Hi Keith
Thanks for the list its great,Also Robert w the historical and hebrew stuff is foundational to this sort of debate
thanks guys, bless you :-D

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derek Eyre

KeithLaMothe,

You bring up some very interesting points.

[i]1. Is the Father (YHWH) God?[/i]

So you think YHWH is the Father but not the Son? I thought YHWH was/is God. That is his name given in Exodus 3. I thought Trinitarians believed that Father is YHWH, Son is YHWH, and Holy Spirit is YHWH.

Let me know what you think before I reply to the scriptures.

It's just my own habit to think of the divine name as referring to the Father. I may be incorrect in that, if so just ignore the distinction.

YHWH can readily refer to the Godhead. I realize many will not like this answer, but the Church has already settled the issue. The Nicene Creed is clear in its formulation of the Trinity. There is no need to try to reinvent the wheel in every generation. Yes, we need to articulate in every generation, but it's silly to question issues the Church has settled. Isaiah 6 and John 12 are abundantly clear that Jesus is YHWH. The Gospel of John, starting with the first verse is abundandtly clear that the Word with (pros) God, and the Word was God. I don't understand the difficulty.

As I said, it's just a habit of mine to think YHWH = Father, I'm not dogmatic about it nor do I have a problem with someone using it to refer to the Trinity as a whole, so long as they have a Scriptural basis for doing so. Thank you for the correction.

I think the topic at hand, though, was whether Trinitarianism is true doctrine at all. Yes, the Church settled this looooooong ago, and yes, that's generally enough for me to think it a reasonable doctrine (still to be investigated, but not to be rejected out of hand before that). But it's not enough for a lot of people, apparently. Indeed, one of the arguments a person I know uses [i]against[/i] the Trinity doctrine is that it was first officially stated by the Catholic Church well after the Apostolic period.

The Old Testament names of God referr to His character and nature. They are not personal names like we understand personal names per se. God is called by many names in the Old Testament, some would be: YHWH, Adonai, Ellohim,...etc. All are referring to the nature of God. Therefore it is correct to call Jesus, YHWH, or dare I say, use the German translitteration of Jehova.

The Trinity can be rightly understood, it just cannot be understood comprehensively. In other words, we cannot have exhaustive knowledge about the Trinity, it's just simply beyond us. To the trinitarian, this concept is completely acceptable because one of the characteristics of God is His incomprehensability.

So now that we can call Jesus, the Father, or the Spirit YHWH, does that establish modalism (oneness theology)? Certainly not. When you call Jesus YHWH, you are calling Him God according to His nature. The same is true of the Father and the Spirit.

Earthly comparisons ultimately breakdown. I've heard analogies of ice, water, steam; light's primary colors, a father who is a husband and a co-worker. All of these analogies, if followed to their logical conclusion, break down into modalism. God is totally unique from His creation. That would logically follow since God is not made up of any part of creation, therefore there is nothing to compare Him to. The best way to describe the Trinity is to simply state it the way it is. You have God and He has one and only one nature. The nature of God exists in three persons. They don't each share the essence i.e. Jesus has a third, the Father has a third, and the Spirit has a third of the essence. But Each one posesses the entire nature of God. This is where it goes beyond our ability to grasp. We see singular beings posessed by singular persons every day, but we've never seen singular beings posessed by multiple persons.

So it is correct to say that Jesus is God, The Father is God, The Holy Spirit is God. It is also correct to say that Jesus is not the Father or the Spirit; The Father is not the Jesus or the Spirit; and The Spirit is not the Father or Jesus.

I'll get into this more tommorrow after I've had some sleep. :-D It's getting late here.

In Christ,
Jeremy Hulsey

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Jeremy Hulsey

At the risk of being labeled "Calvinist" ( :-) ) I'll post Q&A's 4-6 of the Westminster Shorter Chatechism, which still accurately sums up my position on this particular issue. The numbers are numbers of Scripture references that can be found in the bottom frame here:

http://www.reformed.org/documents/WSC_frames.html

Q. 4. What is God?
A. God is a Spirit,[7] infinite,[8] eternal,[9] and unchangeable,[10] in his being,[11] wisdom,[12] power,[13] holiness,[14] justice,[15] goodness,[16] and truth.[17]

Q. 5. Are there more Gods than one?
A. There is but one only,[18] the living and true God.[19]

Q. 6. How many persons are there in the Godhead?
A. There are three persons in the Godhead: the Father, the Son, and the Holy Ghost;[20] and these three are one God, the same in substance, equal in power and glory.[21]

The Hebrew language has two words that can be translated "ONE": echad and yachid. Whereas yachid (yah-keed) refers to the number one (i.e., absolute unity), echad (ek-kawd) refers to a composite unity. An example of this is in the book of Genesis chapter 2, verse 24, where it says that a couple joined together in marriage shall become one flesh. Since the Shema uses the word echad, not yachid, it is reasonable to say that God's essence or nature is that of a composite unity.

For centuries, the rabbis have struggled with Genesis 1:26, where God says, ". . . Let us make man in our image, after our likeness: . . ." The plural noun Elohim (God), used in conjunction with the plural pronouns "us" and "our," argues persuasively for the existence of a plurality within the Godhead.


But doesn't the idea of divine plurality contradict the Jewish Shema, which declares that ". . . The LORD our God is one LORD" (Deut. 6:4)? Not when we realize that the Hebrew word echad (one) is often used to designate a compound unity rather than a simple unity. Note that the same word is used in Genesis 2:24 when Adam and Eve were married and became basar echad, or "one flesh."

I have a whole teaching on this issue that I will post in the Jewish Roots section as it is a major stumbling block for Jews to accept God in three persons.

God Bless,

-Robert


Notes:

Gary Hedrick "Seven Things God Was Doing Before Genesis 1:1"

http://www.cjf.org/pages/7things.htm

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Robert Wurtz II

Earlier Greg said:

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Mike Balog

If God has always existed in three persons then why don't we see it in the Old Testament?

This is a good question. And the fact is, while the revelation of the trinity is not fully disclosed, we see through progressive revelation that God is multi-personal in the Old Testament.

If God is multi-personal then trinitarians would expect to find in the Old Testament references to the multi-personal nature of God. When we look what do we find?

Deut. 6:4 Hear O Israel, the LORD our God, the LORD is one.

Well that settles it. Here is the capstone of the Oneness camps' theology. On the surface this seems to forever destroy any notions of the multi-personal nature of God. However, as RobertW rightly pointed out, the word for one used here means a unity. There are nine words for one in the Hebrew. Eight of them can mean solitary or a singularity. Not the one used here. Robert Morray puts it this way:

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Jeremy Hulsey