The trinity: fact or fiction

I submit that the trinity is not biblical and the modern day christian is being lead astray by a belief into polytheism that is contrary to the Word of God, that being, the Bible.

First off, this discussion is not for the use of "does God exist" debates. There are plenty of those elsewhere. It is not a "the bible is wrong" discussion, there are again plenty of others out there. What this should be is a frank discussion about who God is and what He is not. For a frame of ref. I submit the following Old Testement scriptures for consideration:

"Hear, O Israel: the LORD our God is one LORD".(Deuteronomy 6:4)

"Before me there was no God formed, neither shall there be after me. I, even I, am the LORD; and beside me there is no saviour"(Isaiah 43:10-11)

"I am the first, and I am the last; and beside me there is no God" (Isaiah 44:6).

"Is there a God beside me? yea, there is no God; I know not any" (Isaiah 44:8).

"I am the LORD that maketh all things; that stretcheth forth the heavens alone; that spreadeth abroad the earth by myself" (Isaiah 44:24).

"There is none beside me. I am the LORD and there is none else" (Isaiah 45:6).

"There is no God else beside me; a just God and a Saviour; there is none beside me. Look unto me, and be ye saved, all the ends of the earth: for I am God, and there is none else" (Isaiah 45:21-22).

"Remember the former things of old: for I am God, and there is none else; I am God, and there is none like me" (Isaiah 46:9).

"I will not give my glory unto another" (Isaiah 48:11; see also Isaiah 42:8).

"O LORD of hosts, God of Israel, that dwellest between the cherubims, thou art the God, even thou alone, of all the kingdoms of the earth: thou hast made heaven and earth" (Isaiah 37:16).

"Have we not all one father? hath not one God created us? why do we deal treacherously every man against his brother, by profaning the covenant of our fathers?" (Malachi 2:10).

"And the LORD shall be king over all the earth: in that day shall there be one LORD, and his name one." (Zechariah 14:9)

I submit a question about the previous scriptures. That being, are/were the jews wrong in thinking that the singular God mentioned in the Old Tesement was out of line with todays thinking of the plurality of self determining persons (i.e. a trinity)? Ask a jew, how many are in the Godhead. They will tell you emphatically, one. So Did Jesus make two? Let's take another view, God's point of view. Suppose He did want to exclude any belief in a plurality in the Godhead. How could He do so using then-existing terminology? What strong words could He use to get His message across to His people? When we think about it, we will realize that He used the strongest possible language available to describe absolute oneness. In the preceding verses of Scriptures in Isaiah, we note the use of words and phrases such as "none, none else, none like me, none beside me, alone, by myself," and "one." Surely, God could not make it plainer that no plurality whatsoever exists in the Godhead. In short, the Old Testament affirms that God is absolutely one in number.

Let's look at it from the New Testement. Maybe Jesus or the disciples can shed some light on this.

New Testement scriptures.

"Seeing it is one God which shall justify" (Romans 3:30).

"There is none other God but one" (I Corinthians 8:4).

"But to us there is but one God, the Father" (I Corinthians 8:6).

"But God is one" (Galatians 3:20).

"One God and Father of all" (Ephesians 4:6).

"For there is one God" (I Timothy 2:5).

"Thou believest that there is one God; thou doest well: the devils also believe, and tremble" (James 2:19). I like this one.

Again, the Bible calls God the Holy One (I John 2:20)

There is one throne in heaven and One sits upon it (Revelation 4:2)

So is the God of the Old Testement a new god? Is it a new addition to the One God of the Old Testement? Was there any mention of a separate existance of a split perhaps? Did Jesus or the disciples vary with Old Testement? I say no to all of these. There is only One God. Jesus did not come to destroy the belief, He came to confirm it and that He was God in flesh. The jews of the time understood exactly what He was saying. That is why they tried so many time to kill Him as He preached and taught. They understood that the One God cannot be divided. What He taught was that He was to be made a sacrifice for them to Himself as payment for sin. That He was God and that again there was no other beside Him. What they failed to appreciate is the fact the Jesus was a man too. This is the real mystery of God. There was no mystery the One God as they already knew there was only one God. Jesus' attributes can be discussed, but again let's be mature about this and have scripture to back your statements.

Comments are welcome so long as it is kept civil and no name calling or anything like that. Atheists and Agnostics are welcome to comment or question (within reason as long as it does not violate the above guide lines or detrack from the discussion). I will ask for moderator intervention if they are.

I just want to say thank you for giving this as a topic! I've been researching into this as well lately and you've provided so much information. I have little time to comment today but I had to say thank you and I agree with you. I've even printed this (if that's alright) so my Mom can read
Mags

Originally posted by magestica
I just want to say thank you for giving this as a topic! I've been researching into this as well lately and you've provided so much information. I have little time to comment today but I had to say thank you and I agree with you. I've even printed this (if that's alright) so my Mom can read

Mags

My distinct pleasure. I have witnessed to my mom too. The unfortunate part is she didn't want to hear about it. She is very stuck and cannot dig her way out. Thought to lend a helping hand but to no avail. A king is a king everywhere but his own country it seems.

edits are typos

[edit on 3/4/06 by OneGodJesus]

Originally posted by OneGodJesus
My distinct pleasure. I have witnessed to my mom too. The unfortunate part is she didn't want to hear about it. She is very stuck and cannot dig her way out. Thought to lend a helping hand but to no avail. A king is a king everywhere but his own country it seems.

edits are typos

[edit on 3/4/06 by OneGodJesus]

Never give up witnessing, not even to strangers. Because it's not the great wonders that hit people, it's that tiny small whispering voice that reaches people. My Mother and I witness back and forth to eachother, I love talking about the Lord and hearing about Him. Everyday I feel I'm gifted with different aspects of Him.

Back to the topic..I loved what you wrote. And this is something I've been pondering on and reading about as well. I can't say though, if it is wrong to believe in the Holy Trinity even if there is in fact, only one body of Christ. God gives me the impression of being like a face within a face within a face and so on..He is One, but yet Many. Again, not something we can "really" and truly comprehend. One thing I can comprehend is that God is a Father and the Word (Jesus) was with Him in the beginning, then the Word became a man, the Son. So in essence, God is Father and Son, but as we know those are two 'roles' filled by only one man- per household, not two men.

What get's me though is in Genesis when God uses plural "us", and in the Haftorah-which isn't near me at the moment, there is actually a "counsel of gods" with God during the creation. Can you comment on that?

Are you referring to the "let us make man in our image"? Any interpretation of Genesis 1:26 that permits the existence of more than one person of God runs into severe difficulties. Isaiah 44:24 says the LORD created the heavens alone and created the earth by Himself. There was only one Creator according to Malachi 2:10. Furthermore, if the plural in Genesis 1:26 refers to the Son of God, how do we reconcile this with the scriptural record that the Son was not born until at least four thousand years later in Bethlehem? The Son was made of a woman (Galatians 4:4); if the Son was present in the beginning who was His mother? If the Son be a spirit being, who was His spirit mother?

Since Genesis 1:26 cannot mean two or more persons in the Godhead, what does it mean? The Jews have traditionally interpreted it to mean that God talked to the angels at creation. This does not imply that the angels actually took part in creation but that God informed them of His plans and solicited their comments out of courtesy and respect. On at least one other occasion God talked to the angels and requested their opinions in formulating His plans (I Kings 22:19-22). We do know that the angels were present at the creation (Job 38:4-7).

Other commentators have suggested that Genesis 1:26 simply describes God as He counseled with His own will. Ephesians 1:11 supports this view, saying that God works all things "after the counsel of his own will." By analogy, this is similar to a man saying "Let's see" (let us see) even when he is planning by himself.

Others explain this passage as a majestic or literary plural. That is, in formal speaking and writing the speaker or writer often refers to himself in the plural, especially if the speaker is of royalty. Biblical examples of the majestic plural can be cited to illustrate this practice. For example, Daniel told King Nebuchadnezzar, "We will tell the interpretation thereof before the king" even though Daniel alone proceeded to give the interpretation to the king (Daniel 2:36). King Artaxerxes alternately referred to himself in the singular and the plural in his correspondence. Once, he wrote, "The letter which ye sent unto us hath been plainly read before me" (Ezra 4:18). In a letter to Ezra, Artaxerxes called himself "I" in one place (Ezra 7:13) but "we" in another place (7:24).

The use of the plural in Genesis 1:26 also may be similar to the plural Elohim in denoting the greatness and majesty of God or the multiple attributes of God. In other words, the plural pronoun simply agrees with and substitutes for the plural noun Elohim.

Still another explanation is that this passage describes God's foreknowledge of the future arrival of the Son, much like prophetic passages in the Psalms. We must realize that God does not live in time. His plans are real to Him even though they are in the future as far as we are concerned. He calls those things that are not as though they are (Romans 4:17). A day is as a thousand years to Him and a thousand years is as a day (II Peter 3:8). His plan - the Word - existed from the beginning in the mind of God (John 1:1). As far as God was concerned, the Lamb was slain before the foundation of the world (I Peter 1:19-20; Revelation 13:8). It is not surprising that God could look down the corridors of time and address a prophetic utterance to the Son. Romans 5:14 says that Adam was a figure of Him who was to come, that is, Jesus Christ. When God created Adam, He had already thought about the Incarnation and created Adam with that plan in mind.

Taking this idea a step further, Hebrews 1:1-2 says that God made the worlds by the Son. How could this be, seeing that the Son did not come into existence until a point in time much later than creation? (Hebrews 1:5-6). To paraphrase John Miller, God used the Sonship to make the world. That is, He hinged everything on the future arrival of Christ. Though He did not pick up the humanity until the fulness of time was come, it was in His plan from the beginning, and He used it and acted upon it from the start. He created man in the image of the future Son of God, and He created man knowing that although man would sin the future Sonship would provide a way of salvation.

God created man in the beginning so that man would love and worship Him (Isaiah 43:7; Revelation 4:11). However, by reason of His foreknowledge God knew that man would fall into sin. This would defeat God's purpose in creating man. If this was all there was to the future, then God would have never created man. However, God had in His mind the plan for the Incarnation and the plan of salvation through the atoning death of Christ. So, even though God knew man would sin, He also knew that through the Son of God man could be restored and could fulfill God's original purpose. It is apparent, then, that when God created man he had the future arrival of the Son in mind. It is in this sense that God created the worlds through the Son or by using the Son, for without the Son, God's whole purpose in creating man would have failed. Finally, Genesis 1:26 cannot mean a plurality in the Godhead, for that would contradict the rest of Scripture.

I am with you on this and learning more from you as you continue to share your knowledge, and I'm grateful you are doing just that.

So if there is no Holy Trinity, then how did it come about? It is so clearly written as I've read in your scripture quotes as obvious as I'm typing this right now, that there is only one God. So where and better yet, why did the Holy Trinity enter into the picture?

Do you believe it is wrong or perhaps some kind of deception placed that gives people the belief that there is a Holy Trinity? I'm fearing that once again it goes straight back to Catholicism, where all, if not most of the deception originated. (And I whisper that as not to offend.)

Originally posted by magestica
1) I am with you on this and learning more from you as you continue to share your knowledge, and I'm grateful you are doing just that.

2) So if there is no Holy Trinity, then how did it come about? It is so clearly written as I've read in your scripture quotes as obvious as I'm typing this right now, that there is only one God. So where and better yet, why did the Holy Trinity enter into the picture?

3) Do you believe it is wrong or perhaps some kind of deception placed that gives people the belief that there is a Holy Trinity? I'm fearing that once again it goes straight back to Catholicism, where all, if not most of the deception originated. (And I whisper that as not to offend.)

1) Thanks for that bit. I hope that this clears some questions up.

2) I have a book that explains church history and advent of the trinity. I'll get the title for you tonight when I get home. I am thinking the trinity entered the picture by satan trying to confuse people about who God really is. If he can keep people in the dark that Jesus was God and that it is through Him that we are saved then he wins. I don't any part of his prize though. Remember Jesus when He said "depart from me ye workers of iniquity, ye never knew me"? He was referring to the fact that most people today do not know Him. He is not part of three headed freak, He is God. There is no other.

3) It does indeed go back to catholosim. They were the lead movement to erase the history and muddy the texts. Remember when the church only read in latin? That was so people would be confounded and not read for themselves. Remember when they handed out tracts for church and you didn't need to bring a bible and read for yourself the context of the message but took it that this leaflet was right? Same deal.

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Three persons, One God.

Psalms 110:1 The LORD said unto my Lord, Sit thou at my right hand, until I make thine enemies thy footstool.

John 15:26 But when the Comforter is come, whom I will send unto you from the Father, even the Spirit of truth, which proceedeth from the Father, he shall testify of me: 27 And ye also shall bear witness, because ye have been with me from the beginning.

[edit on 7-4-2006 by Sun Matrix]