Do you accept orthodox Trinitarianism?

[TechBear_Seattle]

This comes out of a lively discussion I've been having with some friends.

Background:
In 325, Emperor Constantine convened an "ecumenical" council at the port city of Nicaea to settle doctrinal questions about the nature of God. ("Ecumenical" means that representatives of all Christendom were invited to attend.) The chief result was the Nicene Creed. This creed was slightly amended and clarified by the First Council of Constantinople in 381, and the doctrine of the Trinity was tweaked in several other Councils, noteably Ephesus (431), Chalcedon (451) and II and III Constantinople (553, 680-681.)

The doctrine of the Trinity promulgated by these councils has been accepted as orthodox by the vast majority of Christians and still is the official dogma of most Orthodox churches, the Roman Catholic Church, the Anglican Communion, and most Protestant denominations including Baptists, Methodists, Lutherans and Presbyterians. Noteable exceptions are the Latter Day Saints, Jehovah's Witnesses, some Quakers, and Unitarians.

Orthodox Trinitarianism:
Rather than write kilobytes about what I mean by "orthodox trinitarianism", please refer to these links.

Nicene Creed
Nicene Creed, Wikipedia entry

Athanasian Creed (technically not a creed, but traditionally called one.)
Athanasian Creed, Wikipedia entry

First Council of Nicaea, Wikipedia entry
First Council of Constantinople, Wikipedia entry
First Council of Ephesus, Wikipedia entry
Council of Chalcedon, Wikipedia entry


The question:
Do you accept orthodox Trinitarianism, as expressed in the Nicene Creed and the "Creed" of Athanasius and as outlined by the canons of the various Ecumenical Councils?

[saltpoint]

1. Several Christians I know don't accept it. They feel it is an overlay,

an entirely man-made overlay onto existing practice.

There's a subcurrent in their comments about it suggesting tension and resentment.

[BurtWorm]

2. I don't even know what it means to accept Trinitarianism.

I don't trust what Christians say they accept anyway. Sorry for sounding like a bigot, but I have a suspicion that if you scratch a person who claims to believe in the Trinity a little, you find a skeptic underneath who will admit that, of course, the Trinity is bullshit.

[Imperialism Inc.]

3. I was reading an internet discussion recently and this guy

thought he was defending Trinitarianism. He was using an analogy of the different phases of water (solid, liquid, gas) as the different parts of the trinity. Someone finally pointed out to him that he was describing modalism and was therefore a heretic. It took him a little bit to figure out what they were telling him. He never did say anything after he finally got it. Whether he accepted it or not I mean. I suspect though that many casual Christians are like him and have no idea what the Trinity is supposed to mean. I've never understood it really myself. One God in three persons sounds like 3 Gods to me.

[BurtWorm]

4. To me, too.

And then there's all this splitting of hairs over whose incomprehensible excuse for this nonsense is the most "godly." Heavens help you if you pick the wrong incomprehensible excuse! :eyes:

[Imperialism Inc.]

6. Hmmm I just realized what your sigline probably means.

... you infidel you!?

(If that makes no sense then I've probably got it wrong lol)

edit: that is probably way too cryptic. basically I think that your sig is your user name on another board?

[BurtWorm]

7. Bzzzt.

I mean I am an infidel, but that's not my user name elsewhere. ;)

[TechBear_Seattle]

8. Not quite

Écrasez - imperative form of écraser, "to crush", "to smash"
Infâme - infamous, can be used as a noun or an adjective

On the surface, the phrase Écrasez l'infâme means "crush the infamous." It is actually a quote from Voltaire, who frequently used "Infâme" (capitalized) to mean the Catholic Church. Écrasez l'Infâme therefore means "crush the Church."

[Imperialism Inc.]

11. Right .

I looked it up cause I had no idea what it meant, but there is someone that uses it as a user name on an atheist board. I kept thinking it looked familiar but it seems it is another person.

[TechBear_Seattle]

5. That's why I'm not even trying to explain it

:hi:

The orthodox position is a horrifically convoluted mess, in my opinion. Looking over the decrees and canons of the Ecumenical Councils and the "heresies" they refuted is enough to make dedicated scholars scratch their heads in confusion, much less the average believer. I figured I would let respondants decide whether or not they were orthodox or held a "heretical" position.

[BurtWorm]

9. That's a good strategy.

And yet, I really wonder what anyone could possibly mean by saying they believe in some of this impossible shit. I sometimes, in dialogue with believers, give them the benefit of the doubt and assume they don't *really* believe in an "acutal" Trinitarian monogod, that their belief is not about something "real" but about something *symbolic* and metaphorical. But then I have to wonder why would it cause so much tsouris in them to have their belief challenged if they don't really *believe* in it. But when you ask them to say what exactly it is they *believe* in, they spout definitions from theological text books. (It's maddening!)

[NAO]

10. Detailed Logical/Rhetorical Analysis of the Trinitarian Creed(s)

Excerpt From Robert Ingersoll's "What Must We Do To Be Saved" - analysis of the Trinitarian Creeds (long, but WELL WORTH reading)

This church, after a few centuries of thought, made a creed, and that creed is the foundation of the orthodox religion. Let me read it to you:

"Whosoever will be saved, before all things it is necessary that he hold the Catholic faith; which faith except every one do keep entire and inviolate, without doubt, he shall everlastingly perish." Now the faith is this: "That we worship one God in trinity and trinity in unity."

Of course you understand how that is done, and there is no need of my explaining it. "Neither confounding the persons nor dividing the substance." You see what a predicament that would leave the deity in if you divided the substance.

"For one is the person of the Father, another of the Son, and another of the Holy Ghost; but the Godhead of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Ghost is all one" -- you know what I mean by Godhead. "In glory equal, and in majesty coeternal. Such as the Father is, such is the Son, such is the Holy Ghost. The Father is untreated, the Son untreated, the Holy Ghost untreated. The Father incomprehensible, the Son incomprehensible, the Holy Ghost incomprehensible." And that is the reason we know so much about the thing. "The Father is eternal, the Son eternal, the Holy Ghost eternal, and yet there are not three eternals, only one eternal, as also there are not three untreated, nor three incomprehensible, only one untreated, one incomprehensible."

"In like manner, the Father is almighty, the Son almighty, the Holy Ghost almighty. Yet there are not three almighties, only one Almighty. So the Father is God, the Son God, the Holy Ghost God, and yet not three Gods; and so, likewise, the Father is Lord, the Son is Lord, the Holy Ghost is Lord, yet there are not three Lords, for as we are compelled by the Christian truth to acknowledge every person by himself to be God and Lord, so we are all forbidden by the Catholic religion to say there are three Gods, or three Lords. The Father is made of no one; not created or begotten. The Son is from the Father alone, not made, not created, but begotten. The Holy Ghost is from the Father and the Son, not made nor begotten, but proceeding."

You know what proceeding is.

"So there is one Father, not three Fathers." Why should there be three fathers, and only one Son? "One Son, and not three Sons; one Holy Ghost, not three Holy Ghosts; and in this Trinity there is nothing before or afterward, nothing greater or less, but the whole three persons are coeternal with one another and coequal, so that in all things the unity is to be worshiped in Trinity, and the Trinity is to be worshiped in unity. Those who will be saved must thus think of the Trinity. Furthermore, it is necessary to everlasting salvation that he also believe rightly the incarnation of our Lord Jesus Christ. Now the right of this thing is this: "That we believe and confess that our Lord Jesus Christ, the Son of God, is both God and man. He is God of the substance of his Father begotten before the world was."

That was a good while before his mother lived.

"And he is man of the substance of his mother, born in this world, perfect God and perfect man, and the rational soul in human flesh, subsisting equal to the Father according to his Godhead, but less than the Father according to his manhood, who being both God and man is not two but one, one not by conversion of God into flesh, but by the taking of the manhood into God."

You see that is a great deal easier than the other way would be.

"One altogether, not by a confusion of substance but by unity of person, for as the rational soul and the flesh is one man, so God and man is one Christ, who suffered for our salvation, descended into hell, rose again the third day from the dead, ascended into heaven, and he sitteth at the right hand of God, the Father Almighty, and He shall come to Judge the living and the dead."

In order to be saved it is necessary to believe this. What a blessing that we do not have to understand it. And in order to compel the human intellect to get upon its knees before that infinite absurdity, thousands and millions have suffered agonies; thousands and thousands have perished in dungeons and in fire; and if all the bones of all the victims of the Catholic Church could be gathered together, a monument higher than all the pyramids would rise, in the presence of which the eyes even of priests would be wet with tears.

That church covered Europe with cathedrals and dungeons, and robbed men of the jewel of the soul. That church had ignorance upon its knees. That church went in partnership with the tyrants of the throne, and between those two vultures, the altar and the throne, the heart of man was devoured.

Of course I have met, and cheerfully admit that there are thousands of good Catholics; but Catholicism is contrary to human liberty. Catholicism bases salvation upon belief. Catholicism teaches man to trample his reason under foot. And for that reason it is wrong.

Thousands of volumes could not contain the crimes of the Catholic Church. They could not contain even the names of her victims. With sword and fire, with rack and chain, with dungeon and whip she endeavored to convert the world, in weakness a beggar -- in power a highwayman, -- alms dish or dagger -- tramp or tyrant.

[Igel]

12. Firmly an unchurched anti-trinitarian Xian.

I deny the personhood of the holy spirit.

But there are a few different varieties of folk like me.

I'm in the small subclass of those who believe in there being two beings in the Bible: the Father and Yahweh/Jesus.