adminTrinity – True or False?
What is the trinity?
The Athanasian Creed is the first complete formulation of Christian teaching on the doctrine of the trinity compiled in the 5th century A.D. It is also the first creed which uses the word trinity. This creed is generally accepted by most churches as accurately describing the trinity.
It states the following:
“Whosoever will be saved, before all things it is necessary that he hold the catholic faith. Which faith unless every one do keep whole and undefiled, without doubt he shall perish everlastingly. And the catholic faith is this: that we worship one God in Trinity, and Trinity in Unity; neither confounding the Persons, nor dividing the Essence. For there is one Person of the Father; another of the Son; and another of the Holy Ghost. But the Godhead of the Father, of the Son, and of the Holy Ghost, is all one; the Glory equal, the Majesty coeternal. Such as the Father is; such is the Son; and such is the Holy Ghost. The Father uncreated; the Son uncreated; and the Holy Ghost uncreated. The Father unlimited; the Son unlimited; and the Holy Ghost unlimited. The Father eternal; the Son eternal; and the Holy Ghost eternal. And yet they are not three eternals; but one eternal. As also there are not three uncreated; nor three infinites, but one uncreated; and one infinite…So are we forbidden by the catholic religion; to say, There are three Gods, or three Lords…This is the catholic faith; which except a man believe truly and firmly, he cannot be saved.“
In other words, the trinity doctrine teaches that God is just one being but exists as three co-equal, co-eternal, consubstantial persons, namely, God the Father, God the Son, and God the Holy Spirit.
The proponents of the trinity claim that The Father is God, The Son is God and the Holy Spirit is God, yet they claim that God is still one and not three because God is just one being.
If you are scratching your head right now wondering what this strange doctrine means then you are not alone as many Christians admit they have no clue about it.
Is the word trinity found in the Bible?
If there is one teaching above another which unites the majority of Churches and Christian denominations despite their differences, it has to be the doctrine of the Trinity. Surely a teaching as widespread and popular as the Trinity must have strong support in the Bible, correct?
You would be surprised to know that the word Trinity is not found even once in the entire Bible.
You will also not find a single scripture that states that God is one being who exists as three persons.
You will often hear Church leaders and theologians claim that the concept of the Trinity is a heavenly mystery that the world cannot understand and a Christian should accept it by faith because thousands of years ago, a group of Church fathers decided that God is a trinity.
Where does the trinity doctrine originate from?
The Trinity was defined as a concept and instituted as an official church doctrine at the Council of Nicea in 325 AD.
The Council of Nicea was an ecumenical gathering of Bishops and leaders from various Christian factions presided by the Roman Emperor Constantine I and overseen by the first true Pope of the Catholic Church, Pope Sylvester I. It was at this council that the Nicene Creed was formulated. The Nicene Creed is the most widely accepted statement of faith among Christian churches. It is used by Roman Catholics, Eastern Orthodox, Anglican, Lutheran, and most Protestant churches.
In 381 AD, at the First Council of Constantinople, the Nicene Creed was modified to further clarify the doctrine of the trinity by explicitly stating that the Holy Spirit was also part of God. It also stated that the Catholic Church was the only true Church.
The reason the Nicean creed and the trinity doctrine became a fundamental belief was because of the authority and influence of the Pope of Rome.
The Athanasian Creed starts off by declaring that all have to conform to the catholic view of the trinity else they will be punished. So it should come as no wonder that this teaching was accepted by the majority of the people for fear of persecution. In addition to this, all other views were suppressed and subsequently outlawed. This was possible because this creed was upheld by the Pope and enforced into law by the Roman emperors. Thus church and state were united to punish and persecute any who would contradict this decree. This was why this doctrine gained popularity and is now become part and parcel of essential tradition and culture of most Christian churches.
Why did the Catholic Church introduce the doctrine of the trinity into Christianity?
The Catholic church has introduced a long list of false teachings into Christianity, such as: praying to the dead, Veneration of angels and dead saints, The Mass, worship of Mary, Worship of images, etc.
The Catholic Church specializes in baptizing pagan beliefs and finding a use for them in Christianity. Hence it should come as no surprise then that the false teaching of the trinity is also borrowed from paganism.
The concept of the trinity cannot be arrived at from logic, reasoning, or Biblical scriptures.
The trinity doctrine propagates the idea that God is somehow ontologically singular (one being) even though He exists as three different persons. Similar views can be found in pagan religions, some of which are listed below:
1) Brahma, Vishnu, and Shiva, who constitute the Hindu trinity called the Trimurti are essentially one God called Brahma.
Brahma, the creator
Vishnu, the preserver
Shiva, the destroyer
2) The Greeks believed in a single Goddess Hecate manifesting in three forms as Luna (above the earth), Diana (on the earth), and Proserpine (under the earth). The Triple Goddess is manifest in her three domains (heaven, earth, hell), three specific phases of the moon (crescent, half, and full), and three stages of human life (birth, maturity, death).
Why do Christians today believe in the Trinity?
The reality is that most Christians today blindly accept what they are taught rather than take the time and effort to read the Bible and verify what they believe to be true or not. After reading the Bible, any honest Christian will have to admit that there is not a single Bible verse that teaches that God is one being and that this being is composed of three persons.
Most people get confused by certain Bible verses, which on the surface appear to claim that there is only one God, and to harmonize with clear passages which teach that we have more than one God, they readily submit to this false pagan doctrine of the Trinity.
Does the Trinity make sense?
The Shield of the Trinity which is derived from the Athanasian Creed is a visual representation of the doctrine of the Trinity.
This diagram quickly exposes the fundamental flaw of the trinity concept. The diagram shows how the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit together make up the one God. If this is true, then logically each one of them individually cannot be fully God but just one-third of God.
But the Trinity view emphasizes that each one of them is fully God. If this is the case then we have three God Beings and not just one. To overcome this flaw in the trinity concept and add the total to one absolute God, it is claimed that although each of them is fully God, they are three separate persons and not three separate beings. The proponents of the trinity then just count how many beings are there, and since they claim that there is only one being, therefore God is one in the absolute sense.
So the only way that Trinitarians can justify their concept is by claiming that in God, being and person are two separate things.
The dictionary defines the two terms as follows:
Person: the personality of a human being
Even the dictionary definition links a being with a person. You can’t just separate the two. Every person is not two, not three but just one being. The dictionary even mentions that the two terms are synonymous. You can read the Bible from Genesis to Revelation, and you will not find a single verse that states that a being can be multiple persons or that God is one being who is three separate persons.
What you see here is an absolute confusion being created to substantiate a false belief which can not be proved from the Bible. There is absolutely no logical, mathematical, observational, or Biblical reason to conclude such a strange concept about God. Rather than honestly seeking a Biblical explanation for the apparent contradiction of God being claimed as one in some Scriptures and as more than one in others, a strange concept was borrowed by the Catholic Church from pagan religions.
To know more about what the Bible really teaches about God, please read the following article.
Godhead – Three Gods or One?
BlueSky
Clear and logical thank you.
I have often wondered about this. I just made no sense to me. Thank you for clarifying.