The Trinity Doctrine – Pandora’s Box

Overview

This website opposes the orthodox doctrine of God because it teaches that the Son of God is not a distinct Person and, therefore, did not die on the Cross. That may sound strange, but it is the hidden reality of this Doctrine. The discussion below shows the following:

This Doctrine teaches that the Father, the Son, and the Spirit are a single immortal, invisible, and immutable (cannot suffer) Being with a single mind and will.

Therefore, since the term ‘Person’ implies a distinct mind, describing the Son of God as a ‘Person’ is misleading. The Father, Son, and Spirit are more appropriately described as modes of existing as God.

Since the Father and Son are a single immutable and immortal God with a single mind, the Son cannot become separated from the Father to become incarnate. Since God is immutable, the Son cannot suffer. Since God is immortal, the Son cannot die.

Therefore, what happened at the Incarnation was that the Holy Spirit inspired a mere man with God’s Word. That man, Jesus, has a human mind. Many of the things he said came from that human mind. That mere man suffered, died, was resurrected, ascended to heaven, and now sits at God’s right hand.

This Doctrine of God is not explained to people but is hidden behind a cloud of cliches. People are kept away from it by warnings that it is impossible to understand because we cannot understand God and by threats of excommunication. But the reality is that it contradicts the Bible, which presents the Father and Son as distinct Minds and says that the Son died for our sins.


Doctrine of God

The phrase “three Persons” is misleading.

The orthodox Trinity doctrine is often explained to people by saying that the Father, Son, and Spirit are one God existing as three Persons. [Show More]

The phrase “three Persons” implies three distinct minds. However, in the Trinity doctrine, the Father, Son, and Spirit share a single mind and, therefore, a single will, consciousness, and self-awareness. They do not each have a distinct mind. For example:

Karl Rahner, a leading Catholic scholar, in ‘The Trinity,’ wrote that the term “persons” implies distinct minds, but there exists in God only one power, one will, one mind, one self-presence, one consciousness, and only one self-awareness. These qualities do not distinguish the divine “persons” one from the other but come from the shared essence. [Show More]

Lewis Ayres stated similarly that the Persons do not “possess different natures, wills, or activities.” [Show More]

Consequently, leading Trinitarian scholars confirm that it is misleading to describe the Father, Son, and Spirit as “Persons.” [Show More]

The phrase “three hypostases” is also inappropriate.

The orthodox Trinity doctrine is sometimes explained, using Greek terms from the fourth century, as one ousia (substance) and three hypostases. But the term hypostasis is also not appropriate because, while the Father, Son, and Spirit in the Trinity doctrine are a single Being with one mind, the Greek term hypostasis means something that exists distinctly from other things. [Show More]

Therefore, in the fourth century, each hypostasis has a distinct mind. For example, the Eusebians (misleadingly called ‘Arians’) of the fourth century confessed “three in hypostasis but one in agreement.” (Ayres, p. 118) The phrase “one in agreement” means that the church fathers used hypostases for distinct minds. [Show More]

People are unable to distinguish between the Father, Son, and Spirit.

In the Trinity doctrine, the distinction between the Father, Son, and Spirit is invisible to the created universe. The creation only sees one Being:

“By the last quarter of the fourth century, halting Christian attempts … had led … to what later generations generally think of as ‘the doctrine of the Holy Trinity’: the formulated idea that the God … is Father and Son and Holy Spirit, as one reality or substance, operating outward in creation always as a unity, yet always internally differentiated by the relationships of origin that Father and Son and Holy Spirit have with one another.” (Anatolios, xiii)

“The distinctions between them are real: but we do not know what it is to exist distinctly in this state.” (Ayres, p. 295)

“Three modes” is more descriptive.

So, if the terms ‘Persons’ and ‘hypostases’ are misleading and the distinction between them is invisible, how should the ‘Persons’ in the Trinity doctrine be described? Hanson refers to the Father, Son, and Spirit as “three ways of being or modes of existing as God:”

“The champions of the Nicene faith … developed a doctrine of God as a Trinity, as one substance or ousia who existed as three hypostases, three distinct realities or entities (I refrain from using the misleading word’ Person’), three ways of being or modes of existing as God.” (Hanson Lecture)

The challenge would be to show how this differs from Modalism (the name Von Harnack gave to second-century Monarchianism). 

Three equal Minds would be Tritheism.

One might respond and say, yes, that may be the orthodox Trinity doctrine, but I believe in a Trinity of three Persons with three distinct minds. That would be consistent with the Bible, but if the three Persons are equal, there would be three Gods (Tritheism). As soon as one speaks of three Minds, two of the Minds must be subordinate to the other; otherwise, one has three Gods. But to admit that the Son and Spirit are subordinate to the Father would be ‘Arianism.’ To avoid both Tritheism and Arianism, the orthodox Trinity doctrine has to say that the Father, Son, and Spirit are a single Being with a single mind. 

In the first four centuries, the Church believed that the Son is a distinct but subordinate divine Being.

The orthodox doctrine of God may be compared to the traditional doctrine of God of the first four centuries, today misleadingly called ‘Arianism.’ It is often claimed that the ‘Arians’ believed that Jesus is a created being. That might have been what Arius taught, but it was certainly not what most anti-Nicenes believed. They taught a trinity of three divine Beings. They regarded the Son as a distinct divine Person (hypostasis) with a distinct mind, subordinate to the Father. [Show More]

Incarnation

The different views of the Incarnation are discussed in more detail here. In summary:

In the orthodox Trinity doctrine, a mere man died on the Cross.

In the orthodox Trinity doctrine, it is a mere man who died, was resurrected, ascended, and now sits at God’s right hand:

Since the Father and Son are a single Being with a single mind, the Son cannot be separated from the Father to become a human being. Rather, the Holy Spirit inspired a mere human being (Jesus) with the Word of God.

That human has a human mind. Some things Jesus said came from that human mind, for example, that he does not know the day or hour (Matt 24:36). At other times, it was God’s Word speaking through the Holy Spirit, for example, when He said that the Father and He are one.

Since the Father and Son are a single God and since God cannot suffer or die, the Son cannot suffer or die either. It was a mere man who suffered and died on the cross, was resurrected, ascended to heaven, and now sits at God’s right hand. One may object that that implies that we are not saved, for the death of a normal human being cannot save sinners. The Bible is clear that we are saved by the death of God’s Son (e.g., I Thess 5:9-10; 1 Peter 3:18).

In the first four centuries, the Church believed that the Creator was crucified.

In the doctrine of God that dominated during the first four centuries (today known as Arianism), to redeem the world, God produced a distinct divine Person (the Son) with a reduced divinity. That allowed the Son to become incarnated, suffer, and even die. In this view, Jesus does not have a human mind. Rather, the Logos (the Son) functions as Jesus’ mind. Consequently, Jesus Christ is the same Person as the pre-incarnate Son of God:

Everything Jesus said was said by God’s eternal Son.

The Logos (the eternal Son) experienced all of Jesus’ suffering, and He died. Consequently, the Creator and God of the earth was crucified, died, was resurrected, and ascended.

In this view, that was not the first time the Son appeared in human form. They taught that all personal appearances of Yahweh in the Old Testament are, in fact, the one we know as Jesus Christ:

“It is he who appeared in the Old Testament epiphanies. He took a body to appear under the New Testament as Saviour and Redeemer.” (RH, p. 103) [RH = Bishop R.P.C. Hanson, The Search for the Christian Doctrine of God – The Arian Controversy 318-381, 1987]

For the Eusebians, “the pre-existent Christ who appeared in the Old Testament on various occasions was the same as he who was crucified” (RH, 40, quoting Asterius, a leading early ‘Arian’)

Basil of Caesarea taught three divine Beings.

Introduction

The traditional account – Due to research and a store of ancient documents that have become available over the last 100 years, scholars today conclude that the traditional account of the Arian Controversy – of how and why the church accepted the Trinity doctrine – is history written by the winner and fundamentally flawed. 

Books quoted – Only a handful of full-scale books on the fourth-century Arian Controversy have been published since Gwatkin’s book at the beginning of the 20th century. This article series is based on books by world-class scholars of the last 50 years. [Show More]

Basil of Caesarea, who became bishop in 370, made an important contribution to the development of the Trinity doctrine. [Show More]

Terminology

Terminology is a major hurdle in discussing the fourth-century Controversy. In that century, most people used the Greek words ousia and hypostasis as synonyms; both indicating a distinct existence. [Show More]

      • So, when the Eusebians said that the Father, Son, and Spirit are three substances, they are also three hypostases.
      • And, when Athanasius said the Father, Son, and Spirit are one single substance, they are also only one hypostasis. [Show More]

However, the Trinity doctrine uses ousia and hypostases for contrasting concepts, namely, that God is one ousia (substance or Being) existing as three hypostases (Persons). (See Article) So, the challenge is to find terminology for discussing the fourth-century controversy that will be clear to modern readers:

In the fourth century, ‘hypostasis’ was the primary term for a distinct existence but, since the term hypostasis has different meanings in the fourth-century writings and the Trinity doctrine, this article attempts to avoid it. [Show More]

The term “substance” (Gr. ousia) is also slightly confusing. While the ancient Greeks used it for something that really exists, we often use the term today for the stuff a thing consists of.

Perhaps the phrase “distinct existence,” which Litfin gave to explain hypostasis, may be appropriate as less subject to different interpretations.

This article uses hypostases, substances, and existences mostly as synonyms but occasionally also uses the term ‘substance’ for the material a divine Being consists of.

Purpose

While the Trinity doctrine defines the Father, Son, and Spirit as a single undivided substance (one Being with a single mind and will), (See Article) this article shows that Basil taught that They are three distinct existences (three Beings and three distinct Minds). [Show More]

Identical in Substance

When the Controversy began, all theologians regarded the Son as subordinate to the Father. Even Athanasius, the great defender of Nicaea, thought of the Son as subordinate in some ways. Basil was the first to propose that “the Father’s sharing of his being involves the generation of one identical in substance and power.” (Ayres, p. 207) [Show More]

While both the Eusebians and Basil taught three hypostases, what made Basil different is that he believed that the Father, Son, and Spirit are “identical in substance and power.” His theology is often stated in ways that sound as if he believed in only a single undivided substance (Being). But the next section shows that he believed that the Father, Son, and Spirit are three distinct substances. [Show More]

Three Distinct Beings

Basil understood the Father, Son, and Spirit to be distinct Beings:

1. Began as a Homoi-ousian

Basil did not begin his career as a pro-Nicene. He began as an ‘Arian’; specifically, a Homoi-ousian, and Homoiousians believed in distinct existences. As a Homoi-ousian, at first, he believed that the Son’s substance is similar to the Father’s, but distinct. [Show More]

2. Homoousios as ‘likeness’

Homoousios has two possible meanings. When two entities are said to be of the ‘same substance’ (homoousios) it can mean that they are a single substance or two distinct but identical substances. [Show More]

After Basil had moved away from the ‘similar substance’ formula of the Homoi-ousians, and had accepted the term homouousios, he continued to say that the Son’s substance is “like” the Father’s, implying two distinct substances. [Show More]

While Trinitarians understand homoousios as saying that the Father and Son are one substance, Basil explained it in a generic sense of two Beings (two distinct existences) with the same type of substance. [Show More]

3. Like humans

Basil argued that the Father, Son, and Spirit are three instances of divinity just like three people are three instances of humanity. This is perhaps the clearest indication that Basil thought of the Father and Son as two distinct Beings. [Show More]

4. Distinct Minds and Wills

Basil described the Father and Son as having distinct minds and wills, implying distinct Beings. [Show More]

5. The Holy Spirit is not Homoousios.

Although Basil described the Spirit as identical in substance to the Father, for some unknown reason, he never described the Holy Spirit as homoousios with the Father and Son. This supports the view that the Three are not a single existence. [Show More]

6. The Father is the Source.

For Basil, although the Father, Son, and Spirit are identical in substance and power, they differ in other ways. One is that the Father alone exists without cause. This also supports the view of three distinct Beings.

Since he teaches that Father and Son have the same substance, Basil was sensitive to the accusation that he could be accused of tritheism; three Ultimate Principles; three Beings who exist without cause and gave existence to all else. Basil did not defend by saying that Father, Son, and Spirit really are one, as one would expect if he was teaching today’s Trinity doctrine, but by identifying the Father alone as the ultimate Source. If that is so, it is difficult to imagine that the Father, Son, and Spirit are a single existence. [Show More]

7. The Priority of the Father

Although Basil described Father, Son, and Spirit as identical in substance and power, he maintained a certain order among the Persons. For example, he never referred to the Holy Spirit as ‘God’ but as third in rank. Again, this implies that he did not think of the Father, Son, and Spirit as a single existence. [Show More]

Contemplation

Basil’s theology was not based on the Bible alone but on the Bible + ‘Contemplation’ (epinoia – ἐπίνοια). He explained epinoia as “concepts developed by the human mind” through “a process of reflection and abstraction.” [Show More]

Basil was a Philosopher.

It is traditional to accuse Arius of mixing the Bible with philosophy but the real culprits in this regard were the Cappadocians. Basil’s doctrine of God was based on pagan philosophy. Basil obtained the distinction between a common deity and the differentiation of persons (as discussed above) not from the Bible but from pagan philosophy. The Cappadocians all relied on contemporary philosophy more than, for example, Athanasius and Hilary. [Show More]

 


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