How Can we see the Trinity

[Cade_One]

@DavidHarper

I think Jesus was a wandering preacher in the first half of the first century…

This Sunday’s Gospel reading Jesus asks, “Who do people say that the Son of Man is?”

They replied, “Some say John the Baptist, others Elijah,
still others Jeremiah or one of the prophets.”

He said to them, “But who do you say that I am?”

Simon Peter said in reply,
“You are the Christ, the Son of the living God.”

Jesus said to him in reply, “Blessed are you, Simon son of Jonah. For flesh and blood has not revealed this to you, but my heavenly Father. And so I say to you, you are Peter, and upon this rock I will build my Church, and the gates of the netherworld shall not prevail against it. I will give you the keys to the Kingdom of heaven. Whatever you bind on earth shall be bound in heaven; and whatever you loose on earth shall be loosed in heaven.”

There is no such thing as an eyewitness to a conception.

My friends were born at home (they are borderline Amish ; ) There were not witnesses of their births either, but they do exist and I do know that they were born : )

The idea that a Christian scribe who was writing at least 40 years after the crucifixion or 70 years after the birth of Jesus could know the intimate circumstances surrounding Jesus’ conception is highly unlikely.

They did not have televisions and YouTube as forms of entertainment. I’m sure that sitting around and telling stories was very common. I am know by my friends as the guy with stories. You can bring up pretty much any topic and chances are, I have a story of a time in my own life or a story about someone else’ life that I find interesting.

And if you have been waiting for a Messiah and here is this man who has performed miracles and fulfilling the prophesies of The Christ, how much more would these stories be important to tell?

I do not believe in the resurrection.

I can’t help you there.

I don’t know what “only begotten son of god” can mean.

I’ll toss this one over to @DLW : )

I think the apostles were followers of Jesus.

…who believed in the Resurrection.

None of the Gospel writers were first-hand eyewitnesses. We don’t even know
what their names were. The names they now have were assigned to them long
after they were written.

It is debatable, though if not written by the Apostles themselves, by successors of the Apostles.

Interestingly the gospel of Mark is relatively free of the kind of theological
embellishment we find in the later N.T. writings.

The target audience of Mark’s Gospel was the Gentiles. Matthew was written for Jewish Christians, Luke’s Gospel was a second letter to Theophilus, and John’s Gospel was written for both Jewish and Gentiles. So, if there are differences in how the Gospel message is conveyed, this has more to do with it than your assumption that they were making stuff up or embellishing from the original.

The Bible says Jesus had brothers. Any argument that these were “half brothers”
or “cousins” is nonsense and betrays a dogmatic motive.

And Early Church Fathers disagree with you. You sound very Protestant.

[quote]
The bible says brothers.
Catholic formulas about the dual natures of Jesus are just that; catholic formulas
with no basis in objective reality and no coherent logical meaning. They are
irrational doubletalk.
[/qyite]

@StephenAndrew’s brain just lit up! You said one of his buzzwords, “logical” : )

I went to Catholic grammar school and Catholic High School in Chicago.

I’m sorry.

Went to Mass every Sunday for the first 14 years of my life.

Praise the Lord for this.

I’m not unfamiliar with Catholic “teaching” and belief.

Debatable. Some of the most ignorant fallen-away Catholics went to Catholic School.

Later an institution calling itself the Catholic Church emerged and then embarked on a campaign and mission to formulate and insist upon a series of doctrines and dogmas about Jesus which were determined to be absolute and beyond question.

Or could it be that there were individuals spreading false claims about Jesus and the Church that Jesus began in the Apostles, and gave the authority and responsibility to protect and correct, did just that. You can read the writings of the Early Church Fathers. You can read the Early Church Councils, which I began to do last Lent. They tell you why they were defining what Christians are to believe. They tell you the errors that were arising during that time.

Your view of the Early Church sounds more like what the Mormons believe, that the Church went Apostate after the death of the last Apostle. Only you do not believe that it was restored in the “Prophet” Joseph Smith. Or maybe you believe as some of the fundamentalist Protestants believe, that the Catholic Church was an invention of Constantine.

You are free to believe whatever you want, but I believe, as St. Peter proclaimed, that Jesus is “the Christ, the Son of the living God.” And that Jesus gave him the keys of the Kingdom and the authority to loosen and to bind. I believe Jesus breathed on the Apostles and that they ordained successors. And we can read many of the writings of these successors. And the Apostles and many of their successors were martyred for their Faith in Jesus Christ. Who would go to death for a lie, unless they believed the lie? Which you already said that Jesus was not a liar and that neither were the Apostles. But you have implied that you believe their successors were liars and deceivers.

Thoughts?