“Liza, do you have any money?”
“Nope.”
“Hey – I see you’ve got money in your right pocket! Why’d you say that?”
“I meant that I had no money in my left pocket.”
“But that’s not what you said! You said you didn’t have any money.”
“But it was true that I didn’t have any in my left pocket.”
“Liza, what is lying?”
“It is intentionally trying to cause someone to believe something which you believe is false.”
“Didn’t you think it false that you had no money at all? You did know, didn’t you, that there was money in your right pocket.”
“Yes.”
“And you knew that by answering ‘Nope,’ you’d cause me to believe that you had no money at all.”
“Yes.”
“So, you lied?”
“You got me there. Sorry. I was afraid you were going to ask for a loan…”
Related posts:
Reformed trinitarian to unitarian Christian
No Trinity, No Job – Part 2
Simeon says...
Linkage: Vallicella and Lukas on Supposita
Her only true love
Bock and Loke on Jesus's "blasphemy" in Mark 14 - Part 1
podcast 296 - Assessing Craig's "Trinity Monotheism" - with Dale Glover - Part 1
The Latin Trinity Chart 3 - Henry of Ghent to the rescue
William Lane Craig in the Chronicle of Higher Education
Linkage: Disproving the existence of Hooloovoo?
John,
I agree. If there ever was an apostolic succession, that was forfeited early on when Christians powers-that-be turned the church into a political machine. The horrors that have been perpetrated by the “Apostolic Church” are too numerous to name and revolt the mind and heart. What Calvin and his cronies did to Michael Servetus, for example, is beyond comprehension. Trusting that the church has passed down the truth inviolate is indeed a cozy belief but a costly one: you trade the truth for that coziness, as you rightly said.
I’m glad you are enjoying the Minding the Truth website. I appreciate you saying so. I’m assuming you are the follower from Zimbabwe? How wonderful is the Internet where we can connect with people worlds apart! In case you haven’t seen it yet, I’ve just put up a piece on “The Myth of Original Sin,” where I (briefly) argue that that dogma is another example of tradition displacing truth. I have also posted a letter from Thomas Jefferson to John Adams, wherein he expresses his sentiments on Calvinism and the trinity dogma (“tritheism” as he puts it). It is a most interesting letter from a most interesting man.
Blessings to you too,
Michael
Michael,
I seem to be ‘puting my foot in my mouth’ in it today, but would like to say that a church which deviated so much from truth and righteousness in the earliest centuries CE , lost the right of Apostolic succession.
Since then we seem to have one ‘horror story’ after another.!
I am not ‘Catholic baiting’ – I have many interesting dinner parties with Jesuits, Redemptionists etc. and admire their scholarship. It’s such a shame that they are trapped in this web called tradition. It’s a very ‘cosy’ place to be , but it’s miles from the simple faith of first century Christianity.
I am thoroughly enjoying ‘Minding the Truth”
Blessings
John
Canadian,
You must distinguish between divine guidance and direct, divine teaching. Acts 15 would be an example of the former. The Ten Commandments would be an example of the latter. God confirms for us direct, divine teaching through miracles, signs, and wonders. Are you going to tell me God attested the ecumenical councils in that way? And I wouldn’t start to compare those councils to the council recorded in Acts 15. The apostolic council was characterized by holy men seeking and receiving the guidance of God through his holy spirit. Anyone who knows anything about the later ecumenical councils knows they were the furthest thing from this. Athanasius for one would give the most ruthless politician today a run for his money! Dale in his video echoes the sentiments of many Christians who have studied those councils when he said what he found in his research was “disturbing.” It honestly boggles my mind that Christians put those councils on anything approaching a par with the Scriptures of the Old and New Testaments.
Michael
Michael,
Why do you think the nature of the church changes after the Apostles? The Acts 15 Council had binding and normative authority for all existing Christians (Acts 16:4), as it was an occasion of divine guidance (“seemed good to us and the Holy Spirit”) and has the authority to conform all to its decrees (don’t think of this as a bad authority, but a divine one for our protection). The authority is not just because of the apostles, but the Council itself, as repeatedly stated in ch 15 and 16 with phrases such as “the apostles and elders”, those “assembled with one accord”, “the apostles and elders with the whole church”. This is why the church has always identified herself as one, holy, catholic and APOSTOLIC. As for miracles, the church has always had them in varying degrees and still does.
There are several secondary apostles in scripture, ones not chosen by Christ. Their authority is also seen to pass to others in the choosing of bishops, elders and deacons.
Do you think there is an expiry date on real ecclesial authority under Christ in verses such as these?:
Matt 18:17-18; Matt 28:18-20; Heb 13:7, 17, 24; 1 Thess 5:12; 1 Tim 5:17, etc. And consider that not one church in the NT ordained their own leaders, it is always done by those authorized to do so in every church (Acts 14:23, Tit 1:5). This is real authority, schism is forbidden and we are not free to select our own leadership according to what we believe scripture means.
I should stop here. Unless granted permission, it may be disrespectful to our host for me to derail the thread topic.
Canadian,
“. . . under her authority and guidance . . .”
“Guidance,” perhaps; but whence this “authority”? God has given no signs that the church post Apostles–East, West, or otherwise–“has authority to give normative and binding teaching,” as you said before.
And the foundation named in Ephesians in 2.20 is simply, and significantly, “the apostles and prophets,” not teachers or others. They–the prophets and apostles–did have such authority from God, and God made that clear to us through the miracles he worked through them. The miracles were not for nothing.
Michael
John,
Of course there is some truth to that. We hold no one to be infallible. But the contemplation of truth within the liturgical community and under her authority and guidance brings clarity, just as the scripture pictures the church built on the foundation of the persons of the apostles, prophets, teachers etc….built up as a dwelling place of the Spirit through the ages. So St Maximos deepens, clarifies and builds upon what the Cappodocians and the earlier Conciliar church defended. For example, he disentangles them from the misunderstanding that the human will and divine will in Christ are in Natural opposition. Against the new heresy of Monotheletism, he realizes that in Gethsemane, Christ is not denying an opposing or evil human desire, but rather his human will is desiring the “good” of preservation of life. Yet this human desire is submitted to the Father’s will, even though it is a good desire. It is a free human choice by Christ and is not compelled by his divinity. Sorry to ramble here.
Hi Canadian
The Cappadocians do not have a particularly good record insofar as consistency and integrity are concerned.!
Congratulations on ‘sussing -out’ Calvanism by the way. It took me decades to understand the full implications of their theology!
God Bless
John
John,
I am not bringing forth my own ideas. This is what you find in the Cappadocians, John of Damascus, St Maximos, the Ecumenical Councils and the Orthodox church. The monarchy of the Father who begets a divine Son and spirates his divine Spirit. Divinity from divinity.
I agree with you about Triablogue by the way, myself being a former Calvinist.
Canadian
Your attempts at rationalisation are commendable – but they totally lack credibility!
If someone tried to re-define the debate as is suggested above ,I would call him straight disingenuous.
Those wonderful ‘beauts ‘over at Triablogue do it all the time – but it doesn’t fool too many people!
Best Wishes
John
To say that what he can know as God must be exactly what he can know as man is to make the divine mind hypostatic which it is not. If the divine nature was hypostatic, the divine nature would thirst and if the human nature was hypostatic, the human nature would be unable to thirst. Drinking, eating, creating, redeeming are all energies (activities) of Nature. Christ having two Natures has two sets of activities he can Personally employ. The one Nature does not employ the other Nature, the single Person does in each Nature those things which are proper to each Nature.
Dale,
How does this get you to where you want to go?
One Person with one Nature is covered by one pair of pants has money in his pocket. He has a human mind and knows the exact amount of money because he put it there.
With Christ, his human mind in his human nature knows about his future return but the Father has not revealed to his human mind the day or the hour. He learns how to speak, eat, do carpentry, because his divinity does not transfer the info automatically to his human mind and his mind would not have unlimited capacity. You’re two pockets are not of differing natures.
Well done, Dale.
Comments are closed.