Dialogue With Skeptic (Part 2)

1 - “Trinity” in Christian Theology has a specific definition - 3 separate & perichoretic hypostases who together are co-equal members of the same being.   Your objection fails to draw the elementary distinction between a triad, unitarian modalism, & a trinity as a matter of ontology, history, & historical theology. 


2 - You are basically articulating or parroting a conspiracy theory, & it’s worth noting you have yet to identify any particular myth or set of myths from which the authors &/or editors of the New Testament borrowed.  There’s a reason that a great many pagan copycat theorists turn out to be part of the lunatic fringe. 


3 - Nor have you pointed to the documentary evidence necessary to underwrite your theory. 


4 - Paganism is inherently figuratively, literarily, &/or literally polytheistic, capricious, & territorial.  


5 - Multiple texts in the OT & NT follow the outline of a suzerain covenant (Genesis 1 1, 1:18 - 25; 2:20 - 24;  3:8 - 24; 9:1-7; 11:5-9; 12:1 - 3; 15: 7 - 21; Exodus 20; Leviticus 18, Deuteronomy also follows the suzerain treaty outline;  Psalm 2; Isaiah 6:1 - 7; Matt. 3:13 - 16, 4:1-11, Matthew 22:36 - 40; John 7:53 - 8:11,  John does as well.  John 1:8 - 13, John 1:14 - 19; 1 John 1:1-4, Romans 1:18 - 32, & all of Revelation).  Paganism selects for contracts, not covenants, when it comes to religion. 


6 - If the authors &/or editors of the New Testament were drawing from pagan sources, then what are we to make of Romans 1:18 - 32?   


Romans 1:20 teaches that God  created a temple in His own image, & that its inhabitants fell into idolatry by using their own image to reason out their worship & sexual ethics.   He calls their work morally unnatural, because God’s image & authority despot here, not our image & authority.   


If the writers were drawing on paganism, then why did they condemn polytheism & point people to the image of a triune deity & away from the human image as a sufficient warrant for faith & practice.   If they were drawing on pagan ideas, then, when approaching the text, we should expect them to point people to the created order  itself, & we ought to find a theology of God that says He has bona fide sexual characteristics. — yet the Bible teaches otherwise. 

 

Pagan copycat theory just plain doesn’t add up. 

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