We Christians are not obligated to acknowledge the heterdox, but are commanded, in fact, to do the opposite.
2Co 11:12-13 And what I am doing I will continue to do, in order to undermine the claim of those who would like to claim that in their boasted mission they work on the same terms as we do. For such men are false apostles, deceitful workmen, disguising themselves as apostles of Christ.
So you say if a person professes a belief that Jesus Christ died as atonement for our sins, is baptized in the name of the Father, Son and Holy Spirit, and that if such person does not share your exact understanding of the relationship between Father, Son and Holy Spirit that such person is damned?
I previously wrote: Agency applied to scripture would permit an angel, or other spirit being to act on behalf of God and if you lie to the spirit you lie to God.
You replied:
If you refer to the Holy Spirit as an "angel" or a "spirit being," then you ascribe to Him personhood. If these verses prove personhood, then you cannot explain away those passages which prove divinity as an example of His objecthood.
We haven’t gotten to that point of identifying which scriptural references to the Holy Spirit are more suggestive of a conscious being versus a dynamic force/presence.
Most scriptural references to the Spirit suggest a dynamic force/presence. In just the book of Acts there are sixty two references to the Spirit. Eighteen are in terms of a conscious being with the remainder being more suggestive of a dynamic force/presence. However, once the entire body of scripture dealing with the Holy Spirit is assembled for consideration, then we can make that determination. Not such an easy task, is it? Fortunately, I believe Christ gave us a strong hint concerning which way to go by speaking of the Spirit mostly in terms of a conscious being.
I previously wrote: Thank you. Finnegan cited them I believe primarily to dispel accusations that the Great Commission was an insertion circa 4th century. I’ve never suggested that and from the outset indicated a belief that the words are contained in the original Gospel manuscript. Your reference to the Apostolic Fathers is probably due to my above editorial mistake.
You replied with:
You are shifting goal posts. You denied that the verse: "Go ye therefore and baptize all nations in the name of the Father, and the Son, and the Holy Ghost" was genuine.
Where did I deny authenticity? I didn’t. I merely pointed out that controversy exists concerning whether it is an exact quote of Christ, or a paraphrasing reflecting late 1st century church practice.
I only brought up the controversy because you placed such weight upon it as proof of the Trinity doctrine. If you place weight on it you need to defend it, which you attempted by citing scholars who admit to the controversy and state that not all New Testament scripture is authentic. You cited Ferguson within the Finnegan article as follows: (Ferguson, p. 136, qtd in http://lhim.org/gladtidings/articles/Is_Matthew_28:19_Authentic_or_a_Forgery_by_Rev__Sean_Finnegan_issue_106.pdf)
Do you now wish to retract your scholarly citation?
You wrote:
The quotes by the Church Fathers are either direct quotes of that verse going back to the first century, or baptismal instructions based on that verse using the pattern of "Father, Son and Holy Spirit." The quote from Finnegan was only to explain why the Apostles summed up the name of Baptism in Christ, rather than saying Father, Son and Spirit all the time, in the book of Acts. This also was part of your attack on the genuiness of that verse.
No I was merely pointing out that controversy exists surrounding why if Christ used the threefold baptismal formula as part of the Great Commission, why no New Testament writer records use of the threefold baptismal formula. You proceed to respond by citing a source that on p15 asserts not all New Testament scripture is authentic:
We are fortunate today to live in a time when the New Testament text is over 99% established based on centuries of discover ies, cataloging, and comparisons.Do you wish to retract the scholars you cited?
All this talk about you not denying the great commission, baptismal rites, yada yada yada, have nothing to do with what you originally wrote and what I responded to. Daniel1212 gave a similar response, also quoting the same Fathers (though he had a few extra).
No! Not at all. You quoted Ferguson within the Finnegan article without qualification. I’ll repost your quoted scholar:
"The phrases in Acts may not, however, reflect alternative formulas in the administration of baptism or alternative understandings of the meaning of the act. In some cases the description in Acts may mean a baptism administered on a confession of Jesus as Lord and Christ (cf. Acts 22:16), or it may be a general characterization of the baptism as related to Jesus and not a formula pronounced at the baptism. In the later history the only formula regularly attested as pronounced by the administrator includes the triune name, but in Matthew it too may be descriptive rather than formulaic. If Matthew 28:19 is not a formula, then there is no necessary contradiction to the description “in the name of the Lord” in Acts and Paul" (Ferguson, p. 136, qtd in http://lhim.org/gladtidings/articles/Is_Matthew_28:19_Authentic_or_a_Forgery_by_Rev__Sean_Finnegan_issue_106.pdf)He offers a theory with no evidence to back it up which is why he couches it in speculative language.
Are you now wishing to retract that Ferguson quote you made?
I wrote: The reason speculative language is used by Finnegan and Ferguson is likely due to there being no examples in scripture or early Apostolic Fathers of such a baptismal rite.
What exactly are you defining as a "Baptismal rite"?
Just what Ferguson, the scholar you quoted described which was the person performing the baptism did so in the name of the Father, Son and Holy Spirit while the person being baptized made a confession of baptism in Christ. That is the rite I was referring to.
If your guy Ferguson is correct, then why don’t the Apostolic Fathers mention that the person being baptized had to confess to doing so in Christ’s name? Instead, the Apostolic Fathers mention what the person performing the baptism said and did without indicating a confessional type statement being necessary on the part of the person being baptized. I don’t recall any of the early Fathers recording a confessional consistent with Ferguson on the part of the person being baptized. Later ones may have.
Multiple quotes from the Fathers are, in fact, describing baptismal rites, in what name they should be said in (Father Son and Holy Spirit), and how the person ought to be dipped, or sprinkled, depending on the availability.
But where do any other them describe what was required of the person being baptized as your guy Ferguson speculated?
Do you wish to retract your citation?
As for "speculative language," how about you quote Finnegan and make clear what you are talking about and what you are disputing?
From p15 of Finnegan:
However we work out the seeming contradiction, our difficulty here does not warrant changing what Scripture says to read more smoothly.
That was just before he states not all New Testament scripture is authentic.
Do you wish to retract your scholarly citation?
If it is on the genuineness of that verse, then, no, Finnegan never expresses doubt on the validity of that verse.
Yet he admits controversy and apparent contradiction. Ferguson’s theory that you quoted was couched in cautionary language.
Do you wish to retract your citation?
I wrote: 2 Co 13:14 does not establish divinity of the Holy Spirit because it does not rule out agency… power of attorney.
Are you even conscious? Read the verse:
You must not be married. Having a civil discussion with you is most difficult.
Yes I read it. Since we haven’t ruled out agency on the part of the Holy Spirit we would need to do so. To you, all of this seems easy since you grew up accepting it from birth without ever assembling and grappling with the entire body of scripture but it took the Church centuries to work through all of this and arrive at a doctrine.
That having been said, I agree 2 Co 13:14 shows Paul in his benediction advancing a step towards doctrine from where he had been in 1 Co 16:23 “The grace of our Lord Jesus Christ be with you.” In 2 Co 13:14 The triadic elements are now present in Paul’s benediction where they were not present in his first letter to the Corinthians. We can clearly see Paul’s developing understanding of the nature of God..
2Co 13:14 The grace of the Lord Jesus Christ and the love of God and the fellowship of the Holy Spirit be with you all.
What would the Holy Spirit be doing operating as an agent here? What is He agencying? Fellowship? Or is this another one of your "editorial mistakes"?
The snide tone of your comment tells me that you remain out of your league. Otherwise, you would understand that Paul, the disciples and other apostles were Jews and Jewish tradition was that agents assisted God in the creation. This belief took two parts; First, there were conceptual emanations from God such as Wisdom (Prov 8), Word and the Spirit (Gen 1). Law is also an emanation but is closely related to Word. Prov 8 says Wisdom was present at the creation assisting God and in verse 30 says “Then I was by him, as one brought up with him: and I was daily his delight, rejoicing always before him.” (KJV).
So your sources range from a hundred years ago to 40 years ago? Can you name any contemporary scholar who would claim that the verse in Matthew is not genuine and why, exactly, they do so?
Why? Didn’t your scholar Finnegan in 2009 admit to an apparent contradiction and that New Testament scripture is not 100 percent authentic.?
Didn’t Finnegan in turn quote Ferguson who you also directly quoted as offering up a theory using speculative language without evidence to support his theory? Is it really Ferguson’s theory or did Ferguson copy it from an earlier writer? Didn’t I say in my previous post that your guy Ferguson probably got his theory from J. Crehan, "Early Christian Baptism and the Creed, (1950) p.25, p.76., p.79-p.84? As I recall from Crehan, the Ferguson quote reads like a direct copy of Crehans theory. I’d hate to think you quoted a plagiarist.
Would you like to retract your citations?
Your original point is false, since it stands on disputing the validity of certain verses and ignoring lots more.
No. You simply refuse to recognize that New Testament writers developed over many decades material for the Trinity and that it took the Church centuries to formalize it as doctrine. Because you accepted the doctrine at VBS years ago doesn’t mean it is as simple as you want to believe it is.
Just as many of Christ’s own disciples may have died not having a full understanding of the nature of God as revealed to them, so too is the case for persons coming from a non-Trinitarian background. Your smug condescension is going to be very offputting to them.
I’m on a business trip and don’t know what my schedule will be like to continue this discussion.
Then a simple reply to #152 should be easy.
Well, let's define all of this. One of the great dangers of cults for the uninformed is that they redefine everything. They might say something that, on the surface, a Christian might agree with, and yet mean something very different than what Christians do or the Bible.
So, what do you mean by "Christ died as an atonement for our sins?" Now I have never met any anti-trinitarian group that didn't also qualify or distort a doctrine like this in some way, or at least made the atonement as almost irrelevant for their salvation. When we hear 'atoned for sins," we believe that it is effective, and consider ourselves cleaned totally by the blood of Christ and not by anything that we earn by our merits. The difference between our views and others is that ours sees Christ's sacrifice as all sufficient for us, while others teach that something more must be added to it in order for us to get to heaven. In some way, their sins always remain, while we believe we have been washed clean.
It seems as if anti-Trinitarianism and teaching a merit-based plan of salvation are mystically intertwined in some way, almost as if God or the devil does not allow you to have one without the other. Even the Catholics, who have a merit based soteriology, manage to molest the Trinity in a subtle way through their teachings on Mary, wherein they place her as practically a fourth member of the Godhead, with all the powers and authority over sin that Christ would have ordinarily in other Christian denominations.
Hence we find teachings that make the practice of praying the rosary to be something that is necessary for salvation, without which Christ, whose blood did not really atone for our sins, will judge us harshly for:
“Later on, when she was at prayer she fell into ecstasy and had a vision of her soul appearing before the Supreme Judge [Christ]. Saint Michael put all her penances and to her prayers on one side of the scale and all her sins and imperfections on the other. The tray of her good works were greatly outweighed by that of her sins and imperfections. Filled with alarm, she cried out for mercy, imploring the help of the Blessed Virgin, her gracious advocate, who took the one and only Rosary she had said for her penance and dropped it on the tray of her good works. This one Rosary was so heavy that it weighed more than all her sins as well as her good works. Our Lady then reproved her for having refused to follow the counsel of her servant Dominic and for not saying the Rosary every day." (The Secret of the Rosary, http://www.rosary-center.org/secret.htm)
Notice that the sins are still present in this imagined scenario, being weighed against their good works, which themselves were still not good enough until the rosary was added. Now what are those sins doing there if Christ atoned for them? And why is it the rosary, and not Christ, that ultimately does the saving work?
In the case of the Mormons, whom your logic would make Christians, they do not even agree with us on where their version of the atonement took place. According to them, it took place in the garden of Gethsemane:
"It was in Gethsemane that Jesus took on Himself the sins of the world, in Gethsemane that His pain was equivalent to the cumulative burden of all men, in Gethsemane that He descended below all things so that all could repent and come to Him" (Teachings of Ezra Taft Benson, pg.15)
"To possess a testimony of Jesus is to know that He voluntarily took upon Himself the sins of all mankind in the Garden of Gethsemane, which caused Him to suffer in both body and spirit and to bleed from every pore. All this He did so that we would not have to suffer if we would repent. (See D&C 19:16, 18.)" (Ezra Taft Benson, “Valiant in the Testimony of Jesus,” Ensign, May 1982 [April Conference issue], 62)
Secondly, they do not even believe that this "bleeding from every pore" actually atones for every sin. Some sins, for example, can only be atoned for by the shedding of a person's own blood:
"Just a word or two now, on the subject of blood atonement. What is that doctrine? Unadulterated, if you please, laying aside the pernicious insinuations and lying charges that have so often been made, it is simply this: Through the atonement of Christ all mankind may be saved, by obedience to the laws and ordinances of the gospel. Salvation is twofold: General -- that which comes to all men irrespective of a belief (in this life) in Christ -- and, Individual -- that which man merits through his own acts through life and by obedience to the laws and ordinances of the gospel. But man may commit certain grievous sins -- according to his light and knowledge -- that will place him beyond the reach of the atoning blood of Christ. If then he would be saved he must make sacrifice of his own life to atone -- so far as in his power lies -- for that sin, for the blood of Christ alone under certain circumstances will not avail. Do you believe this doctrine? If not, then I do say you do not believe in the true doctrine of the atonement of Christ. This is the doctrine you are pleased to call the "blood atonement of Brighamism." This is the doctrine of Christ our Redeemer, who died for us. This is the doctrine of Joseph Smith, and I accept it." (McConkie, Bruce R., ed. Doctrines of Salvation, Vol. 1, pp. 133 - 135, Salt Lake City: Bookcraft, 1954-1955)
Now notice several things:
1) Some sins are not atoned for by the blood of Christ.
Christ's blood, therefore, is anemic in that it does not have all power to wash away every sin. It can only go so far.
2) Christ's sacrifice is twofold, one general, regardless of one's belief, and the other individual, "that which man merits through his own acts through life and by obedience to the laws and ordinances of the gospel."
The LDS teaches a type of universalism wherein most people are going to end up in one of three heavens according to the merits of individual men and women. Those who were righteous Mormons in life, who went through all the necessary hoops, had their temple recommends, learned the handshakes, get married (though you can always get married even after death provided the LDS on earth seal someone to you), etc., have the opportunity to enter the third and highest "Celestial" heaven, wherein they will become exalted human beings (Gods) and reign over their own worlds.
Christians, and infidels alike, will get sorted into the lesser glories based upon their own personal merits. While they do not suffer the torments of fire, their own personal hell is that they will forever be in eternal envy of the Mormons in the Celestial heaven:
"This earth will become a celestial kingdom when it is sanctified. Those who enter the terrestrial kingdom will have to go to some other sphere which will be prepared for them. Those who enter the telestial kingdom, likewise will have to go to some earth which is prepared for them, and there will be another place which is hell where the devil and those who are punished to go with him will dwell. Of course, those who enter the telestial kingdom, and those who enter the terrestrial kingdom will have the eternal punishment which will come to them in knowing that they might, if they had kept the commandments of the Lord, have returned to his presence as his sons and his daughters. This will be a torment to them, and in that sense it will be hell." (Joseph Fielding Smith, Answers to Gospel Questions, v. 2, p. 210)
(Maybe that is why Mitt Romney always looked so smug when he was being criticized during the debates. He was awash in the better-than-youness that Mormon theology creates.)
Thus the Mormons make of Christ and his atonement almost nothing at all. In the one case, it does not actually justify a person who places their faith in Him. Whether they believe or not, they will be sorted into one of the three heavenly glories based on their merits. And if they do believe, this only opens the door for them to "obey," in which case, if they fail to obey, their faith gives them nothing, and they will not be able to be with their families in the afterlife or to become a god of their own planet.
(That's another thing. Mormons only get to possess their "forever families" so long as the family itself is obedient. If not, they will face eternal separation.)
This is the same case with the Jehovah's Witnesses, the Oneness Pentecostals, the Armstrongites, and every other anti-Trinitarian group I have ever heard of. Always, in some way, they deny the value of Christ's atonement and require something extra in order to merit heavenly rewards.
So, what is it that you mean when you imagine your hypothetical person saying "I believe in the atonement of Christ?" If it is the Mormon, Jehovah's Witness, or whatever standpoint, it means nothing. They might say they believe that, but they don't really believe it when you learn their teachings. They are not Christian from stage one.
Secondly, what do you mean by: "if such person does not share your exact understanding of the relationship between Father, Son and Holy Spirit that such person is damned?"
First, what kind of person is this? Is this a confessing Mormon or Jehovah's Witness or an Armstrongite? By definition, if they confess their own theologies, they do not even believe that Christ will save them. Maybe they might depend on Christ getting them part way to heaven(s), but the rest is always up to them.
If so, these people are damned, beyond any doubt, and they must flee their religions in order to be saved.
But are you referring perhaps to a person who is simply ignorant of the Trinity or misunderstands it? Maybe even a hypothetical person who denies it and yet still maintains salvation by grace through faith alone?
Well, before I go into this, there is something that must be said first:
There is a difference between a person with true saving faith and a heretic, and that is, the former possess the Holy Spirit, while the latter does not.
What that means is this: a Christian, who is filled by the spirit of God, is regenerated and cannot help but to be in a condition of lifelong sanctification (improvement). That is the benefit of the Holy Spirit. Even before salvation, the scripture teaches that all those whom the Father has given to the Son do come to Him infallibly (John 6:37-39). None are left idle, but must inevitably come to the point where they will believe in Christ and be saved by Him. They will "all [be] taught of God," and all those so taught by the Father "cometh unto Him" (John 6:45). Conversion in every instance is always a supernatural event, not having to do with "flesh and blood," but is a supernatural revelation from "my Father which is in heaven" (Matt 16:17). We do not reason our ways to heaven. We do not get convinced by great arguments that Christ is the Messiah. Not even miracles shown to us on Earth convince us. We are taught this knowledge through supernatural means, with a new heart capable of hearing, and so are saved.
This is why so many people describe their salvation experience as being almost dragged, some "kicking and screaming," the way Kirsten Powers described her conversion to Christianity. These people are drawn by the Father, and cannot avoid being drawn, but like Paul are stopped on the road to Damascus by a blinding light, scorching away their eyes of flesh so that they may gain new eyes with which to see the Spirit. While not everyone is literally having Paul's experience, their conversion is no less miraculous.
Next, once a person is so saved, the Holy Spirit is not done with them, but continues to work on them for the rest of their lives. Thus the scripture teaches that what the Spirit has "begun," He will surely continue to "perform... until the day of Jesus Christ" (Php 1:6). Again, the scripture teaches that it is God who "works in us both to will and to do of His good pleasure" (Php 2:13). We are not free from His influences after conversion, but, like the church as a whole, we are "semper reformanda," always to be reformed, and I will add, always being reformed.
Built on this foundation, can I say that a person may misunderstand or be totally ignorant of the Trinity and yet still be saved? Sure. The Thief on the cross certainly would not have been able to articulate the trinity, yet he was saved entirely by faith on the cross. Ray Comfort of Living Waters Ministries once replied that he also did not know anything about the Trinity at first, but only came to know it later. Would Ray Comfort have been damned because of his misunderstanding and ignorance? Definitely not.
But the difference between Comfort and the average heretic is this: The former has the Holy Spirit and has in Him a driving force for truth, while the latter, even after multiple admonitions, is not saved, because he is nothing more than a damned stone. And this is how we are taught to regard heretics in the scripture:
"A man that is an heretick after the first and second admonition reject; Knowing that he that is such is subverted, and sinneth, being condemned of himself." (Tit 3:10-11)
Note that: after the first and second admonition, we are to reject this person, not regard them as simply confused and yet still our brothers in Christ because matters of doctrine are "controversial."
We haven’t gotten to that point of identifying which scriptural references to the Holy Spirit are more suggestive of a conscious being versus a dynamic force/presence.
I do not know what you are blabbering about, but if you confess that the Holy Spirit is a "person," either an angel or some unidentified Spirit being who apparently created the world but is still not God, then we certainly have gotten to that point.
But I have a feeling that you are both a sophist and an Armstrongite, and this combination means that you can't confess the Holy Spirit to be a person of any kind, while at the same time you won't want to be held down by any affirmative statement about anything even after making an affirmative statement.
Where did I deny authenticity? I didn’t. I merely pointed out that controversy exists concerning whether it is an exact quote of Christ, or a paraphrasing reflecting late 1st century church practice.
An absurd position then. You will not deny authenticity, and so you won't defend your apparent denial of its authenticity; at the same time, you will not affirm authenticity, because you claim controversy exists over it.
How ridiculous is that? There is controversy over tons of scripture by the religious cults. The Mormons deny that the Scripture is accurate, while the Jehovah's Witnesses claim that they have superior knowledge in Greek and therefore can translate it better. Thus they just rewrite the scriptures they do not like, especially those which affirm that Christ is God, which you yourself claim to believe.
The fallacy of your comment (and your post in general is entirely fallacious, there is nothing good about it) is that it pretends that just because any idiot can doubt something that it counts as evidence to either dismiss it or, at least, to ignore it and not consider it.
By the way, you repeatedly mischaracterize Finnegan's article.
Finnegan only admits controversy with cults like the Oneness Pentecostals or Unitarians who are mentioned in the footnotes. In the same article, he says there is a lack of controversy on a scholarly level:
"I have found no controversy over the authenticity of this text anywhere. Not only do all extant Greek manuscripts with Matthew 28:19 in them contain the traditional reading, but all of the church fathers in the second and third century that quote or allude to it use the traditional version." (p.7-9)
You also claim that Finnegan claimed that there are "apparent contradiction" in the scripture, when all he said was that there was a "seeming" contradiction, and therefore no real contradiction at all. That's a pretty direct distortion of his words.
Furthermore, you accused Finnegan of claiming that he does not believe all of the scripture is authentic. This you base on his statement:
"We are fortunate today to live in a time when the New Testament text is over 99% established based on centuries of discoveries, cataloging, and comparisons."
This number of 99 percent is a reference to this:
"As you can see, there are thousands more New Testament Greek manuscripts than any other ancient writing. The internal consistency of the New Testament documents is about 99.5% textually pure. That is an amazing accuracy. In addition, there are over 19,000 copies in the Syriac, Latin, Coptic, and Aramaic languages. The total supporting New Testament manuscript base is over 24,000." (Matt Slick, Manuscript evidence for superior New Testament reliability, http://carm.org/manuscript-evidence)
This is not a statement of "we believe the Bible is only 99.5 percent correct." It is a statement of to what percent the manuscripts say the same thing.
If your guy Ferguson is correct, then why don’t the Apostolic Fathers mention that the person being baptized had to confess to doing so in Christ’s name?
We have to make sure we're even discussing the same thing. You are mentioning Church Fathers who confirm the wording of a verse that you kinda sorta deny, in order to dispute just one of Ferguson's interpretations, in order to dispute the authenticity of the verses that the Church Fathers you are using confirm in the first place.
You do realize this is a circle of death for you, don't you?
I’m on a business trip and don’t know what my schedule will be like to continue this discussion.
Going to go meet Satan to get new orders?