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wrf3@stablecross.com wrote:

>> Not necessily. Just because sin damns us doesn't mean good works
>> save us.
>
> Is denial of the Trinity an unforgiveable sin? Can one be saved and
> yet deny the DoT?

In the way I mean here, "no". The unforgivable sin is to
reject what the Holy Spirit has convicted one of. And what
the Holy Spirit convicts one of is the Gospel. The doctrine
of the Trinity isn't just a sort of philosophical conclusion,
but _an expression of the Gospel_.

(We get into trouble when we try to "understand the Trinity",
when we should, rather, let the doctrine of the Trinity
explain God to us.)

If someone denies the Trinity in the same way as the Pharisees
denied Jesus (saying He cast out demons by dint of His
association with Satan, that is, with the miraculous evidence
right before them, and knowing that they were wrong) with
the evidence supported by the miracles of the Apostles,
then, darn tootin', he's going to Hell.



>> After all, isn't the unforgivable sin the act of rejecting what the
>> Holy Spirit testifies to?
>
> Sure. But all of us hold incorrect doctrine at one point or another.
> You do, Matthew does, Steve does, and I do.

Well, you, Matthew and Steve, anyway. This is again (at least
partly) a quibble on the word "hold". In the Nicene Creed,
this "hold" is a matter of the heart, more than of the mind.

Further, the worry is that a bit of incorrect doctrine will
grow up to become full-blown denial. Eventually the notion
that we shouldn't baptize infants grows into works righteousness
which in turn denies Jesus' act. And such denial certainly damns.
Fortunately, most of us die before the heresy completely destroys
us.


> I would claim that all of us, to some degree or another, worship a
> false God.

I agree with this in the sense you mean. But even if we don't
have a clear picture of Who and What Jesus is, it is Him we
worship and from Him we expect all good things.

We likewise, as children, didn't know very much about the
way our parents _really_ were, (we didn't know they had sex,
what they did at their jobs, that Mom and Grandma were really
bitter enemies, etc..) But we always knew who are parents were.
We didn't go find some other people to be our parents.

Knowing them and knowing about them are different things.

JW's don't know God, because they worship a different god.
And BB agrees, since he keeps calling us "pagans".

>> If Jesus saves and Jesus is not God, then God didn't save.
>
> That doesn't follow. The Arian would say that God saved through
> Jesus.

Isaiah called God our Redeemer. Arius had no argument against
that.



>> Salvation cost Him nothing more than to create yet another being.
>
> So our apprenhension of doctrine has to be at a certain level, a level
> which includes the DoT, to be saved. This is gnosticism, is it not?

No. (Well, what you said is gnosticism, but "no" our
apprehension doesn't have to attain a level.) To be saved
we need to know who our Savior is. The Holy Spirit accomplishes
such knowing. And here, "knowing" is a knowing of the heart,
not the mind.




>> If Jesus is God, then it was God Himself on the Cross and
>> walking among us. God saved us. God is our Redeemer (as
>> Isaiah says.)
>>
> Well, certainly. But that isn't the issue between us.

It addresses the issue of exactly what one is denying when
one denies the DoT.

Bart

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