Orthodox trinitarians deny tritheism, which is the belief in three gods. However, when asked to explain how there can be three distinct persons and yet only one God, they ultimately explain that the trinity is a mystery our finite human minds cannot comprehend fully.
Since trinitarians attempt to reject the concept of three gods, they usually are reluctant to describe God in terms of three beings, personalities, or individuals. One trinitarian stated, "No important Christian theologian has argued that there are three self-conscious beings in the godhead." Another trinitarian writer rejects the idea that the trinity is composed of three individuals, but he does denounce an overemphasis on oneness, which (he says) leads to a Jewish view of God.
This reluctance to use terms that sharply divide God is commendable; however, person is itself such a word. Webster defines person as "an individual human being" and "the individual personality of a human being."
This is not just a mere quibble over terminology; for throughout the history of trinitarianism, many trinitarians have interpreted the concept of person practically, and even theologically, to mean three beings. For example, the three Cappadocians of the fourth century (Gregory of Nyssa, Gregory Nazianzus, and Basil of Caesarea) emphasized the threeness of the trinity to the point that they had three personalities. Boethius (c. 480- c. 524) defined person as an "individual substance with a rational nature." From medieval times to the present trinitarians have often represented the trinity by a picture of three men, or by a picture of an old man, a young man, and a dove.
Today in trinitarian Pentecostal circles there is a concept of the Godhead that implies outright tritheism. This is evident from the following statements made by three trinitarian Pentecostals- a prominent Bible annotater, a prominent evangelist, and an author.
"What we mean by Divine Trinity is that there are three separate and distinct persons in the Godhead, each one having His own personal spirit body, personal soul, and personal spirit in the same sense each human being, angel or any other being has his own body, soul, and spirit"¦ Thus there are three separate persons in divine individuality and divine plurality"¦ The word God is used either as a singular or a plural word, like sheep"
"Thus there are three separate persons in divine individuality and divine plurality"¦ Individually each is called God; collectively they can be spoken of as one God because of their perfect unity"¦ Everything that could pertain to God collectively could also apply equally to each member of the Godhead as individuals. However there are some particulars which relate to each individual person of the deity as to position, office, and work that could not be attributed to either of the other members of the Godhead."
The third trinitarian Pentecostal, an author, quotes a definition of person from Webster's Dictionary: "a particular individual." He then gives his own definition: "A person is one who has intellect, sensibility, and will." He attempts to reconcile trinitarian usage of the word person.
"When person is applied to any created being, it represents an individual absolutely separate from all others; but when applied to the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit, person must be qualified so as to exclude a separate existence, for while the three are distinct, they are inseparable- one God. Nevertheless, with this qualification, person remains the term which most nearly enunciates the permanent mode of existence within the Godhead."
It is apparent that many trinitarians interpret their doctrine to mean three personalities, three beings, three minds, three wills, or three bodies in the Godhead. They deny that by person they mean only manifestations, roles, or relationships with man. Instead, they defend an eternal threeness of essence while admitting it to be an incomprehensible mystery. They reduce the concept of God's oneness to a unity of plural persons. By their definition, they convert monotheism into a form of polytheism, differing from pagan polytheism only in that there is perfect agreement and unity among the gods. Regardless of trinitarian denials, this is polytheism- tritheism to be exact- and not the monotheism taught by the Bible and upheld by Judaism.
__________________ And then shall many be offended, and shall betray one another, and shall hate one another.
There are severe problems with trinitarian terminology. First, the Bible nowhere uses the word trinity. The word three does not appear in relation to God in any translation of the Bible except the King James Version, and only once in that translation- in the doubtful verse of IJohn 5:7. Even this passage reads, "these three are one."
The word person does not appear in relation to God either, except twice in the KJV. Job 13:8 refers to showing partiality. Hebrews 1:3 says the Son is the express image of God's own person (meaning nature or substance), not a second person. The Bible never uses the plural word persons to describe God. (The only possible exception, Job 13:10, would demolish trinitarianism if it applies to God!)
In short, as many trinitarian scholars admit, the Bible does not explicitly express the doctrine of the trinity. The New Catholic Encyclopedia states: "There is the recognition on the part of exegetes and Biblical theologians"¦ that one should not speak of Trinitarianism in the New Testament without serious qualifications"¦ New Testament exegesis is now accepted as having shown that not only the verbal idiom but even the patterns of thought characteristic of the patristic [church fathers] and concilian [church councils] development would have been quite foreign to the mind and culture of the New Testament writers."
The trinitarian Protestant theologian Emil Brunner has stated, "The doctrine of the Trinity itself, however, is not a Biblical doctrine and this indeed not by accident but of necessity. It is the product of theological reflection upon the problem"¦. The ecclesiastical doctrine of the Trinity is not only the product of genuine Biblical thought, it is also the product of philosophical speculation, which is remote from the thought of the Bible."
__________________ And then shall many be offended, and shall betray one another, and shall hate one another.
The only verses in the whole Bible that explicitly ties God, Jesus, and the Holy Spirit in one "Triune" being is the verse of 1 John 5:7
"For there are three that bear record in heaven, the Father, the Word, and the Holy Ghost: and these three are one."
This is the type of clear, decisive, and to-the-point verse I have been asking for. However, as I would later find out, this verse is now universally recognized as being a later "insertion" of the Church and all recent versions of the Bible, such as the Revised Standard Version the New Revised Standard Version, the New American Standard Bible, the New English Bible, the Phillips Modern English Bible ...etc. have all unceremoniously expunged this verse from their pages. Why is this? The scripture translator Benjamin Wilson gives the following explanation for this action in his "Emphatic Diaglott." Mr. Wilson says:
"This text concerning the heavenly witness is not contained in any Greek manuscript which was written earlier than the fifteenth century. It is not cited by any of the ecclesiastical writers; not by any of early Latin fathers even when the subjects upon which they treated would naturally have lead them to appeal to it's authority. It is therefore evidently spurious."
Others, such as the late Dr. Herbert W. Armstrong argued that this verse was added to the Latin Vulgate edition of the Bible during the heat of the controversy between Rome, Arius, and God's people. Whatever the reason, this verse is now universally recognized as an insertion and discarded. Since the Bible contains no verses validating a "Trinity" therefore, centuries after the departure of Jesus, God chose to inspire someone to insert this verse in order to clarify the true nature of God as being a "Trinity." Notice how mankind was being inspired as to how to "clarify" the Bible centuries after the departure of Jesus (pbuh). People continued to put words in the mouths of Jesus, his disciples, and even God himself with no reservations whatsoever. They were being "inspired" (see chapter two).
If these people were being "inspired" by God, I wondered, then why did they need to put these words into other people's mouths (in our example, in the mouth of John). Why did they not just openly say "God inspired me and I will add a chapter to the Bible in my name"? Also, why did God need to wait till after the departure of Jesus to "inspire" his "true" nature? Why not let Jesus (pbuh) say it himself?
The great luminary of Western literature, Mr. Edward Gibbon, explains the reason for the discardal of this verse from the pages of the Bible with the following words:
"Of all the manuscripts now extant, above fourscore in number, some of which are more than 1200 years old, the orthodox copies of the Vatican, of the Complutensian editors, of Robert Stephens are becoming invisible; and the two manuscripts of Dublin and Berlin are unworthy to form an exception...In the eleventh and twelfth centuries, the Bibles were corrected by LanFrank, Archbishop of Canterbury, and by Nicholas, a cardinal and librarian of the Roman church, secundum Ortodoxam fidem. Notwithstanding these corrections, the passage is still wanting in twenty-five Latin manuscripts, the oldest and fairest; two qualities seldom united, except in manuscripts....The three witnesses have been established in our Greek Testaments by the prudence of Erasmus; the honest bigotry of the Complutensian editors; the typographical fraud, or error, of Robert Stephens in the placing of a crotchet and the deliberate falsehood, or strange misapprehension, of Theodore Beza."
"Decline and fall of the Roman Empire," IV, Gibbon, p. 418.
Edward Gibbon was defended in his findings by his contemporary, the brilliant British scholar Richard Porson who also proceeded to publish devastatingly conclusive proof that the verse of 1 John 5:7 was only first inserted by the Church into the Bible in the year 400C.E.(Secrets of Mount Sinai, James Bentley, pp. 30-33).
Regarding Porson's most devastating proof, Mr. Gibbon later said
"His structures are founded in argument, enriched with learning, and enlivened with wit, and his adversary neither deserves nor finds any quarter at his hands. The evidence of the three heavenly witnesses would now be rejected in any court of justice; but prejudice is blind, authority is deaf, and our vulgar Bibles will ever be polluted by this spurious text."
To which Mr. Bentley responds:
"In fact, they are not. No modern Bible now contains the interpolation."
Mr. Bentley, however, is mistaken. Indeed, just as Mr. Gibbon had predicted, the simple fact that the most learned scholars of Christianity now unanimously recognize this verse to be a later interpolation of the Church has not prevented the preservation of this fabricated text in our modern Bibles. To this day, the Bible in the hands of the majority of Christians, the "King James" Bible, still unhesitantly includes this verse as the "inspired" word of God without so much as a footnote to inform the reader that all scholars of Christianity of note unanimously recognize it as a later fabrication.
__________________
"Blessed is He who Comes in The Name of The Lord"
The only verses in the whole Bible that explicitly ties God, Jesus, and the Holy Spirit in one "Triune" being is the verse of 1 John 5:7
"For there are three that bear record in heaven, the Father, the Word, and the Holy Ghost: and these three are one."
This is the type of clear, decisive, and to-the-point verse I have been asking for. However, as I would later find out, this verse is now universally recognized as being a later "insertion" of the Church and all recent versions of the Bible, such as the Revised Standard Version the New Revised Standard Version, the New American Standard Bible, the New English Bible, the Phillips Modern English Bible ...etc. have all unceremoniously expunged this verse from their pages. Why is this? The scripture translator Benjamin Wilson gives the following explanation for this action in his "Emphatic Diaglott." Mr. Wilson says:
"This text concerning the heavenly witness is not contained in any Greek manuscript which was written earlier than the fifteenth century. It is not cited by any of the ecclesiastical writers; not by any of early Latin fathers even when the subjects upon which they treated would naturally have lead them to appeal to it's authority. It is therefore evidently spurious."
Others, such as the late Dr. Herbert W. Armstrong argued that this verse was added to the Latin Vulgate edition of the Bible during the heat of the controversy between Rome, Arius, and God's people. Whatever the reason, this verse is now universally recognized as an insertion and discarded. Since the Bible contains no verses validating a "Trinity" therefore, centuries after the departure of Jesus, God chose to inspire someone to insert this verse in order to clarify the true nature of God as being a "Trinity." Notice how mankind was being inspired as to how to "clarify" the Bible centuries after the departure of Jesus (pbuh). People continued to put words in the mouths of Jesus, his disciples, and even God himself with no reservations whatsoever. They were being "inspired" (see chapter two).
If these people were being "inspired" by God, I wondered, then why did they need to put these words into other people's mouths (in our example, in the mouth of John). Why did they not just openly say "God inspired me and I will add a chapter to the Bible in my name"? Also, why did God need to wait till after the departure of Jesus to "inspire" his "true" nature? Why not let Jesus (pbuh) say it himself?
The great luminary of Western literature, Mr. Edward Gibbon, explains the reason for the discardal of this verse from the pages of the Bible with the following words:
"Of all the manuscripts now extant, above fourscore in number, some of which are more than 1200 years old, the orthodox copies of the Vatican, of the Complutensian editors, of Robert Stephens are becoming invisible; and the two manuscripts of Dublin and Berlin are unworthy to form an exception...In the eleventh and twelfth centuries, the Bibles were corrected by LanFrank, Archbishop of Canterbury, and by Nicholas, a cardinal and librarian of the Roman church, secundum Ortodoxam fidem. Notwithstanding these corrections, the passage is still wanting in twenty-five Latin manuscripts, the oldest and fairest; two qualities seldom united, except in manuscripts....The three witnesses have been established in our Greek Testaments by the prudence of Erasmus; the honest bigotry of the Complutensian editors; the typographical fraud, or error, of Robert Stephens in the placing of a crotchet and the deliberate falsehood, or strange misapprehension, of Theodore Beza."
"Decline and fall of the Roman Empire," IV, Gibbon, p. 418.
Edward Gibbon was defended in his findings by his contemporary, the brilliant British scholar Richard Porson who also proceeded to publish devastatingly conclusive proof that the verse of 1 John 5:7 was only first inserted by the Church into the Bible in the year 400C.E.(Secrets of Mount Sinai, James Bentley, pp. 30-33).
Regarding Porson's most devastating proof, Mr. Gibbon later said
"His structures are founded in argument, enriched with learning, and enlivened with wit, and his adversary neither deserves nor finds any quarter at his hands. The evidence of the three heavenly witnesses would now be rejected in any court of justice; but prejudice is blind, authority is deaf, and our vulgar Bibles will ever be polluted by this spurious text."
To which Mr. Bentley responds:
"In fact, they are not. No modern Bible now contains the interpolation."
Mr. Bentley, however, is mistaken. Indeed, just as Mr. Gibbon had predicted, the simple fact that the most learned scholars of Christianity now unanimously recognize this verse to be a later interpolation of the Church has not prevented the preservation of this fabricated text in our modern Bibles. To this day, the Bible in the hands of the majority of Christians, the "King James" Bible, still unhesitantly includes this verse as the "inspired" word of God without so much as a footnote to inform the reader that all scholars of Christianity of note unanimously recognize it as a later fabrication.
Biblical scholars are as useful to the Christian as teats on a boar-hog....
we're to believe that these scholars are wiser than the Words contained in the Gospels.... where it says that Jesus was of virgin birth(hence God's son)...that God spoke and was heard bypeople @Jesus' Baptism.... or where the Spirit assended as a dove(viewed by the writer,at the least)... that thw Word was with God and the Word WAS God...
I see the human mind as an entity towards God,hence the verse,"I will use the things of the foolish to confound the wise".. Faith is about NOT knowing(Hebrews 11)...we live by FAITH...we're saved through FAITH...not something proven by intellectual scholars. scolars have their place... they've just elevated it abit too much today.
I chose to believe what was written by those who were THERE.
Jesus Christ is true God, eternally begotten of the Father, and at the same time true man, born of the Virgin Mary, and is the only Savior from sin and the only Mediator between God and humanity (John. 1:1-3, 14; 1 Tim. 2:5; 1 John. 5:20; Acts 4:12) - who, by his perfect life and sacrificial death on the cross, has won the entire forgiveness of sins and eternal life for every human being, from the beginning to the end of the world (Rom. 3:21-26; Gal. 4:4-5; 2 Cor. 5:21; 1 John. 2:2); who rose bodily from the dead on the third day (1 Cor. 15:3-5); and who now reigns at the right hand of God as Lord over all (Eph. 4:10-12)."
Gen1:26-27
[26] And God said, Let us make man in our image, after our likeness: and let them have dominion over the fish of the sea, and over the fowl of the air, and over the cattle, and over all the earth, and over every creeping thing that creepeth upon the earth.
[27] So God created man in his own image, in the image of God created he him; male and female created he them.
Brothers, God speaking before making Adam and Eve! Who is He referring toas, US make man in Our image?
__________________
Jesus said, "he who stands firm to the end will be saved" Mark 13:13.
Live Life in such a way that those who do not know Christ will come to know Him because they know you
Problems With Tritheism
