Tri-union gods and Pagan, Christian, Muslim and Jewish views on the Creator God

On 2017-01-092017-01-10 By Relating to GodIn Christadelphian, Christianity, God the Father - Eternal Jehovah, Religion & Church, Trinity11 Comments

Yesterday we looked at those who have questions about God and how the Christadelphians try to give them an answer and offer a platform where questions can be asked.

When you look at the world of those who claim that they worship the True God, we may find Jews, Christians and Muslims. Though by the Christians and Mohammedans questions may arise. Next to Christianity we can see Christendom where there are people who call themselves Christian, and often consider themselves part of Christianity, though do not really follow the teachings of Christ (the Kristos) Jesus, whose original name is Jeshua from Nazareth, from the tribe of king David. Those so called Christians do believe in a tri-une god, like before the time of Jesus there have been also many others who believed in some three-une or three-headed gods, but of which the Bible say that they are false gods and that there is Only One True God, the God of Israel, Who is One (and as such not two, three, eight or more).

Of those trinitarians there are who do not seem to know about other three-headed gods, and others who claim that their tri-union god is different because he would be having all the same qualities in each personality. Though than then they do seem to miss that the god they claim to be omnipotent, omnipresent, and as omniscient all knowing, at certain points said he did not know it, though they claim he would never lie. If god knows everything (what God does) and Jesus would be God than Jesus would know when he would come back, he would know when the end-times are, he would know who would be saved, he would know who would be seated next to him, he would know he is a spirit, though he clearly stated he is no spirit and does not know all those matters, because it is only known to the Spirit God, Who has no beginning, can not be tempted, can not be done any thing by man, can not die, though Jesus was tempted many times, was killed by man (or faked his death), was three days in hell (not exactly a place for God to be), was taken out of the dead (God never be able to be death would not exactly be under the dead, is it not?), would have been taken in to the heaven to come to sit next to God (though when Jesus is God then he would sit on his own throne never next to himself but at the place of himself).

Dattatreya or Dattā, deity by people from India and Nepal, having Brahma, Vishnu and Shiva in him

Those Christians who think their tri-union god or tri-une godhead is different than the other three-headed gods, like several tri-une Hindu gods (a.o. Brahma, Trisiras and Dattatreya);

Triglav – a Slav three-headed warrior god

or European Slav and Celtic gods like Ambisagrus or Jupiter Optimus Maximus, Nantosuelta, goddess of nature, the earth, fire, and fertility in Gaul, Triglav the three-headed warrior god, or Thor, should think twice and compare the attributes contributed to those gods and theirs, which seem to be very similar.
In several pagan religions we do find a trinity with a god father or god mother, a god son or a god word and a god spirit or god light or god thought or soul.

The Bible also speaks of such trinitarian gods like Nimrod. The Word of the One True God calls him

“a mighty hunter in opposition to Jehovah”

We can see that in 4th C.C.E., at the Council of Nicea of Constantine Christendom simply picked up the idea of tri-une gods to win over the pagans. They suddenly made YHWH Jehovah, Jesus and the Holy Spirit 3 persons in one godhead.

Tri-une Hindu god who is considered the creator god, but also by other groups has four faces. He is also known as Svayambhu (self-born), Vāgīśa (Lord of Speech), and the creator of the four Vedas, one from each of his mouths

Question is if tri-une gods like the creator god Brahma or the Indian Mandhata represent the same Creator God Jehovah, but just under an other name?

Maybe similarities between Kama and Cupid, Vishwakarma and Vulcan and Indra and Zeus may lead many to hastily conclude that Hindu mythology is similar to Greek mythology. It is said that the Greeks believed in polytheism, the belief in many gods, but many Hindus say they believe in one god and as such should belong to monotheism. For them like for trinitarian Christians their god is one god who appears in different forms. For Hindu religious people their one god shows the world the different aspects of the supreme Brahman, the supreme existence or absolute reality, avatars or incarnation of this deity on earth, like certain Christians take Jesus as the incarnation of their god or of their supreme being. In the earliest Vedic literature, all supernatural beings are called Asuras, mythological lord beings. in the Vedic religion of India and in later Hinduism, one of many gods, often roughly divided into sky, air, and earth divinities on the basis of their identification with the forces of nature. In the pantheistic systems that emerged by the Late Vedic period, the devas became subordinate to the one supreme being.

We can see that those who want to defend the Trinity search for their answers in a lot of philosophical human tangle of thought, like in the article “The Trinity Logically Defended” where they go into numerology (a thought of man) instead of using God’s Word to show their way of thinking would be right. The writer Renassault, at Reasoned ruminations, claims the other tri-une gods may not exist whilst his tri-une god exist, though he does not evince it at all, nor does he give any proof the other deities would not exist. For him moreover, the philosopher who popularized Nominalism to the present day, the medieval French scholastic philosopher, theologian and preeminent logician Peter Abelard, considered the past and future to be just as non-existent universals as numbers, so do we have to accept that the past nor the future exist? And what has this to do with the reality of a tri-une god or with the existence of the Real One God who created the being and the elements man uses to divide time?

The writer of the above mentioned article The Trinity Logically Defended says he is not arguing that what he says proves there must have been a God who created everything/something at all. But he writes

I’m only pointing out that the answer is the same logically consistent answer as how the Trinity can be true and non-contradictory. If the cause that originated the universe was eternal, why did it create the universe in this way? Randomly and arbitrarily you say? But if there were an infinite number of possible random variations, like Zeno’s Paradox, how was one even “picked”? {The Trinity Logically Defended}

For him the answer of it all lies in or deals with the Trinity. He also does not seem to believe man would ever be able to follow God’s commandments. With that thinking he implies God demanded from the start something He knew man would never be able to keep, which makes of this God a very cruel God.

For that writer the God

Father is the source of the Trinity and the Son and Spirit both have their source in the Father, yet without a point in time being created. The three person all have the same Will—that of the Father, they cannot contradict each other, or operate independently, they only do the Father’s will. {The Trinity Logically Defended}

In many other faiths where they worship a three headed god they also claim their gods being from the same source and having the equal powers, having the same will. He claims his tri-union god cannot contradict each other though we see Jesus claiming God is greater than him, which would be a contradiction if Jesus is that same God. At one point Jesus also prays to God and says that he wants that the Will of God shall be done and not his (Jesus) will. In case Jesus is God it shall always God’s or his will.

Nowhere does he proof that

Christ also confesses He has a second another will–that of a human. {The Trinity Logically Defended}

In several defences of those who believe in a tri-une god, we never come to see a real logical explanation or a real clear Biblical explanation of that three-headed construction. Having another will than that of God would make the god those trinitarians adhere not having a god of the same will, like the other trinitarian gods in polytheism.

A monotheist religion should only be called this way when it really has one (mono) god as the main figure to be worshipped. Jews, Christians and Muslims claim to be part of the monotheist religions.

It is not bad to have a look at what those religions teach about their God. At the end of 2016 two websites got to see the light of this world. One tries to look at the God of the Muslim world in comparison to the God of the Christian world. That new site, dares to pose many questions and wants people to look at possible answers many communities offer for the questions which are on many believers and non-believers lips. Questiontime-Vragenuurtje is there for you to ask your questions and to go in dialogue. A Lastige Vragensteller or a Troublesome Inquirer takes the floor and shall bring quotes for the Quran as well as the Christian Bible to put answers from Scriptures in the spotlight.

Some of the vital questions already posed are:

and some of the answers already posed:

Immanuel Verbondskind looks at the difference between the Jewish tradition and Christian faith and the God of Abraham, Isaac, Jacob, Who according to the Holy Scriptures was also the God of rabbi Jeshua, Jesus Christ and his disciples, though the tri-une god of many Christians would never be the God of the Jews.

Immanuel started at his site to explain that having the name Immanuel does not mean that person is God. After having looked at “Called Immanuel does not mean to be Jesus being God” he opened with a series on how to read the Holy Scriptures, this with the idea that to come to know the Real True God and to find out who Jesus really is, he thinks it is “Best to read and study the Bible“ and explains how we can do this the best way, not forgetting that making time for God is an essential part of our daily life.

Immanuel Verbondskind shall look at the teaching of the different Christian denominations and compare them to the teachings of the Jewish rabbi Jeshua, better know today as Jesus Christ. Jesus and his disciples their knowledge of the Hebrew Scriptures plays an important role in how shall be looked at the distortions which may have come into Christendom. Immanuel shall take those basic Judaic Scriptures and examine what the chosen pupils of Jesus made out of it and what they wrote down in the Messianic Scriptures, better known by many Christians as the New Testament. He shall not be averse to look at Jewish traditions and other Jewish literature or theological works, comparing it with Christian theological works and Christian traditions to find out how they fit in the way of thinking of the Messiah Jeshua, the Christ Jesus.

Both new blogs should be a good asset to come to know the divine Creator and to come to know how Jehovah God relates to Jesus and Jesus to the world.

Preceding

A Start for looking at the unseen and the treasure to look forward to

Relating to God is it possible

Can you question the existence of God

Are there certain books essential to come to faith

A King who wanted to extol a King above all kings

Find a.o.

Additional reading

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Are there certain books essential to come to faith

On 2016-04-292016-04-29 By Relating to GodIn Bible = Book of books, Christianity, God the Father - Eternal Jehovah, Religion & Church, Trinity14 Comments

When we are looking for God and want to find Him are there certain books in which we should belief and follow?

Many people create themselves gods. We can see that in how people have idols and sometimes go so far to worship those human beings. There are also people who take elements from nature as their god and they speak or pray to trees, sun, stars or look for a god behind everything that happens in nature, and as such have a god for the rain, wind, thunder, sky, or even for each day of the week.

But when we look how those gods respond or what they can do we see that something is lacking. It is always questionable what those gods can do and what they really provide.

Though there is One God Who is superior to all those gods and can do much more than they. About Him is a lot written down throughout the years. But one particular library is very trustworthy and should be best referred to. When we consult that library of Books of books we can find the Word of that God of gods, Who is most reliable.

White-collar criminal defense lawyer Joel Cohen questions if the Bible’s factuality is essential to faith.

Many people wonder if one can trust what religious people say about the Bible. Is there reason to believe in the factuality of the Bible’s contents, and that the Almighty God Himself was its Author?

Cohen writes:

Indeed, to worship God as religion demands, must one believe that God actually performed the acts attributed to Him; must we accept as authentic His purported interactions – His Creation of the universe and mankind, the plagues that He visited on Egypt, His splitting of the Red Sea and His conversations with mankind, Moses, Abraham and David. More to the point, must we obdurately accept them in the particular and peculiar ways described in the Bible? {Is the Bible’s factuality essential to faith?}

A bible from 1859. (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

It all depends how you want to look at that Book of books. In which way do we have to look at those different writings, and take them as stories or real reviews of what happened at the earlier times? Several people do find that we have to take those Biblical accounts as morality plays or anecdotal narratives, created by human beings without God’s help or involvement.

When you take a closer look at them, you will find strange things, which would shed a light on those writers, they normally would hide for others.

We may choose to believe that God dictated nothing whatsoever to Moses, and merely instructed a spiritually inspired Moses to write of the Creation.

writes Cohen and continues

We may choose to believe that all that God really wants from mankind is for it to live a conventionally moral life based on civility, charity and love of one’s fellow man. That a moral life is not only the sine qua non to a life of faith, but is also its sole prerequisite. We may believe that all of the meticulous laws of animal sacrifice (morphed, upon the Temple’s destruction, into communal prayer), the Sabbath’s sanctity and kashrut were fashioned by man himself in order to nationalistically (if you will) create a “culture.” Perhaps even, a culture that designated this particular Society as having been chosen, while others were not. {Is the Bible’s factuality essential to faith?}

Today we have different media and we always can pick up what is written or filmed before. At the old times there were no sources people could consult and not all where so literate they could read the stones or scrolls. For that reason passing the word form one generation to the next mostly was done in the aural way and history had to be so compressed or said in such manner people could easily remember it.

Orality, the first and still most widespread mode of human communication. Far more than “just talking,” oral tradition refers to a dynamic and highly diverse oral-aural medium for evolving, storing, and transmitting knowledge, art, and ideas. It is typically contrasted with literacy, with which it can and does interact in myriad ways, and also with literature, which it dwarfs in size, diversity, and social function. {Encyclopaedia Britannica}

What is so special about that aural tradition, that not likewise other aural stories, these stories kept the same over centuries.

Even Voltaire, who wanted to destroy the Bible and distributed pamphlets against that book, had to confess that he could not imagine that when there would be a watch that there would not be a watchmaker. Looking at mankind and the plants and animals around us, and when you get to know how wonderfully they are made it would be very strange to believe there would be not a Master Inventor or Maker behind them, providing this life. When those people grew up and multiplied from one generation to an other, they carried with them the stories of their families. To their next of kin they brought stories from kings (Solomon) herdsman (David), man who could tell about things which happened many years later and as such were visionaries (Isaiah, Zacharia), fisherman (John) doctor (Luke), publican (Matthew), scholar (Paul) etc..
That collection of stories written on 3 continents: Africa, Asia and Europe, under different circumstances: in desserts, humble homes, palaces, prisons, etc., written in three languages, Hebrew, Aramaic and Greek, became the first translated Great Book, and became the most translated and reprinted book in the world, a best-seller of all times.

Voltaire is death. His house and the printing machines became again used, this time to print bibles.

Interesting to note is that those writers also told not such nice things about themselves. Proud being inherited by man you would expect their visions would be contributed to themselves. But more than 3800 times the writers do say that their words do not come form them but from the Higher Power God, the Adonai Elohim Hashem Jehovah.
Every time we read:

Jehovah, god, said to me

The word of the Most High, Jehovah God, came to me

Naturally you could assume they were telling lies; But how could they tell about things which had not happened yet and could use names which did not mean anything yet at the time they lived?

Would such liars than be able to produce such special writings which can inspire so many people and can bring forth so much goodness? Bitter sources cannot bring forth sweet waters.

The 40 different writers of the assembly of books, written over a period of more than 1500 years, also never contradict each other. This whilst they wrote about one of the most sensitive subjects on earth: God.

Though many rabbis as well as priests and ministers say it does not matter if the Bible is written under the guidance of God or if their congregants want to read the Bible with skepticism, or see it as somewhat of a work of historical/Biblical fiction.

In the monotheist religions we have seen several groups which started to put more accent on human writings and gave preference to keep to human doctrines instead of holding to the clarity of the simple words written in the books of the Bible. This created many schisms in those religious groups and even made it possible that certain people came to consider themselves still monotheist though they started worshipping what they call a tri-une god, three gods in one.

The man of justice correctly looks at the real question

what do the rabbis themselves believe? Do they say aloud “it doesn’t matter” because they recognize that defending the Bible’s stories to moderns simply won’t (or can’t) be effective, leaving congregants to turn elsewhere or pay less attention to what observant Jews tend to believe? Or is it because they, themselves don’t believe in their authenticity? {Is the Bible’s factuality essential to faith?}

In the Catholic Church we can find many examples of people who call themselves “theologian” and do not believe in God. For them being part of an institution which pays for their living is very handy. Also for the other priests we can ask the same question as for the Jewish rabbe or the Muslim imam when they utter either in their sermon or tete a tete that a Holy Scripture account’s authenticity “doesn’t matter,”

do they immediately then mutter to themselves: “But yet it happened”? And, really, does it and should it matter if an observant rabbi/teacher doesn’t himself believe in exacting fashion that the Bible is God’s literal Word transmitted by God to Moses at Sinai? {Is the Bible’s factuality essential to faith?}

If you want to get to know the only real God, in a way it does not matter if you believe it or not that the Bible is God’s Word. But it is essential to come to see and understand what happened to mankind and to get to know Who is behind it all.

Do you want to take it as an allegory or metaphor, that is your good right, but then also dare to take the words written in it to take for what they (literally) say. For example when there is written “the son of God“, do not think in your head “god the son” because that is not at all what is written there. Only by accepting the words like they are written down, saying what they are saying and not what some theologians may want you to believe what should be implemented by that saying.

God is a god of order and clarity who does not tell lies. When those writers claim to have written down what God ordered them to write down, we may expect that they did not write down lies but wrote what was meant to be said. Then we also should not fix our eyes on one phrase but look at all the phases being connected with each other and in unison with each other. As such we should always look at the text in contexts with the sayings at other places in that Holy or put or set apart Book of books.

Joel Cohen asks

Can we, ourselves, determine what the Bible truly means to us? While it may be controversial or provocative to articulate it that way, that’s exactly what’s at stake. And, lest it go unsaid, this decision, dilemma if you will, is not limited to Judaism. How different is it that the Fathers of the Church, years after Jesus’s time, dictated that Jesus is actually part of the Holy Trinity (part of God Himself) , even though the Christian Bible never said that. Yet, would a modern Christian remain in good standing, if he doesn’t believe (or, at least state he believes) in a Triune God? {Is the Bible’s factuality essential to faith?}

Real lovers of God should come to see how certain people prefer to be off this world, instead of being of God, following God His advice and wise Words.

When you shall take the historical books and the Bible, you shall come to see that the idea of a three-headed god does not come from Jesus, nor from somewhere in the bible but from those people who wanted to live in peace with the Roman leaders and came to an agreement with emperor Constantine the Great.

You also than come to understand what it means to be from the world or of the world, to belong to the world and what it is to be living in this world being of God or to belong to God.

Those people whose lives are steeped in faith – split so that approximately 50% said they accepted the Bible’s account; the other 50% did not, will have it more difficult to see the light and come to the truth.

Then, after everyone had opened their eyes, the moment of truth arrived: I asked those who had only “confidentially” acknowledged that they didn’t believe the Bible’s account to raise their hands in full view of the now eyes-wide-open congregation. Only a handful raised their hands. How does one explain this? For me at least, the overwhelming majority of those “non-believers” of the Red Sea story who sat on their hands were comfortable in their belief, but only privately. They apparently didn’t want their community to know; essentially, they didn’t want their neighbors to think “less” of them. {Is the Bible’s factuality essential to faith?}

Lots of people are afraid to talk openly about what they really believe. Lots are convinced that one’s faith is a very personal thing, and should remain so.

People might believe in only certain things their religion places before them, irrespective of whether the Author is divine. But even if they don’t believe in all of it, they remain believers in God, as well as believers in the importance of faith in their lives. {Is the Bible’s factuality essential to faith?}

says Joel Cohen.

We do believe that in case you are wiling to read and study the Bible as a book to come to enlightenment and to learn about the Most High Divine Creator of all things, it shall offer you enough insight to come to understand that it is really the Word of God, and that there is really only One True God of gods, Who is One, and that we do have a sent one from God who is one mediator between God and man.

Preceding article: All about love, not needing disasters

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Relating to God

Tag: Monotheism