The implications of this should leave our resident xtian fanatics twisting by their scrotums.
From Ehrman's Lost Christianities. pg. 194-195
Xtians would not be stuck with the ridiculous notion of the trinity were it not for heresies which had to be battled by the eventual winning side and which thus inherited for itself an impossible pile of horseshit which could only be enforced by death and torture in the name of 'god's fucking love.'
The trinity reminds me of the old song...."Bullshit makes the flowers grow."
From Ehrman's Lost Christianities. pg. 194-195
Quote:Eventually, by the fourth century, the creeds familiar to Christians still today had been developed in rudimentary form, most notably the Apostles’ and Nicene Creeds. It is worth emphasizing that these are formulated against specific heretical views. Take the opening of the Nicene Creed, “We believe in one God, the Father, the Almighty, maker of heaven and earth, of all that is, seen and unseen. We believe in one Lord, Jesus Christ, the only Son of God.” Throughout the history of Christian thought, such words have been not just meaningful but also deeply generative of serious theological reflection. At the same time we should recognize that they represent reactions against doctrinal claims made by groups of Christians who disagreed with them, Christians, for example, who believed there was more than one God, or that the true God was not the creator, or that Jesus was not the creator’s son, or that Jesus Christ was not one being but two. It is especially worth noting that, as a result of the context of their formulation, many of the views espoused in these creeds are profoundly paradoxical. Is Christ God or Man? He is both. If he is both, is he two persons? No, he is the “one” Lord Jesus Christ. If Christ is God and his Father is God, are there two Gods? No. “We believe in one God.”
The reason for the paradoxes should be clear from what we have seen. Protoorthodox Christians were compelled to fight adoptionists on one side and docetists on the other, Marcion on one side and various kinds of Gnostics on the other. When one affirms that Jesus is divine, against the adoptionists, there is the problem of appearing to be a docetist. And so one must affirm that Jesus is human, against the docetists. But that could make one appear to be an adoptionist. The only solution, then, is to affirm both views at once: Jesus is divine and Jesus is human. And one must also deny the potentially heretical implications of both affirmations: Jesus is divine, but that does not mean he is
not also human; Jesus is human, but that does not mean he is not also divine. And so he is divine and human, at one and the same time.
And thus the proto-orthodox paradoxical affirmations embodied in the creeds, about God who is the creator of all things, but not of the evil and suffering found in his creation; about Jesus who is both completely human and completely divine and not half of one or the other but both at once, who is nonetheless one being not two; about the Father, the Son, and the Spirit as three separate persons and yet comprising only one God.
Xtians would not be stuck with the ridiculous notion of the trinity were it not for heresies which had to be battled by the eventual winning side and which thus inherited for itself an impossible pile of horseshit which could only be enforced by death and torture in the name of 'god's fucking love.'
The trinity reminds me of the old song...."Bullshit makes the flowers grow."
