What do you do with Gregory of Nyssa?
I have the same sources that you have, and then some. I wish that we didn’t live so far apart. I would gladly share all of them with you.
The Problems of Solo Scriptura (from Keith Matthison)
- Thread starter Pavel Mosko
- Start date
-
Welcome to Christian Forums, a Christian Forum that recognizes that all Christians are a work in progress.
You will need to register to be able to join in fellowship with Christians all over the world.
We hope to see you as a part of our community soon and God Bless!
What do you do with Gregory of Nyssa?
I have the same sources that you have, and then some. I wish that we didn’t live so far apart. I would gladly share all of them with you.
Even as late as AD 380 the church transitioning from the Jewish monotheism of its 1st century founder to trinitarianism hadn’t fully established what we now call historical orthodox trinitarianism; this to the chagrin of another major figure in trinitarian history, Gregory of Nazianzus.
The Council of Nicaea in AD 325 hadn’t gone far enough in that direction.
The Council of Nicaea in AD 325 hadn’t gone far enough in that direction.
I’ll try to skim through this later. I’m a Dynamic Monarchian, but not a trinitarian. I think the author is writing, as a trinitarian, against Nicene Christianity. He states in his conclusion that he is staying within the boundaries of Nicene Christianity. Ultimately, the trinitarians among us will have to sort that out for themselves.
Also, I don’t believe that Jesus was adopted by God. Some Dynamic Monarchians did and do, but not all do.
P.S.
That bring us to the issue of metaphysical explanations; something that scripture doesn’t do but post-biblical trinitarian theology does.
And for @Johann, so does Jewish mysticism. -> The Zohar.
P.P.S.
Do you think it’s a salvation issue, Hepzibah?
Last edited:
Edited.
It could be.
I don't know of a western Trinitarian who holds to the Filioque clause, (the Spirit is proceeding from the Son as well as the Father) and who personally claims Theosis for salvation, at baptism (of the Spirit).
But then, I have only just 'gone over' to EO.
Last edited:
“Many of the sacred writers spoke of a Messiah who was to be Yahweh’s agent in establishing the kingdom of Yahweh in the messianic age. However, they regarded the Messiah not as a divine person but as a creature, a charismatic leader, a Davidic king.
Thus the Old Testament writings about God neither express nor imply any idea of or belief in a plurality or trinity of persons within the one Godhead. Even to see in them suggestions or foreshadowings or ‘veiled signs’ of the trinity of persons, is to go beyond the words and intent of the sacred writers.”
(Edmund J. Fortman, The Triune God, p. 9)
I never met Father Fortman but we would have gotten along very well if I had. I speak about the Jewish law of agency frequently. He, though himself a trinitarian, understood Jewish monotheism and would have quickly recognized and acknowledged me as such.
Thus the Old Testament writings about God neither express nor imply any idea of or belief in a plurality or trinity of persons within the one Godhead. Even to see in them suggestions or foreshadowings or ‘veiled signs’ of the trinity of persons, is to go beyond the words and intent of the sacred writers.”
(Edmund J. Fortman, The Triune God, p. 9)
I never met Father Fortman but we would have gotten along very well if I had. I speak about the Jewish law of agency frequently. He, though himself a trinitarian, understood Jewish monotheism and would have quickly recognized and acknowledged me as such.
Eternally Grateful
Well-Known Member
there is a far deeper problem if we do not hold to sola scripture..The Problems of Solo Scriptura
I ran across this article years ago and often quote or cite it because it very succinctly points out the problems of Nude Scripture (the position many people take or assume is the proper position of the Protestant creedal belief of "Sola Scriptura".
A Critique of the Evangelical Doctrine of Sola Scriptura (HTML)
Article by Dr. Keith A. Mathison from Biblical Perspectives Volume 9, Number 15thirdmill.org
1. I can say anything I want, and I do not need the bible to back me up
2. I can get a group of people. and create a church and them make my own rules and regulations
3. We will have 30,000 denominations because of this.
Gods word is the only thing we KNOW is from God. if we misinterpret it. we will be held accountable. But if we follow a man that says he word is from God. and do not test his words with scripture. well that too is our fault..
Acknowledging that strict unitarianism preceded trinitarianism in the early church is simply acknowledging an historical fact. However, church history didn’t end in the first century and to deny that the church moved, gradually, away from its unitarian roots to trinitarianism would be to deny historical fact. Followers of the Messiah have to face these historical facts.
Catholic scholars are generally better at doing that than are Protestant scholars, and that due to Catholics not being subject to the constraints of sola scriptura.
The shift occurred in post-biblical days. The church left Jewish monotheism. (The church didn’t just leave the Jewish dogma; it destroyed it.) The church moved from unitary monotheism to trinitary monotheism. (I’m skipping over binitarian monotheism.)
Does the fact that the shift in theology occurred prove, in and of itself, that it shouldn’t have occurred? No.
Should it have occurred? I tend to say no, but I recognize that God and the Messiah allowed it to happen.
“No more than the old Testament writers do the New Testament writers set forth a systematic doctrine about God. For them, too, there is only one God, the creator and lord of the universe; and He is the God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob. He is the heavenly Father, but more especially the Father of Jesus.”
(Edmund J. Fortman, The Triune God, pp. 30-31)
The NT writers were Jewish monotheists. Their one God is the God of Abraham, Issac, and Jacob. Their one God is Yahweh. Their one God is only one person, the Father of Jesus.
“Blessed be the God and Father of our lord Jesus Christ.” - Peter and Paul
“If we take the New Testament writers together they tell us there is only one God, the creator and lord of the universe, who is the Father of Jesus. … They give us in their writings a triadic ground plan and triadic formulas. They do not speak in abstract terms of nature, substance, person, relation, circumincession, mission, but they present in their own ways the ideas that are behind these terms. They give us no formal or formulated doctrine of the Trinity, no explicit teaching that in one God there are three co-equal divine persons. But they do give us an elemental trinitarianism, the data from which such a formal doctrine of the Triune God may be formulated.”
(Edmund J. Fortman, The Triune God, pp. xv-xvi)
What if that post-biblical development hadn’t have taken place over the next 300 years? The church would have remained theologically in the sphere of Jewish monotheism - the primitive Christianity of the apostles.
But that didn’t happen. The post-biblical doctrinal development did take place and we can read about it and track it in the history of the church.
From the Jewish unitary monotheism of the 1st century to the trinitary monotheism of the 4th century; that is the early history of Christianity.
(Edmund J. Fortman, The Triune God, pp. xv-xvi)
What if that post-biblical development hadn’t have taken place over the next 300 years? The church would have remained theologically in the sphere of Jewish monotheism - the primitive Christianity of the apostles.
But that didn’t happen. The post-biblical doctrinal development did take place and we can read about it and track it in the history of the church.
From the Jewish unitary monotheism of the 1st century to the trinitary monotheism of the 4th century; that is the early history of Christianity.
“It is impossible to document what we now call orthodoxy in the first two centuries of Christianity; heresy often appears more predominantly, so much so that orthodoxy looks like a reaction to it. But we can document orthodoxy for all the centuries since then - in other words, for close to seventeen centuries of the church’s existence.”
(Harold O.J. Brown, Heresies: Heresy And Orthodoxy In The History Of The Church, p. 5)
The “orthodoxy” Dr. Brown (a Protestant scholar) is alluding to is historical orthodox trinitarianism, Nicene Christianity.
Where is Jewish monotheism in this time span in church history? It’s in the primitive Christianity of the 1st century. Remember, Gregory of Nyssa - speaking on behalf of the Catholic Church in the 4th century - tells us that Jewish monotheism is heresy. The Catholic Church had to destroy it, and did.
(Harold O.J. Brown, Heresies: Heresy And Orthodoxy In The History Of The Church, p. 5)
The “orthodoxy” Dr. Brown (a Protestant scholar) is alluding to is historical orthodox trinitarianism, Nicene Christianity.
Where is Jewish monotheism in this time span in church history? It’s in the primitive Christianity of the 1st century. Remember, Gregory of Nyssa - speaking on behalf of the Catholic Church in the 4th century - tells us that Jewish monotheism is heresy. The Catholic Church had to destroy it, and did.
“Jesus was a Palestinian Jew; most of his early followers were Jews, and for a number of years the civil authorities and the surrounding secular world looked on Christianity as a variety of Judaism. Indeed, for at least thirty or forty years, until the conquest of Jerusalem by the Romans in A.D. 70, most Christians in Palestine appear to have considered themselves Jews - more knowledgable Jews, fulfilled Jews, obedient Jews, but Jews nonetheless. But the very nature of the Christians’ claims - that Jesus was the expected Messiah, and that their understanding was fuller and more complete, while that of the unconverted Jewish majority was inadequate, obsolete, and willfully blind - naturally set them off against the unconvinced, traditional Jews around them.”
(Harold O.J. Brown, Heresies, p. 10)
This is the period where Jewish monotheism is the theology of the church. There is no Nicene Christianity at this point in time. There wouldn’t be for another three centuries.
(Harold O.J. Brown, Heresies, p. 10)
This is the period where Jewish monotheism is the theology of the church. There is no Nicene Christianity at this point in time. There wouldn’t be for another three centuries.
“It is a simple and undeniable historical fact that several major doctrines that now seem central to the Christian faith - such as the doctrine of the Trinity and the doctrine of the deity of Christ - were not present in a full and well-defined, generally accepted form until the fourth or fifth centuries. If they are essential today - as all of the orthodox creeds and confessions assert - it must be because they are true. If they are true, then they must have always been true; they cannot have become true in the fourth or fifth century. But if they are both true and essential, how can it be that the early church took centuries to formulate them?”
(Harold O.J. Brown, Heresies, p. 20)
What about all of those Christians who lived and died in the centuries prior to the formulation of those doctrines and knew nothing of them? They weren’t Nicene Christians. The earliest among them were Jewish monotheists, but there were also Christians living and dying before the formulations were completed who were neither Jewish monotheists nor Nicene trinitarians.
(Harold O.J. Brown, Heresies, p. 20)
What about all of those Christians who lived and died in the centuries prior to the formulation of those doctrines and knew nothing of them? They weren’t Nicene Christians. The earliest among them were Jewish monotheists, but there were also Christians living and dying before the formulations were completed who were neither Jewish monotheists nor Nicene trinitarians.
“Historians of Christianity and its relationship to society often claim that Constantine created Christian Europe, or Christendom, but that now we are in the post-Constantinian era. In theology, we have to say that we now seem to have entered a post-Chalcedonian era. The transformation this development portends is greater than anything that has yet happened within Christianity. It can be compared only to the transition within biblical monotheism itself, from the unitary monotheism of Israel to the trinitarianism of the Council of Chalcedon. The difference is symbolized by the transition from the prayer Shema Yisroel, of Deuteronomy 6:4 (‘Hear, O Israel: The Lord our God is one Lord …’), to the confession of the Athanasian Creed, ‘We worship one God in Trinity, and Trinity in unity.’
Was the transition from the personal monotheism of Israel to the tripersonal theism of Nicaea a legitimate development of Old Testament revelation?”
(Harold O.J. Brown, Heresies, p. 431)
The unitary monotheism of Israel, the personal monotheism of Israel, is Jewish monotheism. Its creed is the Shema; the creed of Judaism, the creed of Messiah Jesus. (It is popularly called “the Jesus Creed”.)
The tripersonal theism of Nicaea is the Trinity. It is the creed of the catholic faith.
Was the transition from the personal monotheism of Israel to the tripersonal theism of Nicaea a legitimate development of Old Testament revelation?”
(Harold O.J. Brown, Heresies, p. 431)
The unitary monotheism of Israel, the personal monotheism of Israel, is Jewish monotheism. Its creed is the Shema; the creed of Judaism, the creed of Messiah Jesus. (It is popularly called “the Jesus Creed”.)
The tripersonal theism of Nicaea is the Trinity. It is the creed of the catholic faith.
“Today the clarity and necessity of Chalcedonm if not refuted or disproved, has been widely forgotten and ignored. Christianity took four centuries to formulate its witness to the deity and humanity of Christ in the context of the one God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob in such a way that it preserved a coherent approach to the unity of truth. It has taken fifteen centuries more to forget Chalcedon again; as it loses touch with Chalcedon, the Christian world is in the process of losing its coherence. It is in fact losing the conviction that there is any final truth about the one who said, ‘I am the way, the truth, and the life’ (John 14:6).”
(Harold O.J. Brown, Heresies, pp. 431-432)
I’ll leave off quoting Dr. Brown with this. He was a staunch trinitarian, and I don’t want to leave any doubt of that fact in the minds of my readers. His mission in life was to call people to - and people who had left, people like me, back to - the formulations of Chalcedon 451, Constantinople 381, Nicaea 325. Dr. Brown was pleading with his readers to embrace historical orthodox trinitarianism.
His book is one of my favorites written by a trinitarian author. I highly recommend it to my readers.
(Harold O.J. Brown, Heresies, pp. 431-432)
I’ll leave off quoting Dr. Brown with this. He was a staunch trinitarian, and I don’t want to leave any doubt of that fact in the minds of my readers. His mission in life was to call people to - and people who had left, people like me, back to - the formulations of Chalcedon 451, Constantinople 381, Nicaea 325. Dr. Brown was pleading with his readers to embrace historical orthodox trinitarianism.
His book is one of my favorites written by a trinitarian author. I highly recommend it to my readers.
“Jewish monotheism is heresy. The Jewish dogma has been destroyed.”
* Gregory of Nysaa says confidently in my left ear. *
”I am a Jewish monotheist. Which way are you going? Which way will you go?”
* Jesus whispers softly in my right ear. *
And so the Ruach whispers softly in my ear--and like minded brothers and sisters IN Christ Jesus, our great God and Savior--
And thine oznayim shall hear a davar behind thee, saying, This is the derech (road), walk ye on it, when ye turn to the right hand, and when ye turn to the left.
Shalom.
J.
Listen to Gregory of Nyssa. Listen to Jesus of Nazareth. Everyone must decide for themselves.
I listened to Gregory of Nyssa (the voice of trinitarianism). I listened to Jesus (the voice of Jewish unitarianism). I made a decision. I’m walking the road of Jewish monotheism with the Messiah.
P.S.
It isn’t Jesus of Nazareth who calls me a heretic. It’s Gregory of Nyssa (representing Nicene Christianity) who does.
Last edited:
Since there is a significant amount of discussion about the early church fathers in this thread - from my X / Twitter “For you” feed today:
”This resource cross-references Bible verses with the Ante-Nicene Fathers, a 19th-century classical series documenting early Christian writings. Click on any blue-highlighted verse, and you’ll see which Church Fathers (pre- 325 AD) referenced it. ...”
A link to the resource is provided. The user can select between five English translations and check the entire New Testament for references.
”This resource cross-references Bible verses with the Ante-Nicene Fathers, a 19th-century classical series documenting early Christian writings. Click on any blue-highlighted verse, and you’ll see which Church Fathers (pre- 325 AD) referenced it. ...”
A link to the resource is provided. The user can select between five English translations and check the entire New Testament for references.