American Theists

[Resurrexi]

Would you say that most theists in America are Trinitarian?

[Hassan]

[quote name='Resurrexi' post='1790634' date='Feb 24 2009, 06:59 PM']Would you say that most theists in America are Trinitarian?[/quote]


I think most are Christian, I doubt most people study the theological nuances of trintarian monotheism.

[Resurrexi]

To believe that there is one God in three Persons hardly requires one to be aware of terms like homoousion or Filioque. The question I'm going for, though, would be if most people who at least call themselves Christian actually believe that Christ and the Holy Spirit are divine and equal to the Father.

Edited February 25, 2009 by Resurrexi

[LouisvilleFan]

[quote name='Resurrexi' post='1790634' date='Feb 24 2009, 06:59 PM']Would you say that most theists in America are Trinitarian?[/quote]

Most are Christian, so yes.

[Ziggamafu]

Hmm...I think that most (as in, probably over 50%) have been validly baptized and thus, are forever "Christian" in a certain sense, stamped with the mark - and name - of the Trinity.

HOWEVER, I do not think that most are "Trinitarian" in that they distinguish three Persons in God of one substance. I think that most, or close to most, would [i]identify [/i]with the belief that God is "Father, Son, and Holy Spirit", but that probably less then half of whatever that number is would have a firm conviction that such a God is really real. Of the remaining number, I would imagine that less than half actually believe that there are three individual persons, united as one Be-ing by one, shared substance.

[rkwright]

Honestly I doubt most Christians really bother to really "get into it" and try to understand all the theology behind it. Rather they just accept this fact. A Greek Orthodox priest told me that Latins try to explain things too much, and don't embrace the mystery of faith. There may be truth to this. I often find myself looking at the poorest of the poor and seeing their amazing faith and here I am trying to be so knowledgeable and missing what it means to live a Christian life.

There was a reason why Aquinas stopped writing...

Edited February 25, 2009 by rkwright

[LouisvilleFan]

[quote name='rkwright' post='1791448' date='Feb 25 2009, 04:23 PM']Honestly I doubt most Christians really bother to really "get into it" and try to understand all the theology behind it. Rather they just accept this fact. A Greek Orthodox priest told me that Latins try to explain things too much, and don't embrace the mystery of faith. There may be truth to this. I often find myself looking at the poorest of the poor and seeing their amazing faith and here I am trying to be so knowledgeable and missing what it means to live a Christian life.

There was a reason why Aquinas stopped writing...[/quote]

Watch it... you might get excommunicated talkin' like that

[MithLuin]

I think there are some sects that are not really Trinitarian. Unitarians, for instance . Also Jehovah's Witnesses and (seemingly) Mormons.

I imagine that most other denominations of Christians are officially Trinitarian, though I have to agree that many of their members probably don't think about it very often, and maybe don't even act/pray as if they believe it.

[LouisvilleFan]

[quote name='MithLuin' post='1791467' date='Feb 25 2009, 04:44 PM']I think there are some sects that are not really Trinitarian. Unitarians, for instance . Also Jehovah's Witnesses and (seemingly) Mormons.[/quote]

It's generous to count them as Christians, due primarily to their denial of the Trinity. Unitarian/Universalism doesn't even consider itself Christian.

[Nihil Obstat]

[quote name='LouisvilleFan' post='1791471' date='Feb 25 2009, 02:58 PM']It's generous to count them as Christians, due primarily to their denial of the Trinity. Unitarian/Universalism doesn't even consider itself Christian.[/quote]
In my grade eleven religion class they were presented as a Christian group. As soon as I got a chance I wrote a rather lengthy rant about why their 'belief' system shouldn't even qualify them as a technical religion.
I think they [my teachers] ignored it.
They don't like me very much.

[Vincent Vega]

[quote name='rkwright' post='1791448' date='Feb 25 2009, 04:23 PM']There was a reason why Aquinas stopped writing...[/quote]
I always figured it was hard to write when you're dead.

[rkwright]

[quote name='USAirwaysIHS' post='1791678' date='Feb 25 2009, 10:33 PM']I always figured it was hard to write when you're dead.
[/quote]

Well there is a story that he stopped after having a vision of God. God told him something like "You have written well of me Thomas". After that Aquinas said something like all I have written is like straw compared to Him. He stopped writing after that.

Yes, the later he died.

[Vincent Vega]

Huh.
Never heard that one.

[rkwright]

[quote name='USAirwaysIHS' post='1791698' date='Feb 25 2009, 10:59 PM']Huh.
Never heard that one.[/quote]

From New Advent

It is not surprising to read in the biographies of St. Thomas that he was frequently abstracted and in ecstasy. Towards the end of his life the ecstasies became more frequent. On one occasion, at Naples in 1273, after he had completed his treatise on the Eucharist, three of the brethren saw him lifted in ecstasy, and they heard a voice proceeding from the crucifix on the altar, saying "Thou hast written well of me, Thomas; what reward wilt thou have?" Thomas replied, "None other than Thyself, Lord" (Prümmer, op. cit., p. 38). Similar declarations are said to have been made at Orvieto and at Paris.

On 6 December, 1273, he laid aside his pen and would write no more. That day he experienced an unusually long ecstasy during Mass; what was revealed to him we can only surmise from his reply to Father Reginald, who urged him to continue his writings: "I can do no more. Such secrets have been revealed to me that all I have written now appears to be of little value" (modica, Prümmer, op. cit., p. 43). The "Summa theologica" had been completed only as far as the ninetieth question of the third part (De partibus poenitentiae).