Why not dismiss the trinitarian belief outright

[The Grand Nudger]

What evidence is there that the NT community disagreed on the oneness of God?


We know they disagreed viscerally about the ongoing application of Torah, but I'm not aware of any evidence which challenges the oneness of God- in fact the absence of evidence is highly significant. As is the lack of challenge to the divine nature of Jesus.

Communities, plural, there was no single community of nt authorship. It seems to me that the murder of heretics and the destruction of their work qualifies. Are these things simply absent in whatever history of the Christian movement you draw from?

Challenges to the alleged god mans divinity were dealt with similarly.

[Pat Mustard]

What evidence is there that the NT community disagreed on the oneness of God?

Well, for example, Marcion of Sinope, the inventor of the first christian canon and one of the earliest christians (he lived in the first half of the second century, right at the birth of christianity), believed that there were two gods, an evil one called yhwh who was depicted in the jewish scriptures and a good, hidden, god who sent Yeshua as his messenger. He also denied that Yeshua had an actual physical body, that what the disciples saw was simply an image.

That's a big disagreement on christian fundamentals from what is now considered canonical.

[Neo-Scholastic]

It is not really possible to discuss trinitarian doctrine outside the Scholastic philosophical tradition, its nomenclature, or conceptual framework. That is why Craig fails. He incorporates too many foreign concepts from Anglo-American analytical philosophy. Category errors ensue.

That said, I've learned to treat contemplation of the Trinity as a meditation on the ineffable and incomprehensible nature of God. I don't have to understand everything in life to find wonder in it. I may barely remember calculus but I can still marvel at Mandelbrot Zooms. And I don't have to untangle every theological riddle before offering my Praise.

[The Grand Nudger]

It’s very possible, though you clearly disagree with it being done. To be completely blunt, a person doesn’t need to know the first thing about Trinitarian belief or even Christian beliefs to understand why the religion was saddled with the concept. It was a political compromise necessary to the consolidation of power.

The same holds for the entirety of the nt. You and anyone else can believe whatever you or they want about a god, and praise whatever that is….. but that’s how these stories and that book came together regardless of the truth of a persons beliefs about a god.

[Fake Messiah]

What evidence is there that the NT community disagreed on the oneness of God?


We know they disagreed viscerally about the ongoing application of Torah, but I'm not aware of any evidence which challenges the oneness of God- in fact the absence of evidence is highly significant. As is the lack of challenge to the divine nature of Jesus.

Communities, plural, there was no single community of nt authorship.  It seems to me that the murder of heretics and the destruction of their work qualifies.  Are these things simply absent in whatever history of the Christian movement you draw from?

Challenges to the alleged god mans divinity were dealt with similarly.

Indeed. For instance, Bart Ehrman notes in his book "Lost Christianities" how early Christians disagreed how many gods are there, like:

The wide diversity of early Christianity may be seen above all in the theological beliefs embraced by people who understood themselves to be followers of Jesus. In the second and third centuries there were, of course, Christians who believed in one God. But there were others who insisted that there were two. Some said there were thirty. Others claimed there were 365.

https://books.google.com/books?id=URdACx...&q&f=false

Or on theology of Marcion who GN mentioned earlier:

How could the same God be responsible for both? Or put in other terms: How could the wrathful, vengeful God of the Jews be the loving, merciful God of Jesus? Marcion maintained that these attributes could not belong to one God, as they stand at odds with one another: hatred and love, vengeance and mercy, judgment and grace. He concluded that there must in fact be two Gods: the God of the Jews, as found in the Old Testament, and the God of Jesus, as found in the writings of Paul.

Once Marcion arrived at this understanding, everything else naturally fell into place. The God of the Old Testament was the God who created this world and everything in it, as described in Genesis. The God of Jesus, therefore, had never been involved with this world but came into it only when Jesus himself appeared from heaven. The God of the Old Testament was the God who called the Jews to be his people and gave them his Law. The God of Jesus did not consider the Jews to be his people (for him; they were the chosen of the other God), and he was not a God who gave laws.

And so on and on and on and on.

[The Grand Nudger]

There’s no end to examples. It was a fascinating time for the movement. A fascinating time entirely excised from the history of Christianity in the minds of believers.

[Vicki Q]

What evidence is there that the NT community disagreed on the oneness of God?

Well, for example, Marcion of Sinope, the inventor of the first christian canon and one of the earliest christians (he lived in the first half of the second century, right at the birth of christianity), believed that there were two gods, an evil one called yhwh who was depicted in the jewish scriptures and a good, hidden, god who sent Yeshua as his messenger.  He also denied that Yeshua had an actual physical body, that what the disciples saw was simply an image.

That's a big disagreement on christian fundamentals from what is now considered canonical.

By 'NT community', I mean the Early Church community portrayed in the NT. All sorts of exciting heresies developed towards the end of C1, but that's not the people I'm talking about. There is no credible evidence that I'm aware of that the community run by the disciples/Paul disagreed on the oneness of God.

[The Grand Nudger]

There was no singular community portrayed by the nt, either. In fact, the thrust of whomever wrote Paul was precisely this. That Christianity had become fractured and unchristian, Christians themselves a minority in the community of Christian faith. Beset on all sides by heresy and division.

You’d have to excise history -and- the actual contents of the nt to think otherwise.

Paul didn’t disagree with himself, and that’s about it, if that’s what you mean………

[Vicki Q]

Yeah, right Trinity is so original and the resemblance to trinities in other religions is just... what exactly? A coincidence? Just like turning Jesus' mother into Magna Mater is a coincidence, Jesus's passion being like the passion of Tammuz and the passions of other Gods. Jesus' resurrection is just like resurrections of other gods, and so on.

Especially since Trinity doesn't make sense in Christianity so it's obviously forced since Jesus is his own father, and Mary is his daughter, sister, mother, and whatnot.

Firstly, as has already been noted by others, groups of divinities can be found in pretty much any integer value, repeatedly for some integers. That some of them are in threes is pretty much a coincidence, yes.

Secondly, the NT is clear and non-negotiable on the Oneness of God. In what sense are the groups of three you name one single entity in the same sense?

Finally, you have still not produced any actual evidence that Early Christianity got a Trinity from anywhere.

---

There was no singular community portrayed by the nt, either.  In fact, the thrust of whomever wrote Paul was precisely this.  That Christianity had become fractured and unchristian, Christians themselves a minority in the community of Christian faith.  Beset on all sides by heresy and division.

You’d have to excise history -and- the actual contents of the nt to think otherwise.

Paul didn’t disagree with himself, and that’s about it, if that’s what you mean………

I absolutely disagree, but don't need to argue the point, because even if it were correct that's still no evidence of a belief in multiple Gods.

[The Grand Nudger]

I understand where you’re coming from, but, perhaps you should research this yourself?

I honestly doubt that the historical reality of Proto Christian development impacts your faith. or even -could-.. but it’s going to be beyond pointless to try a dogmatic revision of history, particularly on these boards.

It didn’t happen the way you’ve clearly been lead to believe, and even the founders of Christianity knew as much. They were in it, still dealing with it, centuries after the fact.

We only know about this stuff because -they- write about their own concerns and, eventually,, banged their hands together to come up with what would be acceptable to the remaining enfranchised groups in their bid to capture the authority of the Roman state.

A very……very….,successful bid, I might add, which allowed them (among other things) to finally eradicate surviving pockets of dissent.