I thought I would publish here on KR an excellent paper by Ken Westby. Ken runs the great One God website www.Godward.org – also known as “The Association for Christian Development”. This paper actually just ran as a paid-for full-page ad in “The Journal”. This is the little newspaper that the Churches of God put out. And the interesting thing here (some might call it a bold move), is that the Churches of God (off-shoots of the Armstrong World-Wide movement) are decidedly Binitarian (the “God Family” belief). Ken sent a pdf copy of the entire newspaper (link is here) along with a note saying that his article (on page 19 – and printed here below), was followed up by a 9 PAGE rebuttal in support of the binity belief. I think he may have struck a nerve!
In this clip that has been edited by Jeff Campbell (a basic unitarian and fellow facebook friend to many of us here on the KR blog), he takes a segment of a debate featuring Sir Anthony Buzzard & Joseph Good vs. Dr. James White & Michael Brown and then does his own video commentary on Dr. White’s points.
Basically in the debate, Anthony was presenting the terrific argument he has brought up for years, that Psalm 110:1 shows two different lords. See the following links from Anthony for greater detail:
I was taking a break from most everything when I was out-of-town on vacation last week. This week I’m taking a break from getting into the second section of my paper/series to post something I ran across on the web awhile back. While I haven’t fully had a chance to dig real deep into this site’s content, what I have found I believe to be quite good.
Biblical Common Sense – Jesus – Not Equal, Not the Same!
The following common sense arguments regarding how The Bible clearly demonstrates that God and Jesus are not the same being are ones that tend to come up quite often among those promoting Jesus as God. Many times I have been told in discussions with those wishing to support a Trinitarian or even a Oneness/Modalist viewpoint that these are simply tired old arguments. Yes, the arguments are centuries old and people often tire of them. But that doesn’t mean that they still aren’t valid objections. And their validity remains all the more significant due to the fact each of these are easily answerable when one uses common sense as their guide.
This is a phrase that has been heavily thumped to us by churches, ministries, denominations, pastors and the like. The warning and pleading to take hold of truth and discard tradition. You’ve now got books, sermons, documentaries and websites that all use this phrase as their title and label. What does this all mean? What is the message behind this phrase? How are we to respond to it all?
ktistis, ktisis: a creator; to create something which has not existed before (creation ex nihilo – “creation out of nothing”)
ktistis, ktisis, ktiso, ektisen, etc… are all singular nouns, adjectives or verbs. (all point to a single creator – one person)
The doctrine of the trinity says that God is a triune deity and that all 3 persons that comprise of the “godhead” were co-creators of the physical universe, the earth, everything in it – and mankind! The OT though, clearly reveals something different.
Heb: bara – to create, to bring into existence, out of/from nothing (creation ex nihilo (latin) – “creation out of nothing”)
This is a singular verb (evidence that the Creator [God] is a single entity [one person]). Are the 3 persons of the trintiy co-creators, or did the one person God do it alone?
Genesis 1:1, 20 – 21, 26 – 27
V1 (beresit bara elohim) – universe brought into existence by God – out of nothing; prior to this, there was no universe.
V21 (wayyibara elohim) – sea creatures brought into existence by God – out of nothing.
One of the beliefs that most Christians have is that God is “omniscient” – that is, that God knows everything. Some of the passages that are used to demonstrate this belief are as follows:
1 Samuel 2:3 (ESV):
3Talk no more so very proudly,
let not arrogance come from your mouth;
for the LORD is a God of knowledge,
and by him actions are weighed.
Proverbs 5:20-21 (ESV):
20Why should you be intoxicated, my son, with a forbidden woman
and embrace the bosom of an adulteress? 21For a man’s ways are before the eyes of the LORD,
and he ponders all his paths.
Joel Hemphill was a presenter/speaker at this year’s 19th Annual Theological Conference held in Atlanta, GA 4/25-4/28. Joel did a terrific presentation on the need for “Removing Greek Philosophy From Christianity“. If you’d like to view a video of it recorded there at the conference, you can watch it for free at Dan Gill’s wonderful 21st Century Reformation website: http://21stcr.org/multimedia/removing_greek_philosophy/removing_greek_philosophy.html. On that same page you’ll find a down-loadable PDF version of another one of Joel’s tracts – this one about some “Shocking Admissions” from various Trinitarian scholars. I like it so much, I thought I’d publish it here in the KR blog. I hope you enjoy as well.