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Contra Stavrinides
by Frank Nelte
PART XXI : A SUMMARY
This has been a long presentation, longer than I originally intended. The
length is due to the numerous errors in the presentation by Kyriacos
Stavrinides. After all, in 26 hours of talking one can make a huge number of
false statements and erroneous claims.
Sometimes a false premise can be presented in one glib statement. To show up
the error may require a detailed explanation.
Let's recap all the points we have covered:
- Dr. Stavrinides admits that his ideas don't come from the Bible ... they
come from two Councils of the Catholic Church.
- He admits that the Bible has no "explicit" proof for his ideas, using
this admission as a justification for his reliance on reasoning.
- He presents very many ANALOGIES in an effort to prove his ideas. The
fact remains: analogies are never PROOF for anything ... they are only
ANALOGIES, no more!
- He avoids facing the question of whether God Almighty has EVER worked
through the Catholic Church, be it Roman or be it Greek Orthodox.
- He has devised a 12-word CREED for the Church of God. This creed is in
agreement with earlier Catholic creeds.
- He presents the term "THEOLOGY" as a synonym for "philosophy", admitting
that it has nothing to do with the Bible.
- To discredit that the Bible actually means what it says, in places that
contradict his ideas, he claims that the scriptures are:
- a figure of speech;
- an analogy;
- a dream or a vision;
- an anthropomorphic picture;
- a mistranslation; etc..
- To force acceptance of his wrong ideas, he uses endless repetition ("I
have said a thousand times ...").
- He misrepresents the Church's old approach to using human reasoning, yet
admitting that "the Church has always reasoned".
- His assumed premise that "SPACE" is something God somehow had to create
and that THEREFORE God exists outside of "space" is false.
- His deduction, based on this false premise, that therefore God CANNOT
possibly have any form or shape, is also wrong.
- He ignores the most basic revelation in this regard, Genesis 1:26-27;
instead he argues to discredit this scripture.
- He rejects the many HUNDREDS of scriptures that contradict his false
deduction.
- His arguments in the Handout in this regard are silly and flawed.
- To silence questions, he says that it is "rude and disrespectful" to
question his arguments. It doesn't seem to occur to him that he is "rude and
disrespectful" towards the Bible, God's revelation to mankind.
- His attitude is clearly hostile to the Bible.
- One of the main premises he builds his whole theory on is DEUTERONOMY
6:4 and this he explains incorrectly.
- He falsely claims that the Holy Spirit is God. There is no biblical
support for this and he presents none. He makes some totally unwarranted
deductions from Acts 5:3-4.
- He quotes the JEWISH understanding about God as proof for his own
ideas. The fact is: what the Jews think and believe has NOTHING to do with
what the Bible teaches!
- We spent some time looking at the truth about God in the Old Testament;
how God constantly revealed Himself as "the LORD your God who has brought
you out of Egypt".
- We examined the Septuagint (LXX) version of the Bible in great detail
and saw that it is a fraud!
- We noted that Origen, the real author of the LXX, translated 15
different Hebrew words with the one Greek word "hypostasis" into his version
of the O.T..
- We examined the facts about "hypostasis" and saw that the biblical
occurrences agree with the meaning this word had in Koine Greek and NOT with
the philosophical meaning pagan philosophers and Catholic "theologians"
alike have attached to the word.
- Dr. Stavrinides' appeal to LATIN words and their meaning is not proof
for anything that THE BIBLE teaches.
- We saw that the Catholic scholar Origen basically held the same views
that Dr. Stavrinides is now expounding to us.
- We saw that the word "hypostasis" is only being presented to us as a
TRANSITIONAL TERM! When the time is deemed to be right, then it will be
exchanged for its synonym "PERSON", a term that is already acceptable, as
long as minor qualifiers are added to it.123.
- We saw Dr. Stavrinides' willingness to turn everything into figures of
speech ("... you are SAFE to take it as ...").
- His assumed premise that God exists outside of time, is also false. His
argument in this regard that "if there is no change, then there is no time"
is also not logical.
- He explains Psalm 110 totally incorrectly. In the process he implies
that Jesus Christ was lying, when He attributed this psalm to David.
- His arrogance about his own views is repeatedly evident (e.g. "ANGELS
would have to agree ...").
- Whenever he presents the case for those opposing him, he does so in
VERY SLANTED AND UNFAIR WAYS!
- He tries to argue away John 10:34 ("you are gods"), without actually
examining this verse and its context. Instead he tries to explain away Psalm
82:6 ("it's really untranslatable").
- He also tries to discredit the word "ELOHIM" ... trying to show that
it should not be translated "gods".
- He misapplies the word "ONE", obviously ignoring how this word is used
everywhere else in the N.T..
- Because there is no biblical support for his ideas, he claims that even
the APOSTLES didn't understand his theory because ..."those concepts are
VERY ADVANCED". However, they were certainly not "too advanced" for Origen
and a whole bunch of other Catholic Church "fathers".
- He plays dumb when it comes to the Greek word "PATRIA" (i.e. Family)
and says: "WHATEVER IT MEANS it is a difficult word to translate"). Yet he
freely acknowledges that it is derived from the word "FATHER". How many
"difficult words" can you derive from the word "Father"?
- He never attempts to prove his claim that the Bible uses "analogous"
language (to justify doing away with anything he is not prepared to believe
literally). We are just supposed to take his word for it.
- The same goes for "anthropomorphic" pictures. He presents no proof and
it is an obvious ploy to do away with clear biblical statements.
- While telling us about the Greek word "eikon" (image), he keeps very
quiet about the Greek word "homoioma" (likeness). In so doing he totally
misrepresents what Romans 1:23 actually tells us.
- We looked in great detail at the uses of "ELOHIM" in the Bible. The
fact that it is also used to refer to pagan "gods" and "goddesses" is to be
expected and nothing unusual.124.
- He thoroughly misexplains Genesis 22:12, claiming God knew everything
in advance. We saw that his claim that this passage "is to be taken in
FIGURATIVE TERMS" is absurd!
- We saw that in Greek there is no indefinite article ... i.e. the Greek
language does not have a way for differentiating between the two
expressions:
"the Word was with God"
and ...
"the Word was with a God".
- We saw that he changes the meanings of words in order to fit in with
his ideas.
- He totally avoids explaining WHY the Bible is so full of "Family-words"
when talking about God, because he is hostile to the concept of God building
a "Family of God".
- His ideas that God created out of nothing, as opposed to God using the
Holy Spirit as the building block of all creation, are also wrong. His claim
that man is made out of "nothing" contradicts Genesis 2:7.
Well, that about summarizes everything we've covered. Now only one more
thing needs to be explained ...
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