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

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The first half millennia of Christianity they didn’t have the Trinity.

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They did. However, the Trinity had not been defined

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Seems a bit inconsistent. You are right here though, I should have been clearer. What I should have said is that they didn’t have (the post-Nicene-Constantinople creed three co-equal co-eternal one-substance) Trinity). They didn’t have the modern concept of the Trinity.

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there was no need to define until some heretic named Arius decided to question it.

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You yourself mentioned it was undefined (as official church doctrine), so I don’t see how Arius could’ve question “it”.

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Ignatius of Antioch (AD 107), Justin Martyr (AD 150), Irenaeus of Lyons (AD 180), Tertullian (AD 200), and Origen (AD 220) all write about the divine nature of Christ.

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Divine doesn’t necessarily mean “the one true God”.

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Tertullian even uses the word "Trinity" to describe the nature of the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit.

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Tertullian didn’t believe what you and the modern church believed. He believed the Holy Spirir proceeded from the father and the son and that the son proceeded through the father, that there was a time when only the father existed, then he created the son and they created the Holy Spirit. They could all be called “God” because they were all made out of the same substance but they were all three separate and distinct, and the son was lesser than the father and the Holy Spirit was lesser than the son. Read about it in one of his rants “Against Praxeas”.

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You’re missing out on what he’s trying to convey.

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No, I'm not. He is responding to heretics (called Sabellians) who believe that God is one person with three different modes. God the Father is not distinct from God the Son and therefore God the Father experienced His Son's human suffering.

Tertullian argues the following:

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"We, however, as we indeed always have done....believe that there is one only God, but under the following dispensation....that this one only God has also a Son, His Word, who proceeded from Himself.... Him we believe to have been sent by the Father into the Virgin, and to have been born of her —being both Man and God, the Son of Man and the Son of God, and to have been called by the name of Jesus Christ...."

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It seems you have developed your own belief system that’s not connected to or based upon anything than your own cobbled together readings of English bibles

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I haven’t told you or revealed my beliefs.

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You say the original wording in John 1:18 is houis and not Theos. But that claim is based on nothing.

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You mentioned the debate amongst the experts. I thought maybe you might have read up on the arguments and evidence. Forgive me. I’ve read the arguments and evidence and am convinced in one direction.

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You claim to know the correct translation of John 1:1 and know which translations are bad. You argue against the majority of the leading experts in the world on the topic over the last 1700 years.

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Those English translations aren’t made by text critical scholars but religious fundamentalists with their own beliefs to shape their translations. They don’t just translate but interpret. You and I actually agree on the literal meaning of John 1:1c, as a reminder.

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Yet you do not even know koine Greek.

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I don’t. Where’d you learn it?

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It takes massive delusion and hubris to argue emphatically that leading scholars are incorrectly translating a language that you do not even know how to read.

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I didn’t come up with my interpretation of John 1:1c. Lol you think I pulled it out my behind? No this is published literature from PhDs in the field of history and experts in Koine Greek.

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You make very crude errors on basic points, like which century the doctrine of the Trinity was codified. You say it was the 5th century

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Sorry - very end of the 4th century. Huge difference. You nailed me on that one. I apologize for the error.

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and that half a millennium of Christianity had passed before the doctrine of the Trinity came about.

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That’s true. After the council of Constantinople, the ideas still had to be taught and spread and taught and fought over. And of course you know Rome itself was Arian from the 5th to the 7th centuries under the visigoths and the vandals.

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But the council of Nicea was in 325 AD. The title thread of the you are on says the council of Nicea came to an end 1700 years ago. You have absolutely no clue what you are talking about regarding every facet of this topic.

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I thought we were talking about the Trinity which was codified in 381 AD. I don’t think you know as much as you think you know.

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We don’t agree on the literal meaning of John 1:1. You think an indefinite article should be added because… well you don’t really know the grammar rules involved

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Fish oil could improve your memory. We agree the “theos” in John 1:1c means divine or deity in the qualitative sense. Adding an indefinite article such as in the JW translation is more accurate than calling this “theos” capital G God.

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I agree with the vast majority of people who know how to read koine Greek and think the standard translation is correct

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Delusional folks who let their own beliefs cloud what the scripture says.

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These people span the range of belief systems, and many are agnostic and atheist.

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Well you are wrong there. I surprised you went there.

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You don’t even know which century the council of Nicea and council of Constantinople occurred until 10 minutes ago

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And you thought the council of Nicaea was where they codified the Trinity concept. I admitted my mistake that 381 is the 4th century not the 5th. Brain fart.

It doesn’t look like we will agree. You think the fact that John 1:1c says that the Logos was (a) deity or divine qualitatively means he is the only one true God. You are probably the type that insists there is only one real actual god in the Bible. It doesn’t mean you are stupid but you are woefully misinformed or ignorant.

Are you eventually going to outline or link to your polytheistic religious worldview? Sounds like maybe Mormonism. But maybe you have a more interesting crackpot theory you’ve put together or have stumbled onto.

I believe in the orthodox Christian view as given in the Nicene-Constantinopolitan Creed.

What is your view? Are you Mormon or do agree with the Mormon view on the nature of God and Jesus? If not, what is your belief or position on the topic?

If you cannot be transparent on your views on the topic, then there is no point in the discussion as it is inherently in bad faith. There is no good reason for not being willing to share your base position. That is hallmark behavior of cult members. They either hide their beliefs for as long as possible to avoid scrutiny and appear legitimate, or they believe their beliefs are for a select few and one must earn (i.e. pay for) access to the special knowledge.

Going to church of no given description and drinking alcohol is not a theological position on the nature of God.

You presume wrong on me telling you that there’s one God according to the scriptures. You don’t strike me as the type of person who can be told things. As long as you know some events happened within a couple of centuries of accuracy, you feel you have a pretty good grasp on them. You read some footnotes in the Bible that says different Hebrew and Greek words are used for God, and by golly thats polytheism as far as you’re concerned. You got it figured out. Just pound some beers, read the Bible, and concoct your own religion.

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You don’t strike me as the type of person who can be told things

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My bullshite detector is superb.

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You read some footnotes in the Bible that says different Hebrew and Greek words are used for God, and by golly thats polytheism as far as you’re concerned

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It’s all the stuff about the Lord commanding the Israelites to quit worshipping other gods, how those other gods shouldn’t be put in front of his face, that there are no other gods beside (adjacent) to him (on his level of power), and how he he says he will judge the other gods, and the many verses that talk of him defeated the other gods and taking their jurisdiction, and how there are no other gods in the skies that can compare to the Lord.

The Bible is completely clear that the many other gods of the nation are real and exist, but that only one who has jurisdiction over Israel and later the whole earth - Kyrios - should be worshipped to the exclusion of all the others except his father - tou Theou tou Hupsistou.

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You got it figured out.

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Far from it.

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Just pound some beers

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Only at the camp and LSU games. And wedding receptions. And at the beach.

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read the Bible, and concoct your own religion.

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No I’m not a Lutheran or Baptist or one of those crazies that make their women wear dresses and can’t cut their hair! (But I understand why they can’t cut their hair because Paul says that is a woman’s glory).

John says several times no one has ever seen God. Stop and think about that. Now think about how Abraham, Moses, Aaron, Enoch, Elijah, Jacob, Job, Gideon, Manoah, the Israelite elders post escape from Egypt… and so on… all saw the Lord. I don’t think that’s a contradiction at all. What they called God and what they called the Lord are not the same. If they’d all seen the Lord many times but no one has seen God, how could the Lord be what they called “God”? I hope you see how someone could know this and have a problem with the Nicene-Constantinople creed, even if you don’t agree.

Have a great one!