JeSoul: You're right it is a source of constant tussling among some christians. The rest of us simply choose to apply the time-tested principle laid out in Romans 14. Everytime I see loggerhead -ing over the issue I always scratch my head. To me, whichever you believe is really inconsequential in the big picture, so why squibble?

It is indeed spiritually inconsequential but it is politically and socially mightily consequential. I say this because I believe that once your heart is in the right place, believing or disbelieving the trinity will do diddly squat one way or the other.

However it has mighty politico-socio ramifications. In the first place, it is the key doctrine that gave rise to the entire birth of Islam. A doctrine that caused such a mighty schism as to birth an entire religion (with all the terrible consequences that have followed since) is clearly not harmless.

Finally, although this is not relevant, believing that a fellow human being is Almighty God says a lot in very poor terms about the mind of the person who believes such a thing. It, at the very minimum, shews such a person to be capable of believing absolutely anything, and also shews such a person as hardly capable of individual original thought. This is my general view and is not meant as offense to anyone in particular please. I just believe it is a classic case in point on religious gullibility. You see, there is a saying that if you throw in a beautiful woman into the mix, you can sell absolutely anything. You can sell a man arsenic for dinner so long as it proceeds from the hand of Eve. In the same way, you can get otherwise intelligent and reasonable people to believe gibberish not fit for toddlers, once you package it as religious faith. This is a truth that has been demonstrated time and again throughout history.

and you're welcome on the compliments. I mean it, you're a gifted writer.

I must say he is also a gifted thinker.

Deep Sight:

But is being divine the same thing as being God?

What does it even mean to be divine, can you define and specifically qualify that?

.

When i say divine i mean Christ having the same nature and essence God have. Things that may qualify as divine from a trinatarian point view are grace, resurrection, salvation, immortality and everything good. There are other beings too that may not necessary referred as divine cus they work contrary to the will of God. So divine here is like being godlike or possessing attributes of God.

Let us say that God is living. Let us also say that we are children of God, and as such, we are living. Does this mean that we are God? Under Christian worldview, we are not God. However under some pantheistic views, everything is God and God is everything, and as such we ourselves are microcosms of God and part of the infinite God.

In what way is Jesus a different type of "child" of God, than you and me are. I have an elder brother who is the first son of my father, but he's a man just like myself, i think?

No he's not just a man like you. Jesus is different because of his divinely unique nature. Christ bearing the nature or form of God and being the very exact representation of God’s being means that he is fully God in essence, that he has every essential attribute of God (heb1:3).

"For God so loved the world that he gave his one and only Son (ton huion ton monogenee),

The term monogenes literally means of sole descent, only one of its kind, unique. Thus, Jesus is the only Son of his kind, God’s Son in a unique manner, Son in a sense that no one else is.

"He is the image of the invisible God, the firstborn over all creation… For God was pleased to have all his fullness dwell in him," Colossians 1:15, 19

"For in Christ all the fullness of the Deity lives in bodily form," Colossians 2:9

For brevity sake i'll leave it at here. But how about us? The Scripture is constantly referring to us as sons and daughters of God too…adopted by faith.

In love he destined us for adoption to himself through Jesus Christ. (Ephesians 1:4-5)

John 1:11-14
11 He came to His own, and His own did not receive Him. 12 But as many as received Him, to them He gave the right to become children of God, to those who believe in His name.

Deep Sight:

It is indeed spiritually inconsequential but it is politically and socially mightily consequential. I say this because I believe that once your heart is in the right place, believing or disbelieving the trinity will do diddly squat one way or the other.

However it has mighty politico-socio ramifications. In the first place, it is the key doctrine that gave rise to the entire birth of Islam. A doctrine that caused such a mighty schism as to birth an entire religion (with all the terrible consequences that have followed since) is clearly not harmless.

Finally, although this is not relevant, believing that a fellow human being is Almighty God says a lot in very poor terms about the mind of the person who believes such a thing. It, at the very minimum, shews such a person to be capable of believing absolutely anything, and also shews such a person as hardly capable of individual original thought. This is my general view and is not meant as offense to anyone in particular please. I just believe it is a classic case in point on religious gullibility. You see, there is a saying that if you throw in a beautiful woman into the mix, you can sell absolutely anything. You can sell a man arsenic for dinner so long as it proceeds from the hand of Eve. In the same way, you can get otherwise intelligent and reasonable people to believe gibberish not fit for toddlers, once you package it as religious faith. This is a truth that has been demonstrated time and again throughout history.

There are several points in this quote that I'd like to address but I'll stick to just the highlighted. There is certainly truth to the point that wholesale religious faiths may have questionable eggs in the mix.

But rather than focus on the legitimacy or illegitimacy of a particular belief, I think it is wiser to focus on the fruit of the belief instead. I say this because we are all different. From different backgrounds, families, cultures, academic training, religious ideas etc etc...the only universality in this equation is God. The way I approach, digest & apply a concept is almost guaranteed to be completely different from you. By this, I think it not wise to try to use your personal template and expect we all will fit in the grid nicely. I can't use my spiritual yardstick to measure the validity of your beliefs - and vice versa. But caveat lector, as long as the consequence of such a belief is by all accounts, undeniably godly in fruit.

There are two principles for every christian laid out in Romans 14.

¹ To keep what one believes about controversial issues of the ceremonial kind to between oneself & God for the sake of harmony (and for the exact reason I stated above - we are all different).

and

²*very important* That there is room for heterodoxy within the body of Christ. That it is perfectly okay for two christians to disagree on an issue and yet both of them can be right about their beliefs.

I think in spite of the spiritual complications of agreeing/not agreeing with the trinity doctrine, there are genuine christians on both sides of the issue. I would bet both sides believe wholeheartedly that Jesus died for their sins & faith in Him leads to salvation - and that is enough according to John 3:16.

On the "politico-socio ramifications" you touched on. I would say that simply because the echo of a shot ramified in the negative through history, doesn't mean the initial shot was wrong/bad. A singular nuclear technology today can either power electricity for an entire nation, or arm a atomic weapon. Religious, doctrinal belief of these kinds (trinity, tongues etc) to me are somewhat innocuous - it is how the person chooses to apply it, and the resulting fruit that will judge the legitimacy/illegitimacy of such a belief - seeing there is no perfect, omniscient judge - except the Lord God Almighty.

Since God himself was made up in the human heart, anything about can also be made up. I can even bring up a tetratarianism and prove it to be true. I can say God is 4 in 1.

God is a product of the human heart. I rest my case.

JeSoul:
There are several points in this quote that I'd like to address but I'll stick to just the highlighted. There is certainly truth to the point that wholesale religious faiths may have questionable eggs in the mix.

But rather than focus on the legitimacy or illegitimacy of a particular belief, I think it is wiser to focus on the fruit of the belief instead. I say this because we are all different. From different backgrounds, families, cultures, academic training, religious ideas etc etc...the only universality in this equation is God. The way I approach, digest & apply a concept is almost guaranteed to be completely different from you. By this, I think it not wise to try to use your personal template and expect we all will fit in the grid nicely. I can't use my spiritual yardstick to measure the validity of your beliefs - and vice versa. But caveat lector, as long as the consequence of such a belief is by all accounts, undeniably godly in fruit.

There are two principles for every christian laid out in Romans 14.

¹ To keep what one believes about controversial issues of the ceremonial kind to between oneself & God for the sake of harmony (and for the exact reason I stated above - we are all different).

and

²*very important* That there is room for heterodoxy within the body of Christ. That it is perfectly okay for two christians to disagree on an issue and yet both of them can be right about their beliefs.

I think in spite of the spiritual complications of agreeing/not agreeing with the trinity doctrine, there are genuine christians on both sides of the issue. I would bet both sides believe wholeheartedly that Jesus died for their sins & faith in Him leads to salvation - and that is enough according to John 3:16.

On the "politico-socio ramifications" you touched on. I would say that simply because the echo of a shot ramified in the negative through history, doesn't mean the initial shot was wrong/bad. A singular nuclear technology today can either power electricity for an entire nation, or arm a atomic weapon. Religious, doctrinal belief of these kinds (trinity, tongues etc) to me are somewhat innocuous - it is how the person chooses to apply it, and the resulting fruit that will judge the legitimacy/illegitimacy of such a belief - seeing there is no perfect, omniscient judge - except the Lord God Almighty.

A measured, wise, temperate and truly edifying response. You never dissapoint one: your views in things remind me a lot of one of the most measured persons ever to grace this forum - MyJoe.

I almost wholly agree - save with regard to the bold in yours. You may want to think on that again. How possible is it, really?

Finally, you will agree one way or the other that the trinity serious draws a question mark on the monotheistic claims of the Christian faith, does it not? Not that there is anything bad in polytheism.