found 2 items matching Proverbs 8.12
John 1.1 Caveat Lector (Reader Beware) [13 pages]
by Anthony Buzzard rated at 1.6 (6 votes so far)
In all probability John has been "turned on his head." What he intended was to stave off all attempts to introduce a duality into the Godhead. For John the word was the one God Himself, not a second person. The later, post-biblical shift from "word" as divine promise from the beginning, the Gospel lodged in the mind and purpose of the one God, to an actual second divine "person," the Son, alive before his birth, introduced a principle of confusion and chaos from which the church has never freed itself. This shift was the corrupting seed of later Trinitarianism. God became two and later, with the addition of the holy spirit, three. It remains for believers today to return to belief in Jesus as the human Messiah and in the One God of Israel, his Father, as the "one who alone is truly God" (John 17:3). God is one person not three.
The Nature of Preexistence in the New Testament [12 pages]
by Anthony Buzzard rated at 2.0 (7 votes so far)
The so-called "preexistence" of Jesus in John refers to his "existence" in the Plan of God. The church has been plagued by the introduction of non-biblical language. There is a perfectly good word for "real" preexistence in the Greek language (pro-uparchon). It is very significant that it appears nowhere in Scripture, but it does in the writings of Greek church fathers of the second century. These Greek commentators on Scripture failed to understand the Hebrew categories of thought in which the New Testament is written.
books
These books, written by people from diverse backgrounds, express the simple truth that God is one. Some of them are more scholary while others are more autobiographical. In addition, a few of them are available to read online. If you would like more in depth treatment of christian monotheism, these books are the next step to take. Note: if you know of other books, not listed here, please leave us feedback.
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Critique of the Historical Godhead
by K. Michael Errington [48 pages]
rated at 1 (out of 5 votes)
Many consider the configuration of the Trinity to have occurred in the Apostolic Age despite the word having never occurred inside the scriptures, much less any basic outline articulated by any of its authors. What is compelling is that any church historian with an ounce of integrity will recognize the basic configuration of the Central Doctrine to have developed over the course of centuries through ecumenical councils. More profound is the idea that eternal salvation rests on belief in this mysterious formula. The aim here is reduce the mysteriousness of the Central Doctrine’s development by uncovering decisions made by these ecumenical councils. History has a story to tell and if we look close enough more wonder should follow. There were 178 ecumenical councils between 263 and 431 A.D., yet the Catholic Church recognizes only 3 of these. The intention of this paper is to identify the historical development of the Central Doctrine and pinpoint the work that was overlooked at the Reformation.