On the Trinity

[garagekite]

I have heard from Trinitarian scholars that the Divine Persons in the Godhead are each somewhat less that fully persons in the usual sense. (You and I are each fully persons.) Cornelius Van Til said that the Trinity is one person, and he meant 'person' in the usual sense.

The greatest truth is naturally also the most relevant. It is no more bizzare to say that God is comprised of ten people than to say that he is comprised of three people. So, how is a man guilty for rejecting something that he has no way to make sense of in the first place?

No error can stand as truth in anyone's mind except it have one leg on solid ground. Every error is but an alloy with truth. Even a fool is rewarded if he can see to divide it. In the effort to oppose some error, one can make another error. It is possible to make more, and other, out of a mystery than what was put into it by its author. Even if the mistake is only subtle. And, even subtle mistakes can have profound consequences. For example, Orthodox, anti-Christian Judaism is a twisted version of the truth given to the Jews...what Bruce Lee would call a 'Classical mess'. Although many individuals were honest enough to suspend judgement on things they did not understand, no Jewish sect of Jesus' day was free of error.

The way of thinking most natural to man is that which is in terms of things over which man has dominion. This is what may be called the 'Adamic' way of thinking, or the 'Adamic' mind, or the 'Japhethite' philosophical mindset. It is this way of thinking that, by way of pride, was responsible for the downfall of Adam. Proud man tends toward the view that he can be his own master, that he has the right to determine for himself, by way of his dominion powers, as to what is true and false, what is good and evil. This philosophical base, presumed to be the only base from which inquiry can proceed (a presumption made by the likes of Richard Dawkins), is that which has given us, among other more subtle evils, philosophical materialism. The secular, materialistic view of science and thought is not the product of those whom some Christians normally think of as 'atheists', but is rather the very essence of Adam's fall

Man is not his own Creator, so he must realize that there is an entire realm of intellectual inquiry that cannot rightly proceed except in such terms as put a man in a position epistemically inferior to the thing about which he is inquiring. Philosophical problems get multiplied when man assumes that he has the superior epistemic vantage point no matter the subject of inquiry. Epistemology, for the creature, has a topography, and the creature exists inherently below the tops of the mountains.

There is a difference, in general physical science, between a description of a phenomenon and an explanation for a phenomenon. God is not a phenomenon. In thinking about God, your thoughts are phenomena, they are not God. God's ontology is not a process of deduction, is not logically synthetic. In thinking about the being of God, you are not observing God directly, in the Adamic sense of observation. Although, as far as the operation of your mind is concerned, there is a distinction between, say, omnipotence and omniscience, they cannot ultimately be two different things. There is a difference between your thoughts, and the things outside yourself which you try to understand by thinking. A material contradiction is never resolved, we just see past it (or not) to the reality beyond our erroneous thinking.

Many people today have the idea that the form of government of the USA, in that it has three separate branches of government (executive, legistative, and judicial), is a pure invention in this respect and having no basis in what a person---a living being---is. Although the details of our government, given in the US Constitution, are somewhat arbitrary, the essence of our government, in consisting of these three branches, is not a synthesis (logical or otherwise). It's not as if these three branches existed separately, laying about here and there, and then our founders took them up and bound them together. The founders of this form of government, a form often referred to as the "separation of powers" commented that a person working in any one of these three branches would be constrained from functioning in official capacity as a complete person. That is, that each of these three branches of government, when maintained by its members separately, so that the members of any one branch would be in contest with the members of the other two branches, would put a strong check on the otherwise unwise ways of a human-run government. The executive branch would have no legal power to make laws or pass judgements in court, the legislative branch would have no legal power to act as an armed force or pass judgements in court, and the judicial branch would have no legal power to make laws or act as an armed force.

The Bible is a Jewish/Semitic document. Interpreting its English translations is no less bound to this fact than is the initial translation work itself. You wouldn't want some Chinese man who knows nothing about Western culture and language to presume to tell the world what you mean in some letter that you are writing to your grandmother. What God was doing, the records of which some people, by superstition, have cummulatively (see http://www.apostolic.net/biblicalstudie ... istory.htm and
http://www.apostolic.net/biblicalstudies/rev1-4.htm) turned into a bizarre notion of God, was what is called 'due process'. In so doing, God showed the offices of judgement, or what I like to call the 'realms of proof'. These offices are of God's being, since God, the Creator, is the standard of all judgement.

Relevance is what counts here first, not 'revelation' (bizzarely misinterpreted). I could show you how it is directly relevant---and primary---to any serious controversy under the sun, from Abiogenesis (life from non-life) to 'Strong' Artificial Intelligence (these two things run the gamut, one on one end of the spectrum, and the other on the other end; I hope you have already noticed that they are a reflection of each other).

James White, in the sixth section of his article, Loving The Trinity says:

For some reason many feel that there is a hierarchy of "error" when it comes to the Trinity.... [that to be a] Oneness advocate...[is] closer to the truth [than are the other heresies]. [But, a] direct denial of any one of [the] Biblical truths [concerning the Trinity] is just as serious as any other. We are to worship God in spirit and in truth, and two-thirds of the truth is not a valid substitute, no matter which one-third of His truth we choose to reject.<<<

From having dealt with one of his officers years ago on this very matter, it sounds to me as if James White is confounding the single over-arching doctrine of God's being with the single most important message of the Gospel. The two are, of course, closely related, but they are not to be equated. The Gospel is about one doctrine: God is your savior (because he is your creator and master), you cannot be. If the 'Trinity' of James White's theology is the single most important doctrine, then I'm quite sure that Jesus would have made it explicit. I can clearly see why some might have been burned at the stake for objecting to this twisted and arbitrary valuation of a bizarre 'Trinity'. If we were to suppose that God had indicated (for whatever reason) that he is a decinity (ten-ply) instead of a trinity, then people such as James White would be none the wiser for it regarding this strange denial of a hierarchy of error. I have said this before to many people, and will maintain it. Though God would not say so, yet if we suppose that he did say that he is a green turtle, then some Christians would bow their minds in superstitious fear and accept it (as part of the saving truth), and even urge everyone else to accept it. This would be epistemological tyrany. Combined with political power, it would indeed get some people burned at the stake for rejecting it. Yet, even Abraham had a place for objecting to what he (mistakenly) worried that God was about, which was concerning Sodom.

Despite the existence and clarity of Hebrews 11:17-19, so many of the superstitious 'Trinitarian' Christians I know insist that Abraham was being asked for a kind of obedient "faith" that, in truth, is none other than, and thus even worse than, what Hitler would require of a guard dog. Contrary to these ignorant and Roman Catholic-ally twisted minds, Abraham ran along the wall of relevance, pressing himself up against it as tightly as he could, burning his shoulder with the friction as he ran.

There is no shortage of 'Trinitarians' who seek relevance in their 'Trinity'. Who, then, will dare presume to tell me that I should not do the same? Only, it was not my intention, nor even suspicion, to gain what I seem to me to have been given. I simply wished to understand the connection between a certain insight I was given and the 'Trinity' I grew up on. No one would helped me, and some opposed me without knowing what I have, so I have been without any elder in all of this from the beginning. This is an evil.

The non-Semitic view of the Trinity data is a view yet presents the problem: either a person is an entity that is less than the ultimate sort of entity (that the Divine Trinity is more than personhood), or that the Trinity is one person after all. To conclude that the Trinity is greater than personhood is not a necessary, nor even the best, account of the relevant data. Such a conclusion becomes the best account only if you are working with something less than the full deck of options. It would have been better to suspend judgement. Instead of being honest with their own minds, the leaders of the Catholic Church committed the sin of presumption, and people were murdered for opposing this presumption (although I suppose that at least the leaders of the opposers made presumptions of their own).

Three questions:

1. What is the universal definition of life?
2. What is the definition of the ultimate authority?
3. What is the answer to the documented mystery called the 'Trinity'?

The answer to all three questions is the same.

There is much to find out about the background understanding of the Jewish disciples, but which we have made into a bizarre view of God because we assume that what we read in the Bible on this matter is plain-vanilla, Western-mind literal (not that it's non-literal, but literality is quite an extensive realm). We have the words, but not much of the implicit background understood by the Jewish disciples. Those who defend the Roman Catholic 'Trinity' characteristically ignore this background. Those who oppose this 'Trinity', in favor of a simple Oneness view, do the same.

I am convinced that both of these two views are right on some points and wrong on others. If someone calls me a Modalist, and means by this to include that they think I am not a Trinitarian, then I deny that I am a Modalist. I am both a Modalist and a Trinitarian. What I find of some interest is that I did not form my opinion on this matter by looking at the controversy and hoping I could figure it out. I did not look at the controversy at all, and had come to research it only because of the view that I already had, which is a view that goes beyond both the Japheth-minded Trinitarian and Oneness views. Just like with these two views, the Arian view is a result of refusing to distinguish between the plain Greek mindset and the Jewish view. For example, Arianism takes the phrase "firstborn of all creation" in the most 'plain' literal sense. The Arian view ultimately depends on the assumption that, since God is not a man, God cannot be robed in flesh. The Jews were determined that Jesus was a fatherless kid and not their judge. But, what is flesh, that God cannot be robed in it?

Millard J. Erickson, in his Christian Theology 2nd edition, pg 296, writes:

...God is a person... He is not a...department... He is a knowing, loving, good Father.<<<

Indeed, the Bible unequivocally refers to the true God as the father. Most Trinitarians infer that each of the divine personas is not the Trinity, but that each simply shares in the divine nature. Is this a logically compulsory inference, or is it an instance of a subtle, hidden assumption of the Adamic mind? The Adamic mind tends to think of an entity in terms of synthesis from other parts. But, there must be some entity that is non-synthetic (even logically so) and yet can produce the contingent universe. Otherwise, we have infinite regress of syntheses, which would mean that nothing is actually made up of anything: no entity is essential.

What was God about in those things---in those times and ways recorded for us---that have been admitted to be rooted in God's being? What all did God mean to convey in those things? And, did he miss anything of great importance? Of great importance is the fact that the secular, materialistic view of science and thought is NOT the product of those whom Christians normally think of as 'atheists', but is rather the very essence of Adam's fall. And, there is no greater intoxication to fallen and faithless men than to think to have found sufficient evidence for their implicit view that they are their own masters, such as a materialist definition of life, including, but not limited to, what 'Strong' AI is about. God beat them to the punch, and we missed it ourselves by twisting what little truth we were given. Sounds familiar.

There is much more, but this post is already too long for many readers.

No, I don't think he missed a thing.

[Justin Kissel]

garagekite,

Welcome to the forum

Although many people don't like reading long posts online, I think the main problem with long posts on message boards is not so much in getting people to read them (surely at least a handful will), but in getting people to respond to them. After all, when you know something about the subject you are writing about, you could probably write a post of a few thousands words in an hour or less. Responding to a post of a few thousand words, though, could take a dozen hours or more of research, double-checking sources, etc. Using derogatory terms (e.g., calling trinitarians superstitious) to describe those who might respond to you probably doesn't motivate people, either

Also, consider that people are less likely to respond to long posts by new people than they are by "forum regulars". If, for example, Nicholas or Seraphim Reeves posted a long post, we'd know 1) his background (so we can more easily understand what he's getting at, and why he's saying what he's saying), and 2) that he's going to be sticking around, and won't just decide to leave for whatever reason. One is also more willing to respond to one's friends, and less willing to respond to Joe Whoever, even if Joe is, unbeknownst to us, a very nice and sincere guy looking for polite discussion.

I invite you to stick around and post, but don't feel offended if no one responds to these long types of posts which cover a good deal of ground (at least at first).

Justin

[Logos]

Garagekite, did you post this article over at the bulletin board on the Monachos website? I believe that you did. By the way, that website you reference in your post is a oneness Pentecostal website.

[garagekite]

Thank you, Paradosis,

I posted with all those things in mind. I'm a Trinitarian. A very uncommon kind. Jesus was an Orthodox Jew: a very uncommon kind.

logos,

Yes, I am aware that the links I included are to pages written by a Oneness Pentacostal. Yes, I posted this over at Monachos: I have been posting this all day all over the internet, keeping track of all of them so I can go back and reply to any replies to it. I post the entire post because I'm looking for replies from people who have a good grasp of all the ideas I mention and, since I think there are likely few such people who also take a special interest in the things I mention, I am hoping to find some of these people. I have found a few in the past, but they did not do anything but reply in general agreement, and I guess they are still digesting it. I'm the one who gets to realize-and-disseminate all the issues of this topic.

[Justin Kissel]

garagekite

While I'm not going to spend the time researching and formally articulating an answer to your post, I would like to at least make a few comments. I hope that you'll please forgive me for not giving direct references, or links. Also, I realise that you'll (garagekite) not likely find what I have to say to be very persuasive (considering my sources for information); nonetheless, some thoughts:

I have heard from Trinitarian scholars that the Divine Persons in the Godhead are each somewhat less that fully persons in the usual sense. (You and I are each fully persons.)

I'm not sure which Trinitarian scholars say this. As far as I understand, in Orthodoxy, each person in the Trinity is fully a person, and is not lacking or "completed" by something from another person. And I would say that you and I are not fully persons, but are shells of people (ie. true personhood and individuality comes paradoxically through communion with God and deification, something you and I haven't experienced yet).

The greatest truth is naturally also the most relevant. It is no more bizzare to say that God is comprised of ten people than to say that he is comprised of three people.

I don't follow your logic here; you seem to be presupposing that we don't know how many person's are in the Trinity, or perhaps that we are guessing at how many persons once we go past the Father. From an Orthodox perspective, we'd say that it is 3, and not one more, and not one less, because that's how it is: that's the truth God revealed to us.

So, how is a man guilty for rejecting something that he has no way to make sense of in the first place?

You later talk about the fall of Adam, but ironically, you yourself fall into the same trap that he did here. You want to have things your way. The truth is, man is not responsible for understanding, he is responsible for being obedient to what is given to him. Jesus intentionally hid things from people while here on the earth, and so did the Church. Fully understanding in an intellectual way does not lead to salvation in itself, but fully understanding in an experiential way does. We are not called to all be Ph.D's who can expound for hundreds of pages about the Trinity, metaphysics, etc.; what we are all called to do, though, is accept what has been revealed, whether we "understand it" or "are ok with it" or "agree with it" or not. You don't have to understand why the Trinity is 3 rather than 10, you just have to accept it. Adam, a immature child spiritually, might have had as his motto: "I think for myself, therefore I am," and this is also the motto of the rationalistic world today. The Orthodox Christian motto would be: "I accept what has been handed to me; therefore I am what God wants me to be".

In the effort to oppose some error, one can make another error.

Indeed, I'm sure we are all individually quilty of this to a lesser or greater extent. (one reason I trust all the most the collective mind of the Church )

The way of thinking most natural to man is that which is in terms of things over which man has dominion. This is what may be called the 'Adamic' way of thinking, or the 'Adamic' mind, or the 'Japhethite' philosophical mindset. It is this way of thinking that, by way of pride, was responsible for the downfall of Adam.

No, not at all. Orthodox anthropology teaches that Adam lived like an angel, and was a spiritual child maturing. His error was not made naturally, any more than Satan's error was made because angels were flawed in some way. Man, by his original nature, is a very good, very wonderful thing; a thing that we have a hard time even understanding at this point because of how weighed down we are by the world. Yet, God can free us from the wordly mindset and bring us back to our original state that Adam had--and take us further than Adam got.

Proud man tends toward the view that he can be his own master, that he has the right to determine for himself, by way of his dominion powers, as to what is true and false, what is good and evil.

You say this to us, we say it to you, who is to know the truth? It all has to do with espistemology I suppose. What is the final, authoritative criterion for you?

Philosophical problems get multiplied when man assumes that he has the superior epistemic vantage point no matter the subject of inquiry.

One thing that shows Orthodoxy to be the way, the truth, and the life, is that it does not and will not go beyond the bounds set by God: it will not go beyond what God revealed and what discussion God allows. Some attack Orthodoxy's use of mystery, apophaticism, etc. as archaic and backward; we see it as a defense against innovation and delving into issues which we aren't suppose to know about.

There is a difference, in general physical science, between a description of a phenomenon and an explanation for a phenomenon. God is not a phenomenon.

Indeed, I find that this distinction is often important in theological discussion within Orthodox circles. To define mysteries (the eucharist, the church, God) is impossible, we must rely solely on descriptions.

In thinking about God, your thoughts are phenomena, they are not God. God's ontology is not a process of deduction, is not logically synthetic. In thinking about the being of God, you are not observing God directly, in the Adamic sense of observation. Although, as far as the operation of your mind is concerned, there is a distinction between, say, omnipotence and omniscience, they cannot ultimately be two different things. There is a difference between your thoughts, and the things outside yourself which you try to understand by thinking. A material contradiction is never resolved, we just see past it (or not) to the reality beyond our erroneous thinking.

You describe fallen man's epistemological problem over and over, and yet you don't see the solution? :ohvey:

The Bible is a Jewish/Semitic document.

I don't think you're giving it enough credit First it's a theanthropic documens: as it was written by both God and man. Second, various other things effected the human writers than Jewishness, including multiple influences in the OT, and notably Greek culture in the last centuries before the common era, and into the common era. It's a smorgasboard, a melting pot, just like the body of Christ, the Church.

Relevance is what counts here first, not 'revelation' (bizzarely misinterpreted).

Who (ie. what person) decides what is relevant?

The Gospel is about one doctrine: God is your savior (because he is your creator and master), you cannot be.

He is also my healer and liberator. If Jesus were not God, I would not be healed, and would have no chance at a meaningful afterlife.

If the 'Trinity' of James White's theology is the single most important doctrine, then I'm quite sure that Jesus would have made it explicit.

Why? Again, we return to this idea of you not accepting something if you can't understand it. Who are you to dictate to God that he must reveal this and that explicitly? Many Fathers said that the Apostles were careful about their words because of pastoral concern: they were worried about shocking their hearers, and had to gently let them know the revealed truth. You, on the other hand, seem to be demanding that God do it your way ("tell us what's important now, and tell us all of it"), and you'll search for what appears to make sense to you and sounds the most sensible and "relevant".

Though God would not say so, yet if we suppose that he did say that he is a green turtle, then some Christians would bow their minds in superstitious fear and accept it (as part of the saving truth), and even urge everyone else to accept it. This would be epistemological tyrany.

It would be obedience. It would never happen because it's not true, but if it did happen, Orthodox Christians would be obeident. Some would say that it was silly and cruel to give a man a son in his old age, and then demand it back from him, ordering him to sacrifice it by his own hand. I do not follow a God of the logical and relevant, though; I follow the God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, a God who does a lot I don't understand, and a God who is so incomprehensible to me, that if He saw fit to describe himself as a green turtle, I couldn't do anything but bow and thank Him for revealing such to me. But this all goes back to epistemology: I would accept God's revelation, while you would dismiss it as not possibly coming from God since it didn't make sense.

Despite the existence and clarity of Hebrews 11:17-19, so many of the superstitious 'Trinitarian' Christians I know insist that Abraham was being asked for a kind of obedient "faith"

James and Genesis both describe Abraham as being justified by works. (if you read a few chapters past the almost-sacrifice of Isaac, you'll see God himself say that he was justified by his works)

I have been without any elder in all of this from the beginning. This is an evil.

I agree with this last part (though this isn't how you meant it to be taken).

There is much to find out about the background understanding of the Jewish disciples, but which we have made into a bizarre view of God because we assume that what we read in the Bible on this matter is plain-vanilla, Western-mind literal (not that it's non-literal, but literality is quite an extensive realm).

Er, you aren't familiar with the Eastern Orthodox, or the cultural diversity of those who first expounded Trinitarianism explicitly in the fourth century?

We have the words, but not much of the implicit background understood by the Jewish disciples.

God's revelation transcends culture. Culture is important to take into account, but the Holy Spirit has guided the Church, Who has Christ as Her head, into all truth. The mind of Christ is the mind of the Church. That we don't have a 1,001 books on Jewish culture at the time is irrelevant.

I am both a Modalist and a Trinitarian.

What I find of some interest is that I did not form my opinion on this matter by looking at the controversy and hoping I could figure it out.

You may not have approached the subject from that point, but you've arrived at your own solution.

The Adamic mind tends to think of an entity in terms of synthesis from other parts.

The Orthodox mind tends to think of a simple God, who is a one and a multiplicity, but never a collection or parts (or an entity more than a collection of parts).

Justin

[garagekite]

Paradosis,
An impatient and ignorant fool cannot be taught, because he is already sure that the wise man's assertions are truly inferior: they are not readily establishable in his ignorant mind. It is much easier for the atheist to simply assert that the Bible is full of contradictions. But, the Bible is as complex as reality itself, and this is because the documents comprising the Bible address reality. Of all things imaginable, reality is the most complex and deep, but it is also by far the most relevant.
I have been accused by staff members of James White's ministry (www.aomin.org) of asserting a premise that I have not proved: that God is not comprised of three people, but is one person. But, the accusation works both ways, only they are ignoring 99% of the possible context. Between us, I thus have by far the most work to do in order to make a case to them for my own assertion. This requires a lot of common-sense knowledge on my part, and a lot of forebearance on theirs (which they do not have). The amount of work which they must do in order to make a case for their own assertion that God is comprised of three people is already done, since theirs is actually a conclusion and drawn from a very few details.

I have heard from Trinitarian scholars that the Divine Persons in the Godhead are each somewhat less that fully persons in the usual sense. (You and I are each fully persons.)

I'm not sure which Trinitarian scholars say this. As far as I understand, in Orthodoxy, each person in the Trinity is fully a person

Then the Trinity is greater than a person (greater than personhood). Orthodoxy says that God is one 'what' and three 'who's, but this (God is one 'what') is not a necessary conclusion unless you have already concluded that God is three 'who's. The question is, are we certain that God is three 'who's? The answer is no, we are not:
What is the answer to a mystery? The answer is in the context. What is the context? The greatest mystery has the greatest context. The greatest truth is also the most relevant. If you do not seek the most relevance for a given mystery, then you shall be blinded by a short-sightedness learned from staring closely at the immediate details. The Pharisees did this, so Jesus had to keep giving them some common sense. Step way back and you shall slowly begin to see.
Suppose a King disguises himself as a pauper, and he goes around as a pauper so as to test how loyal are his subjects to his laws for the poor. He refers to the King as 'other' and, even when in appeal to the King by letter, he refers to the King as 'other'. Is the King comprised of two people?
Four questions:
1)Is a person (full personhood singular) synonymous with a living being? Or, what? You are "both" a living being and a person, so you should know, in principle without a moment's thought, as to whether they are synonyms for one class of object, or are different objects.
2)What is a person? You are one, so you should know the answer and, in principle, without a moment's thought.
3)What is a living being? You are one, so you should know the answer and, in principle, without a moment's thought.
4)Is the living being of the Trinity special, in that it is, in some unknowable way, greater than a living being? Stop! You cannot answer this question truly until you know the answers to the first three---and then also the answer to the question 'what is the Trinity?'
But, one cannot answer 'what is the Trinity?' so easily:
The answer to 'what is the Trinity?' is not the same as the answer which you may be of the habit to give. A blind man cannot know the answer to 'what is sight?' until he has seen, no matter how much he thinks he understands an answer given to him by a person claiming to see. God knows the reality of the things which we have come to call the 'Trinity', and of the 'definition' that we have been taught. Can a blind man define sight? But we are not so much blind as blinded.
Is God one person, or is God actually comprised of three people? And, how does assuming either of these bear on the data? Specific views as to the answer to this second question are all to often confused with the first question, and the arguments that ensue are thus muddled. Can we prove either one of these (God is three people/God is one person) by using them as the premise? In fact, we must assume both, for we have no way to directly test God's being. We must use abductive inference.
To 'simplify' the contest, I will pose simple Orthodox Trinitarianism against standard simple Modalism. Which theory is true to begin with, or are both of them false? If both of them are false, then what would have to be the truth that shows both of them false? Would it not have to be more relevant than either one? Indeed it would, for this is how we ever get beyond two conflicting and partly true theories for any topic under the sun. The true theory has a more broad context than have the two false ones.
One can go too far either way from the truth expressed. What was expressed?
"Not by might, nor by power, but by my spirit, saith the Lord of hosts." What do these words mean, and why does this verse need to mention both 'might' and 'power'? Are they that different, that both of them need to be there? Does God speak trivia? They are fundamentally different, and both are fundamentally important. And, that verse is refering to something concerning due process.
What does it mean in the Bible when it says "in the fullness of time"? Is that phrase not referring to the stage in due process of the thing to which that phrase refers?
I will clue you in on the due process thing. First and most important is the fact that God is not like a vain man who repeats himself. God doings are not like that of a small child who, after his stack of blocks gets kicked down, builds the stack again exactly like it was before, only to get it kicked down again and he make it again. God's doings are not in vain like this.
Now, I'll explain something of the due process by starting at a stage far into the trial: the preflood world. That world was where there was only man's liberty. (So many people today cry for liberty and toleration above all else, but Sodom was over-all the most extremist-libertarian City-State in the world during Abraham's day.) Man was proved incapable of seeking good with unbridaled liberty, so, after the flood, there was another stage: God proved to whomever it may concern that the flood was no deterent warning to proud man, and so God let man go to the last inch at Babel and then he confounded their language. Thus, there were many nations on the earth instead of just one economic/technologic State. This alllowed human history to be extended. (Recall the stack-of-blocks metaphore: God would have destroyed the pre-flood in vain had he not change his tactic and simply destroyed the post-flood world of Babel. There is a REASON why God confounded the language, and this is one facet of that reason.) With the world divided into nations, God could then begin to make some important points. God judges each nation individually by the same standard that he judged the pre-flood world. Once the nations had sorted themselves out and made themselves wealthy and enviable, God made a nation of his own, making the world know a difference between His nation and all the others---a difference that has continued to the present day.

From an Orthodox perspective, we'd say that it is 3, and not one more, and not one less, because that's how it is: that's the truth God revealed to us.

In the Law, God 'revealed', in regard to the performance of the prescribed sacrifice of animals that: "and his sins shall be forgiven him." The Jews lost the truth and traded it from the 'revealed truth' that God forgives sins by animal sacrifice. The Jews don't know why this is, and yet they oppose any argument that shows any sense to it and which God has not 'revealed' to them in the Law. God has not in fact revealed that he is three people. If you do as the Jews have done, in failing to seek the most relevance possible from the widest historical context possible, then you will fail in your service to God.

man is not responsible for understanding, he is responsible for being obedient to what is given to him.

see reply above.

Jesus intentionally hid things from people while here on the earth

Jesus spoke many things in parable, and only those who asked him "what do you mean by these words" were his true disciples. True authority shall not delegate any authority to the foolish child who loves more to be a delagatee than to understand what his father means by his words. This foolish child, in argument with another child, then says; "Daddy said so, so I'm right and you're wrong."

Adam, an immature child spiritually, might have had as his motto: "I think for myself, therefore I am," and this is also the motto of the rationalistic world today. The Orthodox Christian motto would be: "I accept what has been handed to me; therefore I am what God wants me to be".

You pose a false dichotomy. While there is indeed a wisdom that can be expressed by the words "lean not on your own understanding", those very words are often twisted by Christians to mean something that is actually an oppression (ask "good"-Christian-preacher-turned-atheist Dan Barker about that), namely that one should avoid seeking to understand anything that God says and does unless he has already taken the initiative to tell you what he means by his words and actions. It is entirely possible for a grossly dogmatic "truth-oriented" elder to oppress a child so that the child seeks the narrow path of the simple truth out of a simple, narrow mind, just like the elder does. Just because we are as sheep does not mean that we must be forced to become as much like sheep as our elders can manage to make us. The right and the good should not be sacrificed for the supposedly necessary and desirable. God is a teacher, not a tyrant.

In the effort to oppose some error, one can make another error.

Indeed, I'm sure we are all individually quilty of this to a lesser or greater extent. (one reason I trust all the more the collective mind of the Church )

I think you are way over your head in that regard. One fool rejects a truth because he sees only the error with which it is alloyed, and another fool accepts an error because he sees only the truth which which it is alloyed. Be wise as serpents and harmless as doves, not wise as sheep and harmless as you unthinkingly think good.

The way of thinking most natural to man is that which is in terms of things over which man has dominion. This is what may be called the 'Adamic' way of thinking, or the 'Adamic' mind, or the 'Japhethite' philosophical mindset. It is this way of thinking that, by way of pride, was responsible for the downfall of Adam.

No, not at all. Orthodox anthropology teaches that Adam lived like an angel, and was a spiritual child maturing. His error was not made naturally, any more than Satan's error was made because angels were flawed in some way. Man, by his original nature, is a very good, very wonderful thing; a thing that we have a hard time even understanding at this point because of how weighed down we are by the world. Yet, God can free us from the wordly mindset and bring us back to our original state that Adam had--and take us further than Adam got.

Why do you misunderstand my words? I did not say that the Adamic mind is evil. I said that the Adamic mind is that which Adam was given by which to have dominion over the earth. Read again my words: It is this way of thinking that, by way of pride, was responsible for the downfall of Adam.

Proud man tends toward the view that he can be his own master, that he has the right to determine for himself, by way of his dominion powers, as to what is true and false, what is good and evil.

You say this to us, we say it to you, who is to know the truth? It all has to do with espistemology I suppose. What is the final, authoritative criterion for you?

No, I made a very general statement, and which contains an implicit premise that you have not seen. How that premise is applied to a particular case is the issue that I am trying to get across to the reader. As George Washington said of human government, I say of human reasoning: the if/then proposition is a dangerous servant and a frearful master.
Philosophical problems get multiplied when man assumes (even if only unwittingly) that he has the dominant epistemic vantage point no matter the subject of inquiry.

One thing that shows Orthodoxy to be the way, the truth, and the life, is that it does not and will not go beyond the bounds set by God: it will not go beyond what God revealed and what discussion God allows. Some attack Orthodoxy's use of mystery, apophaticism, etc. as archaic and backward; we see it as a defense against innovation and delving into issues which we aren't suppose to know about.

You mistake the idea here. God leaves things hidden, not that he forbids us to seek understanding. The two are not the same. God leaves things hidden (from man's proud ignorance) according to the stage of the trial between God and man. In any trial of mutually opposing parties, both parties are on trial, and in three 'courts' at once: the 'court' of one party, the 'court' of the other party, and the Court of the Jury-and-Judge.

In thinking about God, your thoughts are phenomena, they are not God. God's ontology is not a process of deduction, is not logically synthetic. In thinking about the being of God, you are not observing God directly, in the Adamic sense of observation. Although, as far as the operation of your mind is concerned, there is a distinction between, say, omnipotence and omniscience, they cannot ultimately be two different things. There is a difference between your thoughts, and the things outside yourself which you try to understand by thinking. A material contradiction is never resolved, we just see past it (or not) to the reality beyond our erroneous thinking.

You describe fallen man's epistemological problem over and over, and yet you don't see the solution?

No, my friend, it is you who does not see the solution fully, and thus you mistake what I mean by my words. You are ignorant of much truth, and ill-thought in some of the greatest truth, so that even while you have great knowledge up to a point, you see any words expressing greater knowledge than your own as expressing error.

The Bible is a Jewish/Semitic document.

I don't think you're giving it enough credit

When my general reader asserts that I got not even four hours of sleep last year, so that and I impress upon them that I indeed got a certain four hours, a specific reader (you) thinks that I have mistakenly asserted that I got only four hours. I have not talked about the other hours I got, but that does not remove the truth of the four. Most of the the Bible was penned by Jews, for Jews. The atheist Biblioskeptic of course demands that, if it is God's book, then it should have been written as a Complete Idiot's Guide To All Facts And Truth. The very fact that the real Bible presents them with lots of apparent internal, factual, and scientific contradictions is not seen as evidence of the histori-linguistic dimension, but as evidence that the Bible is a botch-job of pre-rational advanced apes. A little common sense is dangerous, but an education in much more of the common sense of the thing will remedy the problem---so long as the fool will repent of at least some of his foolishness.

Relevance is what counts here first, not 'revelation' (bizzarely misinterpreted).

Who (ie. what person) decides what is relevant?

Ask Abraham for an answer to that question.

The Gospel is about one doctrine: God is your savior (because he is your creator and master), you cannot be.

He is also my healer and liberator.

He cannot be your healer, savior and liberator were he not your creator. If he is these other things, then it stands to reason that he is your creator (and you are not). God is as an axiom and you an algorithm. The Adamic mind does fine for what it is good for, but once a man presumes (even if only implicitly) that there is some mechanism by which he can become his own creator, then he has fallen. Once man came to worship physical science instead of other gods, it was thought at first that it was logically impossible for a man to rise from the dead. This was based on the premises that, since there must be some absolute truth, and since there is no supernatural, therefore natural law could not be broken. There were no such things as miracles. But, these two premises lead to the very thing which was at first denied, only by a different route: that life is a mechanism and could, in principle, be engineered. This, in turn, gave justification for an educational process that treats children's minds like machines, which in turn was blindly reacted against and resulted in so-called self-esteem-oriented education. Vitamin pills on one side and candy on the other, and everyone has forgotten what food is. The lesson was to be for the child, not the choild for the lesson. God is a teacher of a wayward child, and Adam is already made.

If the 'Trinity' of James White's theology is the single most important doctrine, then I'm quite sure that Jesus would have made it explicit.

Why? Again, we return to this idea of you not accepting something if you can't understand it.

But I do understand it. I'm trying to bring you to understand. And, I did not go out and get my understanding; it was offered to me. Once, I was offered anything, and I said that I could not live well even if I had every good thing that this world has to offer; that if I could have everything but one thing, then everything was as a grossest insult and bribe to me. I wanted understanding. But, all the ways in which all my understanding has been given to me has not been of my choosing, for I have had always to seek to be freed from one oppression after another, put upon me by every sort of foolishness under the sun. I have asked of this last thing (the 'Trinity') only because I was given an insight into something else that I then saw had an intimate connection to the 'Trinity'. Yet, no one could answer me the connection, and either ignored me or opposed my questions as unfit to be asked. But, any question may be asked, it is only the intention for a particular kind of answer that may be foolish. If the words of the question are "why does God not make x plain?" this does not say what is being assumed behind the question. An atheist who is foolish can ask this question, and his assumption will be foolish. A Christian can ask this question and his assumption will be for wisdom. God is a teacher of wayward children: some children love their father, other children love themselves above the most righteous things.
Who are you to dictate to God that he must reveal this and that explicitly? Many Fathers said that the Apostles were careful about their words because of pastoral concern: they were worried about shocking their hearers, and had to gently let them know the revealed truth. You, on the other hand, seem to be demanding that God do it your way ("tell us what's important now, and tell us all of it"), and you'll search for what appears to make sense to you and sounds the most sensible and "relevant".
You mistake what I mean by my words. You are ignorant of much truth, and ill-thought in some of the greatest truth, so that even while you have great knowledge up to a point, you see any words expressing greater knowledge than your own as expressing error.

Though God would not say so, yet if we suppose that he did say that he is a green turtle, then some Christians would bow their minds in superstitious fear and accept it (as part of the saving truth), and even urge everyone else to accept it. This would be epistemological tyrany.

It would be obedience. It would never happen because it's not true, but if it did happen, Orthodox Christians would be obeident. Some would say that it was silly and cruel to give a man a son in his old age, and then demand it back from him, ordering him to sacrifice it by his own hand. I do not follow a God of the logical and relevant, though; I follow the God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, a God who does a lot I don't understand, and a God who is so incomprehensible to me, that if He saw fit to describe himself as a green turtle, I couldn't do anything but bow and thank Him for revealing such to me. But this all goes back to epistemology: I would accept God's revelation, while you would dismiss it as not possibly coming from God since it didn't make sense.

I rebuke you, you are a fool. How can you be so foolish? If not for Hebrews 11:17-19, you would fall into a pit of stinking dog poop and never return. God did not 'reveal' to Abraham that He required Isaac to be killed. God tested Abraham on all points, not only on the point of obedience. You fail to understand what sort of obedience God requires.

Despite the existence and clarity of Hebrews 11:17-19, so many of the superstitious 'Trinitarian' Christians I know insist that Abraham was being asked for a kind of obedient "faith"

James and Genesis both describe Abraham as being justified by works. (if you read a few chapters past the almost-sacrifice of Isaac, you'll see God himself say that he was justified by his works)

What, did Abraham know that God did not really mean for Isaac to be sacrificed? Of course he did not know it. But, you think to be wise in faith by making a neat comparison between this and the Trinity data. God did not tell anyone that he is comprised of three people, the idea was accumulated in the absence of context and relevance. Abraham dealt with the context given to him, which is what Hebrews 11:17-19 implies, and he sought the most revelance there was to be had for that context. God did not tell him what to believe as to what would result were Isaac actually to be sacrificed. But, you are arguing as if God would have been just to have set up no context for Abraham; that Abraham's obedience was as if in the absence of the context, as if God was asking out of the blue for Isaac to be killed and Abraham obeys like a #@! robot. For you, there is as no context save that which addresses the very narrow question of whether God is one person or is actually comprised of three people. For you, neither history nor the common-sense Jewish culture has any priority here. When the disciples asked Jesus about the time of his return, he gave an answer which any Jewish disciple of that time would understand: "It is not for the intimate friends of the father of the groom to decide, nor even for the groom to decide, as to when the groom returns to steal the bride away, but only for the father of the groom to decide." It was an answer that gave more information than what the non-Jewish-cultured mind thinks was asked for. You cannot get to the truth of the answer with a Western philosophical mindset. And, not only has Jesus given so many things to look for as signs of his return, but there is such a thing as giving away the store. God will not give answers that let slip any advantage from his hand. History is a trial.
I had said this (that history is a trial) to someone else like yourself and he replied, saying, "No it is not a trail, it is God's working out of His plan for His glory." I then said to him, "You are making a false dichotomy and I am in no way asserting that history is not God's working out of His plan for His glory; you object to my words because you are like a parrot who has been conditioned to reject as false any words that do not match your level of understanding of the words that you have been taught represent the truth."

The Orthodox mind tends to think of a simple God, who is a one and a multiplicity, but never a collection or parts

I, too, assert that God is a one and a multiplicity, but I understand something of it that you do not. Even if God is actually three people, yet I know much more things relevant to it than you yet have any suspicion about. I try to show some of it and you throw it back at me as non-applicable, because I assert that God is not three people. If the things I say seem to you to pose a threat to your comfortably long-standing doctrine that God is actually comprised of three people, then perhaps there are things far more significant in the data than you realize.
Staff members at www.aomin.org would not help me understand the connections between the data and the insight I was given, instead determining that I was intent on denying that God is comprised of three people. For instance, they required me to know everything about how I would deal with the language forms of the key Trinitarian passages to prove that these were not presenting multiple distinct persons in God. But, I did not think that that was the issue, and only recently have I seen how I was right. Speaking in general, there is far more to these passages than the fact that they present distinct persons.

[garagekite]

History is a trial over which God presides; Everything God says and does is designed to force fallen men, over time, to fully realize that they are the one's being tried, and to show them that they have, even from the beginning, been guilty of every error. It is man who destroys the truth and warps his own understanding. This is the context for all Biblical data.
Contrary to what even many Christians have been brainwashed to believe, you cannot much understand what God is about in relation to fallen men without first knowing what God is up against. God knows the 'Murphy's law' of the human heart and mind. This bears on every controversy involving the question of God's modus operandi: what God would and wouldn't do, and why, in regard to a given controversial subject; what God has done and said, and why. The Bible is not a Complete Idiot's Guide To Truth And History. Atheist biblioskeptics demand that, if God exists, then God should have given us all the Foolproof Version. But, such a demand is essentially to demand that God be the programmer and oneself the computer, so that one is given every truth by way of absolute specificity. To assert that this is what God should have done is to implicitly argue as if one should not need to think for oneself. The Bible is not as a computer program, given to us with absolute specificity. God demands that his sons seek to understand, not to be robots awaiting a command (which is why God did not express the law until Sinai, when there was then no other choice). God is a good and wise father of wayward children, and he seeks to delegate authority. But, he will leave off delegating more to those sons who, caring more for passing on orders than for understanding the orders, argue with their brothers, saying, "Daddy said so, so "I'm right and you're wrong!"

Some have objected to me, saying "History is not a trial, it is God's working out of his plan for his glory." Others have said that man is not on trial because he has already been found guilty (in Eden). But, the first objection shows a shallow understanding, while the second fails to account for the implication of the first: that man is tried for his guilt in even refusing salvation; God has not yet given the verdict. This is not a simple, one-time trail in which the criminal is found guilty of a crime, sentenced, and immediately punished. The trial goes on because man insists on saving himself, which is, in effect, a counterclaim against God's claim of Creator.

The data used to support the Trinity idea has either nothing to say to this counterclaim, or everything.

The Creator is not a man, for a man is a creature. God played the role of a man for us, but not as if he was pretending to be a man. Rather, ball became red. The man Jesus was really a man. But, one tends to argue as if a man is an essential catagory of being. It is not. Only God is essential.

The Correspondence Principle (CP) is the common sense idea that God can be known by his creatures, since he created them. The opposite of this Principle, called the Zero Correspondence theory (ZCt), is the self-condemning idea that God (the Creator) is so transcendent that he cannot be known (it is self-condemning because it admits of the idea that God has no power to make himself known, which in turn admits of the idea that God cannot have created).

The idea that God is comprised of multiple people admits of no logical limits as to how many people of which God is comprised. Ten would be as fair a number as three, and one could never see how it could not be otherwise. Only analogies to familiar 'three-part' entities such as time and space could pose a cautionary limit, but this in no way compels the idea that God is comprised of three people. Unfortunately, upon this last statement many people will assume an opposition is being suggested: that God's three 'parts' are non-persons. But, if God is personal, necessary, and simple, then no 'part' of God can be other than a person. The trouble at this now newest point is in failing to realize that such a simple being is not comprised of multiple persons, but rather that each 'part' of such a being cannot be properly understood as a person (a living being) except in view of the other 'parts'.

The trouble, at this point, with the 'Trinitarian' teaching is the effective assumption that the Classical offering of the definition of personhood is infallible. You are both a person and a living being, so you should, in principle, be able to answer, without a moment's thought, as to whether these two are the same of different. That you have trouble doing so is because of the conspiracy of two factors: 1)you are conditioned to philosophical gobbledygook regarding the two, and 2)the common sense of a given thing is, for the finite mind, consciously realized only by effort to make the most sense of the problem of the thing. The truth of a thing is irreducibly complex, which implies that the mental representation (i.e., thought, idea) of the truth of a thing is the most encompassing of all possible mental representations (i.e., ideas) of the thing.

The true definition of personhood is far more relevant than the Classical offering, and is reflected in the implicit triune nature of government. The reality, about which the ZCt'ist Church has distorted into the 'Trinity', is the very definition of authority. This is an authority that is ineffable. The creature cannot define true power except by what this power has done, for the true power is the Creator. Likewise to what Bill Dembsky asserts: that intelligence is fundamental. The last of the three is asserted openly by the Bible: God is love. These three are the three realms of proof, and it was the claims of fallen man regarding these three that was tried by the man Jesus.

Jesus was not repeating a single idea three times when he said "I am the way, the truth, and the life." Nor does Zechariah 4:6.

Many people have heard the story about the primitive man who is introduced to a radio, whereupon he thinks that there is a little man inside of this box. There is, in fact, much more to the story:

Take a baby from America and swap it at birth with a baby who is born to very "primitive"-minded (mentally degraded) parents who live in some isolated part of the Amazon. The primitive-born baby, who is thus raised in Middle Class America, will grow up to be mentally indistinguishable from a Middle Class American, while the American baby, who is thus raised in a mentally "primitive" culture, will grow up to be mentally "primitive". You see, the fact is that we are all primitives. Further, there is something to be said for how this fact plays out in the high-tech/high-science world. To wit:

There is a version of the "Chinese room" experiment in which there is a person born blind who has been given all of the mindless procedural rules of interaction by which to tutor a sighted youngster on the nature of sight and light, which tutoring is conducted through a Braille-to-visual computer link. Such an experiment would actually work, just like a computer which is programmed with these same procedures: the literate sighted child can learn of the nature of sight and light from this blind person, even though this blind person has never experienced sight.

Now, here is an either/or question:
1)Is this experiment, in itself, a convincing case for the notion that real intelligence is mere mechanics?
or,
2), is this experiment convincing of this notion only because of some (quite possibly wrong) assumptions that many people both within and without the field of Artificial Intelligence (AI) do not realize that they are making?

The problem with this "Chinese room" experiment is that the rules must have been originated by a person who could see. The common failure to realize this simple fact is what has made current the notion that human functional intelligence is nothing but a complex combination of mindless procedures and interactions. In reality, the "Chinese room" experiment is nothing but a simulation--like all simulations--which is being made to work by way of the living intelligence that is behind it. The power and logic of the simulation seem to all be in place sufficiently well to raise the hopes of the atheist who seeks a way to make God into just another human; but, the "Chinese room" experiment, like the computer, actually knows nothing about what it is supposed to be doing. The missing third ingredient is that "subjective" quality which allows us to say " I think, therefore I am." This is ontological agency, more often poorly known by its derivative, "qualia". It is ontological agency which makes a power/logic entity, such as a human body, capable of doing things that exhibit ontological agency. There has to be "somebody" in there (or, at least, somewhere), in order for the machine to be recognized by an ontological agent as having an ontological agent behind the behavior. The logic- and-power aspect is not enough, and there is not going to be any mere logic-and-power entity which can, without prior input, exhibit intelligence. Computers only do programs, and the car stereo speaker which is blurting out the voice of the talk show host does not have any idea of what it is saying.

Today, that primitive man which I mentioned at the start has become educated just well enough to think that he can make a box which has a little man inside of it.

Atheists who work in the field of Artificial Intelligence (AI) seek to nullify God by thinking that they actually have the ability to engineer an ontological agent (an agent that can know something "subjectively", as opposed to appearing to know something by way of its behavior, or, less, non-behavior, such as an inanimate object). If man can be his own true master, then God is a useless entity at best --and this premise is intoxicating to those who would deny the existence of an entity that is both personal and is the ground of all other being. This intoxicant is very much like that which pertains to the fantasy of making a surplus-energy perpetual motion machine. But, 'Strong' AI it is so much more intoxicating, because it aims to cut at the very foundation of reality and to take that foundation to pieces, all while allowing man to gain dominance over it all. In the field of AI this aim has been unsuccessful; yet, the premise still holds captive the reprobate mind because other avenues are available by which to help maintain this self-deception, such as Transhumanism and the Hedonistic Imperative.

It has been by way of AI that the definition of a person has come to light, and this definition holds that a person--an ontological agent--is triune. I suggested as much in my mention of the problem with the "Chinese room" experiment. "Strong AI" wishes to get beyond the mere power/logic (behavioral) aspect of human intelligence and to arrive at a way by which to engineer ontological agency itself. Those in the field of AI have had to admit that ontological agency is required in order for a power/logic agent to be truly intelligent, and they also admit that this simple fact presents a fundamental barrier to the success of "Strong AI". While there are those who hold to the idea that ontological agency (life) exists on a spectrum (so that either there is no such thing as a non-ontological agent, or that ontological agency comes with a certain kind of power/logic which is simply not present in brute-engineered machines), yet, we can have the very notion of non-ontological agency only by our own ontological agency. This presents a sort of conflict, and the fundamental failure of the "Chinese room" experiment to uphold the "Strong AI" position is a case in point.

Not only is there some sort of a conflict in observing that the idea of non-ontological agency cannot be had except by an ontological agent, but our ontological agency asserts that something can be known to be objectively false. In order for us to be able to conclude that something is objectively false, we must, at least tacitly, be operating from something else which we take to be the objective truth by which to know that this first thing is objectively false. But, ontological agency is supposed, by many positivist evolutionists, to be inherently subjective, in the sense of being incapable of objectively knowing anything to be true beyond the fact that 'what seems to be seems to be' (a thing true by definition). In a sense, this is the correct view, but only so long as we are willing to see our mistakes as such. The denial that any can be known objectively is a misapplication of the Adamic mind, by seeing the inability of the creature to once and for all define anything to a 'T' as implying that ontological agency cannot have objective knowledge. There is no little man in the radio, and the only reason that "Strong AI" has a foothold in anyone's mind is because the aim of "Strong AI" can easily seem to be viable to the kind of mind that was created to have dominion over the physical world.

God is an ontological agent. Therefore, God is triune by definition. The ground of all being, the standard by which all else is judged, is a person. The Biblical data which has been used to support the Orthodox Trinity, is an implicit, multi-level revelation whose mysteries are open to inquiry. When this data is understood for what it is, and not as a bizarre notion which elevates mystery above God by way of a pan-logical view of God's ineffability, is in the most direct opposition to the most prized possession of atheism: belief in life-from-non-life, whether this be abiogenesis/evolutionism, or 'Strong' AI.