Bible Truth Discussion Forum: The Alpha & Omega - Bible Truth Discussion Forum

Here is link to an oft used Trinitarian argument. Actually, it is a link to another link, but the second link is to a site that allows no discussion. The argument is that Alpha and Omega, First and Last is a title of God that is applied to Jesus, so Jesus must be God.

http://new.carmforums.org/dc/dcboard.php?a...sg_id=908&page=


I don't see this issue addressed on this forum, though perhaps it is buried in a discussion somewhere.

Maybe someone would like to deal with it. The particular article in the link was written by Dee Dee Warren, who has recently joined here at BTDF . We might get some discussion going on this here. :whistle:

It's a very weak argument. And she's changed it since I last saw it. In fact, she's made it even weaker. She's only claiming that 'Alpha and Omega' is applied once to Christ.
So at the end of the day (when you've stripped her argument of all the padding), she's trying to claim that if Christ bears one of the titles of God, he must be God (note the classic fallacy of equivocation used by trinitarians here).

On this basis, any man or angel who bore a title of God in the Scriptures, is God. ^_^

Hello Fortigun and everyone, one correction. The link at the end of the article is not to a place that allows no discussion, that is simply silly. The link at the end of the article is specifically for discussion. And no you will not find me crossing swords about it here.. not enough time in the day.

Have a great day everyone, and hello Kay!!! do not be a stranger and drop me an email sometime.

For the record, it's worth noting that Jesus never bears the title "God of gods" (which is clearly and unequivocally ascribed to the Father.)

Of course, if it was also applied to the Son, this would certainly provide considerable support to a Bible-based defence of the Trinitarian Jesus. But for some strange reason, God's inspired writers (who are supposed to be "Trinitarians", let's remember) never managed to use it in this way. (Hmmm, I wonder why?)

I have asked Trinitarians to explain this discrepancy.

I have yet to receive an answer.

So we'll take that as a refusal to defend it. Fair enough. It's not really much of an argument, after all. It's not even as strong as the usual 'Alpha and Omega' argument trinitarians try to make. ^_^

Evangelion, apparently AVMetro says you refused to reply to this argument, despite being asked to do so several times. I'm assuming this is just AV being as economical with the truth as always? I'm certain I saw you deal with it at least once. I know I did. ^_^

The really odd thing is that trinitarians seem to miss the fact that in both Revelation 1 and Revelation 21, the title 'Alpha and Omega' is used of the Father.
If that's Christ using it in Revelation 22, that makes him the Father. That's fine if you're a Oneness believer, but not so good for trinitarians.

It's the fatal trap of the fallacy of equivocation they always fall into...

She's been lurking on this thread for the last 5 minutes. She's waiting for you Evangelion...

Alethia -

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It's not addressed on this forum because it's such an astonishingly weak argument. I certainly wouldn't want to give it any undue credit by posting a response in the Armoury - but I guess I can whip something up, if you really want to see a point-by-point rebuttal.

Meanwhile, Fortigurn has correctly identified the logical fallacy upon which it is predicated, so... that's the end of that, really.

Oh, and just for the record, I've actually been down the "Alpha/Omega" road with Dee Dee on two previous occasions. The debate tends to become largely circular, since each interpretation (Trinitarian and Unitarian) can be seen as dependent upon a point of hermeneutics, rather than a point of Biblical evidence. (Though in reality, it is first and foremost an issue of Biblical evidence, and secondly an issue of hermeneutics.)

However, regardless of which interpretation people choose to see as "correct", the following points should be noted:

• The Unitarian argument is perfectly consistent with the overall testimony of Scripture, while the Trinitarian argument is not.
  
  
• The weakness of the Trinitarian argument from "Alpha and Omega" has been recognised by Trinitarians themselves. This is proved by the fact that Trinitarian copyists later found it necessary to add a reference to Christ as "Alpha and Omega" in Revelation 1:11. (See here.)
  
  
• No such interpolation would have been included unless they recognised that this title is not unambiguously ascribed to Christ. It was added because the evidence for Christ's alleged "deity" just isn't there. (The same occurs in I John 5:7 - yet another Trinitarian forgery - where "orthodox" copyists decided that it would be a good idea to "improve" God's inspired Word by inserting their manmade dogma.)
  
  
• An additional interpolation is found in Revelation 1:8, where the words "the beginning and the end" have been added by (equally dishonest) Trinitarian copyists.
  
  Thus the footnotes in the New English Translation:
  
  The reading “Omega” (w\, w) has superior ms evidence (Í1 A C 1611 Byz) to the addition of “the beginning and the end” (ajrchV kaiV tevlo" or hJ ajrchV kaiV toV ", arch kai telos" or he arch kai to telos"). There is no good reason why a scribe would have deleted the words, but their clarifying value and the fact that they harmonize with 21:6 indicate that they are a secondary addition to the text.
  
  This is another attempt to connect the title "Alpha and Omega" with the person of Jesus Christ, who is elsewhere referred to as "the first and the last", but never as "Alpha and Omega" or "the beginning and the end." The sheer transparency of the interpolation is (yet again) proof of the fact that the copyists realised the weakness of the standard Trinitarian argument from this title.

I have to ask myself, "Why would anybody want to support an argument which was already considered so weak that people found it necessary to commit two blatant forgeries in its defence"?

Because they're desparate!

Fort -

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Complete nonsense.

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Yes, it is. (As always!) Would you believe that he actually tried to tell someone that I had never given him an answer on John 20:28? (He knows, of course, that I gave him one at "CWS Talk!" - but for some strange reason, these little details have a tendency to slip from his mind...)

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Yep, I dealt with it at least twice on the "CWS Talk!" forums. The first time was a direct rebuttal, in response to AVmetro (who had copy/pasted Dee Dee's argument.) The second time was in response to Dee Dee herself, who pointed out that I had misread her argument in a couple of places.

Having thrashed out the details of that misreading, I pointed out that her argument still does not stand. She wanted me to go through the whole thing all over again, but I pointed out that she still had an outstanding debate with me on an eschatological issue, and that I was prepared to write another "Alpha/Omega" rebuttal if she addressed my eschatology debate.

She refused to do this, and there the matter ended.

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Yes, well... that would seem to be pretty clear by now. :whistle:

Dee Dee -

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He's not claiming that discussion of the article itself, is not permitted. He simply means that the link doesn't actually take you to a place where discussion is possible (ie., a discussion forum) - it only takes you to the article itself.

Clearly, it is just not possible to discuss anything in a place where no such facility exists.

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Thank you for clearing that up. The CARM link leads to the Tekton article. At the bottom of the Tekton article is a link to where the article originally appeared on TheologyWeb where I will be addressing your comments. I did misread the original post, and I thank you for clearing that up.

Have a great day!!!

PS: Your recollection of what happened at CWS is incorrect. You never conditioned providing a full response to the A&O article to an eschatology issue. You have never fully replied to this article. You have replied to various issues contained within the original version but never an in toto response which was the whole purpose of the CWS thread. It ended with you having some medical issues and working on your book and needing to come back to it (though you kept referring to it as a "reworded response" when in fact it was a complete response which you never did). You never came back to it though you said that you would in your own good time. Do you need for me to provide the link to refresh your recollection?? You conditioned answering a different unanswerable argument of mine on eschatology on that other eschatology issue.

Brotherly camaderie is fine and all, but don't injure yourselves patting each other so hard on the back.

What is there to argue? The intial premise of the entire argument is clearly false.

What you don't seem to understand is that even if we grant that 'Alpha and Omega' is used in Revelation 22 as a title of Christ, that does not prove that he is the second member of the trinity.

All you have is a man who has been given a Divine title. And that is insufficient to prove that he is the second member of the trinity. It's not enough to say that this 'proves he is God', because all it would prove is that either he is the God (as the Oneness people claim), or that he is a God (as the JWs claim). Neither of these are Biblical, and even the trinitarian recoils from them.

At least the Oneness people are consistent here - they point out that the 'Alpha and Omega' in the other places is the Father, and insist that Jesus must be the Father.

For these reasons, your post is a complete non-argument.

Dee Dee -

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You're welcome.

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Does this mean that you'll be addressing the comments I've just made here at BTDF? Well, why would you address them on T-Web (where you know perfectly well that I won't be turning up), instead of addressing them here, where my comments were actually posted?

If you're going to debate, do it here. I am not interested in debating you by responding to a series of posts on a completely different forum. And no, I'm not interested in receiving a link to your posts at T-Web. If you've got something to say, say it here. If you won't say it here, it will be ignored.

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You're welcome.

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It's 8:10 PM here, but I'll do my best. And you have a great day too, Dee Dee.

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Hey, you're right! :oh: I've been confusing your Matthew 24 challenge with the Revelation 1 & 21 dispute. Now I remember. At CWS, I said that I wasn't going to address Matthew 24 until you addressed the two resurrections of the Apocalypse.

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That is correct. I have never fully replied to the article. I have only ever taken issue with the flawed premises upon which it is established. :whistle:

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I never claimed that I had provided a comprehensive response. A comprehensive response just isn't necessary.

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Well, I later realised that there was no need to come back to it at all, since the argument itself is fundamentally flawed. (As demonstrated on this very thread.) So that's the end of that.

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A different "unanswerable argument" of yours?

Well, this would require (a) that your "Alpha/Omega" argument was unanswerable (which it isn't, as I have recently proved), and (b) that your eschatological argument was equally "unanswerable" (which it also isn't, as you'll see if you browse the "Eschatology" boards here at BTDF.)

So really, there's nothing to talk about.

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Yes.

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Because you didn't see fit to address the comments where the article was originally posted.. two can play this game and all that happens is that it gets twice as silly. I wrote the article, it is posted at my home forum for the general ediciation of the members thereof, I will post my responses there. What you choose to do is your business, and you can perfectly suit yourself.

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Hmm, you are not my boss. If you would like to start writing me a paycheck, then maybe you can be, until then, sorry.

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I don't recall asking you what you were interested in. And at this point, you can respond or not respond as you see fit. I am not writing commentary for your benefit or with you as the targeted audience.

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I didn't offer. I provided the link for whoever may be interested as I provided a link to this thread at TheologyWeb for whoever is interested.

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Again, suit yourself.

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The time thing throws me off, I guess I should have said, sleep well. I will not be posting right away... weekdays tend to be quite hectic for me... and you are going to be ignoring it anyways so I suppose that bit of information is irrelevant to you.

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Thank you.

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Of course that is one of the points in dispute.. I will speak more about that at TheologyWeb. But we are agreed that you never fully replied and have refused to for wahtever reason, so AV was correct. Fort, you should be a little less quick on the slander.

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You may very well be right on that. You may have simply claimed that what you said piecemeal was enough, which I disputed, and you agreed to provide something further.

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How convenient for you. It would have been nice if you mentioned your decision at CWS. More on the rest of the comment at TheologyWeb.

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It is... and hardly.....

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It is as well... but I will address that another time. I only mentioned it this time to clear up your confusion on the issue at hand.

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If you say so... I have a lot to talk about...

Sleep well. I hope your health has improved since we last spoke.

Dee Dee -

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No, he's still a liar. Remember, his claim was that I had never responded, which is demonstrably false.

Let's get the facts straight, please. If you're going to defend him, you'll have to defend what he actually wrote, not some watered-down, "easier to defend" version of it.

Of course, this will necessarily result in a case of "defending the indefensible"... but that's the whole point, isn't it? <_<

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It's been up and down, thanks for asking.

Evangelion, on Apr 23 2003, 02:25 PM, said:

Yep, he's a liar all right. But I notice that his 'worship' argument has undergone significant revision as a result of your withering assault on it here.

He never did get around to providing a single verse showing latrueo applied to Christ in the New Testament. :whistle:

And when he next posted that argument on CARM, he was now saying that latrueo is only implied in the New Testament, in a single verse!

For the record, this is what AVmetro has posted at CARM:

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This is, quite obviously, a total lie. I did indeed address it, as Dee Dee herself has verified. However, I did not post a comprehensive rebuttal, because (as demonstrated on this thread) a comprehensive rebuttal is simply not necessary.

The formula is simple: destroy the foundations of the argument itself, and there is nothing left to refute.

It saves an awful lot of wasted time.

Yes, that is a total lie. And the entire foundation has been destroyed.

Divinely appointed representative of God bears Divine title. News at 10.

Fort, there's a problem with the "bold" tags in that Matthew 24 post of yours. I've taken a look at the formatting, but I can't find where it's going wrong.

Can you tweak it?

Ta.

How's that? ^_^

Just thought I'd throw these into the mix. They help to explain how God can be said to "judge the world" Himself (even though He has actually given this judgement to the Son, as Jesus himself confirms in John 5:22) and how He can be said to be "coming" to Earth (even though He never actually will, in any literal sense of the term.)

Observe:

Acts 17:30-31.
And the times of this ignorance God winked at; but now commandeth all men every where to repent:
Because he hath appointed a day, in the which he will judge the world in righteousness by that man whom he hath ordained; whereof he hath given assurance unto all men, in that he hath raised him from the dead.

God will judge the world by that man whom He hath ordained... whom he raised from the dead. Pretty clear. Jesus is not God, but merely that man whom God hath ordained and raised from the dead.

And yes, that's exactly what we find the apostle preaching in the book of Acts. Not a single word about Jesus being God, but plenty about him being a man ordained by God, and acting as God's representative on His behalf.

See also:

John 4:1-3.
When therefore the Lord knew how the Pharisees had heard that Jesus made and baptized more disciples than John,
(Though Jesus himself baptized not, but his disciples,)
He left Judea, and departed again into Galilee.

The very first verse of this chapter turns upon the issue of agency and representation. It enables us to explain how certain acts which are attributed to God, can also be attributed to Christ - without proving that he (Christ) is God.

This is more easily seen when we break the passage into separate verses:

John 4:1.
When therefore the Lord knew how the Pharisees had heard that Jesus made and baptized more disciples than John,

Here we are told that Jesus baptised more disciples than John. But is that really what John is trying to tell us?

Let's look again:

John 4:2.
(Though Jesus baptised not, but his disciples)

Here we have the explanation of the original verse. Jesus himself was not the one who was literally baptising; it was his disciples who performed this work. But the ritual was performed in Jesus' name and under his auspices - and for this reason, it is legitimately ascribed to him.

Adam Clarke's Commentary has:

Joh 4:2 - Jesus himself baptized not -
See Joh_3:22.

Crossing to Clarke's notes on John 3:22, we find:

And baptized -
It is not clear that Christ did baptize any with water, but his disciples did - Joh_4:2; and what they did, by his authority and command, is attributed to himself. It is a common custom, in all countries and in all languages, to attribute the operations of those who are under the government and direction of another to him by whom they are directed and governed.

Some however suppose that Christ at first did baptize; but, when he got disciples, he left this work to them: and thus these two places are to be understood: -

1. this place, of Christ’s baptizing before he called the twelve disciples; and
2. Joh_4:2, of the baptism administered by the disciples, after they had been called to the work by Christ.

Great tweaking, Fort.

Have to be happy with that. Case closed.

In talking to Trinitarians I have often found that they like to say "we should look at this verse at face value". Here's an example of why this is not the way to read a verse:

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Taken at face value this verse would seem to suggest that Joseph is God. But we know from overwhelming evidence that Joseph is not God.

Now if the verse read:

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Trinitarians would jump on it and say "there you are, Jesus is God!" But it doesn't mean that at all as we see from the example of Joseph. And there is overwhelming evidence in Scripture that Jesus is not God.

Trinitarians will always take one verse at a time to try and prove their doctrine. They will look at the face value of the verse and what is suggests to them in isolation from the context and the general teaching of Scripture. Instead of looking for a Biblical teaching they just have a list of verses interpreted according to their idea. Sometimes the list is long and looks impressive. This is very deceiving.

So even if it could be said that Alpha and Omega is a title given to Christ this is no proof whatsover for the doctrine of the Trinity that is defeated by overwhelming evidence from the rest of Scripture.

Excellent point.

As usual, the Trinitarian relies on his fallacy of equivocation - with a little special pleading thrown in for good measure. <_<

Beautiful example!