It’s no secret that discussion of Christ and His relationship to the God the Father has surfaced around blogdom, most recently in my exchange with Mike Whitenton over at Ecce Homo (more on this here and here). To my amazement (and this is no reflection on Mike or his blogpost), there have been a many historical theologically and Scripturally ignorant comments (or more like one-liners) in the comments section of a certain blog post that in my opinion show just how ignorant the Church is becoming to the whole debate on Trinitarianism in the first four centuries of Church history (see the comments I refer to below by clicking here). Albeit there are only two yahoos that need to be addressed in particular, but I hear such ignorant comments all the time that almost always go without correction.

In defense of an ontologically subordinate view of the relationship between Christ and the Father, one yahoo writes:

“At no time in the NT records does Jesus claim equality with the Father”

Oh. Well thanks for solving the debate. And I suppose it doesn’t count when Thomas calls Jesus “My Lord and My God”? Indeed Christ didn’t speak the words, but He certainly didn’t correct Thomas, now did he? As such maybe this yahoo would do well to say “Jesus never said he was equal with the Father.”

The same yahoo later suggests an argument based on the fact that Christ never said the following:

“Okay boys, I know I’m not making myself very clear here. Yeah, it’s been three years, but I’m sorry, I can’t be more precise about what I have trying to teach you. But, don’t despair, I’m going to send someone, Paul by name, who knows this stuff much better than me and he will explain things further. Bye!”

Oh, well if you put it that way, I now see the light.

And again later,

“it actually goes much further than the incarnation. Did Jesus raise himself from the dead? Or did his Father”

OOOOOOH, no one ever thought to wrestle with that!!!!! Surely I’m now convinced.

Another yahoo says:

“… Jesus himself stated that the Father was greater than him in John 14:28. I shifted my beliefs from trinitarian to non-trinitarian about two years ago.”

Oh, well in that case, Trinitarian theology as argued from the orthodox should be abandoned. Personhood? Essence? What’s that?

I mean really people, tolle lege some of the ANF and NPNF so you don’t embarrass yourself or at least stop the one liner sarcastic drive-byes and engage in actual academic conversation. In case you wondered, yes my tone is absolutely condescending here because they need a scolding. Out of all the blog readers who read Ecce Homo (a top 50 biblioblog) and for no one scold these comments in the midst of a post that is hinting at suborinationism (no disrespect to you Mike) must either validate the fact that people are not educated in the actual beliefs of Trinitarianism and no educated in a knowledge of the Fathers or perhaps it just shows that no one really cares about this topic. I hope for the sake of the Church the latter is true, nonetheless such apathy is questionable as well. But may this very sarcastic blog give a due reaping to what has been sown.

[Update: John Anderson has posted a similar rant here]