Decepto-Meter

Deceptive Quote & False Dilemma: Trinitarian

Selected quotes mislead reader to wrong conclusion & Give false impression that if intimate details of trinity are not in the Bible that Jesus is a creature.

• The New International Dictionary of New Testament Theology similarly states: "The N[ew] T[estament] does not contain the developed doctrine of the Trinity. 'The Bible lacks the express declaration that the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit are of equal essence' [said Protestant theologian Karl Barth]."
• "Primitive Christianity did not have an explicit doctrine of the Trinity such as was subsequently elaborated in the creeds."-The New International Dictionary of New Testament Theology.

What else does this source say?

1. "Yet the number three assumes peculiar importance indirectly in connection with the concept of the Trinity. There are threefold formulae listing the Persons in such passages as Matt. 28:19; Jn. 14:26; 15:26; 2 Cor. 13:13; 1 Pet. 1:2 (---> God, art. theos NT 8). There seems to be no precursor of this idea in any significant usage of the numerical concept in the OT, nor may it reasonably be connected with the occurrence of triads of deities in ancient Near Eastern paganism." (New International Dictionary of New Testament Theology, Colin Brown, 1932, God, vol 2, Three, p687, C. J. Hemer)
2. "As far as we can establish, the NT church did not reflect on the relationship of the exalted Christ to God the Father as did later church doctrinal teaching. One may perhaps say that there is indeed no developed doctrine of the Trinity in the NT, but that the writers, particularly in the later strata, thought in trinitarian forms." (New International Dictionary of New Testament Theology, Colin Brown, 1932, Lord, vol 2, p 516)

What Anti-trinitarians quote:

Full Text of article

The New International Dictionary of New Testament Theology similarly states: "The N[ew] T[estament] does not contain the developed doctrine of the Trinity. 'The Bible lacks the express declaration that the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit are of equal essence' [said Protestant theologian Karl Barth]." (3 sentences later:) "Primitive Christianity did not have an explicit doctrine of the Trinity such as was subsequently elaborated in the creeds."-The New International Dictionary of New Testament Theology.

"The Trinity. The NT does not contain the developed doctrine of the Trinity. "The Bible lacks the express declaration that the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit are of equal essence and therefore in an equal sense God himself. And the other express declaration is also lacking, that God is God thus and only thus, i.e. as the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit. These two express declarations, which go beyond the witness of the Bible, are the twofold content of the Church doctrine of the Trinity" (Karl Barth, CD, 1, 1, 437). It also lacks such terms as trinity. (Lat. trinitas which was coined by Tertullian, Against Praxeas, 3; 11 ; 12 etc.) and homoousios which featured in the Creed of Nicea (325) to denote that Christ was of the same substance as the Father (cf. J. N. D. Kelly, Early Christian Doctrines, 1968, 113, 233-7). But the NT does contain the fixed, three-part formula of 2 Cor. 13:13 (EVV 14) in which God, the Lord Jesus Christ and the Spirit are mentioned together (cf. I Cor. 12:4 ff.). The Trinity of Father, Son and Holy Spirit occurs only in the baptismal formula in Matt. 28:19. The later addition, I Jn. 5:8 (in Lat. texts from the 6th cent.), contains the triad, the Father, the Word and the Holy Spirit (cf. E. Stauffer, TDNT III 108 f.). An extension of the triadic form in which, however, the important element is "the one God," "the one Lord" and "the one Spirit," appears in Eph. 4:4 ff. Gal. 4:4 ff. does not, strictly speaking, present a formula. It sets out the action of God in salvation history, placing God, Christ and the Holy Spirit in their right relationship: God first sends the Son and then the Spirit of his Son to continue the work of Jesus on earth. On the other hand, God and Christ especially are closely connected in two-part formulae: "one God, the Father ... and one Lord, Jesus Christ" (I Cor. 8:6). "one God ... and one mediator between God and men" (I Tim. 2:5). In this connection Matt. 23:8-10 must also be mentioned, where Jesus draws the disciples' attention to the fact that they have one master (himself) and one God in heaven. In all these statements the two facts, that God and Christ belong together and that they are distinct, are equally stressed, with the precedence in every case due to God, the Father, who stands above Christ. (On the formulae see E. Stauffer, New Testament Theology, 1955, 235-57, J. N. D. Kelly, Early Christian Creeds, 19721, 6-29; V. F. Neufeld, The Earliest Christian Confessions, 1963.) A close relationship exists also between Christ and the Holy ---> Spirit. Thus Paul can say outright that the Lord is the Spirit (2 Cor. 3:17). In John's Gospel the Holy Spirit (the Paraclete, ---> Advocate) appears with "certain independence" (E. Stauffer, TDNT 111 107). But in his work he is bound to the exalted Christ (Jn. 16:14; "He will take what is mine"). Christ and the Holy Spirit are in an interchangeable relationship. But even here there is no strict, dogmatic assertion. Although the Spirit is distinguished from Christ and subordinated to him, it can be said in I Jn. 2:1 that Christ is the Paraclete with the Father. All this underlines the point that primitive Christianity did not have an explicit doctrine of the Trinity such as was subsequently elaborated in the creeds of the early church." (New International Dictionary of New Testament Theology, Brown, Colin, 1932, God, vol 2, p84, J. Schneider)

"A few NT texts raise the question whether the Son of God is also called God. ... Jesus Christ does not usurp the place of God. His oneness with the Father does not mean absolute identity of being." (The New International Dictionary of New Testament Theology, Vol 2)

"A few NT texts raise the question whether the Son of God is also called God." ... "Jn. 20:28 contains the unique affirmation of Thomas addressing the Risen Christ as God: "My Lord and my God [ho kyrios mou kai ho theos mou]." The statement marks the climax of the Gospel. God has become visible for Thomas in the form of Jesus. The climax of Johannine teaching occurs in the confessional formula of I Jn. 5:20 which asserts the full identity of essence of Christ and God: "And we know that the Son of God has come and has given us understanding, to know him who is true; and we are in him who is true, in his Son Jesus Christ. This is the true God and eternal life" (RSV). This gives a lit. reproduction of the Gk. words. An alternative translation is: "This [Christ] is the true one, God and eternal life."" ... "E. Stauffer is doubtless correct when he writes: "The Christology of the NT is carried to its logical conclusion with the thorough-going designation of Christ as theos"" (New International Dictionary of New Testament Theology, Colin Brown, 1932, God, Vol 2, p81, J. Schneider)

"Spirit ... denotes dynamic movement of the air. ... 'Holy Spirit' denotes supernatural POWER. ... This is nowhere more clearly evident than in Acts where the Spirit is presented as an almost tangible FORCE, visible if not in itself, certainly in its affects. ... For the first Christians, the Spirit was most characteristically a divine POWER manifesting itself in inspired utterance. ... The Spirit was evidently experienced as a numinous POWER pervading the early community and giving its early leadership an aura of authority which could not be withstood. (Acts 5.1-10) ... It is important to realize that for Paul too the Spirit is a divine POWER." (The New International Dictionary of New Testament Theology, Vol 3, p 689-701)

"The NT writers can speak of the (human) spirit as though it was a something possessed by the individual; but this does not mean that they envisaged the spirit of man as a divine spark (the real "I") incarcerated in the physical, "the ghost in the machine" (an anthropology more typical of Greek philosophy). This language is more likely to be simply a natural and easy way of speaking about man in his belongingness to the spiritual realm, the power he experiences in him which relates him to the beyond, "the dimension of the beyond in the midst". So Lk. 8:55 (cf. Jdg. 15:19); Rom. 8:16; 1 Cor. 2:11; 5:5; 7:34; 16:18; 2 Cor. 7:1; 1 Thess. 5:23 (cf. Deut. 6:4). Here too there still persists the ancient Hebraic idea of the pneurna (ruah) as the breath of God (2 Thess. 2:8; cf. Jn. 20:22), the breath of life (Rev. 11: 11 13:15). So too death as a giving up the spirit (Matt. 27:50; Lk. 23:46: Acts 7:59) is to be interpreted not so much as the release of the ghost from the machine, but in terms rather of the physical body ceasing to be the embodiment of the whole man. At death man ceases to exist both in the realm of the physical and in the realm of the spiritual and continues existing only in the spiritual; and the physical body, ceasing to be the embodiment of the whole man in the observable world, becomes merely a corpse (Jas. 2:26). ... From this it follows also that the dead person can be thought of simply as a pneuma, as belonging wholly to the spiritual realm (Lk. 24:37, 39; 1 Tim. 3:16: Heb. 12:23; 1 Pet. 3:18 f.; 4:6). It is possible that Paul also thought of man as able. while still in this life, to leave his body temporarily and to project himself through the spiritual realm into the presence of others (I Cor. 5:3; Col. 2:5) or into heaven (2 Cor. 12:2-4. - Paradise)" (New International Dictionary of New Testament Theology, Colin Brown, 1932, Spirit, vol 3, p 694)