About the Trinity and being Christian

[LucyDuke]

I freely ignore anyone who says that you need to be a Trinitarian to be a Christian, even if billions of people would agree with them and that leaves VRCW and I in a minority of two.

Then there's some other stuff in some other threads about the same thing.

I don't know who is Christian and I don't really have any opinion on what it means to be "a true Christian". As a non-Christian I assume that things like using the bible as a guide, trying to be a good person, and believing that Jesus came back to life are important.

What exactly does it mean to be Trinitarian, and why is that so important? (Or, in Arakhor's and VRWCAgent's cases, why is it so unimportant?) Does it really override all the other beliefs from the "Christian" set?

 

[bhsup]

Frankly, I don't think it is a big deal at all one way or the other and I don't give it much thought except when the trinitarians start denying we're Christians because of it.

Accept Jesus Christ as the son of God, your savior and king. Boom, Christian 101. And when we're dead, I really don't think ol St. Peter at the pearly gates is going to want a theological discussion from you on your views about it. Is Jesus divine? yes. Is Jesus the son of God? yes. Is Jesus God? no.

 

[Leoreth]

Interesting. From an outside perspective, I've always considered the concept of trinity unnecessary. Christianity would make more sense to me without it.

I have no idea what theological repercussions rejecting trinitarianism would have, though.

 

[anandus]

I'm no Christian (at all), and to be honest I'm not fully sure what the trinity is about.
Isn't it, basically, about the indivisable nature of god and in that respect the nature of Jesus?
That if Christ wasn't part of the trinity then God, through Christ, wouldn't have offered himself for mankind? Something like that?

In antiquity there were some hefty debates about the nature of Christ, and the trinity, with the aryans and the monofosytes and such. And I believe later with the kathars in southern France and also (although I'm not sure) the Hussites too?

But, like I said, I know nothing about religion and such. And there are people here which can give proper (theological) answers.

 

[Borachio]

I'm no Christian (at all),.

For a supposed non-Christian, you certainly have a very good handle on it. Though I don't suppose the theologically inclined would agree with you.

I think if you've been brought up* in a "Western" nation then in all likelihood your culture is "Christian". These things go very deep.

*unless you're a second or third generation immigrant from a non-Christian background.

Aren't Unitarians those who reject the notion of the Trinity? Like everyone else here, I'm very ignorant.

 

[Glassfan]

Christianity, or anything else that has been around for so very long, has a lot of "baggage" that it drags along with it. The nature of the Trinity or even Christ's divinity has been the subject of rancorous and long lasting argument between the faithful and heretics throughout it's history. Yet issues settled a thousand years ago are often revisited by the uninformed.

Imagine being Black or Gay and some ignorant person comes along with the same old bigotry and stereotypes that have been shed a generation or more ago.

 

[Smellincoffee]

I was raised in a sect of Christianity which emphatically rejects the trinity, calling itself -- among other things -- "Oneness". I never really understood the excitement. Now as a humanist I go to an Episcopal church because they're almost Unitarian Univeralists playing dress up, and I hear a lot about the trinity. Both perspectives are weird to me, which is why I guess some Christians go "Holy mystery" and leave it at that.

Unitarians do reject the trinity, but they're entirely different from Oneness Pentecostals. I think the historic UUs saw Jesus as being completely distinct and seperate from God, while the conventional church saw Jesus as having distinguishing characteristics, but still part of the godhead. Modern UUs are more like "Jesus is a cool guy, sort of like Buddha".

 

[Traitorfish]

Christianity, or anything else that has been around for so very long, has a lot of "baggage" that it drags along with it. The nature of the Trinity or even Christ's divinity has been the subject of rancorous and long lasting argument between the faithful and heretics throughout it's history. Yet issues settled a thousand years ago are often revisited by the uninformed.

Imagine being Black or Gay and some ignorant person comes along with the same old bigotry and stereotypes that have been shed a generation or more ago.

Yes, somebody being poorly acquainted with the arcane intricacies of your theology is exactly like an ethnic minority person being confronted with a racist stereotype. There is no more perfect analogy that you could construct.


[non-antagonistic version: Jeezo, I see where you're coming from, but do you not think that you're mebbe overstating things just a wee bitty with that analogy? I mean, it's not like anybody was ever lynched by a pack of rabid atheists who didn't understand the nuances of his position on the divinity of Christ.]

 

[Cheezy the Wiz]

Then there's some other stuff in some other threads about the same thing.

I don't know who is Christian and I don't really have any opinion on what it means to be "a true Christian". As a non-Christian I assume that things like using the bible as a guide, trying to be a good person, and believing that Jesus came back to life are important.

What exactly does it mean to be Trinitarian, and why is that so important? (Or, in Arakhor's and VRWCAgent's cases, why is it so unimportant?) Does it really override all the other beliefs from the "Christian" set?

The Catholic Church said so, and all Churches except the Eastern ones (Nestorian, Coptic, Armenian) come from the Catholic Church, so they all followed suit because smart guys before them set down a monopoly on Christian thought from which they dare not deviate too far.

I think its completely irrelevant.

 

[Masada]

The Catholic Church said so, and all Churches except the Eastern ones (Nestorian, Coptic, Armenian) come from the Catholic Church, so they all followed suit because smart guys before them set down a monopoly on Christian thought from which they dare not deviate too far.

First point, the Church of the East, the Armenian Apostolic Church and the Coptic Orthodox Church of Alexandria are all Trinitarian.

Second point, the Patriarchate of Alexandria was the institution which had the lead hand in formulating the Orthodox view of what the Trinity was Nicaea, First Ephesus and Second Ephesus. Hell it was the institution that ruined Arius and Nestorius. Granted, Granted, it lost out at Chalcedon but up until that point it had been in the driving seat. The other Patriarchs either followed or got run over like Nestorius.

In antiquity there were some hefty debates about the nature of Christ, and the trinity, with the aryans and the monofosytes and such. And I believe later with the kathars in southern France and also (although I'm not sure) the Hussites too?

Arians. Miaphysites/Monophysites. Cathars/Cathari. And Hussites. Miaphysites are Trinitarian but don't adhere to Chalcedon. Arians are non-Trinitarian and got rolled at Nicene. Cathars are crypto-Gnostics and thus non-Trinitarian. And Huss was also Trinitarian.

 

[_random_]

Unitarian Univeralists playing dress up,

I quite like this description.

The Trinity has for centuries been seen as the crux of Christian Orthodoxy, since it hammers out how Jesus relates to God the Father, which is quite important. There are of course plenty who've denied it, and they certainly aren't orthodox Christians by most standards; whether they're Christians at all doesn't strike me as a particularly useful question.

 

[bhsup]

Please, don't anyone confuse unitarians with the Unitarian Univeralists. They really are not in any way the same thing and being in the UU 'church' really has nothing to do with how you believe about the nature of God, Jesus, and the Holy Spirit.

From wikipedia on Unitarian Universalists...
"Contemporary Unitarian Universalism espouses a pluralist approach to religious belief, whereby members may describe themselves as atheist, agnostic, deist, monotheist, pantheist, polytheist, pagan, Christian, or assume no label at all. As of 2006, about 20% of Unitarian Universalists identified themselves as Christian"

Actually, for that matter I guess unitarianism carries some specifics I may not want to ascribe to myself, so I guess I should go with the more generic nontrinitarian instead of unitarian. ??

 

[Glassfan]

Yes, somebody being poorly acquainted with the arcane intricacies of your theology is exactly like an ethnic minority person being confronted with a racist stereotype. There is no more perfect analogy that you could construct.


[non-antagonistic version: Jeezo, I see where you're coming from, but do you not think that you're mebbe overstating things just a wee bitty with that analogy? I mean, it's not like anybody was ever lynched by a pack of rabid atheists who didn't understand the nuances of his position on the divinity of Christ.]

History is full of examples of idiolgy breeding violence, though I didn't mention violence in my post. But since you bring it up, there have certainly been secularist regimes that have oppressed people of faith.

 

[Arakhor]

I suppose that this goes to show that if you talk about religion, even on a politics board, it's going to keep coming back to haunt you.

 

[Traitorfish]

History is full of examples of idiolgy breeding violence, though I didn't mention violence in my post. But since you bring it up, there have certainly been secularist regimes that have oppressed people of faith.

Sure there are. But the regime didn't oppress them because it had an inaccurate view of their understanding nature of the Godhead. Was my point.

 

[Chukchi Husky]

As it was explained to me, the existence of the trinity is the reason why things tend to come in threes. Time is seen as past, present and future, distance is measured in three dimensions, a person has a mind, body and a spirit and a person's personality has three aspects, how they are seen, who they think they are and who they really are.

 

[LucyDuke]

I quite like this description.

The Trinity has for centuries been seen as the crux of Christian Orthodoxy, since it hammers out how Jesus relates to God the Father, which is quite important. There are of course plenty who've denied it, and they certainly aren't orthodox Christians by most standards; whether they're Christians at all doesn't strike me as a particularly useful question.

Why is it so important, though? Would things not work if Jesus was just God's son and not actually God himself?

 

[Masada]

Would things not work if Jesus was just God's son and not actually God himself?

I guess that would make one an Ebionite or at a stretch an Arian.

 

[Borachio]

As it was explained to me, the existence of the trinity is the reason why things tend to come in threes. Time is seen as past, present and future, distance is measured in three dimensions, a person has a mind, body and a spirit and a person's personality has three aspects, how they are seen, who they think they are and who they really are.

OR, it could be things tending to come in threes is why the concept of trinity exists. The rest of your post I like a lot.

Why is it so important, though? Would things not work if Jesus was just God's son and not actually God himself?

What a good question!

Metaphysics is really for dunces, in my ever so humble opinion.

 

[_random_]

Why is it so important, though? Would things not work if Jesus was just God's son and not actually God himself?

By most theories of atonement, yeah. Of course, soteriology is a lot more contentious within orthodox Christianity, but pretty much everyone agrees that Jesus had to be God to effectively accomplish salvation.