Talk:Trinity/Archive 3

message: Could the trinity had been One god (The father) and the son/holy spirit as part of him? The son and holy spirit are not singular gods but unified within the father?
: Depending upon how it is conceived, your idea may go against a basic idea in biblical monotheism, that God is a simple being (that God has no pieces or parts), which is also held by believers in the Trinity.  That departure from Trinitarianism  is suggested by phrases like "part of".
: However, many use language like that without intending to deny the Trinity, and not meaning "part" literally - it's just that these formulas get kind of absurdly difficult to repeat with precision.  It is common for Trinitarians to see the Father as personifying the principle of God's singleness and unity.  This is a principle called "Monarchy".   But orthodox monarchy insists that the Father and the Spirit are unified within the Son, and likewise in the Spirit, just as much as in the Father - when considered as one person.  Whoever has the Spirit, has the Father and the Son fully, not partially.
: Does that help? — Mark (Mkmcconn) ** 00:23, 3 August 2005 (UTC)
thread_title:  Could the Trinity also be? 

message: I wonder if it's worth changing most uses of "substance" in this article to "essence".  First, what is undoubtedly meant by "substance" here is covered in the essence article and it would be nice to keep the terminology more or less consistent. (There's an article Substance (philosophy) but it's a stub, and I don't see that it ought to cover any different ground.) Second, "substance" is somewhat ambiguous since it can also be used to translate "hypostasis" and this may have been a source of confusion historically.  The exception I might suggest to this is where it's being used to translate the Latin substantio from some given quote, although that may lead to some confusion.
But perhaps I'm just being philosophically unsophisticated here.  Any opinions? TCC (talk) (contribs) 21:17, 16 August 2005 (UTC)
replies: text: The Latin word "substantia" has a rather specific meaning in theological discussions of the Trinity from Clement of Alexandria and Tertullian on, so it's best not to try to tamper with the vocabulary now... AnonMoos 15:22, 17 August 2005 (UTC)
replies: text: I would be very surprised to discover that Clement of Alexandria wrote in Latin. Actually, I'm reasonably certain that he didn't, and that substantia was thus not the word he used.  Trinitiarian theology was mostly developed in Greek, and it's in Greek that the dogmatic formulation was decided upon by the Ecumenical Councils.  The word they used was ousia, of which substantia is a translation.  The question ought therefore to be how we should translate ousia, not substantia -- except perhaps, as I admited, where we are translating substantia from writers like Tertullian.  One encounters "essence" at least as often as "substance" as a translation of ousia, perhaps now moreso now than formerly, when translating the Greek Fathers. How do you translate hypostasis into Latin in a way that preserves its meaning and so that it doesn't get confused with ousia?  (I know that persona is often used, but that really doesn't mean the same thing.) TCC (talk) (contribs) 20:44, 17 August 2005 (UTC)
replies: text: Sorry if I used loosely unclear language.  What I meant was more or less that ever since the early 200's A.D., there has been a traditional Latin theological vocabulary (used in both works written in Latin and those translated from Greek into Latin) which has strongly influenced the terminology used in many European languages, so that it's a little late to start tampering with these terms now, after almost 1800 years.  You seem to think that since Greek Ousia is an abstract noun derived from the Greek active participle of "to be" ων and neo-Latin Essentia is an abstract noun which looks like it could be derived from the active participle of the Latin verb meaning "to be" (if such a form existed in the Latin language); and since Greek Hypostasis is a noun which contains two compounded stems with basic meaning UNDER and STAND, while Latin Substantia is a noun which also contains two compounded stems with basic meanings UNDER and STAND -- therefore you conclude that Greek Ousia should be translated by Latin Essentia and Greek Hypostasis by Latin Substantia.  Unfortunately, such morphological/etymological factors are not decisive in determining the actively-used meanings of words -- and Essentia is a late neologism in Latin, which didn't even exist at the time of the early Church Fathers. -- AnonMoos 14:42, 18 August 2005 (UTC)

text: Well, I'm not going to insist on it in the face of strong objections.  But this isn't only "my" conclusion; I present the more common usage in English-language Eastern Orthodox circles. No reference is made at all to "essentia".  "Essence" seems to be preferred precisely to counter the etymological confusion you describe. TCC (talk) (contribs) 20:19, 18 August 2005 (UTC)
thread_title:  Substance/Essence 

message: A recently addition to the External links section appears to have been made by the author of the essay to which it points.  Is it sufficiently worthwhile to retain it, or do we think it inappropriate?  I lean toward the latter myself, just on general principles. At the very least it should be moved from "General" to "Trinitarian" since it's an advocacy piece and clearly belongs there, and I'm going to do that now.  But I'd rather not delete it over-hastily. TCC (talk) (contribs) 01:14, 13 September 2005 (UTC)
thread_title:  Vanity link? 

message: As the page now stands, the quotation from Bishop Marcellus of Ancyra is repeated twice in different parts of the article... AnonMoos 16:30, 27 September 2005 (UTC)
replies: text: I preserved the one under "Dissent", and removed the other. — Mark (Mkmcconn) ** 07:34, 29 September 2005 (UTC)
thread_title: Duplication

message: Unitarian Universalists do not belong in the 'Dissent from the doctrine' category, and here I explain why:  it is true that, historically, the 'Unitarian' part of the Unitarian Universalist amalgam was essentially defined by its rejection of the Trinity.  However, the article does not purport to be talking about previous incarnations of Unitarian Universalism, but about the modern variety.  To quote:
"Many modern groups also teach a nontrinitarian understanding of God. These include..."
It then continues, formerly including Unitarian Universalists as an example.
Unitarian Universalism is creedless, as the Wikipedia article correctly indicates, and as this quote from their own webpage demonstrates:
"The Association declares and affirms its special responsibility, and that of its member societies and organizations, to promote the full participation of persons in all of its and their activities and in the full range of human endeavor without regard to race, color, sex, disability, affectional or sexual orientation, age, or national origin and without requiring adherence to any particular interpretation of religion or to any particular religious belief or creed."
The paragraph above is extracted from:
http://www.uua.org/aboutuua/principles.html
Note that the words in bold were not emphasized in the original text.
The American Unitarian Conference is properly included in the list, as they retain the classical unitarianism rejection of the Trinity.
Chasuk 21 October 2005
: So, are you saying it would be wrong to say "The Unitarian Universalists teach a nontrinitarian understanding of God" because the UU do not teach any understanding of God at all? That's what your statements sound like to me, but I want to be sure I'm not misunderstanding. Wesley 19:00, 31 October 2005 (UTC)
thread_title:  Unitarian Universalists excised from Dissent from the doctrine category: An explanation 

message: Does anyone mind if I change the opening definition to:
The traditional Christian doctrine of the Trinity teaches that God is a single being existing simultaneously as three distinct persons: the Father, the Son (Jesus), and the Holy Spirit. 
I find the current wording awkward and wish to rearrange the deck chairs.
--CTSWyneken 12:07, 26 October 2005 (UTC)
thread_title:  Opening Definition 

message: Dear Friends: please excuse the absence for a bit. This is a buzy time of year in an academic library!
While I appreciate the changes that have been made, I still would like to restore the ancient formula. 
I've done a bit of research and, so far, I find reference to the formula "one God in three Persons" as early as Socrates Scholasticus of Constantinople (early 5th century) So, if I'm correct, this statement is the consensus of the whole church, east and west, through nearly 1600 years. I'm not sure how widely it is catechised in Eastern traditions, but it is thoroughly taught and sung throughout all Western traditions. Each tradition interprets it someone differently, but all confess it as truth. (even those who insist on not having creeds! 8-) ) 
I think it would serve us best not to adjust this formula in the introduction, which may if not actually break one of the few consensuses of the whole faith. We can clarify the different ways that folk have unpacked the doctrine and the way others have received those presentations of the one truth.
Having done a bit of reading (emphasis on the bit) I'm having less trouble with the "community" concept. Still, my initial reaction is evidence of why we should stay with "God in three persons."
--CTSWyneken 11:40, 8 November 2005 (UTC)
thread_title:  Back to the Introduction... 

message: When I was reading through the article, the contents of "Historical view and usage" threw me for a loop because most of the section discussed the nature/ontology of the Trinity in the modern (unqualified) sense. The bit on history seemed like a good lead in, so I changed the second level heading to "Ontology of the Trinity" and made "Historical view and usage" the first subsection.
The bit on "Christian Life and the Blessed Trinity" also seemed out of place as that section discusses the implications or application of the concept of Trinity, and not the nature of Trinity itself. So, I moved that to be a second level section after the section on dissent, figuring that it would read best as "point/counterpoint" and then onto a new subject.
Speaking of sections, it seems that the "Historical view and usage" section should be merged with the "Historical development" section. I thought I'd leave this change to the more involved authors, though.
WikipediaAdventures 21:46, 2 December 2005 (UTC)
thread_title: A few section changes

message: He's the one trying to get "nontrinitarianism" deleted because he claims can't find any significant number of Google hits for it which don't come from Wikipedia itself. AnonMoos 04:31, 7 December 2005 (UTC)
replies: text:  The reason you didn't find it is that we were using it as a sort of umbrella term to describe several distinct groups that have in common their repudiation of the Trinity. Wesley 06:33, 14 December 2005 (UTC)
replies: text: Or, we could just say I couldn't find it in any dictionary because it's a neologism. KarmaKameleon 17:51, 14 December 2005 (UTC)
thread_title: KarmaKameleon

message: I agree with Csernica -- those late medieval and 16th century three-faces-on-one-head depictions of the Trinity do not date back to early Christianity, have been repudiated by the modern Catholic Church, and were always intensely disliked by Protestants.  It's extremely doubtful whether that image belongs in this article at all, and certainly not at the very top of the page. AnonMoos 19:37, 9 December 2005 (UTC)
thread_title: [[:Image:Trinity faces.jpg]]

message: Dear 208.254.174.148, it's highly dubious whether the Hebrew word "Elohim" has the meaning "mighty lords", and you seemed to be ignorant of the fact that "Elohim" takes singular verb agreement in Genesis 1:26 (Wayyomer), as it does in most places in the Hebrew Bible. AnonMoos 03:53, 14 December 2005 (UTC)
thread_title: IP 208.254.174.148 edits

message: :"the unifying qualities of principal between Christ and his followers as between the father and the son."
I have no idea... AnonMoos 14:52, 14 December 2005 (UTC)
thread_title: What is this phrase supposed to mean?

message: "Christian catholic" is redundant, in my opinion. KarmaKameleon 18:51, 21 December 2005 (UTC)
replies: text: Would "Catholic Christian" be better, as "Methodist Christian" or "Presbyterian Christian", etc.? Merry Christmas...KHM03 00:06, 22 December 2005 (UTC)
thread_title:  Christian catholic is redundant