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 Note: Challenging the doctrine of the Trinity does not mean challenging the Divinity of Christ and it does not mean challenging the Divinity of the Holy Spirit. The New Testament abounds with much proof of the deity of Jesus Christ and Acts 5:3-4 is more than enough to clinch the issue of the Holy Spirit being God. However, there is absolutely no evidence that the Holy Spirit is the 'third person of the Trinity. Theologians over simplify the matter when they state that the Biblical evidence permits only one of two conclusion a) Jesus and the Holy Spirit are not Divine, or b) God is a Tri-unity. It's either this or that... take it or leave it.
However, it is possible that many of those who emphatically declare that a person cannot be saved without a belief in the Trinity may actually have the Deity of Christ in mind. See The Deity of Christ
Index Below
Is God a Trinity? - Introduction
The doctrine of the Trinity is one of mainstream Christianity's most universally accepted and hallowed doctrines held sacrosanct by Catholics, Protestants, and Orthodox believers alike. The doctrine, as defined by the Second Ecumenical Council, is so set in stone that it has become a commonly used litmus test for true belief. Although most cannot wrap their heads around the concept, the vast majority of Christians believe it to be an unassailable and inviolable doctrine that comes straight from the pages of Scripture/the time of the first apostles.
It doesn't.
When non-Christians hold to the beliefs they may have held from their childhood, we urge them to examine the evidence for themselves. Yet Christians rarely seem to take their own advice, seemingly unwilling to even consider that any of the doctrines they have unquestioningly accepted may not conform to what the Bible teaches.
Let us never forget that the book of Acts (17:11) describes the people from the city of Berea as
"...more noble than those in Thessalonica, in that they received the word with all readiness of mind, and searched the scriptures daily, whether those things were so".
If the Bereans did not take Paul and Silas’ word for it but checked what they said against the Scriptures, why in the world do we imagine that we can take any modern day pastor or theologian’s word at face value without checking for ourselves that what they teach is true? We must be a LOT more gullible and, dare I say it, more stupid than those ancient people.
See Other Mistranslations and Misinterpretations
and The VERY Unreliable People We Have Put on Pedestals HERE
Although the Greek grammar does NOT necessarily indicate that the Holy Sprit is a male being, because of concepts already set in stone modern translations use the pronoun "He" for the Holy Spirit. Most 'orthodox' explanations I have ever read do no more than quote verses that list Father, Son and Holy Spirit in one place, although this cannot possibly tell us what the nature of the Holy Spirit is. Besides which the origin of the doctrine of a triune God is extremely unreliable (influenced by Greek philosophy), and the New Testament does not treat the Holy Spirit as a separate being (even ignoring it in many cases). However, none of this seems to mean a thing.
But if you take the time to look closely and carefully you will find that there is far, far more Biblical evidence against the Holy Spirit being the third person of the Trinity, than there is for this doctrine.
Sadly, those that disagree with orthodox church doctrine are immediately dismissed as heretics. However, doctrine cannot be based on the official position of any given denomination, what any seminary or Bible school may teach, what one or the other 'church father' believed and taught, nor the conclusion any of the councils came to. We certainly cannot necessarily take as Gospel truth what modern scholars and theologians preach regardless of how persuasive, respected, or highly thought of they may be. And we certainly cannot trust what Catholic mystics - deeply immersed in Greek philosophy - would have us believe. Also See Relying On Others To Decide What We Should Believe in Part I
By this, I certainly do not mean that we cannot learn from those who may have devoted much of their lives to the study of the Scriptures, and may have great insight into God's word. What I am saying is that every single word that proceeds from the mouth and pen of man has to be carefully checked against the standard that the Almighty Himself has given us. Regardless of how eminent the theologian and how high flown his phrasing, if what he says does not agree with Scriptures it is to be discarded and opposed without delay or hesitation.
The orthodox version of one God in three persons prevailed because it satisfied a number of requirements. a) It cleared the church against the multi-god accusation, albeit with a very intricate and complicated explanation. b) The doctrine could be considered 'safe’ as no Bible verse explicitly states the exact nature of the Holy Spirit, And, finally c) It allowed the church to happily go about their business under the impression that they had solved the dilemma of seemingly contradictory statements in the Bible.
As far as they were concerned... they had a nice tidy solution. The difficulty was resolved, and the case could be closed regardless of the fact that the conclusion did not follow from nor agree with the Biblical evidence.
So let us not make the same tragic mistakes and see for ourselves what the Bible teaches and how the Bible describes and defines the Father, Son and Holy Spirit, and their relationship to each other.
INDEX
History And Why The Doctrine Prevailed
Part I - Historical Background
The concept of a triune God was developed as a defense against charges that Christians worshipped two or three Gods. After debating various suggestions and rejecting most as heretical, in 381 AD., under the influence of very questionable pagan philosophers, the church ultimately settled on the idea of the Trinity. The fact is there is absolutely no evidence that the Holy Spirit is the 'third person of the Trinity.
Interestingly, the very same scholars who claim that one cannot be saved without believing in the Trinity (although the Bible says nothing of the sort) make no bones about the fact that the doctrine itself is incomprehensible.
Proof Texts and The Grammar
(The next two chapters show why the various reasons put forth for the three-in-one doctrine do not prove anything)
Part II - Passages That Supposedly "Prove" the Trinity
Although there isn't a single verse or passage that "clearly" states that there is one God who exists in three persons, Trinitarians usually advance a number of verses (in less polite terms, the usual suspects are rounded up) as evidence for there being three coequal members of the Godhead. In reality these verses do no such thing. Read without prejudice or preconceived ideas, the "proof texts" merely state that Father, Son and Holy Spirit exist. None of them speak of or even hint at a triune God, nor do any of them present the Spirit as a separate being.
Yet, asking a person to read the actual text and not allow anyone to tell them what they think the text means seems to be quite a novel concept in Christianity. Why? Are we just so used to having the Bible interpreted for us that we are too lazy to check it for ourselves? Or have we been so indoctrinated that when we read the verses in question, we read into them what we have been led to believe they say / have always been told what the meaning is.
Part III - The Grammar
Because the Holy Spirit is referred to as 'He' or "Him" in quite a few places in The New Testament, many people assume that the Holy Spirit is male. In fact, the grammar is often used as the first line of defense against any challenges to the doctrine. The problem is that the grammar cannot necessarily be used to support the idea that the Holy Spirit is a 'he' - much less the third Person of the Trinity. Doctrinal bias, not grammatical accuracy, is responsible for referring to the Holy Spirit with masculine rather than neuter pronouns when both are equally legitimate. In other words, there is no clear grammatical foundation for the orthodox view of the Trinity.
Is God One Or More?
Part IV - The Deity of Christ & The Holy Spirit
It is true that not a single Scriptural passage unambiguously says "Jesus is God" nor did Jesus ever utter a single unequivocal "I am God" statement. However, the New Testament abounds with so much proof of the deity of Jesus Christ that it is puzzling that so many who claim to believe in the Bible repudiate it. It is equally bewildering that it took a battle royal in the church and a council convened by an emperor to come to a conclusion that was already glaringly obvious.
Part V - Can God Be More Than One?
Can Divinity be ascribed to Jesus considering that the famous Shema of Israel clearly and emphatically declares that God is "one"? Actually the Hebrew Scriptures do not eliminate the possibility of God existing as more than one Divine Person simply because some of the words used in the Old Testament can indicate a plurality.
If The Holy Spirit is Divine But Not A 'Person',
How Are We To Understand It?
Part V - The Holy Spirit... A Separate Person Or...?
Acts 5:3-4 makes it clear that lying to the Holy Spirit is lying to God. Thus this short passage is more than enough to attribute Divinity to the Holy Spirit. However, that does not necessarily mean that there are three coequal Persons in one Divine Being.
Consider the following. The Holy Spirit - the supposed "third person of the Trinity" - is missing from the opening salutation of most of the New Testament books and from the approximately eighteen doxologies found in these books. "He" is also conspicuously absent from Daniel, Stephen, and John's visions of heaven. Is it possible that the New Testament authors were just careless or even worse - horribly insulting?
Or is it more likely that as the Bible makes very clear (and something we gloss over) that there is only one Spirit which means the Spirit of God the Father, the Spirit of Christ and the Holy Spirit are one and the same Spirit. This makes the Holy Spirit the very power of God Himself.
If Not The Scriptures, Where Did The Idea Of The Trinity Come From?
Part VI - The Cappadocian Fathers
Three theologians from Cappadocia ... Basil (bishop of Caesarea), his brother Gregory (bishop of Nyssa) and Basil's close friend Gregory of Nazianzus (jointly known as the Cappadocian fathers) gave definitive shape to the doctrine of the Trinity. The problem is that not only were all three trained Greek philosophers but were greatly influenced by the writings of Origen known for introducing Greek ideas into Christianity. In fact, Gregory of Nyssa applied Origen's line of reasoning to the Trinity claiming we would have no content for our thoughts about Father, Son, and Spirit, if we did not find an outline of their nature within ourselves. In other words, the key to the Trinity is in our triple nature ... our minds or reasoning, our word, and our souls.
If that isn't enough all three of the men were Catholic mystics. Basil and Gregory of Nazianzus actually pioneered
the rules of monastic life, compiling what became known as "the Rule of St. Basil".
Part VII - The Cappadocian fathers - Begotten and Proceeds
The Cappadocian fathers believed and taught that both Son and Holy Spirit derive from the father, but are derived in different ways i.e the Son is "begotten" of the Father and the Spirit "proceeds" from the Father. They apparently missed or ignored the fact that Jesus also spoke of 'proceeding' or 'coming from' the Father and that "begotten" was used in an entirely different way.
To Summarize
Part VIII - Summary and Conclusion:
The church, substituting their own rules for what the Scriptures teach, has often insisted you believe in the Trinity in order to consider yourself as being saved. The truth is that how many Beings the Godhead consists of has absolutely no bearing on salvation. We are no closer to really understanding everything about the Father and the spiritual realm than we are to taking a stroll around Pluto.
Make no mistake, the Lord is not going to judge you on whether you are right or wrong about this or how well you "understand" this doctrine. The judgment passed on you will depend on your faith that Christ as God Himself came to earth to pay the price for our sins AND on whether or not you have followed His commandments and lived a righteous life. Everything else is the product of man's seeming determination to set his own standards.
If you wish to believe there is a Trinity, go right ahead. However, if you actually look into the historical and Biblical evidence for yourself, you are very likely to realize what a concoction the whole issue is. The church has based their decision about this "crucial" matter on biased interpretations and self-serving translations of pronouns. Besides which the church is knows nothing about or is ignoring the fact that the doctrine stemmed from very pagan ideas.
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