Jesus is God

God, Christ, & The Holy Spirit
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Paidion
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Re: Jesus is God

Post by Paidion » Sun Apr 04, 2021 10:47 am

You may want to view this debate between Dale Tuggy (who believes that the Father alone is God) and Trinitarian Michael Brown.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Oi300_FvFz0
Paidion

Man judges a person by his past deeds, and administers penalties for his wrongdoing. God judges a person by his present character, and disciplines him that he may become righteous.

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dwight92070
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Re: Jesus is God

Post by dwight92070 » Sun Apr 04, 2021 11:27 pm

Brown has some very powerful scriptural arguments. Tuggy - not so much.

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Homer
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Re: Jesus is God

Post by Homer » Sun Apr 04, 2021 11:36 pm

I have the ante-Nicene Fathers 10 volume set and numerous books on the beliefs of the early church and what was considered orthodox. As I have been browsing through them I was surprised that the foundational belief of the Trinity existed long before the creeds.
I have not much interest in what was said after the second century. I found information that the belief in the pre-existent Christ as the Logos was held by Justin and Hippolytus. (Hey, I'm not a heretic!) Also holding views that would support the Trinity were Ignatius (said to refer to Jesus as "our God"), Clement, and Hermas, among others.

In his book "Orthodoxy and Heresy in Earliest Christianity" Walter Bauer wrote:
Like John, Justin is possessed with the idea of the existence of Christ as the Logos prior to the creation of the world, but he does not derive his proof from the fourth Gospel.....
Also the idea of three "personae" is an ancient one.

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dwight92070
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Re: Jesus is God

Post by dwight92070 » Mon Apr 05, 2021 7:38 am

Yes, Dr. Brown must have listed at least 12 church fathers who held the Trinity belief - among them were disciples of the apostle John.

Also, just one of his excellent points was Isaiah 44:24 - "Thus says the Lord, your Redeemer, and the One who formed you from the womb, 'I, the Lord, am the maker of all things, Stretching out the heavens BY MYSELF and spreading out the earth ALL ALONE, ...'"

Yet we know that the New Testament says " He transferred us to the kingdom of His beloved Son, in whom we have redemption, the forgiveness of sins.
He is the image of the invisible God, the firstborn of all creation. For BY HIM all things were created, both in the heavens and on the earth, visible and invisible, whether thrones or dominions or rulers or authorities - all things have been created THROUGH AND FOR HIM." Colossians 1:15-16

So the Isaiah passage tells us that God created everything ALONE - He didn't need any help. Yet the Colossians passage tells us that all things were created through "His beloved Son" - Colossians 1:13

What other conclusion can you draw from this, other than that God and His beloved Son are the same being? Dr. Brown calls it a "complex unity".

If I were a lawyer in a courtroom, at this point, I could say "I rest my case."

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dwight92070
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Re: Jesus is God

Post by dwight92070 » Mon Apr 05, 2021 7:55 am

Correcton: the last 5 words of the Colossians 1 passage should read "THROUGH HIM AND FOR HIM."

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darinhouston
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Re: Jesus is God

Post by darinhouston » Mon Apr 05, 2021 8:42 am

It's been a while but I didn't think that the Brown Tuggy debate was all that good - Brown goes all over the place and doesn't go very deep - he has superficial and overconfident swagger but not very knowledgeable at depth and this can't be developed in these short debates - doesn't seem to have a clue about the nuances of the details of the church father's positions - cherry picks phrases that sound trinitarian and there's not time for Tuggy to really develop how they clearly teach in other passages how they don't mean by them what we modern ears hear when we hear them. Tuggy's really good with that material, but not in this format.

If you're really interested in what, say, Justin believed about the godhead, you can search for Justin on Tuggy's site - he has lectures where he goes into depth discussing his writings and what he did and didn't believe (often said quite explicitly).

Most of these guys would be considered clear and outright heretics by today's Trinitarians based on their clear writings. They'll talk about a group of "threes" in one page, for example, and that will be prooftexted by Trinitarians, but then on the next page or in another writing they make clear that they believe that 2 of the 3 aren't god and are pre-existent but lesser creations or powers or that sort of thing created in time. Much more consistent with Arians or unitarians or modalists in most cases than with today's trinitarians. In the end, the best that can be said of them is that they were all over the place and can't be called Trinitarians. (even arians believed in pre-existence - frankly, the pre-exitence texts are some of the hardest for unitarians but they are quite mysterious and beg the question of "in what sense" pre-existent)

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dwight92070
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Re: Jesus is God

Post by dwight92070 » Mon Apr 05, 2021 11:16 pm

darinhouston wrote:
Mon Apr 05, 2021 8:42 am
It's been a while but I didn't think that the Brown Tuggy debate was all that good - Brown goes all over the place

Dwight: Why shouldn't he? The evidence is all over the Bible.

and doesn't go very deep

Dwight- Right, so it's very understandable, but you want to go deeper into intellectual quicksand, so we will definitely be confused and distracted from the truth.

he has superficial and overconfident swagger

Dwight - When you don't have a good argument, you attack the person himself.

- but not very knowledgeable at depth and this can't be developed in these short debates

Dwight - You guys can't totally express your view in a short debate? You require a long debate? Dr. Brown had no trouble at all fully explaining his view. He didn't need a lot of time to express easy-to-understand truths.

- doesn't seem to have a clue about the nuances of the details of the church father's positions - cherry picks phrases that sound trinitarian and there's not time for Tuggy to really develop how they clearly teach in other passages how they don't mean by them what we modern ears hear when we hear them. Tuggy's really good with that material, but not in this format

Dwight - If he's good at it, he would have had plenty of time to give two or three examples of these nuances, but he didn't.

If you're really interested in what, say, Justin believed about the godhead, you can search for Justin on Tuggy's site - he has lectures where he goes into depth discussing his writings and what he did and didn't believe (often said quite explicitly).

Dwight - No thanks, I'd rather hear what the Bible says about the Godhead, or some one who interprets the Bible with the Bible, as Dr. Brown did. Steve does that too.

commonsense
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Re: Jesus is God

Post by commonsense » Tue Apr 06, 2021 1:20 am

dwight92070 wrote:
Sun Apr 04, 2021 7:10 am
Dwight -I will assume that you meant the gospel was preached TO Abraham, not the gospel OF Abraham. Abraham was not crucified for us. But the point is that the gospel of God, as you said, and the gospel of Jesus "are all one and the same gospel", because Jesus is God.
The gospel of God was preached to Abraham which he then taught to his children. Jesus was one in which the "seed" came to fruition.
In the beginning God was with Abraham and through Abraham God gave birth to Israel ( The Son of God), collectively the people of God. They were born through the word of the Spirit. This is why the New Testament says that we are Abraham's "seed", not Jesus' "seed".

Jesus didn't give birth to the son/sons of God ( those led by the Spirit). He WAS a Son of God, the seed of Abraham. Israel was REBORN in Christ Jesus, who was "raising up children unto Abraham".
dwight92070 wrote:
Mon Apr 05, 2021 11:16 pm
Dwight - No thanks, I'd rather hear what the Bible says about the Godhead, or some one who interprets the Bible with the Bible,
The Bible isn't about 3 Gods in one or how these three Gods relate to one another. It's about man's relationship with God and how we relate to each other. God gave man rule of the earth which makes us part of the Godhead.

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dwight92070
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Re: Jesus is God

Post by dwight92070 » Tue Apr 06, 2021 8:05 am

commonsense

Which religious organization are you a member of?

Dwight

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dwight92070
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Re: Jesus is God

Post by dwight92070 » Tue Apr 06, 2021 8:45 pm

commonsense wrote:
Tue Apr 06, 2021 1:20 am


The Bible isn't about 3 Gods in one or how these three Gods relate to one another. It's about man's relationship with God and how we relate to each other. God gave man rule of the earth which makes us part of the Godhead.

Once again, a misrepresentation of the Trinity doctrine. There is only one God, in three persons.
Also a misrepresentation of the scripture. We are not part of the Godhead.

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