Trinitarism: The Great Stone of Stumbling

“Why, if the Christian religion were a revelation of God on High, did these peoples, one of them once the chosen of the Lord, so obstinately refuse to believe? The great stone of stumbling was the doctrine of the Trinity. To them it spelled simply tritheism and conflicted obviously with the great affirmation “Hear, O Israel, the Lord Thy God is One.” The interpretation placed on the doctrine by the Moors and the Jews was certainly not perverse when one recalls that pictorial representations showed the Trinity sometimes as three identical old men, sometimes as distinguished in that the Father wore a tiara, the Son carried a cross, and the Spirit a dove. Or, again, one body was shown with three heads or one head with three faces.”

(Bainton, Roland, H. Hunted Heretic: The Life and Death of Michael Servetus 1511-1553. Boston: The Beacon Press, 1953, 14)

Trinitarianism: Its Contradictions

“The most elementary study of the history and meaning of Christian doctrine suffices to show that though no one ‘understands’ the vast mystery of the triune God, the doctrine of the Trinity is not unintelligible . . .”

(J. S. Whale, Christian Doctrine: Eight Lectures…, Cambridge: At the University Press, 1961, 95)

Trinitarianism: How it’s Defined

“According to Christian theology, the Being who goes deliberately and freely to his desth is not a human personality but the second ‘person’ of the Trinity, God Incarnate in the clothing of human nature.”

(J. S. Whale, Christian Doctrine: Eight Lectures…, Cambridge: At the University Press, 1961, 94)

Trinitarianism: Greek Influences

“The more the Greek mind became preoccupied with abstract ideas covered by terms such as nature, essense and hypostasis, the further it drifted from the New Testament, with its Hebraic interest in concrete religious realities, and its witness to the human experience and holy will of the Redeemer. Religion largely gave place to speculation; or, rather, Christians of the post-Nicene era could be roughly divided into two groups— those who did not think at all and those who did nothing but think.”

(J. S. Whale, Christian Doctrine: Eight Lectures…, Cambridge: At the University Press, 1961, 111)

Trinitarianism: The Dilemma

“A popular solution consists in interpreting ‘person’ in such a way that a person in this sense is not an entity. We could say, to take a common suggestion, that ‘person’ here means ‘role’ : a suggestion supported by the Latin ‘persona’, which means something more like ‘role’ than ‘individual’. For it looks as if to accept ‘person’ in the modern sense of ‘individual’ will not do; we should then have to say that there are three individuals (three persons) in one individual (one God), and this looks dangerously like a logical contradiction. Yet this attempt has its own difficulties. We feel hesitant about saying that God the Father, Christ, and the Holy Ghost—but particularly Christ—are not persons in a fuller sense than the one suggested. Christ is surely not just a role: He is a real person. On the other hand, if the three persons of the Trinity are entities, then God is not one entity but three. Hence the dilemma.”

(John Wilson, Language and Christian Belief, London: MacMillan & Co. Ltd., 1958, 101)

Trinitarianism: Subordination/Eternal Generation/Its Contradictions

“Origen made two important contributions to the doctrine of the Person of Christ. First, he definitely subordinated Christ or the Logos to the Father, relying on such passages as ‘The Father is greater than I.’ Yet secondly, he clearly taught that the Son is not a mere created thing; the Son or Logos of God existed from all eternity with the Father. This is known as his doctrine of the Eternal Generation of the Son. God’s nature is eternally to be a Father, and therefore the Son could not have been born at a specific moment in time, but must be eternally Son. He is eternally being begotten by the Father, for the latter is the ground of all that is, begetting the Logos and creating the world and finite spirits. It is in this sense that the Son is subordinate to the Father, for whereas the Father is the Supreme Being and ground of all other existents, the reality of the Son is derived from the Father.

(Alan Richardson, Creeds in the Making: A Short Introduction to the History of Christian Doctrine, London: Student Christian Movement Press, 1951, 44)

Trinitarianism: Trinitarians Cannot Define ‘Divine Person’

“‘Profane minds ask,’ says Dr. Newman, ‘Is God One or Three?’ They are answered, ‘He is One and He is also Three.’ They reply, ‘He cannot be One in the same sense in which He is Three.’ It is in reply allowed to them, ‘He is Three in one sense, One in another.’ They ask, ‘In what sense? what is that sense in which He is Three Persons? what is that sense of the word Person, such that it neither stands for one separate Being, as it does with men, and yet, on the other hand, has a real and sufficient sense answering to the word? ‘We reply that we do not know that middle sense ; we cannot reconcile, we confess, the distinct portions of the doctrine; we can but take what is given us, and be content. They rejoin that, if this be so, we are using words without meaning. We answer, No, not without meaning in themselves, but without meaning which we fully apprehend. God understands his words though human.’”

“Now I think I see so far, that if no middle term can be assigned between Sabellianism and Tritheism, no one can fully apprehend its meaning. But if the Athanasian Creed teaches me that there are Three Persons in one Substance, and I ask what is the meaning of the term Person, and am told that ‘God only understands it,’ what help to me is this against Sabellianism and Tritheism? Or, again, if it be said that the word Person may be understood in part, but that the part which I understand I cannot reconcile with the other portions of the Athanasian doctrine, .may I venture to ask what se curity against Sabellianism and Tritheism is afforded me by a doctrine which, its advocates admit, is irreconcilable with itself? Besides, I am assured by one eminent Athanasian that a Divine Person is veritably an ‘individual intelligent Being;’ and I am instructed by another, that He is less than an individual intelligent Being; as we have seen.”

(Augustus Clissold, The Creeds of Athanasius, Sebellius, and Swedenborg, Examined and Compared with Each Other, London: Longmans, Green, and Co., 1873, 33-34; ebook)

A Hybrid Doctrine

“Christian Monotheism is not Trinitarianism. Trinitarianism is a merger of Tritheism (belief in Three Gods) with Monotheism (belief in One God), forming a hybrid doctrine, (a doctrine of mixed origin), which is neither Monotheism nor Tritheism in pure form. Many honest persons have been absorbed into the so-called Trinity without really knowing what the logical implications are.”

(Rev. Kennth V. Reeves, The Godhead, Granite City, Illinois, 1971, 6)

Trinitarianism: A Watered-Down Version of Tritheism

Trinitarianism is based upon a superficial understanding of the Bible, through human reasoning superimposed upon the scriptures. Those who have adopted that view only go along because it has been accepted for so long and by so many. No Person can actually examine the foundations of Trinitarianism with objectivity and not be shaken by the implications of this watered-down version of Tritheism.

(Kenneth V. Reeves, The Godhead, Granite City, Illinois, 1971, 35, Fifth Edition)