Unitarian

Status
Not open for further replies.
Indeed, though when I say divine, I mean Christ is God in the flesh.

This may sound strange, but do you believe the Bible to be God-breathed and infallible?
Thing is though I think we were in a discussion I posted about this. I believe that the KJV in my opinion is the best translation personally for english. Idk how to read any other language haha wish I knew greek and hebrew:p
 
Thing is though I think we were in a discussion I posted about this. I believe that the KJV in my opinion is the best translation personally for english. Idk how to read any other language haha wish I knew greek and hebrew:p

OK, I appreciate the response.
Who canonized the Bible and when did that happen?
 
I don't know the history of all that haha All I know is that God's Word is the Bible

Don't take my response as divisive, but I do mean it as to challenge at least: While I absolutely agree with you that the Bible is God's Word, how do you suppose Christ is not God through Scripture if Scripture itself isn't up for personal interpretation? In other words, did those who canonize the Scriptures we have get the Bible right but the doctrine wrong on the trinity?
 
Don't take my response as divisive, but I do mean it as to challenge at least: While I absolutely agree with you that the Bible is God's Word, how do you suppose Christ is not God through Scripture if Scripture itself isn't up for personal interpretation? In other words, did those who canonize the Scriptures we have get the Bible right but the doctrine wrong on the trinity?
Well for the Council of Nicea it was only a votes that placed Jesus as the God and people pretty always say that this Council played such a big part in the decision making process. I wish I knew what the total results for the vote was but I heard that it was relatively close! So man voted for it but what does scripture say is my point. I think if you show me scripture then we can talke. You should see my responses to Zoe because I back it up that way. Plus why would I trust a voting Council that voted on when to celebrate a pagan holiday Easter??
 
Deuteronomy 6:4

Shema Yisrael YHWH Eloheinu YHWH Ehad

Hear O Israel, The Lord, Our God, One Lord

Eloheinu אֱלֹהֵינוּ - it's translated as "Our God" - but it's the possessive of the plural Elohim - not the singular Eloha... Gramatically, it's properly "Our Gods"... but though Elohim is plural, it's always treated gramatically as singular....

So... Though it's clumsy and we don't translate it this way due to convention....
Hear O Israel, The Lord, Our Gods, One Lord

Ehad... Ehad has at it's heart Unity.... Notice how Unity does not necessarily imply Singularity.....

Adam and Eve were declared "Ehad" - when "The two flesh shall become One"....

No one would argue that Adam and Eve were physically ONE person... Just like you and your spouse are also declared "Ehad" - United... also not ONE person.... You are in Union....

God is in perfect UNION....

So... One last revision to Deuteronomy 6:4

Hear O Israel, The Lord, Our Gods, The Lord is Unified.

And... That's why I have no issue what so ever with the Trinity...
 
  • “Thus says the Lord, the King of Israel And his Redeemer, the Lord of hosts: ‘I am the first and I am the last, And there is no God besides Me." (Isaiah 44:6)
Your translation is different then a KJV because LORD in KJV refers to the father while Lord refers to the Son having authority over heaven and earth.

In KJV "and beside me there is no God." This i very important because beside me is saying God is next right next to Jesus in a physical form.
Isaiah 44:8 "Fear ye not, neither be afraid: have not I told thee from that time, and have declared it? ye are even my witnesses. Is there a God beside me? yea, there is no God; I know not any."

Do you know why Jesus in the KJV ,which I believe is pretty much the best translation, says "Is there a God beside me? yea, there is no God; I know not any." Because he's saying that God the father is not in a physical form around him and we should not have made a graven images of God the Father in the very next verse!

Isaiah 44:9 "They that make a graven image are all of them vanity; and their delectable things shall not profit; and they are their own witnesses; they see not, nor know; that they may be ashamed."

God gives a prophecy of not what He The Father will say but what his Son will say!

Thanks for pointing this out because I think this makes me have even more faith!

Isaiah 44:6 (KJV)
6 Thus saith the Lord the King of Israel, and his redeemer the Lord of hosts; I am the first, and I am the last; and beside me there is no God."

It is interesting that you would pick Isaiah 44:6 as a Scripture. IT actually emphasizes the "Oneness" of God by stating that "Beside me there is no God".

When we dig deeper into that phrase we see that the personal name YAHWEH is used of both the King and His Redeemer, the one referring to God the Father and the other referring to God the Son. God's sovereignty is then emphasized by the fact that He alone is able to predict the future.

God asks the question "Is there a God beside me, yea there is no God, I know not of any".

The ONENESS which is the Trinity ask a question and then answers His own question. "I KNOW NOT OF ANY".

What is saying clearly is that He, the Trinity is the ultimate authority on divinity and to prove it, He accuses the other "gods" of being nothing more than idols made by men.

Now for prophesy, those who are determined to deny the possibility of supernatural prediction of specific events seem determined to interpret such things right out of the Bible even contradiction the interpretation of the same events by New Test writers.

We at times tend to forget the totality of Scriptures because we see in Matt. 3:17......King James Bible
"And lo a voice from heaven, saying, This is my beloved Son, in whom I am well pleased."

Then in Matthew 17:5..... (KJV)
5 "While he yet spake, behold, a bright cloud overshadowed them: and behold a voice out of the cloud, which said, This is my beloved Son, in whom I am well pleased; hear ye him."
 
If you are happy to be unitarian, OK. To be honest before jumping in, I want to thoroughly research just exactly what you mean by unitarian.

For now, I would like you to consider or rather reconsider the passages you have used.
When James wrote that 'God can not be tempted with evil' can you understand that he means 'God can/will not yield or give in to temptation'?
Jesus was tempted, yes, can you point to where he yielded to that temptation?
Luke 4:12. And Jesus answered him, "It is said, 'You shall not put the Lord your God to the test.'"
Why would Jesus say this in responce to Satan suggesting He jump off the highest point of the Temple?
One other tentative question I would like to ask you is why do you think it is good to call yourself Unitarian and not Christian?

calvin......Unitarianism is the belief that God exists in one person--not three. It is a denial of the doctrine of the Trinity as well as the full divinity of Jesus. Therefore, it is not Christian. There are several groups that fall under this umbrella: Jehovah's Witnesses, Christadelphianism, The Way International, etc. Another term for this type of belief is called monarchianism.

In the context of universalism, the Unitarianism discussed here is that belief that denies the Trinity, the deity of Christ, the personhood of the Holy Spirit, eternal punishment, and the vicarious atonement of Jesus. Unitarian universalists use many biblical concepts and terms but with non-biblical meanings. Unitarianism is not Christian.

There is a another group known as the Unitarian Universalist Association. This denomination which was formed in 1961 in the United States when the American Unitarian Association and the Universalist Church of America merged.

Beliefs generally held by Unitarian Universalists are:
  • Salvation is by grace through faith and not by works in any way.
  • Jesus became the Son of God at His baptism.
  • The Holy Spirit is not a person, does not have a will, etc.
  • There now is and will be rewards and punishments according to one's actions, but this does not consist of the traditional doctrine of hell.
  • Human reason and experience should be the final authority in determining spiritual truth.
This last point, "Human reason and experience should be the final authority in determining spiritual truth" is perhaps the most revealing of the character of Unitarian Universalists. Instead of God and his word being the final authority on truth and error or right and wrong, Unitarian Universalists subject God and his word to their understanding, feeling, and reason.

I did not know who was aware of these beliefs but one of the things I have been active in over the years is "Cults", so I thought I would place this information not to argue with my friend here but just so that we are all on the same page of understanding.
 
I believe that Jesus proved that He could not be tempted in the context of James 1:13 either. He was tempted, but He did not yield yield to that temptation.
Luke 4:12 And Jesus answering said unto him, It is said, Thou shalt not tempt the Lord thy God.Kjv. It is important to note Jesus' reply to Satan. He did not say you can not possibly temp the Lord thy God, He just reminded Satan of the commandment. I believe it is most important to understand this when thinking of taking on a unitarian approach to the Godhead
Col 2:9. For in him dwelleth all the fulness of the Godhead bodily. Kjv
This is plain enough that Jesus and the Father and the Holy Spirit are one.
 
I believe that Jesus proved that He could not be tempted in the context of James 1:13 either. He was tempted, but He did not yield yield to that temptation.
Luke 4:12 And Jesus answering said unto him, It is said, Thou shalt not tempt the Lord thy God.Kjv. It is important to note Jesus' reply to Satan. He did not say you can not possibly temp the Lord thy God, He just reminded Satan of the commandment. I believe it is most important to understand this when thinking of taking on a unitarian approach to the Godhead
Col 2:9. For in him dwelleth all the fulness of the Godhead bodily. Kjv
This is plain enough that Jesus and the Father and the Holy Spirit are one.

Agreed!
 
calvin......Unitarianism is the belief that God exists in one person--not three. It is a denial of the doctrine of the Trinity as well as the full divinity of Jesus. Therefore, it is not Christian. There are several groups that fall under this umbrella: Jehovah's Witnesses, Christadelphianism, The Way International, etc. Another term for this type of belief is called monarchianism.

In the context of universalism, the Unitarianism discussed here is that belief that denies the Trinity, the deity of Christ, the personhood of the Holy Spirit, eternal punishment, and the vicarious atonement of Jesus. Unitarian universalists use many biblical concepts and terms but with non-biblical meanings. Unitarianism is not Christian.

There is a another group known as the Unitarian Universalist Association. This denomination which was formed in 1961 in the United States when the American Unitarian Association and the Universalist Church of America merged.

Beliefs generally held by Unitarian Universalists are:
  • Salvation is by grace through faith and not by works in any way.
  • Jesus became the Son of God at His baptism.
  • The Holy Spirit is not a person, does not have a will, etc.
  • There now is and will be rewards and punishments according to one's actions, but this does not consist of the traditional doctrine of hell.
  • Human reason and experience should be the final authority in determining spiritual truth.
This last point, "Human reason and experience should be the final authority in determining spiritual truth" is perhaps the most revealing of the character of Unitarian Universalists. Instead of God and his word being the final authority on truth and error or right and wrong, Unitarian Universalists subject God and his word to their understanding, feeling, and reason.

I did not know who was aware of these beliefs but one of the things I have been active in over the years is "Cults", so I thought I would place this information not to argue with my friend here but just so that we are all on the same page of understanding.
You are quite right major. As I stated at the outset, I needed to do a bit of research because I was not sure of my facts until I did a refresher.
 
"Human reason and experience should be the final authority in determining spiritual truth."
As Major pointed out, this one is horrendously problematic.

"human reason" - this assumes that the human in question is both intelligent and reasonable, a generally bad assumption.
"human reason" is why we have billions of pagans, thousands of cults, and darned few people who actually know what they are talking about.
"experience" is misleading, rarely can the subject objectively analyze the experience and we bump into the sentences above
 
Jesus himself said he existed before the world was, and had the Father's own glory (which, as mentioned before, God does not give to another).

And now, O Father, glorify thou me with thine own self with the glory which I had with thee before the world was. (John 17:5)​

Jesus' original nature is not human, as everything was created through him (Hebrews 1:2).

Jesus' original nature is not angelic, as he is better than the angels, not just the best of the angels (Hebrews 1:4-12).

Jesus is not another god, because there is only one God (Isaiah 43:10).

If Jesus is not the God in human flesh, then what is he?

Actually, Hebrews 1:1-2 shows Jesus' deity.

God, who at sundry times and in divers manners spake in time past unto the fathers by the prophets, Hath in these last days spoken unto us by [his] Son, whom he hath appointed heir of all things, by whom also he made the worlds; (Hebrews 1:1-2)​

The writer is contrasting Jesus with the prophets. God had previously spoke through human prophets, but now he has spoken to us "by Son." Notice the pronoun "his" is not in the original language. (It's shown in italics in printed Bibles.) It was added to make the English sound better, but it subtly obscures the meaning. What the writer is saying is that God has spoken to us directly in the form of a Son, not indirectly through human prophets.
 
Well for the Council of Nicea it was only a votes that placed Jesus as the God and people pretty always say that this Council played such a big part in the decision making process. I wish I knew what the total results for the vote was but I heard that it was relatively close! So man voted for it but what does scripture say is my point. I think if you show me scripture then we can talke. You should see my responses to Zoe because I back it up that way. Plus why would I trust a voting Council that voted on when to celebrate a pagan holiday Easter??

With all due respect, do you see the irony in what you said? You mentioned that you're not sure you can trust the council on the canonization of the Scriptures so instead you'll turn to the Scriptures. Why would you even turn to the Scriptures if you can't trust the council that canonized it? If I didn't trust the council, then I shouldn't trust the Scriptures as being accurate either. You are using Scriptures to support your position, but you can't justify why you should use the Scriptures to support your position.

Either one trusts that the Holy Spirit guided their decision (which wasn't close--there was disagreement, but overall most came to a sound conclusion) or one doesn't trust that the Holy Spirit accurately guided them and so the Bible isn't valid to follow.

The subject of Easter being a pagan holiday is another subject (one which we've discussed many times in here). But even if that were the case, that would still be a logical fallacy.
 
James 1:13 Let no man say when he is tempted, I am tempted of God: for God cannot be tempted with evil, neither tempteth he any man:

of course, the Person I think you are referring to is the Father.

Luke 4:2 Being forty days tempted of the devil. And in those days he did eat nothing: and when they were ended, he afterward hungered.

of course, the Person I think you are referring to is the Son.

Yes indeed, truly distinct one from another.
 
Status
Not open for further replies.
Back
Top