Should You Believe in the Trinity? Part 1
The Trinity dogma was invented in the fourth century CE by some philosophers who were not satisfied with the self-revelation of God in the Bible and, therefore, tried to redefine God. The conclusions of their meetings, which they held in conjunction with, and presided over by, Emperor Constantine I and his successors became the Trinitarian creeds and canons.
There are millions of millions of Christians today who are members of churches which profess their belief in the Trinity but who don’t know the facts about the Trinity. If such people know the facts about the Trinity, perhaps, many of them will reconsider their belief in this dogma. In this article, which I have divided into two parts, I want to give seven points to show you that the Trinity is a product of men’s wild imaginations about God, His only begotten Son, and His spirit . In this first part of the article, I will touch briefly on five key reasons why a Christian should not believe in the Trinity. In the second part, I will also touch briefly on two other reasons the Trinity should not be taken as a doctrine from God.
Point #1: The Eternal Generation of the Son of God.
A definition given by Archibald Alexander Hodge (1823 – 1886) in his Outlines of Theology, page 182, is as follows:
“The eternal generation of the Son is commonly defined to be an eternal personal act of the Father, wherein by necessity of nature, not by choice of will, he generates the person (not the essence) of the Son, by communicating to him the whole indivisible substance of the Godhead, without division, alienation, or change, so that the Son is the express image of His Father’s person, and eternally continues, not from the Father, but in the Father, and the Father in the Son.”
They say the Father eternally “generates the person (not the essence) of the Son.” What does that mean? Can the person of the Son be generated without his essence? They say that the Father’s generation of the Son was “an eternal personal act of the Father, wherein by necessity of nature, not by choice of will…” How can something be the personal act of the Father but His will is not involved? Does God do anything will-lessly? Is the Almighty God a robot? Anyone can see how the Trinity theory has insulted the Supremacy and the Almightiness of the Father, the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ. God had said that no one else is His equal.(Isa. 40:25; 46:5). They made His Son equal to Him despite the Son’s words that the Father is greater than himself (John 14:28).
The Bible teaches us that our Lord Jesus Christ is the only begotten Son of God, the only Son that God brought forth out of Himself. All the other sons of God were created by being brought forth out of things that were nonexistent (Rom.4:17b).
It may surprise you to know that, although the Trinitarian creed confesses belief “in one Lord Jesus Christ, the only-begotten Son of God, begotten of the Father before all worlds…begotten, not made” the Trinitarian doctrine of the eternal generation of the Son cancels the begetting of Jesus Christ by the Father. This is so because they say that the Son has been with the Father eternally such that “in this Trinity none is afore [before] or after another; none is greater or less than another. But the whole three persons are coeternal, and coequal.” (Athanasian Creed, Lines 25-26). What they say here is that God, the Father, did not pre-exist the Son, neither did He bring the Son into existence. So, He did not give birth to the begotten Son in the real sense of the word “begotten.” It also means that our Lord Jesus Christ self-existed thereby making his existence completely independent of the Father. It stands to reason that, insofar as the Father is not the cause of the Son’s existence, He cannot be the Father in the real sense of the word. By saying that in the Trinity “none is afore [before] or after another; none is greater or less than another,” Trinitarians have, either cleverly or unwittingly, reversed, and therefore denied, the part of their creeds in which they confessed that our Lord Jesus Christ was begotten by the Father. So, we can say that Trinity denies the truth that Jesus is the Son of God. The Trinitarians also contradict themselves in their creeds. For the avoidance of doubt, compare “And in one Lord Jesus Christ, the only-begotten Son of God, begotten of the Father before all worlds” with “And in this Trinity none is afore [before] or after another; none is greater or less than another. But the whole three persons are coeternal, and coequal.” The two statements are obviously mutually exclusive. The Son cannot be begotten by the Father if all the Trinitarian “three persons” are coequal and coeternal. The Bible says the Son was begotten of the Father. This undoubtedly means that the Father pre-existed the Son and is supreme over the Son. The Son, therefore, cannot be coequal and coeternal with the Father.
The first sense in which anyone is called the son of God is his derivation of life or existence from God. This applies to angels and humans (Job 1:6; 2:1; 38:7; John 3:38). It applies as well to our Lord Jesus Christ (Prov. 8:22-31; John 3:16; 10:36; 1 John 5:18). Anyone who denies the fact that Jesus derived his life from the Father has denied his sonship of God, the Father of all beings (Eph. 4:6). This is one thing Satan has done through the Trinitarian dogma. Apostle John’s warning goes to our Trinitarian friends: “Whoever denies the Son does not have the Father; the one who confesses the Son has the Father also.” (1 John 2:23 NASB2020).
Their denial of Jesus as the Son of God is the first of the seven points you should know as standing against the formulators of the Trinity dogma.
Points #2 & 3: Perfect God and Perfect Man
In this section, I’ll bring out the next two major issues against the Trinitarian dogma. To do it, I have copied Lines 29-37 of the Athanasian Creed for ease of reference:
29. “Furthermore it is necessary to everlasting salvation that he also believe rightly the incarnation of our Lord Jesus Christ.;30. For the right faith is that we believe and confess that our Lord Jesus Christ, the Son of God, is God and man. 31. God of the substance of the Father, begotten before the worlds; and man of substance of His mother, born in the world. 32. Perfect God and perfect man, of a reasonable soul and human flesh subsisting. 33. Equal to the Father as touching His Godhead, and inferior to the Father as touching His manhood.34. Who, although He is God and man, yet He is not two, but one Christ. 35. One, not by conversion of the Godhead into flesh, but by taking of that manhood into God. 36. One altogether, not by confusion of substance, but by unity of person. 37. For as the reasonable soul and flesh is one man, so God and man is one Christ.”
The creed in this so-called Christological section says that Jesus Christ, in his incarnation, was a perfect God and a perfect man. By the word “perfect,” they meant that he was 100 percent God and 100 percent human. They wrote that, as God, Jesus was equal to God the Father, but as human he was less than God the Father. They also wrote that his incarnation did not involve the conversion of his Godhead [Godhood] into flesh but that God simply put on human flesh. So, while he was on the earth, according to their teaching, Jesus was both God and human in one body.
Two absurdities are present in this teaching. First, it is impossible for our Lord Jesus Christ to be equal to God and be less than God at the same time. Secondly, if our Lord Jesus Christ was God and man in one body, and as God he was a coequal God, what is the use of the Father baptising him with His holy spirit and power (Acts 10:38) which he would have got as a coequal God? More importantly, if Jesus was God and man dwelling simultaneously in one body, it would mean that both mortality and immortality were coexisting in his body. This is another impossibility. God is immortal while humans are mortal. The Bible says that at the resurrection of the dead, at Christ’s second coming, there will be a divine change that will make mortality give way for immortality (1 Cor. 15:51-54). God cannot die. Therefore, if Jesus was God and man at the same time, what happened to the immortality in him when he died on the cross? Did God die? This is another impossibility.
There is only one being who is eternal, immortal, and invisible. He is God, the Father. Only him cannot die and cannot be seen by any human (1 Tim. 1:17; 6:13-17). But in his incarnation, “Jesus of Nazareth was a man accredited by God to you by miracles, wonders and signs, which God did among you through him, as you yourselves know.” (Acts 2:22 NIVUK, bold emphasis added by me throughout). Apostle Paul said, “For there is one God and one mediator between God and mankind, the man Christ Jesus, (1 Tim. 2:5 NIVUK). Paul also said, “Since the children have flesh and blood, he too shared in their humanity so that by his death he might break the power of him who holds the power of death – that is, the devil – [15] and free those who all their lives were held in slavery by their fear of death. [16] For surely it is not angels he helps, but Abraham’s descendants. [17] For this reason he had to be made like them, fully human in every way, in order that he might become a merciful and faithful high priest in service to God, and that he might make atonement for the sins of the people.” (Heb. 2:14-17 NIVUK).
Conclusively, our Lord Jesus was 100 percent human, zero percent God, during his incarnation.
A doctrine is false if it requires belief in something that is patently absurd. The two absurdities in the Christology section of the Trinitarian creed serve as obvious proof that it is a product of men’s wild imagination. The formulators of the dogma were not inspired by God to do what they did. Unfortunately, when these absurdities are brought to the attention of contemporary Trinitarians, their usual defence is that the Trinity is a mystery that should be accepted by faith. But the Bible never teaches that believers should blindly, naively, and gullibly accept every teaching from men. See 1 John 4:1.
Point #4: The Three Coequal and Coeternal Gods
According to the Trinitarian dogma, each of the “three persons” that make up the Trinity is (i) uncreated, (ii) incomprehensible, (iii) eternal, (iv) Almighty, (v) God, (vi) Lord. Then in lines 25-27, they wrote: “25. And in this Trinity none is afore [before] or after another; none is greater or less than another. 26. But the whole three persons are coeternal, and coequal. 27. So that in all things, as aforesaid, the Unity in Trinity and the Trinity in Unity is to be worshipped.”
According to them, the three Gods existed at the same time; none existed before or after another, and none is greater than or less than another. They then employed an infantile deception to hide the polytheism they created by saying that the three distinct Gods have one substance which is not divided. This guesswork stands at variance with the truth revealed in the Bible. First, the holy spirit has not been shown in the Bible to be a literal spirit person. It is not another person from God, just as our own spirit is not another person from us. Apostle Paul put it this way: “For who knows a person’s thoughts except their own spirit within them? In the same way no-one knows the thoughts of God except the Spirit of God.” (1 Cor. 2:11 NIVUK). In many places, the holy spirit is shown as the power of God. For more explanation on the holy spirit of God, visit my website: www.jude1v3.com to learn more about the holy spirit. Secondly, the fact that Jesus Christ’s will is not the same as the Father’s will rubbishes their one essence theory. Jesus had a different will from that of the Father, but he deliberately subjected his will to do what pleases the Father. See Matt. 26:42; Phil. 2:5-11. The Trinitarian “one substance” theory does not offer any covering for their rejection of the strict and unqualified monotheism which the Bible teaches. Their own version of “One God” is flawed by their own crudely packaged oneness. It is impossible for three absolute, independent,self-existent, coeternal, coequal, Almighty Gods to be one God. This is another illogical teaching in the Trinitarian dogma.
The Incomprehensible Trinity
The Athanasian Creed says, “The Father incomprehensible, the Son incomprehensible, and the Holy Spirit incomprehensible.” (Line 5).
Although God is incomprehensible in the sense that we cannot exhaust the full details about His nature, knowledge, power, and doings, He has been revealing Himself to mankind, in general and special revelations, so that we can truly know Him. He told Moses, “[2] I am Yahweh—‘the LORD.’ [3] I appeared to Abraham, to Isaac, and to Jacob as El-Shaddai—‘God Almighty’—but I did not reveal my name, Yahweh, to them.” (Exod. 6:2-3 NLT). Moses said, “The secret things belong to the LORD our God, but the things revealed belong to us and to our children for ever, that we may follow all the words of this law.” (Deut. 29:29). Jesus once had a discussion with his disciples: “[10] And the disciples came up and said to Him, “Why do You speak to them in parables?” [11] And Jesus answered them, “To you it has been granted to know the mysteries of the kingdom of heaven, but to them it has not been granted.” (Matt.13:10-11 NASB2020). Later in his prayer to God, he prayed, “And this is eternal life, that they may know You, the only true God, and Jesus Christ whom You have sent.” (John 17:3 NASB2020).
These verses of scripture, among many others, reveal that God has been revealing Himself to mankind in various ways. He spoke to men through the prophets. In these last days, He decided to speak to us through His only begotten Son, Jesus Christ. This great teacher who came fromheaven said, “I did not speak on my own, but the Father who sent me commanded me to say all that I have spoken.” (John 12:49).
With regard to God:s incomprehensibility, the fourth century “church fathers” got it all wrong. They decided to “help” the incomprehensible God by making Him comprehensible. They spoke what He never asked them to speak, and taught what was not His doctrine (cf. John 7:16). They ended up sowing weeds in the field where God had sown wheat. They have given to the world the biggest false doctrine ever since the days of Christ. Look at their creeds, it is a concoction of some biblical words and their fantasies. They sowed confusion and falsehood into Christian theology. Unfortunately, when those who have been bewitched by their dogna are told to explain their theories, they hide under the false claim that the Trinity is a mystery. They say it is beyond human comprehension. Even if we agree with them on that point, how come it was not beyond the comprehension of the formulators of Trinity? Were they a different specie or class of human beings? Could it be that they were motivated by theological arrogance? Anyway, their creeds have exposed them as theological speculators who didn’t have a grasp of the doctrine of God.
The sixth and seventh points are briefly discussed in part 2.