Pure Monotheism

                                       
Pure Monotheism

  

The Greatest Christian scholars get tongue tied when they try to explain the Trinity. The honest ones admit "it cannot be explained". The problem however is not one of language, but Mathematics. In Mathematics three can never be one. In the Fourth Century the Greek church theologians declared "three is one". Once you make that illogical leap, you can only go down hill from there. There were some early Christians, like the Ebionites, who opposed the Trinity teaching, but they were executed and all their writings were burned. 

                                                          

The Setting

  For three hundred years, Christianity spread without much controversy, but by the Fourth Century, Christians were divided over the divinity of Jesus. The two largest groups were the Arians and the Athanasians. The Arians were saying both the Father and the son were God, but the son was a lesser god. The Athanasians held that both the father and the son were equally God and one, not two.

                                                                  



                                                    Constantine and the Empress Give Gifts to Yahshauh (Constantine has a money bag)

 The First Council of Nicea, A.D. 325

  The First Athanasian Council was called by the Pagan Roman General Constantine . It was called to silence the followers of Bishop Arius, who said Jesus was a lesser god, and thus by implication that meant there were two gods. This council said little about the Holy Spirit, but did declare that Jesus and the Father were one and co-equal and that Jesus was fully human and fully divine. That's like saying this cat is fully a cat and also fully a fish. The Arians were excommunicated.

There was another movement at that time called Macedonianism. The Macedonian Christians denied the full personality and divinity of the Holy Spirit. According to them, the Holy Spirit was a non-personal power created by the Son and was thus subordinate to the Father and the Son.

The First Council of Constantinople, A.D. 381

  This Athanasian council was called by the Roman Emperor Theodosius I. It was called to silence the Macedonians (called Spirit Opponents). This was the Council where the Athanasians officially defined the doctrine of the Trinity: God is one God and God is three persons --- God the Father, God the Son, and God the Holy Spirit, "three in one".  Anyone who denied this was to be killed for teaching heresy. Many Christians in the Eastern nations disagreed with the Athanasians and said Jesus was a normal man, and the Word of God (the logos) dwelled in him as in a temple. This teaching was called Nestorianism

The Council of Ephesus, A.D. 431

  This third Athanasian council was called by the Byzantine Emperor Theodosius II ( grandson of Theodosius I). It was called to refute Nestorianism. Nestorianism also taught that Mary, Jesus' mother, was merely the mother of the Messiah, not the Mother of God.

This third Athanasian Council met at Ephesus and declared that Jesus is completely God and completely man and that Mary is rightly called the Mother of God. Kill anyone who disagrees.

By the End of the beginnng of the Fifth Century the Athansian Christians had executed all dissenters, and Trinitarianism became the offical creed of Christianity in the West.

Today most Christians East and West say you cannot be a Christian if you deny the Trinity.

The problem is no one can rationally explain it and so this has led to a splintering and the deaths of many so called heretics.

The Irreparable Greek Roman Split


In 1054 A.D. the two largest bodies of Christians in the West split into two camps over the muddled doctrine of the Trinity. The argument was whether the Holy Spirit proceeded from the Father or from the Father and the Son. In the 12th Century the Roman Catholics attacked and destroyed Greek Constantinople, the center of the breakaway Orthodox church. They have remained divided over the Trinity for nearly a thousand years.

The 16th Century Partial Reformation


The Roman Catholic church, by use of the sword, had been the guardian of the doctrine of the Trinity for 1600 years and when the Reformation came, a few Protestants who renounced the Trinity,  like the Anabaptist, Adam Pastor, and the Polish Brotherhood (Socinians) were persecuted and many killed.

The major Protestant leaders in the West Luther, John Knox, Menno Simons, Henry VIII, and Calvin while questioning Romish doctrine, did not question the doctrine of the Trinity.

Jean Calvin of Geneva had  Michael Servetus, a Medical Doctor who had written the first correct explanation of the circulation of the blood through the heart, burned at the stake for teaching contrary to the Trinity. Calvin told the executioners to use green wood so Servetus would suffer greatly and die slowly.

Trinitarianism - God is one essence (ousia) existing as three persons (hypostases): Father, Son and Spirit. The "classic" formulation of the doctrine of the Trinity is that Christ is one person (hypostasis) who possesses two natures (physes): divine and human, this is called the hypostatic union. Christ is one because there is in his person (hypostasis) a union of the divine and human natures. The natures remain distinct because the union is on the level of Christ's hypostasis, not his natures (physes). Communicatio idiomatum (exchange of properties): describes how because of Christ's unity of person, the attributes of the divine and human natures can be predicated of each other. Thus we can speak of God being born of Mary or dying on the cross. http://www.evergreen.loyola.edu/~fbauerschmidt/TH246_terms.html


This is the classical definition of the Trinity. But can a woman can give birth to God? Can a mortal give birth to an immortal? Can a cat give birth to a fish? Can an immortal die? Since God is an immortal how can God die?

It should not surprise us that this definition came from the Greeks who were used to thinking like Plato in trinities. The Jesus of their creed is exactly like the ancient Greek idea of demi-gods. The demi-gods were hybrids; both gods and men at the same time for they had human mothers and gods for fathers. The demi-gods could pass between the land of the living and the land of the dead. Its easy to see how the Greek theologians would perceive Jesus to be such a hybrid. The thought that the messiah would be a hybrid or demi-god was and is abhorrent to enlightened Jewish monotheists. Such ideas were associated with Babylon and Egypt, Athens and Rome but not Jerusalem.

 
           If Jesus is God, and God is his Father, is He his Own Father?


Christians say the father's name is Yahveh, the son's name is Jesus, but they do not know the Holy Spirit's name. They say Yahveh, the father, begat Jesus, (however, at the same time, they say Jesus always existed). When they are asked to explain why if Yahveh is the father, the Gospels say the Holy Spirit is the Father? They are stumped.

Mat 1:20 "But while Joseph thought on these things, behold, the angel of the Lord appeared unto him in a dream, saying, Joseph, thou son of David, fear not to take unto thee Mary thy wife; for that which is conceived in her is of the Holy Spirit".



Clearly Mt. 1:20 says that the Holy Spirit is the Father of Jesus. The usual explanation is that the Holy Spirit is part of the one God and thus the one God is the Father of Jesus. But since Jesus, they say, is also part of the one God, then God begat himself. Or rather, Jesus conceived himself with his own mother. 

It would almost sound humorous if so many people hadn't have been exiled, persecuted and killed for laughing at it. 


                            

Pure Mono (one) Theism (God)

Now my Pure Monotheism may be just another ism to add to the list, but it's quite easy to understand.

The Messiah had to be a mortal descended from Adam and Eve, through David.

At the baptism of Jesus, Yah entered him completely, as he would enter a temple. Yah spoke and did miracles through Yahshuah.

Yah is the Father I worship, and Yahshuah is the only Messiah I follow. I respect all the scriptures, but take my rule of conduct exclusively from the words of Yahshuah. He is my one teacher, who is the door to the one Elohah, the Almighty, Eternal, Creator King of all things visible and invisible.


To read a 361 page PDF file on tbis topic go to An online discussion of Pure Monotheism


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