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TRINITY & OTHER DOCTRINES OF GOD Prof. M.M.Ninan Global Publishers Normal, IL April 2017 TRINITY & OTHER DOCTRINES OF GOD Prof. M.M.Ninan Contents PREFACE I INTRODUCTION 1 II MONARCHIANISM 25 A: DYNAMIC MONARCHIANISM: ADOPTIONISM ARTERNON SHEPHERD OF HERMAS PAUL OF SAMOSATA SPANISH ADOPTIONISM 8TH -9TH C 12TH CENTURY AND LATER: NEO-ADOPTIONISM B: MODALISTIC MONARCHIANISM = MODALISM. PATRIPASSIANISM SABELLIANISM III ARIANISM 46 IV DOCETISM, EBIONISM & SUBORDINATIONISM 61 A: DOCETISM B: EBIONISM C: SUBORDINATIONISM V COUNCIL OF NICEA 66 VI PNEUMATOMACHIANISM OR 'COMBATORS AGAINST THE SPIRIT'. 74 VII MONOPHYTISM 76 A: APOLLINARIANISM B: EUTYCHIANISM VIII NESTORIANISM 79 A: CYRIL AND HYPOSTATIC UNIION B: NESTORIUS IX COUNCIL OF CHALCEDONIA 100 X SERVETUSISM 109 XI SWEDENBORGISM 114 XII MODERN MOVEMENTS ONENESS PENTECOSTALISM 120 XIII SOCINIANISM 126 XIV CHRISTIAN SCIENCE:THE CHURCH OF CHRIST, 128 XV CHRISTADELPHIANS 131 XVI JEHOVAH’S WITNESS 133 XVIII THE CHURCH OF LATTER DAY SAINTS 137 XVIII IGLESIA NI CRISTO 142 XIX UNITARIAN AND UNIVERSALISTS 146 APPENDIX I CLASSIFICATION BASED ON TRINITY RELATIONSHIP 149 APPENDIX 2 THE TRIUNE BRAIN THEORY 152 APPENDIX 3 MODERN CHRISTIAN GROUPINGS 159 APPENDIX 4 SCRIPTURAL ARGUMENTS OF VARIOUS PROPONENTS 162 APPENDIX 5 SYNODAL CHRISTOLOGICAL CONFESSIONS OF THE NESTORIAN CHURCHES OF THE EAST 168 APENDIX 6 CHRISTIAN GROUPS WITH NONTRINITARIAN POSITIONS 174 APPENDIX 7 PROOF TEXTS SHOWING JESUS WAS NOT GOD 175 AOOENDIX 8 CHRISTIAN HERESIES 176 The Doctrine of Trinity asserts the following: There is one and only one God. YHWH Elohim Echad God eternally exists in three distinct persons. The Father is God, the Son is God, and the Holy Spirit is God. The Father is not the Son, the Son is not the Father, the Father is not the Spirit. TRINITY & OTHER DOCTRINES OF GOD Prof. M.M.Ninan PREFACE This study is a continuation of my earlier studies in historical heresies within Christianity. However the heresies that arose in the doctrines of had been a prolonged and ongoing one. It is still going on and I am sure will continue. In the early periods soon after the dispersion from Babylon the concept of God the supreme Godhead as a father was totally missing. It was replaced by many gods who were patronized by regional tribal or geographical areas. It was thought that every area belongs to a particular god. The tribal wars were fought in order show whose god was superior or more powerful. The break came in the revelation of Abraham, who proposed the concept of a Supreme God. Even then it was only within the tribe of Abraham and his children which culminated in Israel. Only when Moses was able to bring out millions of Israelites out of the bondage of an alien Egyptian god were the Israelies believe YHWH was indeed God. They believed that YHWH was the God of gods. Eventually they began to emphasize monotheism. Even after the period of exile they held to this idea. When Babylonians gave the land of Palestine to other people, they noticed that the wild animals were enemies of them. Thus when Samaritans complained, they were given the priests of Israel to teach them the worship of YHWH whereby, He could let them live in his Tribal area. Samaritans continued to worship the God of Israel. When the Israel and Judah went on exile, the carried with the concept of monotheis and YHWH as the God of gods wherever they went. But the problem started with the birth of Jesus. Initially that was not a problem since the mesiah was none other than a chosen man who is empowered by YHWH. When Jesus went beyond the mesianic role of Prophet, Priest and King and claimed to be God himself came the real problem. Can a mere man born in a lowly manger to a poor girl be God. When He refused to take up the Kingdom of David which was his by right of lineage instead claimed that his kingdom was not of this world, things turned ugly. His family and patriotic disciples tried to force him to take over the kingdom back from Rome. It looked so when he finally entered the city on a donkey through the gates of Jerusalem under all the cries of hosanna. But instead of taking over the Kingdom, he was more interested in driving out the merchants from the temple. Judas took on himself to force Jesus even by putting Jesus under arrest and demanding crucifixion. Jesus refused to concede. He was God and he would not take anything less. Even when he was on the cross, the people of Judah challenged him to come out of the cross and save them. Only after the resurrection they realized the truth. Jesus was indeed God incarnate. Thomas was the first to declare it. They recognized him as such. The problem was Incarnation was an impossible thing within the strict monotheistic religion of Judaism. But as I look at it, the solution was already inherent in the Jewish mysticism. If we assume God alone existed in the beginning, even matter and for that matter the whole creation must be within God. Where else could God create? Out side of him? So there was God and there was outside of God. If that is the case, the ultimate reality is two fold - God and Outside. There goes our monotheism. We are simply dualists. So we shoud restate our poposition: In the beginning was God and Matter. Both are eternal and without beginning. The only way to avoid this contradiction is to assume that God contracted within himself to produce a space and willingly allowed creation with creatures in his own image with free will. That indeed was an emptying of his superiority. But then that is the characteristics of Love and we have the definition of God - God is Love. In love the greater sacrifices for the lesser. One who serve is greater than the one who is served. There are again two types of images, holographic and non-holographic. Holographic images carry all the essence of the orginal with all its dimensions. Think of holography that God could generate - one in essence in all dimensions. Others do not have the image in all dimensions but in limited dimensions. This is exactly the picture, Jewish Kabballah presents us which can explain the problem of incarnation and the creation of life forms in all dimensions. It all forms part of the whole, the Supreme Deity whom we call God, who cannot be known. We live, move and have our being in HIM. The cosmos is the body of God - yes body of matter - flesh and blood included. Incidentally is it surprising that Ruah the Holy Spirit is female gender in the same way as the Father and Son are male gender? If you look at the function of the Ruah, She does the function of a mother in the regeneration. “It is the spirit that gives life”(John 6:63). But the early church avoided the ‘She’ in order to avoid the implication of sexual relation. (Sex is not the only form of reproduction even in nature). Just as Eve came out of Adam, the Ruah emanates from the Father eternally. They are united as Echad (One). As such the picture evidently was one of a family with identical DNA, and united as Echad (One). In fact all creation partake of the divinity of God but not in essence. This is indeed indicated in the union of the Church, the bride of Christ as the body of Christ. The Orthodox Church uses the term ‘theosis’- being transformed into the image of Christ. Is there hierarchy in the Trinity? Yes indeed there is. Jesus Himself says ”The Father is greater than me”. But then hierarchy is not determined by power struggle since greater in the Kingdom is one who serves most. That is why early church used the term coequal - there indeed is struggle to serve one another within the Trinity. The redemption of the fallen creation is complete when the words of Jesus is fulfilled: “That they all may be one; as thou, Father, art in me, and I in thee, that they also may be one in us: that the world may believe that thou hast sent me. And the glory which thou gavest me I have given them; that they may be one, even as we are one:I in them, and thou in me, that they may be made perfect in one; and that the world may know that thou hast sent me, and hast loved them, as thou hast loved me.” John 17:21-23 As you can see our two dimensional representation of God and his creation will be always defective. It is this attempt that led to the struggle in the Doctrine of God. What is seen as an attempt to explain God by one Church will appear as orthodox for that church and heresy for the other. Hope someday we will all be One in the body of Christ and will be united with him to form the family of God and the creation itself will be redeemed. Rom 8: 19 -21 The creation waits in eager expectation for the revelation of the sons of God. For the creation was subjected to futility, not by its own will, but because of the One who subjected it, in hope that the creation itself will be set free from its bondage to decay and brought into the glorious freedom of the children of God. Prof. M.M.Ninan Illinois, April, 2017 TRINITY & OTHER DOCTRINES OF GOD: PROF. M. M. NINAN TRINITY & OTHER DOCTRINES OF GOD Prof.