Examining Anti-Trinitarian Verses

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marks

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Mark, you do this all the time!

Your question was answered in the OP. What specific question about the OP do you have? What did I write that is confusing to you?
I'm saying there is not a valid answer in your OP.

If you disagree, point to it. Highlight it. Something! Show me something more than, "Well, I God were Triune, certainly He's write differently!". I don't agree with you.

Nothing in that passage either refutes Trinity, or asserts no Trinity.

What I do, and yes, it does seem to be all the time, is point to the emptiness of empty assertions.

Much love!
 

Wrangler

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I'm saying there is not a valid answer in your OP.

If you disagree, point to it. Highlight it.

Non-specific rejections are not value added. Twice I’ve asked you to be specific with what you don’t understand.

This exchange supports the lack of rejection criteria.
 

marks

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Non-specific rejections are not value added. Twice I’ve asked you to be specific with what you don’t understand.

This exchange supports the lack of rejection criteria.
How specific can I get?

No worries!

Much love!
 

marks

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Let’s start with your rejection criteria. The following sets of words would be deemed by me, Marks, as going against the trinity:
-
-
-

I'm more interested in looking at Scriptures, really.

Are we done with this one?

The grace of the Lord Jesus Christ, the love of God, and the communion of the Holy Spirit be with all of you. 2 Corinthians 13:14 (NRSV)

Do you have another one?

Much love!
 

marks

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exchange supports the lack of rejection criteria
Sophistry?

This was a good quote, I thought,

"Sophistry, like poison, is at once detected, and nauseated, when presented to us in a concentrated form; but a fallacy which, when stated barely in a few sentences, would not deceive a child, may deceive half the world if diluted in a quarto volume."
(Richard Whately, Elements of Logic, 7th ed. 1831)

So I like specifics, and clarity.

Much love!
 

marks

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The sophistry is you claiming the OP fails to meet the standard but then withhold precisely what is your rejection criteria.

My criteria is, what does the Bible say.

Nothing in your OP passage makes a statement one way or the other concerning the Trinity. As I understand your assertion, your claim is that God would have spoken differently were He Triune. Is that what you are asserting? Or no?

Much love!
 

marks

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sophistry
sŏf′ĭ-strē
noun
  1. Plausible but fallacious argumentation.
  2. A plausible but misleading or fallacious argument.
  3. The methods of teaching, doctrines, or practices of the Greek sophists.
Again, I like clarity and specifics. Good sound logical reasoning, that takes into account what are and are not valid arguments.

Arguments from silence are not valid, and only express the speaker's opinions.

"He would have said . . . " is not a valid argument, and at best expresses that your thinking is that He would have said something different.

Much love!
 
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Peterlag

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In fact, such verses would never be written IF the authors embraced trinitiarianism.

Here is another 1 COR 15:57 But thanks be to God, who gives us the victory through our Lord Jesus Christ.

IF it is significant that there is a verse that mentions all 3 members of the trinity, it must also be important when verses do NOT mention all 3 members.

Also, this is another powerful juxtaposition verse showing agency. God - in his unitarian nature - achieves something through his agent, our Lord Jesus Christ. Evidently, this goal of God's does not require the assistant of that 3rd person - or the Father, for that matter.

Many of the Epistles start by saying something like...

Grace be unto you, and peace from God our Father and from the Lord Jesus Christ.

How come the Holy Spirit person is always getting cheated out of the greeting?
 

Wrangler

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Many of the Epistles start by saying something like...

Grace be unto you, and peace from God our Father and from the Lord Jesus Christ.

How come the Holy Spirit person is always getting cheated out of the greeting?
I’ve asked this question many times to trinitarians. A couple of years ago, I started a thread about Disobedient Apostles. It’s the only plausible explanation, right?
 

marks

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I’ve asked this question many times to trinitarians. A couple of years ago, I started a thread about Disobedient Apostles. It’s the only plausible explanation, right?
He doesn't testify about Himself.

John 16:13-14 KJV
13) Howbeit when he, the Spirit of truth, is come, he will guide you into all truth: for he shall not speak of himself; but whatsoever he shall hear, that shall he speak: and he will shew you things to come.
14) He shall glorify me: for he shall receive of mine, and shall shew it unto you.

Much love!
 
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Matthias

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Scripture is neither pro-Trinity nor specifically anti-Trinity.

Scripture is pro-one God of Israel and anti-idolatry.
 
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Matthias

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Scripture is neither pro-Trinity nor specifically anti-Trinity.

Scripture is pro-one God of Israel and anti-idolatry.

What does Jesus do? He keeps us within the sphere of the one God of Israel, his God.

What does trinitarianism do? It attempts to position the Trinity - not the one God of Jesus - as the one God of Israel.

Scripture - OT and NT - comes to us from the Jews (unitarians); not from the trinitarians.

“We are therefore come to (the gist of) our position; for at this point we were aiming, and for this we were preparing in the preamble of our address (which we have just completed), - so that we may now join issue on the contention to which our adversaries challenge us. They put forward the Scriptures, and by this insolence of theirs they at once influence some. In the encounter itself, however, they weary the strong, they catch the weak and dismiss waverers with a doubt. Accordingly, we oppose to them this step above, of all others, of not admitting them to any discussion of the Scriptures.

If in these these lie their resources, before they can use them, it ought to be clearly seen to whom belongs the possession of the Scriptures, that none may be admitted to the use thereof who has no title at all to the privilege.”

(Tertullian, The Prescription Against Heretics, Chapter 15)

Tertullian (Roberts-Donaldson)

We who will not acknowledge any other God than the one God whom Jesus insists is his God and our God - the one God of Israel - are called heretics by those who will. They do so without having the title to the privilege.

P.S.

I’m not suggesting that we shouldn’t discuss scripture with the trinitarians. I believe that we should. What I’m saying is that we aren’t what they aggressively insist we are and, keeping that in mind, our conversation with them should be markedly different in both tone and content.
 
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face2face

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John 17:3 and 1 Corinthians 8:6 are verses unequivocally identify the Father alone as truly God, and preclude the inclusion of any other person in that category. Two persons are mentioned, but only one is identified as God. If God is more than one person, this would have been the ideal time to mention it. Yet the Father alone is identified as God, the Son is identified as “Lord Jesus Christ”, and the Holy Spirit is not mentioned at all. This is truly a strange statement for Paul to make if he believed in the deity of Christ and the Holy Spirit. 1 Corinthians 8:6 is just another in the ever‐growing list of verses Trinitarians cannot accept at face value, for the sheer simplicity of its language defies a Trinitarian interpretation. It appears the only option for Trinitarianism is to obscure Paul’s words and blur his terms of reference. There is no possible way to overcome the Shema from which Paul bases his understanding of God.

Paul only defines the “one God” of Israel as the Father, exclusively, matching the consistent use of this term throughout the NT

Mark 2:7; Mark 10:18; Mark 12:29; Mark 12:32; Luke 18:19; Romans 3:30; 1 Corinthians 8:4; 1 Corinthians 8:6; Galatians 3:20; Ephesians 4:6, 1 Timothy 2:5; James 2:19

Only God or Only One True God

John 5:44; John 17:3; 1 Timothy 1:17; Jude 1:25

On a Scriptural basis we are always coming at this subject from a position of strength.

In part, I pity them.

F2F
 

Matthias

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My primary acceptance / rejection criteria is Jesus.

If Jesus himself is a trinitarian then accept it. If not then reject it.

If Jesus himself is a binitarian then accept it. If not then reject it.

If Jesus himself is a unitarian then accept it. If not then reject it.

Follow Jesus. Have no other God than the God whom Jesus himself says is “my God and your God”.

Or don’t.
 
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