Was thinking about the wide difference between what reformed Christianity teaches about The Trinity and what people like Philips Craig & Dean, who each pastor a flock of Christians, believe about it.
I don't think Pc&d are correct, but I don't know specifically with any absolute certainty that they are wrong. I don't think it's wise of them to be expounding on what The Bible already says point blank about "The Trinity". And I likewise used to get annoyed sometimes when I'd hear reformed Christian leaders talking about it. The opening pages of Scripture do say: "Let us make man in our image.". Thst would seem very clearly to me to be a reference to the simultaneous existence of God The Father, Jesus Christ and The Holy Spirit. I simply am not aware of any other explanation and it absolutely seems like a logical thing to think. However, Job's friends, and Job himself, were not aware of any logical explanation why Job was experiencing the seemingly supernatural assault on him and everything around him. The only logical explanation they could conjure up was absolutely **not true**. They were slandering Job and saying things about God that were not 100% accurate, and God told them to seek atonement from Job because Job, although he came awfully close to doing one of those, did not do either of them.
And Jesus warned that blaspheming The Holy Spirit is an unpardonable sin. People I've read and heard from tend to zero in on the lack of reliance upon The Holy Spirit as what Jesus was referring to, and to an extent that's not inconsistent with the rest of scripture, but we are simply never going to be free from sin while living on this earth. We will always be veering toward idolatry, and having to snap out of it and repent. Sin's ownership of us is gone. That doesn't mean we "have a choice". We always have a choice of weather to do right or wrong. You cannot be a child of God if you're owned by sin. So if you know God, and have made a decision to yield to Him, more and more, as time goes on ("progressive sanctification", I've heard it called), then you are no longer owned by sin. "You have been transferred from the dominion of darkness to the kingdom of His beloved son". Another reference to the co-existence of The Trinity, or at least two thirds of Him/it. At least I think. Like I said, I don't think PC&D are correct. But even if they are correct, that means reformed Christians are NOT correct, and vice versa, and I don't think either of us want to be saying or doing ANYTHING that displeases God, especially something so easily avoided. Humility of this sort is a bit of a challenge, but it doesnt' seem like a mountain that just can't be moved. Maybe I'm wrong. I'm probably more humble than a lot of people, even though people swear up and down I'm profoundly arrogant. Maybe I'm wrong about my take on that. I don't usually receive correction until I understand it, and I don't LOVE correction, as The Bible advises to. If I were eager to be told I'm wrong, I'd probably understand the correction I receive without sparring with people because of the lack of clarity I have initially. Likewise, if people would think about what's coming out of their mouth and how it's going to be understood, instead of just saying what in hindsight often might as well be a bunch of random words that kinda sorta maybe get the point across in a rather vague manner...but anyway... If I'm really that insanely arrogant, then that's even more evidence of how astoundingly *easy* it is to just stop talking out of our asses like we understand what the counters of everything The Bible says. There's even a passage that says seemingly out of the blue, "A dispute arose between a Jew about purification", and my pastor, not because he's a slave to sin and thus his eyes have not been opened, but simply, does not know why that is in the text. Yet he felt the need to expound on that text even, if nothing else than to say "we don't know...". So, ya, people of all faiths, in many cases, would benefit from being a little more comfortalbe with simply saying "We don't know", or "We're not entirely sure" or something other than half of what I hear from people a lot of the time.
I should confess here that I also have been guilty of trying to understand the trinity and thinking I have it all figured out, when in reality, I am not entirely sure how much accuracy there is in "the doctrine of the trinity" that people seem fully convinced is confirmed in God's word. I mean, anything can be confirmed in God's word if you look hard enough and think about it at a certain angle. Just about every "doctrine" has a passage or two that you look at and are like "Ok, THAT seems to contradict it". And a good chunk of the time it is simply a result of a misreading (which is at least some of the time at least partially the result of crappy translation choices, which are in almost every English translation available) of the text, but sometimes these inconsistencies are just swept under the rug. Which is fine, when one truth is highlighted time and time again and again and again, and you only see one or two verses that don't seem to match up. We are often dealing with texts that are over 3 thousand years old after all. But anyway....
I don't know how much this is edifying to anyone. I'm probably going on a rampage in some people's minds. I haven't posted anything in a good while. :/ Well, here's one way to close out February
"The LORD bless you and keep you; the LORD make his face to shine upon you and be gracious to you; the LORD lift up his countenance upon you and give you peace."
