10 Jan '06 21:54>2 edits
Originally posted by FreakyKBH
As an orthodox Jew, Saul would have credited only God with creation. When Saul became Paul, that was never repudiated.
That's right. And St Paul also says that Jesus was the first-born of all creation, which
suggests a second-tier status for Jesus (although higher than any other created entity).
St Paul also never says that 'Jesus is God,' but that Jesus is the image of God. St Paul
was a pretty careful writer, so I'm inclined to read his words with a critical eye, rather
than anachronistically applying later dogmas to them.
The fact that we have the entire Scripture with which to now flesh out the thinking of God, changes nothing on the degree in which it was revealed.
What you call Scripture was not viewed as Scripture in the time it was written. They were
just letters or records that came to be regarded as representations of what God thought. The
formation of the canon was a late 2nd-century notion in response to Marcion's canon. That
canon is similar but not identical with the one that was ratified in the 4th century. For example,
Early Church Fathers quibbled about whether 'The Shepherd of Hermas' was or was not
Scripture, or the letters from St Clement, or Revelation. So, the idea that New Testament
literature which came to be regarded as Scriptured presented a unified whole to early 2nd-
century Christians is fallacious. There was quite a bit of division on that topic, as there was
on whether Jesus was Divine.
The Trinity consists of three distinct Persons. This is Scriptural, not contructed after the fact, as you allude to in your post.
The term 'Trinity' is not Scriptural. It is a second-century construct based on how they
came to understand who they thought Jesus was and how that figured in with God. Early
Christian history demonstrates that this concept was not universal, given the so-called
heresies about whether Jesus was God, adopted by God, chosen by God but not God,
whether He was man or appeared to be man, and so forth.
Because so much of your post is as stated, there is no need to offer any counter-balancing argument. Some people cannot handle the truth.
Uh-huh. More posturing. Of the two of us, only one is fooled, and it's not me.
Nemesio
P.S., someone with your high grammatical standards might want to review the clumsiness
with which this sentence was written:
The fact that we have the entire Scripture with which to now flesh out the thinking of God, changes nothing on the degree in which it was revealed.
As an orthodox Jew, Saul would have credited only God with creation. When Saul became Paul, that was never repudiated.
That's right. And St Paul also says that Jesus was the first-born of all creation, which
suggests a second-tier status for Jesus (although higher than any other created entity).
St Paul also never says that 'Jesus is God,' but that Jesus is the image of God. St Paul
was a pretty careful writer, so I'm inclined to read his words with a critical eye, rather
than anachronistically applying later dogmas to them.
The fact that we have the entire Scripture with which to now flesh out the thinking of God, changes nothing on the degree in which it was revealed.
What you call Scripture was not viewed as Scripture in the time it was written. They were
just letters or records that came to be regarded as representations of what God thought. The
formation of the canon was a late 2nd-century notion in response to Marcion's canon. That
canon is similar but not identical with the one that was ratified in the 4th century. For example,
Early Church Fathers quibbled about whether 'The Shepherd of Hermas' was or was not
Scripture, or the letters from St Clement, or Revelation. So, the idea that New Testament
literature which came to be regarded as Scriptured presented a unified whole to early 2nd-
century Christians is fallacious. There was quite a bit of division on that topic, as there was
on whether Jesus was Divine.
The Trinity consists of three distinct Persons. This is Scriptural, not contructed after the fact, as you allude to in your post.
The term 'Trinity' is not Scriptural. It is a second-century construct based on how they
came to understand who they thought Jesus was and how that figured in with God. Early
Christian history demonstrates that this concept was not universal, given the so-called
heresies about whether Jesus was God, adopted by God, chosen by God but not God,
whether He was man or appeared to be man, and so forth.
Because so much of your post is as stated, there is no need to offer any counter-balancing argument. Some people cannot handle the truth.
Uh-huh. More posturing. Of the two of us, only one is fooled, and it's not me.
Nemesio
P.S., someone with your high grammatical standards might want to review the clumsiness
with which this sentence was written:
The fact that we have the entire Scripture with which to now flesh out the thinking of God, changes nothing on the degree in which it was revealed.