have it that we are proclaiming two or three Gods. We, say they, hold to the rule of One....It became, however, more and more clear that the old belief in the sole godhead of the Father was no longer tenable in the church. (e.a.)-London, The Sunday School Association, 1893, p. 174.
Historian Philip Schaff recounted:
The victory of the council of Nicea over the views of the majority of the bishops was a victory only in appearance...An intermediate period of great excitement ensued, during which council was held against council, creed was set forth against creed, and anathema against anathema was hurled. (e.a.)-History Of The Christian Church, Grand Rapids, Wm. Eerdmans Publishing Company, original of 1910, reprinting of 1979, Vol. III, p. 632.
Richard Patrick Crosland Hanson, who at the time of publication (1981) of his, The Continuity of Christian Doctrine, was Assistant (later full) Church of England Bishop Of Manchester, and Professor of Historical and Contemporary Theology at the University of Manchester, reported:
The first point to observe is that the development of the doctrine of the Trinity in the fourth century involved as least one direct contradiction of traditional, not to say Catholic [“universal”] doctrine, and one reversal or reduction of a lively tradition of theological thought which had been entertained widely in the Church since the second century. The contradiction constituted the abandonment of an economic concept of the Trinity [The doctrine of the Father using His Son and His holy spirit to accomplish His purposes; not a concept of three equal persons. Compare, Gen. 1:2; 2 Pet. 2:21]. There can be no doubt at all that the vast majority of the theologians of the Chruch before the time of Origen, and many after his time, had taught and believed that the Son was produced by the Father for the purpose of creating the world, revealing the Father and redeeming mankind in that created world. Some of them held that the Son had always been immanent in the Father from eternity and for the purpose of creation was caused to become a distinct though not independent entity from the Father. But they would all have said that there was time, or possibly a situation, when the Son or Word was not that which he was when as the Father’s agent he created the world. This applies not just to Justin and the other Apologists, but to Irenaeus, Tertullian, Hippolytus, Novation, Lactantius, Aronbius and Victorinus of Pettau. (e.a.). New York, The Seabury Press, 1981, pp. 51, 2, 4-9, 60.
No, I am not the one who misunderstands the role of the Holy Spirit. And no, we are not supposed to test the Bible against the Holy Spirit to determine if something in the Bible is true. That's the excuse you and those of your ilk use to dismiss whatever you don't like in the Bible.
Why do you repeat this lie that we dismiss what we don't like? We repeatedly point to the VERY SPECIFIC descriptions in 1st Cor 13, Galatians 5, and the Sermon on the Mount as the BASIS for our tests of what is in the Bible. It has nothing to do with what we LIKE!
Quote:
You do love telling people what they do and, don't do don't you?
You love accusing people of dismissing what they don't like when they have a standard describing the Holy Spirit as the BASIS for their dismissals.
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