Hey Brother Paul: I really liked your expose' but why the warning? Were you reviled in the past? Just Curious. Thanks, Bro! Grace & Peace, John

Hi John,



Keep reading and you will see why, I have been reviled and even banned from a few sites over this topic. [However, not at the Tentmaker]. This topic exposes the Trinity as false and attempts to explain God! So you can see the need for a warning!

Paul

Hi Brother Paul: I did read your whole article but I have always thought that the Trinity was a patently strange idea, so I guess I missed the Heresy and thereby the need for the warning. Anyway, thanks for clearing that up. Again, an excellent expose’!

Grace & Peace, John

My experience of Father's Love has led me to a different view of scripture. That's why I stick with Athanasius statement that there was never a time when the Father was alone, existing without his Son, and was just God and not Father. But you already know that, isn't it?

Hi Paul,

Just wanted to say that I'm gleaning so much from this study. For 20 years I've had confusion as to who God is, who Jesus is, are they the same, different, if so how are they different -- so many questions. Although I still have much to study and pray over, these writings are helping to make sense on several different levels for me so thank you!

Hi Floyd,



That’s cool. We see what God wants us to see. It’s like a blue glass sitting in the middle of a room. I see blue and everyone else tells me it’s red. For a short time I tried to pretend I saw red, but no matter how hard I tried I knew it was blue. So I guess we see what God wants us to see. Maybe that’s why we are not to judge one another, as “All is from God.”


Hi Dawn,



This is exactly how I felt when I read the material for the first time. It was like the pieces of the puzzle fell into place. Remember, it’s still research in progress, as I add to it from other sources I read. It’s not perfect but it’s sure is loaded!

Paul

I just wanted to thank you for the time and effort it took to post the information here. I am taking my time reading through it all, but it's definitely new to me. I don't mind having my beliefs challenged at all. I LOVE discussion. So thanks.

I will keep reading. Currently I've only made it through "Agency" but it made sense.

Wow Paul, this is great stuff. So many "new" things I've never "seen" before. I moved away from Trinitarian beliefs a couple years ago but I have a friend who is "Jesus Only" (or Oneness/UPC), i.e., Jesus is God, was pre-existent and in the incarnation, He had two natures - one deity, one flesh/human.

His interpretation created a lot of unknowns for me also (maybe not as much as the trinity doctrine), so its neat to be able to meditate on all this and I know the Father is helping me, little by little, to know Him more and to know His son.

So thank you for playing a part in His plan by posting all this! One of these days I may have some questions but for now I'm just digesting it all! :)

Must of the logic is set up through as strawman arguments. Establishing what is supposably a 'common' belief among believers and then demolishing this presupposition is not my idea of good workmanship. As with the previous article, there still remains large holes in your conclusion and much of the conclusions which you present as logically sound and common sense, do have different explainations. Such as the idea that since Jesus is the Son of God, and therefore God, and has a God, that there is two Gods. The very nature of God, makes the conclusion irrelevant, since God is God and nothing is impossible for Him, since Jesus Christ is the very same God manifest in the flesh as the Father God who is in Heaven.

Hi Craig, like I said to Floyd,

"That’s cool. We see what God wants us to see. It’s like a blue glass sitting in the middle of a room. I see blue and everyone else tells me it’s red. For a short time I tried to pretend I saw red, but no matter how hard I tried I knew it was blue. So I guess we see what God wants us to see. Maybe that’s why we are not to judge one another, as “All is from God.”"

There are a few of here, who really do see it differently! This is in no way a discredit to you or others who see the way you do! If you see any problems in the interpretation, please share.

Paul

How true that is! I just cant take things in unless it gets "quickened" or God shows me it... We can only see what we see

Even though I might be in the minority here, I have to agree with this. However, since I personaly dislike the term 'Trinity' myself I am not getting dogmatic about it. In the last few months however my experience of Father's Love has led me to a deeper study of the subject, which has convinced me more than ever of the triune Nature of God. Revelation on this has immensly increased in the last few weeks and I can't imagine ever going back to Unitarian thinking, even though I held to it for quite some time in my early days.

I also dislike the term Trinity because it is expressed so wrongly by many. I attribute this confusion to many who thought they understood to know what it means and then passed it down to others who pass it down to others until the great game of "Telephone" ends up changing the definitions and we actually do have many understandings of the "Trinity" and some of those definitions that many who claim 'non-Trinitarian' are so because of these faulty definitions.

I know it shouldn't take a rocket scientist to know the details of God, but at the same time there has been many ignorant people who do not know the Spirit who have complicated what should be simple concepts (Read my new reply to LoT in : WHO IS THE GOD/SPIRIT THAT REQUIRES BLOOD? to find out why I believe actually happens). As a result, I cannot blame people for rejecting the word 'Trinity' or the concept of 'Trinity' because in reality I believe many who call themselves 'Trinitarian' do not really know the concept themselves.

Example: The simple concept: There is One God: The Father, Son and Holy Spirit. The definitions of personhood and person changing to mean an individual has befuddled the classic definition of the three persons of One God, to mean three gods as One God; yet Trinitarians who hold this definition of personhood or person are in denial their belief is contradictory! If they hold to that definition, then they do believe in three Gods and as a result are rightly to be corrected.

At the same time, I find most "Non-Trinitarians" and "Anti-Trinitarians" reject Jesus as being God; not saying all do this, but the deity of Christ cannot be separated from Jesus; they are one and the same. There is no 'Christ' spirit, there is only Christ, who is the Man, Jesus and the best way to befuddle 'Non-Trinitarians' and 'Anti-Trinitarians' who deny Christ and Jesus are one and the same and separate Christ as being 'the spirit of God' in all of us is:

Romans 8:11 And if the Spirit of him who raised Jesus from the dead is living in you, he who raised Christ from the dead will also give life to your mortal bodies through his Spirit, who lives in you.

How confusing for them.

My opinion is always up for debate!

Yes, it can get confusing! This is why we need a Hebraic understanding of our scriptures. Look here as Jesus tells us what the greatest commandment is, and how important it is to know and understand!


Mar 12:28 And one of the scribes came up and heard them disputing with one another, and seeing that he answered them well, asked him, "Which commandment is the most important of all?" 29 Jesus answered, "The most important is, 'Hear, O Israel: The Lord our God, the Lord is one.



Jesus makes it clear the one Lord is Adonai (Yahweh). Not Himself (adoni).

Paul

There is one God (the Father) and there is His Son, Jesus and the Holy Spirit is Gods Spirit.

When Pauls says there is One God, the Father, and One Lord, the Son, He is obviousley including Christ into the 'Shema'. Every thing produces after its own kind, so if the Father is God, then the Son must be God as well. The problem comes about when we try to bring this down into our four dimensional understanding of time and space.

For me its not so much about the 'Trinity' but about the Incarnation, which I simply can't deny because then I have to deny a huge amount of other biblical revelation that is connected to it. So even though I value other peoples view on this, Unitarianism created problems for me that can't be dissolved under this paradigm.

I also want to add that in my experience Unitarians are very often far more dogmatic about their views than 'Trinitarians', even though it is very often presented the other way around.

Then we are God?

At first I didn't get your question, but then it dawned on me what you mean. Our sonship has its origin in the Eternal Sonship of the Only Begotten One. Man was made in God's Image- this Image is Christ. He is the Blueprint and all things were made in Him.

When man fell he fell short of the Glory (Nature) of God and became blind to the Father's Heart and true Nature, while through the devils deception he developed a mythological 'god' in his carnal mind (that's the essence of sin, which is called the offense of the world/cosmos.) bringing forth works of lawlessness (another term for sin, which is called failure or missing the mark in the greek.)

Man was absolutley blind to the Father, worshiping all kinds of idols. Only One Who lived in the fellowship with Father could bring the Truth about Him to us. All the prophets, angels and so on could not do it, for whatever message they brought mankind twisted and perverted it. That's why the Incarnation was necessary.

The Son entered our falleneness, refusing to believe in our mytholoical deity, holding on to His knowledge of the Father's Heart, holding on to it even unto death. And when He rose He raised all humaity back into its original home- Father's Heart. When Christ returned in the power of Holy Spirit He came to take us where He is , in the Father, Who is our Home.

This wouldn't have been possible if Jesus was only a man like us, but is actually the whole point of Him coming in the flesh (our darkness), sharing His knowldedge of Abba's Heart with us right in our mess.

We could post scriptures without end on this topic and I could post a whole book of scriptures that show that even in the OT there was a understanding of the Eternal Nature of the Son. But its not my point to convince anyone, this is after all simply a comment on Pieracs article and we have debated this to quite some lenght before.

Even though I appreciate the hard work he has put into this work, I still have to maintain that it presents strawmen arguments and half-truths that are nothing new to me- and I say this with all love and understanding. Each one of us has his own understanding of what certain scriptures mean and I want to respect it, that's why I don't think its helpful to post scriputres to each other to prove ouor point.

In the end its all about Father's Love, and I have come to believe that Father is not a title, but the essential Being of God. Which in my opinion means He must have always have a Son. In other words there was never a time when He was just God, but He was always Father. I know I might get some flak for this but this is what has been revealed to me.


Here are some really good articles by John Gavazzonie about the realtionship of our sonship to Christ's. He says some things far better than me:

The Eternal Son(s) 1

The Eternal Son(s) 2

The Eternal Son(s) 3

Jesus always was and still is a man as per Paul’s understanding!

1Ti 2:5 For there is one God, and one mediator also between God and men, the man Christ Jesus,

Yes, the mediator between Man and God is Jesus the man! Paul wrote this well after Jesus ascended to the Father

Gal 3:20 Now a mediator is not for one party only; whereas God is only one.

Yes, a mediator is for two parties, so can not “Be” both parties!

Would you accept a mediator from a credit card company who owns the credit card company? No indeed! So neither does God expect you to accept as much from Him! God gave us a human son to represent us! A son who learn obedience thru suffering just like us!

Heb 5:8 Although He was a Son, He learned obedience from the things which He suffered.

Now why would God need to learn obedience! However, a human Son born of the Holy Spirit would be a totally different story. Yes, indeed there is much trouble in Trinity land!

Paul

First of all we need to know what a mediator is in the biblical sense not in a modern sense. The concept of a mediator has to do with the concept of covenant in scripture.

Man being blind to Father's Heart could not enter into relationship with Him. Thus God became a Man, entering into covenant with Himself and all humanity with Him in the process.

That's Paul's argument in Galatians, where he compares the covenant of Moses with the covenant of Christ. First one is between Father and Israel, which later one couldn't keep. The new covenant is between Father and Christ.

What the first Adam (Man) couldn't do, the Second Adam (Man) did.

No one denies that Christ was ever a man. That's the whole point of the Incarnation. In His suffering He refused to believe the religion of our fallen mind, holding on to His knowledge of Father's Heart, Who's Glory (Nature) He shared in before the foundation of the world (cosmos).

That's the way He learned obedience (being convinced in the greek), thus converting our fallen human mind. Right now He is sharing His knowledge of Father's Heart in His High Priestly ministry with every human being on both sides of the grave.

Its just as wrong to deny the full humanity of Christ as to deny His full Deity. That's why it is useless to post scriptures that prove His Humanity, because true christian faith will always aknowledge that Christ has come in the flesh.

That's why I can't deny the Incarnation, for we need to ask ourselves why it needed to be a Man that is the mediator between Father and man. Well, I think I gave the answer above.

Here's a good writing on the concept of mediaton:

"A Mediator" By Jonathan Mitchell

I had a whole reply and hit the post button and wallah it all went into the bottomless pit again

Well the way I see the whole trinity doctrine whether it was necessary or not due to sects of the Gnostic's - whatever - IMO the trinity doctrine made Jesus and the Father distant once again and in essence undid the teachings of Jesus about the Father. Let me explain.

If one does a search of Son and Father in esword or Jesus and Father we see a pattern in that it appears that most folk saw Jesus as THE SON and not God - here and there there may be inferences that Jesus was on a par with the Father yet in all His teachings, He deferred to the Father. Two instances of I AM by Jesus doth not a God make IMO.

For me whether you adhere to a trinity or not is irrelevant so long as the ultimate glory lies with the Father and not Jesus.

What folk tend to ignore or should I say that Christ means Messiah and my own rendition of what Christ means is; "the revelation of the Father's Heart" and no you will not find that in text books or in the bible. The words Jesus and Christ are NOT synonymous as Jesus was Joshua Ben Adam (earthly name) and the Christ (in Him) was the revelation/relationship He had with the Father. I have shared before in that we claim to be "in Christ", "Christ in us" or being the "body of Christ" corporately. In the John 7 study you will see more in detail where I am coming from - I suggest there that - corporately - we are the messiah (small m) and also that we are the Christ to come that was inferred by the folk back then. Jesus Himself did say we shall do mightier works than He did albeit empowered by The Holy Spirit. Now this may seem just toooo radical to accept but all I ask is think about it. I am not taking away anything from who Jesus was/is. When we follow in His word aka His teachings we become "like" Him and thus through the gifts of the HS are able to do stuff like even raising the dead - again - not that it is anything special in us.

In a way Jesus' teaching epitomised the body concept in that each of us has a special gifting and once joined corporately, we become a multifunctional tool in His hands. Thus as insignificant that someone may feel they are; less honorable parts they too serve a function in the Body of Christ.

Well what I see is that what Jesus was empowered with is now available to all believers and being filled with the HS, if it is the desire for a healing to take place - it will - it really has nothing to do with our faith as we remain but channels though which He works.

I kinda like the hosepipe analogy - out of the spout comes water and the inside of the hosepipe is also wet.

Pro 11:25 The soul who gives freely shall be made fat; and he who waters shall also be watered himself

This I believe is more for our own benefit than for the recipient of whatever miracle is taking place. If you can grasp this - good - if not maybe you need to wait on the Lord.

So what has this to do with the trinity? Well like I said earlier, the doctrine made more of a separation than showing us that we too can do what Jesus said we SHALL do. In essence, Jesus being the WAY was a method of achieving this - doing what He did, understanding what He understood about the Father. When we focus only on Jesus we do not see beyond what He specifically tried to point to and that was the Father - THE Goal, THE destination.

Now when we take a triune perspective and then try disseminate what that means - at best it gets very fuzzy and one thing I have learned in this walk of mine there is a principle that works:

First the natural and then the Spiritual.

The spiritual truths and methods can clearly be seen in the natural so even when we do say the natural does not or cannot understand, that is true yet that still remains the starting point. The Spiritual is just so much deeper yet it will NOT contradict the natural or that which we can perceive with our senses.

I have seen these debates and the one gets into id the HS from Jesus or God or both or neither. IMO the HS comes from the Father and NOT Jesus. Jesus was filled with the HS so it was something He received from above/the Father. Even today I believe that remains true for all of us.

When I had my epiphany, I sensed two not three. It was the Father and Jesus and follows:

Joh 14:23 Jesus answered and said to him, If a man loves Me, he will keep My Word. And My Father will love him, and We will come to him and make Our abode with him.

That is what I experienced.

So what about the HS then?

Well IMO that could be just from the Father - the Goal remember or jointly from the Father and the Son. We do seem to have evidence that it may be and either/or OR both.

I think where the problem comes in is "let us make man in OUR image.." and thus we find that we talk of pre-existence et al. Now I tend to think along the lines that in time we need to or perceive separateness yet in a timeless realm we possibly pre-existed and just do not remember - whatever. Could God have been talking to more than just Jesus at the time? Is the plurality of God not to cater for both man and woman? If we are created in His image then what about the lady-folk? Are they not too created in His (Her?) image?

With Jesus being a Son one could toy with the idea that God has a "wife" Is His creation not perhaps something He does in conjunction with a "female" counterpart/identity? (Dang I wish the other post did not crash - this is going deeper than what I did this morning.)

OK these are speculations dealing with the Genesis account but somehow I have seen the ladies having a purpose and calling we men can never have and that is more than just bringing babies into the world. now think about that for awhile one ovum every 28 days verses how many billion sperm and in a life-time of maturity, a tangible countable number of ovum's released but us men folk - untold numbers - kinda gives the "her seed" a whole new meaning does it not?

Sorry I am rambling now but this is what happens when I get into this type of discussion - I touch on many aspects.

Back on topic.

Well for me and how I see the deity of Jesus, irrespective of whether He was immaculately conceived or not, His teachings are what stand out for me. His resurrection is profound and in that we have our hope. I guess the little bit of the rebel I see in Jesus dwells in me too. He really did upset the religious applecart did He not.

Who do I pray to?

The Father, in the name of Jesus sooo I guess I see Him more as a Big Brother than someone equal to the Father.

Blessings (before I hijack this thread )

Interesting, I see it exactley the other way around. The 'Trinity' means for me that Father came in His Son right into the mess of our humanity, while Unitarianism teaches He was merely an example to follow. If I don't believe that Jesus came to bring the Father's Love right into my mess, but merely talked about and showed forth a distand Deity, now that makes Father distand for me.

Also if we deny the Eternal Nature of the Son, than we also must admit that there was a time when God was not Father, but only God. Also, creation takes on a different meaning. In Unitarianism we have a Deity that creates because there is nothing else around but Him. In the 'trinitarian' understanding Father, Son and Spirit live in an Eternal Relationship of Love and Selflessness, completley 'Other' focused. Creation than is the outflowing of this Eternal Dance of Love.

In other words this issue also influences how we see creation. The Unitarian God is only interested in His Glory. He created out of loneliness so to speak. Father, Son and Spirit don't need anyone. The whole creation is an act of Love. In fact I think it was born out the Eternal Truth that the Lamb was slain before the foundation of the cosmos, right there in the Father's Heart- strangley all the christian mystics of old testify of this.

One thing I can only repeat is that people have a idea about what 'Trinity' means which is not compatible with what the early church taught. There are for example no three gods, there is only One God. Funny enough whenever Unitarians insist on that Jesus is not literaly God, they claim that Jesus is a god but not the God, thus actualy saying that there is more than one God. I simply can't understand why this is never seen.

Also its wrong to say that 'Trinitarians' worship the 'Trinity' not the Father, when in fact Unitarians worship simply God, Who became a Father at some point in history in their understanding. In fact, in the 'trinitarian' understanding on partakes of the Son's worship of the Father. Not we are performing for His Glory, but we partake of the Familiy relationship within the Deity, joining the Great Dance.

Here some quote of John of Damascus who extensively wrote on this. Note the underlined sentences:

For the Godhead is not compound but in three perfect subsistences, one perfect indivisible and uncompound God. And when I think of the relation of the three subsistences to each other, I perceive that the Father is super-essential Sun, source of goodness, fathomless sea of essence, reason, wisdom, power, light, divinity: the generating and productive source of good hidden in it. He Himself then is mind, the depth of reason, begetter of the Word, and through the Word the Producer of the revealing Spirit.

And to put it shortly, the Father has no reason, wisdom, power, will, save the Son Who is the only power of the Father the immediate cause of the creation of the universe: as perfect subsistence begotten of perfect subsistence in a manner known to Himself, Who is and is named the Son. And the Holy Spirit is the power of the Father revealing the hidden mysteries of His Divinity, proceeding from the Father through the Son in a manner known to Himself, but different from that of generation.

Wherefore the Holy Spirit is the perfecter of the creation of the universe. All the terms, then, that are appropriate to the Father, as cause, source, begetter, are to be ascribed to the Father alone: while those that are appropriate to the caused, begotten Son, Word, immediate power, will, wisdom, are to be ascribed to the Son: and those that are appropriate to the caused, processional, manifesting, perfecting power, are to be ascribed to the Holy Spirit.

The Father is the source and cause of the Son and the Holy Spirit: Father of the Son alone and producer of the Holy Spirit.

The Son is Son, Word, Wisdom, Power, Image, Effulgence, Impress of the Father and derived from the Father.

But the Holy Spirit is not the Son of the Father but the Spirit of the Father as proceeding from the Father. For there is no impulse without Spirit. And we speak also of the Spirit of the Son, not as through proceeding from Him, but as proceeding through Him from the Father. For the Father alone is cause.

It has always been about the Father and it always will. I also knew that right from the beginning of my walk and relearned it again about 10 years ago. No true 'trinitarian' would ever deny that. The problem is that people never study this our for themselves, so I actually appreciate it when people think outside of the box, questioning their traditions.

The 'Trinity' does not contradict nature either when seen in the right perspective. That's what I have been trying to convey all along.

Of course there is a female part of God. This is testified all about in the scriptures (more on this later.) In fact, the Oneness of Father and Son is the same oneness that husband and wife share (they become one flesh) or the believers oneness with Christ and thus with Father (one in spirit)- they are One God.

I believe we will be better off when we drop the term 'Trinity', and see Deity as Family or Community instead, but we will miss out on the true understanding of Father's Eternal Love when we deny the Incarnatin of the Son, Who incarated the Father's Love and Heart. And this is what all the teachings of Christ are all about,

Here's a good article by John Gavazzonie on this subject, that includes the Motherhood of God:

The Increase of God
John R Gavazzoni
Thousand Oaks, CA

I believe that we can be true to the Deity of the Father, Son and Holy Spirit and yet not be bound conceptually to the classical model of the trinity. I believe we should be free to challenge that theological premise and, indeed, ought to. I am not stridently anti-trinitarian. In fact, I sincerely admire the attempt----operative word, "attempt"--- on the part of the early church fathers to explain the oneness of God while maintaining the plurality and complexity within God, yet properly distancing themselves from pagan polytheism.

I really do not fit in either the trinity camp or the oneness (Jesus only) camp, for I find that trinitarianism, per se, falls short of explaining the nature of God's internal relationship, and the over-reaction, on the part of dear oneness brethren to trinitarian doctrine, very unsatisfying. God is One, to be sure, but that Oneness clearly includes an internal, relational dimension. Deity relates to Itself, and does so with a co-gender, paternal and filial delight. There clearly, and most certainly, is the oneness factor of God, and yet also, the "and" factor. Jesus said, "I AND the Father are one." As I've said on a number of occasions, "what is it about "and" that you don't understand?

How should our concept of God be structured? I am struck by a sense of artificiality when God is explained as one God in three Persons, and three Persons united by and sharing one divine substance, or essence. It lacks what is implied by the truth that Deity has a Son, not a Son in name only, but a unique, only-single-generated Son.

It does not address adequately, at all, the implicit impregnation, conception and birthing that is intrinsic to God having a Son, and the underlying divine romance that constitutes God's relational disposition, which can be traced as a golden thread from the opening chapters of Genesis where Deity images itself in a man and woman in the Garden of Eden (delight), to Revelation, where the garden has become a community adorned as a bride for her husband.

So allow me, if you dare, to take a fresh approach to how we conceive of the vitality and structure of Deity. The following will obviously have to do with what is called, "Systematic Theology," (though I prefer, "Cohesive Theology.") and not an exercise in biblical exposition. It is what I have to offer at this time, after years of immersion in scripture and being called by the Spirit to reflect deeply on the nature of the One Jesus called, "Father." The following, I assure and pledge to you, is subject to revision as the Spirit directs.

I have chosen as a title for this treatise, a phrase from Col. 2:19, "the increase of God," and my understanding of that expression is that it does not mean merely an increase which is from God as someTHING He has given His church, but very literally, Paul is affirming that, as applied here to the body of Christ, the body grows by the "increase of God," literally "grows the growth of God or, "is growing the growth of the God or, "growing (in) the growth of God." Even if we just take it simplistically as increase from God, since God shares with His Son all that He is, and the Son gives Himself completely to His Body, the church, then increase is integral to Deity.

Deity, rather than being a static threesome in oneness, or oneness in threesome, is Being itself dynamically increasing or growing by the internal communion whereby the Spirit searches out the things of God, yea the deep things of God, and finds a Her to match Him.

Personhood has proceeded out from Pure Relational Being in the unfolding of God. From this divine "knowing," this Spirit- conjugal union, there is a procession out of God, from the Primal Origin (Barth) of Being, or the Ground of Being (Tillich), a growth of God by reproduction, as the Personhood which proceeds from Being becomes Father/Mother by bringing forth an Eternal Son, the first-born of many brethren.

The Father, who includes Motherhood, is greater than the Son, not by nature, but as the Origin of the Son. But since the Son originates from the fulness of the Father, the Son is given equality with the Father as the Father/Mother Deity reproduce in the Son, all that Deity is. "The Father has life in Himself, and gave the Son to have life in Himself." (Jn. 5:26)

Thus, the equality that the Son enjoys with the Father is a matter of the reproduction of Deity. God gives His best to His Son, His best, which is the fulness of Himself, and we, born by the extension of His Seed, share the same Family Oneness. In this light we can begin to understand the apostles definition of the church: "...the church, which is His body, the fulness of Him that filleth all in all."

From Eternal Being proceeds Eternal Personhood, a Personhood that fulfills Being's disposition for congugal union and reproduction, so that Being has become Persons, Persons of a familial nature. "Behold what manner of love the Father has bestowed on us, that we should be called the children of God, and indeed we are."

We are the family of God, by which God multiplies His/Her Being so that by us, in us, God is increased. The commission to "be fruitful, multiply, replenish the earth, and subdue it," is rooted in and constituted by "The Increase of God."

For your consideration, and hopefully for your edification.

Standing in awe,

Stay tuned for future serious, seminal samplings.

John Gavazzoni

I believe this is a case of extremism again.

Let me explain. This happens every time I argue in favor of the fact we have choices which determine the outcome of an event in our lives, we the extreme Free-will people agree with me; and the Sovereignty people disagree. So when I explain to Free-Will people that we do not have a choice in everything and that God is in control of all things, they disagree with me while the Sovereignty people agree with me.

There are extreme views and there is the balance, the problem will all or nothing, they cannot see anything in between. By looking at the history of how the Trinity doctrine was created, it was necessary to counter those who denied Jesus was ever God, or believed Jesus was a man who had been elevated to God status. It was never for those who believed Jesus and the Father are One and in essence again.

I do not see how it makes Jesus and the Father distant again by your explaination.

That is my opinion.