Understanding The Trinity bethinking. Atheists and Muslims often criticise the Christian concept of the Trinity as contradictory, meaningless or false. In this article, Peter S. Williams counters these criticisms, approaching the issue from the perspective of a philosopher. Vital-Issues-Inerrancy.jpg' alt='A General Introduction To The Bible Norman Geisler Pdf' title='A General Introduction To The Bible Norman Geisler Pdf' />A demanding but worthwhile readthe doctrine of the Trinity reconciles the paradoxical affirmations that God is self sufficient and that he is love. H. P. Owen1As Michael J. Murray and Michael Rea observe Christians believe that, though there is but one God, God nevertheless exists somehow as three distinct divine persons Father, Son and Holy Spirit. Atheist Michael Martin rejects the doctrine of the Trinity as incoherent There are three divine persons the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit. The Father is God, the Son is God, and the Holy Spirit is God. Introduction to How We Got the Bible I. Why a class on how we got our Bible A. To be informed If we claim the Bible as the Word of God we should have a basic. JONAH NAHUM ENGLISH BIBLE by Robert V. McCabe, Th. D. Detroit Baptist Theological Seminary 4801 Allen Road Allen Park, Michigan 48101 Summer 2010. BIBLE. ORG RESOURCES That Reference Job The largest Bible Study Resource on the Web Hint Do a control find when you open a hit and search Job. I/414RPKp9o3L.jpg' alt='A General Introduction To The Bible Norman Geisler Pdf' title='A General Introduction To The Bible Norman Geisler Pdf' />Yet these three divine persons are supposed to be distinct from one another the Father is not the Son, the Father is not the Holy Spirit, and the Son is not the Holy Spirit. However, there is exactly one God. According to this doctrine, Christ must be his own father and his own son. Atheist Richard Dawkins rejects the doctrine as sophistry,4 asking Do we have one God in three parts, or three Gods in one5 Its a badly formed question. In the Christian God we have one personal divine being the Trinity or Godhead this being one sense of the term God essentially composed of three divine persons each distinguished from the others by different senses of the term God. Christians dont believe in one God who isnt one God, or three persons who are one person Thus Christ is nothis own father and his own son as Martin alleges Rather, Christians believe in three divine persons who are jointly one divinepersonal being. The doctrine of the Trinity can be coherently stated with precise philosophical terminology and this precise use of language is good philosophy, not sophistry. A Discursion on Dawkins. Dawkins quotes the Catholic Encylopedia, which he says with sarcasm clears up the matter for us, in a masterpiece of theological close reasoning6 In the unity of the Godhead there are three Persons, the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit, these Three Persons being truly distinct one from another. Thus, in the words of the Athanasian Creed the Father is God, the Son is God, and the Holy Spirit is God, and yet there are not three Gods but one God. Dawkins ridicule stems from his ignorance of the fact that the term God is being used here indifferent senses. Dawkins likewise has no patience with third century theologian St. Gregory the Miracle Worker who wrote There is therefore nothing created in the Trinity nor is there anything that has been added as though it once had not existed, but had entered afterwards therefore the Father has never been without the Son, nor the Son without the Spirit and this same Trinity is immutable and unalterable forever. According to Gregory it is false to say that any member of the Trinity 1 is a creature 2 has come into existence having previously not existed 3 has existed without the others also existing or 4 that the Trinitarian nature of the Godhead is a contingent fact rather than a necessary fact. All four statements are perfectly coherent, but all Dawkins can say is Whatever miracles may have earned St. Understanding The Trinity. Atheists and Muslims often criticise the Christian concept of the Trinity as contradictory, meaningless or false. In this article, Peter S. A General Introduction To The Bible Norman Geisler Pdf' title='A General Introduction To The Bible Norman Geisler Pdf' />Gregory his nickname, they were not miracles of honest lucidity. His words convey the characteristically obscurantist flavour of theology9Philosophical theology is bound to appear obscurantist to those who cant be bothered to learn something of its history, structure, methods and terminology. But then, the same thing could be said of science. As Peter van Inwagen writes creedal descriptions of the Trinity are good, practical descriptions of real things. CHRIST IN 2 CHRONICLES A M Hodgkin Christ in All the Scriptures Contents. Chronicles The Building of the Temple. Chr 2 4 Solomon sent to Hiram, King of. The Generations of Noah or Table of Nations Genesis 10 of the Hebrew Bible is a genealogy of the sons of Noah and their dispersion into many lands after the Flood. Contents Preface 11 Introduction 15 1 For God So Loved the World John Calvins Missional Exegesis. A Sacrifice Well Pleasing to God The. This study is a general introduction to the subject of how the Bible was transmitted and preserved over the past 2000 years. It will give the average Christian a more. The forthcoming revised Apologetics Study Bible for Students is for those who desire to always be. A General Introduction To The Bible Norman Geisler Pdf' title='A General Introduction To The Bible Norman Geisler Pdf' />I am confident that they are at least as good as descriptions of curved space or the wave particle duality in works of popular science. Dawkins is the sort of critic whom Peter Kreeft describes as finding the Trinity unintelligible because they are impatient with mystery and have an arrogant assumption that what is not intelligible to them at first reading must be in itself unintelligible and unworthy of attention1. Ridiculing what you dont understand on the basis that if you dont understand it then theres clearly nothing to understand is a rhetorical technique that serves Dawkins critique of religion, but its no way to conduct scholarly debate. Dawkins scepticism also brings to mind C. S. Lewis retort that It is the simple religions that are the made up ones If Christianity was something we were making up, of course we could make it easier. But it is not. We cannot compete, in simplicity, with people who are inventing religions. How could we We are dealing with Fact. Of course anyone can be simple if he has no facts to bother about. Nevertheless, Dawkins frustration reflects a widespread popular impression that the concept of God as Trinity is incoherent an impression that isnt helped by the fact that Christians often dont use clear and precise terminology when talking about God. Data To Be Accommodated. Consider the following set of propositions taken from the Athanasian Creed 1 The Father is God. The Son is God. 3 The Holy Spirit is God. There are not three Gods but one God. These propositions are often pictorially represented in church windows and theology texts by this diagram 1. One cant be an orthodox Christian if one rejects any of these propositions. However, at first glance these propositions appear to form an inconsistent set. For if The Father is God, and there is only one God, then surely The Holy Spirit cant be God as wellIndeed, in the above diagram the outer is not ring affirms that The Father is not The Holy Spirit. Prima facie, trinitarianism lookslike the claim that one plus one plus one equals one. This is what philosophers call the logical problem of the Trinity. Coherently Solving the Logical Problem of the Trinity. Sony Ericsson K790i Pc Driver here. One simple way to render our four propositions self consistent would be to claim that God the Father is God the Son and the Holy Spirit, just as Clark Kent is Superman and a journalist. One individual can merit three different descriptions as they play different roles in life. However, the claim that the Father, the Son and the Holy Spirit are simply one person with three different roles or modes of revelation is the heresy of modalism. One cannot be orthodox whilst solving our apparent contradiction this way, hence the inclusion of the is not ring on the above diagram. Orthodox Christianity requires us to affirm all four propositions listed above in some legitimate sense whilst avoiding two opposite heresies. These heresies form the bookends of orthodoxy, the Scylla and Charybdis between which a Christian understanding of God must pass The first heresy is modalism failing to recognize the existence of more than one divine person. The second heresy is tritheism or polytheism affirming the existence of a plurality of independent finite gods. Hence Christians believe in what theologian Gerald OCollins calls the differentiated unity of God or the divine unity in distinction. The Christian God is a tri une God.