LET MY PEOPLE GO
A LOOK AT THE CATHOLIC CHURCH
J,
Regarding the material you sent me� in the words of Martin Luther� I must protest. If I had the resolve, I would run through it and count all the times the author said "God said there is a Trinity," "God has revealed the Trinity to us," and the such. But I lack the resolve. To the author I have one question. WHEN and WHERE did God reveal it to us? I would like to see it in the Bible. I would like to see just ONE verse that says three-in-one. The fact is, almost none of the words Trinitarians use to describe the Trinity are in the Bible. The only words they share with the Bible are God, Father, Son, and Holy Ghost. I will accept the argument that Trinity was not a word in existence at the time� though I will continue to wonder why a similar word wasn't around if this was the case. For example, there is a specific name for each part in your computer, for each ingredient in your coffee, for every type of atom in the world. Why, if God created man (which he did) did God not give us a word that means Trinity or three-in-one?
Let us consider some of the terms used to describe the Trinity.
Eternal Father, Eternal Son, Three-in-one, one-in-three, three in unity, triune, trinity, three persons, three distinct ..., three separate...(though most shy away from this one lately), eternally begotten, first person, second person, third person, triunity, God the Father, God the Son, and God the Holy Ghost
although I could go on and on, I don't believe it is necessary. Now, the words modalism and oneness are not in the Bible either, but, God did have a word for these two words in use at the time. It was ONE. Though I have said it before, I will say it again. Deut. 6:4 says "Hear, O Israel, the LORD our God is one Lord." Jesus said, "I and my father are one." What he should have said was "I and the father are two-in-one." But he never said this.
On page 49, the author said "there is no likelihood of his (a believer) being so much in love with the principal doctrine of his faith that he will want to tell people about it." I don't believe this wholeheartedly. I believe it is more likely that since the doctrine of the trinity is so confusing, most people cannot talk about it. Your average lay person would find it nearly impossible to define and defend. And the author put his finger on it perfectly when he said "it is true that the doctrine of the Blessed Trinity is a mystery, and that we can know it only by faith," (50).
It is ironic that a sociological study done some years ago said most Pentecostals are poor, uneducated people, with nothing to cling to but the promises of the Bible. These same poor, uneducated people (many of whom I know) CAN and DO explain the oneness of God with precision. I know one woman who is in her 70's and consequently, has the same amount of education as most people growing up during the depression (very little), and yet she can easily explain the Oneness of God to you, a rocket scientist, or the Pope. (I believe she would really enjoy explaining it to John Paul II.)
I am not saying that simplification of explanation is proof positive of correctness of doctrine, but I am saying that it takes away the "mystery." The author said "the doctrine of the Trinity is the inner, the innermost, life of God, His profoundest secret...he revealed it to us because He loves men and so wants not only to be served by them but truly known by them," (50). If this is true, then why can no one truly understand the Trinity? Why is it that only a half a page earlier, he said it was a "mystery...that we can only know by faith?"
Let us remember that Christ, himself, preached to the simple. He spoke in parables that only the simple minded understood. When he spoke to the Scribes and Pharisees, they rarely understood what he meant. When he spoke to the children, the harlots, the fishermen, they understood him. What are we to understand now? That God has chosen to change his ways, allowing only the learned to understand him while the simpleminded get led astray, or only accept it by faith?
And this is my point, that the Bible says "Jesus Christ, the same yesterday, and to day, and forever," (Heb. 13:8). I do not believe that Christ would decide to change after several centuries. 2,000 years ago, the disciples understood his oneness. Today, what sociologists deemed poorly educated people understand the oneness. It is food for thought.
One of the grand problems Trinitarians have in defining the Trinity is the lack of suitable Bible references. Oneness people will show you this verse and that. They will cross reference, and flip back and forth between Old and New Testaments. They only have one book to read, so it is easy for them. As far as Trinitarians who have a desire to truly understand the Trinity, they must read document after document, council after council to understand it. And this brings me to my next point.
In I John 4 we were warned to "try the spirits whether they are of God." We only have one yardstick upon which we can measure the truth of God. That yardstick is the Bible. If someone says something is in the Bible, look it up, and read it in context. If it is there with the same meaning they attributed to it, they have spoken truth. If it is not there, or has a different meaning, it is not true. As we have already agreed, nearly anybody can take Biblical verses out of context and prove a point. I can rationalize the killing of all witches right now, because the Bible says "thou shalt not suffer a witch to live." But Christ said that ALL killing was wrong. When we read and understand the Bible as a whole, we know that we are in a different dispensation of time now, and thus, the former passage is of none effect to us.
Biblically we can say God is One, that Christ is the Everlasting Father, that the Holy Ghost comes in the name of Jesus Christ. We cannot say that there are three-in-one.
The Bible tells us that there is only one unforgivable sin� blaspheming the Holy Ghost. I believe this author come dangerously close when we asserts "The revelation of the Trinity was in one sense an even more certain proof than Calvary that God loves mankind" (51.) Even if the doctrine of the Trinity were true, how could it ever compare to the agony Christ suffered for you and me? Can anything compare to having nails driven through your hands and feet? How can this so called revelation compare to grace, mercy, and salvation? I, for one, would rather have the assurance of Calvary and its gains than to speak to God face to face.
Since he claims that there are three persons in one nature, let me address this fist. According to him, there are four basic principles (51):
Although the first three points sound semi-plausible, the last point blows all credibility in such a creed.
He defines nature as answering the question what we are, whereas person defines who we are. Okay, to look at this simply, if I say my father, I refer to what a particular person's relationship is to me, not who that person is. You have no idea who my father is, only that there is a person with that relationship. So, his definition of nature also applies to person.
Further, he says "By our nature, we are what we are. It follows that by our nature, we do what we do: for every being acts according to what it is...Nature then is to be seen not only as what we are but as the source of what we can do" (52). He goes on to say "Although my nature decides what kind of operations are possible for me, it is not my nature that does them: I do them, the person" (52-53). He has applied dogmatic words to what ordinary people call personality, and what psychologists call mind. My mind urges me to do something, and my body reacts. Although there is a difference between my corporeal body and my mind, neither is capable of survival without the other. They are interdependent. If my legs were suddenly cut off, and I could no longer walk, would I have a different nature? Or be a different person? Absolutely not. But according to his logic, I would then have two natures in one person. I would still be Lane, but I would now be an amputee, therefore changing my nature. (This because he said nature determines what we can and cannot do, and if I cannot do something any longer, it stands to reason I have a different nature.)
By his own reasoning, he fails to prove that there is three persons rolled up in one nature. He claims that there is only one nature in God, and that the same nature in God the Father is the same nature that is in God the Son, etc. But is this true? It was Christ's nature to suffer, and the Holy Ghost's nature to comfort, and the Father's nature to create. This is three separate natures, therefore, his four criteria for the Trinity fails, leaving intact only two, and changing the other two to say there are three gods who work together. This is no different than the paganism which was around prior to and current with early Christianity. Many religions had a three god head, and then were followed by multitudes of other gods. Gods of wind, eyes, travel, and so on. What is the difference between this pantheon of gods and the pantheon contained in the trinity being head over a thousand prayed-to saints?
Let us look at a couple other claims he makes. He says that "the essence of being a son lies in these two elements: (1) the son is like in nature to the father and (2) that he receives his nature from his father" (58). On the same page he goes on to say that "the son of a man is a man, and the son of a horse is a horse." Therefore, he should have continued his analogy and said the son of a god is a god. But wait, that would make two gods, wouldn't it?
Next, he says that the Son, being like in nature to the Father, is therefore infinite, and eternal. This is anti-Biblical which claims Christ was borne of a woman as the law demanded. Furthermore, the Bible also says Christ was begotten. This very word implies a beginning. If Christ had no beginning, he was not begotten. Or, in the beginning with God, there must have been a goddess to birth Jesus. So, with this in mind, can we say that in the beginning, God was, and Mary was with God, and they had a child? I doubt that even the must profound worshipers of Mary would make such a claim.
On page 59, he says, "God never had any existence except as the Father." If this is true, then either Jesus lied when he said he was God (because that would make him the Father), or God lied when he said he was the Redeemer (because that would make him the Son.)
For reason of time and space I will not quote directly what he says on page 61, but will paraphrase. He says that since God had such a perfect plan of Jesus Christ, and a perfect image of Jesus Christ, that plan became an actual second person. There is some bad logic in this assertion, though. By the same token, this means that since God had a plan for all of humanity from the beginning, the future already happened. Furthermore, since He knew we were all going to die, by his logic, we are all already dead. It is true God knows all things perfectly, but because he knows them perfectly, and thinks them perfectly, does not mean that they have already come to pass. Further, since God knows you and I perfectly, does this mean that we are eternal? Or even the same nature of God since it was He who thought of us in the very beginning?
He claims on page 62 that Jesus has nothing "he has not received from the Father," and that "there is no shadow of inequality between them." But consider this, Jesus Christ had flesh, which the Father does not. He had to eat, sleep, drink, etc. none of which the Father has to do. Therefore, they do not have the same nature. Moreover, Jesus had a will of his own. Remember that he prayed "Father, let this cup pass from me...nevertheless, thy will not mine, Lord." If, as this indicates, Christ had a will of his own, he was not the same nature of the Father. The author says "thus no one of the Three has anything the others have not; each possess the whole Godhead, but...in his own way" (68). By simply possessing the same nature in different ways means they do not have the same nature. If, as he asserted earlier, the had all things, exactly the same, and nature determines what we are capable of, then it stands to reason that creatures of the same exact nature would do all things in like manner. They would all be right handed, they would all put their sandals on the same exact way, and they would all possess the same nature exactly the same. If there exists a difference between how they do something, their natures are different. And again. If their natures are different in the slightest way, we have three gods back on our hands.
On page 69 he says "what is sure is that what the Church has defined is true, what the Church has condemned is false: Christ established a Church that could do us this service." This presupposes that the Catholic church is the church Christ founded. It also means the church is incapable of erring. In one papal bull, it was said "I can do all things God can do. I possess all of his power, therefore, what can you make of me but God?" This has aligned the pope with God, equating the two� making them one and the same. Is this true because the Catholic church said it?
He goes on to say "Great theologians...know that nothing can be known as infallibly certain until the church has spoken: the mind of man is not sufficient." Does this mean the pope has a greater mind than any of us? I would like to bring up one person to counter this theory that nothing is certain and infallible until the church has spoken. Galileo. Need I say more?
On the subject of baptism and Trinitarianism, the author quotes Matthew 28:19 and says "To see just what that phrase means to the Godhead of the Holy Spirit, try substituting any other name, however mighty. �In the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Archangel Michael.' that would sound ridiculous." But since he said try it with any other name, I will try it with my choice. "I baptize you in the name of Jesus Christ for the remission of your sins." Hmm� that sounds good to me. It sounded good to Peter and the apostles too, because in Acts 2:38, Peter said "Repent and be baptized...in the name of Jesus Christ for the remission of sins." And if we read the book of Acts, we see everyone was baptized in the name of: "Jesus Christ," "our Lord, Jesus," or something else similar which leaves out the titles Father, Son, and Holy Ghost, and only uses the name Jesus.
Another interesting passage comes on page 74. "The pagans imagines a multitude of Gods: it was the wrong answer but to the right question or, perhaps better, to the right quest." The right quest is to seek more than one God? If this is the case, what is the difference between Trinitarianism and paganism? Nothing.
Pages 74-75 make a plea to the emotional side of us, throwing rationale and reason to the wind. In debates, this is known as pathos. It relies solely upon the pity and compassion of the listener to exact a reaction. The author says, essentially, that God had to make another person in the Godhead, because otherwise he would be lonely. That if God had only us to love and the angels, he would be wasting his time on inferiors who could never love him back properly. So, in order that he was not wasting his love, he created a second infinite being. For all practical purposes, the author has said that God is incapable of creating something that could love him the way he wants to be loved.
Now, the Bible tells us that the angels stand about his throne crying "Holy, holy, holy is the LORD." Scripture also tells us that God created man because the angels had to love him. He wanted someone who wanted to love him. That is us. What exactly does he want from us to show our love for him? He says "if you love me, you will keep my commandments." Moreover, the Bible also tells us that God never loved our flesh. That the flesh is at enmity with God. But God loves our souls. When we die, we will spend eternity somewhere, either in heaven or hell. If we make it to heaven, we are told that we will sit around the throne worshiping our God. It is not that we are incapable of loving God perfectly, this world is our test� to see whether or not we are worthy enough to love and worship him for all eternity.
Although I am certain the author of this has put a lot of thought into his ideas, and perhaps even believes what he states with all sincerity, the fact is, I believe he is sincerely wrong. Scripture has never once said there are three persons in the Godhead. It has, however, said "Now there are differences of administrations, but the same Lord." (I Cor. 12:5)
God has revealed himself to us in three administrations: as Father, as Son, and as the Holy Ghost. These are the differences of his relationship toward man, but in no ways indicates three distinct persons. Consider this, God made man in his image. You have a mind, a body, and a soul. This does not make you three persons in the one nature. The mind of God thought and planned out the creation and salvation of all mankind. The body of God suffered for us. And the soul of God comforts us and leads us into salvation. Three different administrations of the same One God, with only One person.
Peace in Christ,
L
