re: The First Council of Nicaea came to an end 1,700 years ago this week...

quote:

---

I can't believe people actually still believe this.

---

Well if they didn’t want people to believe it, maybe God should’ve seen to it that it didn’t get written into a divinely inspired scripture that Jesus is the first born of creation.

quote:

---

You do that, and you'll see how weak the notion is that Jesus didn't claim to be God

---

This is blatant mistranslation based on the bias of the translators. Jesus may have claimed to be divine - a deity - but not the deity and created him.

quote:

---

quote:

---

I and the Father are one

---

. -Jesus

---

That is an interesting quote. Do you believe that it settles the fact that Jesus and the Father are a single deity? Then consider this next one.

quote:

---

I do not ask for these only, but also for those who will believe in me through their word, that they may all be one, just as you, Father, are in me, and I in you, that they also may be in us, so that the world may believe that you have sent me. The glory that you have given me I have given to them, that they may be one even as we are one, I in them and you in me, that they may become perfectly one, so that the world may know that you sent me and loved them even as you loved me.

---

Do you see the problem? Jesus wants his followers to be one with him in the exact same way that he is one with the Father. So are all of Jesus’ followers part of the Trinity?

quote:

---

It doesn't settle it, but it's a point against you

---

I don’t see how you made that determination considering the scripture I quoted, which supports Jesus being one with God the same as Jesus’ followers being one with Jesus. If you don’t believe Jesus’ followers are a part of the Trinity, then you can’t believe Jesus is in a Trinity if you are correctly applying logic.

quote:

---

Are you not aware that he can be one with the father in more than one sense?

---

Just be logically consistent and don’t make stuff up that isn’t in the scriptures.

quote:

---

You a JW?

---

No, I don’t need an organization to tell me what to believe.

quote:

---

I don’t see how you made that determination considering the scripture I quoted, which supports Jesus being one with God the same as Jesus’ followers being one with Jesus. If you don’t believe Jesus’ followers are a part of the Trinity, then you can’t believe Jesus is in a Trinity if you are correctly applying logic.

---

That's not what it does. I just gave you the reason it doesn't: Jesus can be one with the Father in more than one sense. His followers could be one with Jesus like Jesus is one with the Father in a sense other than the fact that they are both part of the same triune God. I don't think you are as good as logic as you think you are.

quote:

---

Just be logically consistent and don’t make stuff up that isn’t in the scriptures.

---

There is nothing being added to scriptures here. It's just a factual statement. Jesus and the Father's oneness is not limited to a single sense anywhere in scripture. You are "making up" that limitation.

quote:

---

No, I don’t need an organization to tell me what to believe.

---

I can tell you think that.

This is where Jesus was elected the son of god by majority vote. It took a few rounds and the murder of some of the “Nay” votes.

Then they jammed the Jewish Old Testament to the completely New Testament as even more compromises were made, and various other books, tossed out as they didn’t support the narrative properly.

quote:

---

The First Council of Nicaea

---

.
Ah yes, the great meeting for getting their story straight of how to best rule the common people and keep them subserviant. Quite a thing to celebrate indeed. And they actually decided on the story of a god sending himself to sacrifice himself to himself to save all of us from himself...and the people rejoiced in no longer having to think about the hard stuff ever again because it will all be fine as long as we do as we are told to get ourselves to paradise

quote:

---

Ah yes, the great meeting for getting their story straight of how to best rule the common people and keep them subserviant. Quite a thing to celebrate indeed. And they actually decided on the story of a god sending himself to sacrifice himself to himself to save all of us from himself...and the people rejoiced in no longer having to think about the hard stuff ever again because it will all be fine as long as we do as we are told to get ourselves to paradise

---

quote:

---

Then they jammed the Jewish Old Testament to the completely New Testament as even more compromises were made, and various other books, tossed out as they didn’t support the narrative properly.

---

By the 2nd century, the early church had a well established canon. It wasn't until later that the Catholics added some books to their Bible.

quote:

---

you'll see how weak the notion is that Jesus didn't claim to be God. You have to ignore a LOT of what Jesus said and did to think this. Or twist the words into a pretzel.

---

"For the Father is greater than I"

"For I have come down from heaven, not to do My own will, but the will of the One who sent Me."

Those are pretty unambiguous statements from Christ himself about his inferiority of rank compared to the Father. There's no "twisting" there. Those are straight up statements that "He's the boss not me". Now, that doesn't rule out Jesus Christ from being a part of the Trinity in theory, but it does put the Kibosh on any kind of "co-equals" thing. And to my knowledge, there's no passage where Jesus states that this changes after his death and resurrection and ascension. He never says "When I ascend, I become the Father's equal". He says that he will sit at the right hand of the father ... again, clearly an indication of important but subordinate rank... and he says that the privileges he'll have... in judgement and rule upon his return... will be because the Father decrees it so. That clearly indicates that the Trinity isn't a co-equal decision body, but that the Father has clear superiority of rank over the other two members. And for "I and the Father are One" to be taken absolutely literally (instead of one in purpose/mindset, spirit, and power) is implicit Modalism or Oneness Pentecostalism . And I don't think God takes turns in front of an audience like a stage magician.

quote:

---

Well it doesn’t say that in the actual gospel, but I understand why you need to rationalize it in your way because otherwise it would conflict with your dogma.

---

You might as well be arguing against your own position with this statement. Your interpretation is not stated in the "actual gospel" either. There is nothing written there that indicates that it's necessary to draw the conclusion that Christ wants his followers to be to him what he is to the father is every single imaginable way. In fact, I'd assert that that's an entirely unreasonable position to take. You admit Jesus is divine. How in the world do you expect mortals relationship with the divine to be exactly like a divine beings relationship with the divine? That alone is enough to disprove your theory. Again, you have to insert "exactly" or "every" in there to come up with the idea that he wants his followers relationship with him to be like his relationship with the father in every way. I can't believe you don't see that. It's a very simple and easily observable point.

Basically, everyone who interprets that passage has to bring something else to it, including you. Fortunately, Christ gave us his Church to help us in these situations.

quote:

---

Maybe not all trinitarian theologies but the one that say is used by Catholics, Baptists, Orthodox, etc. is that Jesus and God the Father are co-equal. So when Jesus says something like the Father is greater than all and the Father is greater than me, do you understand why someone could conclude that Jesus and God the Father are NOT equal?

---

I understand why someone would conclude it, but that someone would simply be missing the rest of scripture and falling victim to an oversimplified argument formulated by people who can't fathom that the truth about God (as stated in scripture, by the way) is something difficult to grasp.

The reason you have some passages that seem to indicate oneness/equality with the Father and some that indicate inferiority with the father is because Christ was human (inferior and dependent upon) and divine (equal). It sounds to me like the only passages that count for you are the ones that would speak of Jesus's inferiority. As a Catholic, I take all of it seriously. When Jesus says he's one with the Father or that everything that the Father has is his or his is called God, I believe that. When he says he is inferior to God. I believe that too.

You sure you aren't a JW (or never were?) You argue like one.