Tag: Persons of the Trinity

OVERVIEW

This website opposes the Trinity doctrine because it teaches that the pre-incarnate Son of God is not a distinct Person and, therefore, did not die on the Cross. That may sound bizarre, but it is true. The discussion of the Trinity doctrine below shows the following:

The doctrine teaches that the Father, the Son, and the Spirit are a single Being with a single mind and will.

Since the term ‘Person’ implies a distinct mind, it is misleading to say that the pre-incarnate Son is a ‘Person’. The so-called ‘Persons’ are more appropriately described as modes of existing as God.

Since the Father and Son are one Being, the pre-incarnate Son cannot become incarnate. Rather, like the Father, He is immutable and cannot suffer or 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.

The Trinity doctrine is not explained to people. It 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 the Trinity doctrine contradicts the Bible. It is Pandora’s Box.

A SINGLE PERSON

Summary: In the Trinity doctrine, the Father, Son, and Spirit are one Being with one mind. Therefore, the terms ‘Person’ and ‘hypostases’ are misleading.

Not distinct Minds

In the traditional formulation of the Trinity doctrine, the Father, Son, and Spirit are one God existing as three Persons. 

The term “Persons” implies three distinct minds. 

In contrast, in the Trinity doctrine, the Father, Son, and Spirit share a single mind. They do not each have a distinct mind:

“But there are not three of these in God. … There are not three consciousnesses; rather the one consciousness subsists in a threefold way. There is only one real consciousness in God, which is shared by the Father, Son, and Spirit.” (Rahner, continuing from the previous quote)

In these quotes, Rahner uses several alternatives for what this article calls ‘mind’:

• • • Spiritual centers of activity [minds],
    • Subjectivities [biases, views],
    • Liberties [freedoms]
    • Consciousnesses,
    • Power, will, self-presence, and
    • Self-awareness.

Therefore, 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:

“Each Person shares the Divine will … that come from a mind. … Each Person’s self-awareness and consciousness is not inherent to that Person (by nature of that Person being that Person) but comes from the shared essence.” (Rahner)

Not distinct Persons

Consequently, the following descriptions of the Trinity doctrine by leading Trinitarian scholars confirm that it is misleading to describe them as “Persons:”

“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)

“By the conventions of the late fourth century, first formulated in Greek by the ‘Cappadocian Fathers’, these three constituent members of what God is came to be referred to as hypostases (‘concrete individuals’) or, more misleadingly for us moderns, as prosōpa (‘persons’).” (Anatolios, xiii) ³Khaled Anatolios, Retrieving Nicaea, 2011

Not Hypostases

As the quotes from Hanson and González above show, the 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 misleading 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, implying a distinct mind.

According to Litfin, to say that the Father, Son, and Spirit are three hypostases implies “three distinct existences within the Godhead.” Hanson and Anatolios still use the term hypostases to describe the ‘Persons’ but the Eusebians (Arians) of the fourth century confessed “three in hypostasis but one in agreement.” (Ayres, p. 118) (Read more) The phrase “one in agreement” means that the church fathers used the term hypostases for distinct minds. 

Invisible

In the Trinity doctrine, the distinction between the Persons 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

So, if the terms ‘Persons’ and ‘hypostases’ are misleading, and if the distinction between them is invisible, how should the ‘Persons’ in the Trinity doctrine be described? 

The essence of the Trinity doctrine is that the Father, Son, and Spirit are a single Being with a single mind and will. As quoted above, Hanson refers to the Father, Son, and Spirit as ways of being, or “modes of existing as God.” The challenge would be to show how the traditional Trinity doctrine differs from Modalism (the name Von Harnack gave to second-century Monarchianism). (Read more)

The Danger of Tritheism

One might respond and say, yes, that may be the standard 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, that would be three Gods (tritheism). The only valid way to propose three Minds is to admit that the Son and Spirit are subordinate to the Father. But that is Arianism. To avoid both tritheism and Arianism, the Trinity doctrine has to say that the Father, Son, and Spirit are a single Being with a single mind. 

The Arian View

The Trinity doctrine may be compared to what the Arians believed. The anti-Nicenes are usually called Arians, implying that they followed Arius. The reality is that Arius was an insignificant extremist. The anti-Nicenes did not follow him; they opposed him. (Read more)

Both Nicene and anti-Nicene theology evolved over that century. Later in the century, several ‘Arian’ factions existed. The one that eventually dominated is known as Homoianism. (Read more) This website defends that view.

It is often claimed that the Arians believed that Jesus is a created being. That might have been what Arius taught but it was most certainly not what the Homoians believed. While the Trinity doctrine teaches that the Father and Son are a single Being with a single mind, ‘Arians’ taught a trinity of three divine Beings. They regarded the Son as a distinct divine Person (hypostasis) with a distinct mind but as subordinate to the Father.

INCARNATION

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

The Nicene View

In the 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 become incarnate. 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 Being and since God cannot suffer or die, the Son is impassible, meaning He cannot suffer or die. 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).

The Arian View

This can again be compared to the Arian view. To redeem the world, God produced a distinct divine Person (the Son) with a reduced divinity that allows Him to become incarnated, suffer, and even to die. Jesus does not have a human soul (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 Son) experienced all of Jesus’ suffering and He died. The Creator and God of the earth was crucified, died, was resurrected, and ascended.

That was not the first time that He appeared in a human body. The orthodox view of the first three centuries was that all personal appearances of Yahweh to Israel 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) ⁴RH = 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’)

THE DECEPTION

Not Explained

The Trinity doctrine is not explained to ordinary Christians. We are not told that the ‘Persons’ are not real ‘Persons’ with distinct minds or that the eternal Son of God did not die. The explanation of the Trinity doctrine is limited to superficial but misleading cliches, such as that God is one Being existing as three Persons.

Contradiction

Gotquestions correctly points out that the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit differ in terms of their origins:

• • The Son is begotten from the Father,
  • The Holy Ghost proceeds from the Father (and the Son in the Western formulation),
  • The Father exists without a cause.

But Gotquestions still claims that they are one Being. It is contradictory to claim that they differ but are a single Being. Things that differ cannot be the same. Some argue that, since the Trinity doctrine contradicts itself, it cannot accurately reflect Bible revelation, for truth never contradicts itself. For example, listen to Trinities podcasts 2 and 3.

Beyond Human Capacity

But then Gotquestions and other authors claim that the Trinity doctrine is a mystery beyond human capacity:

“There is no way to perfectly and completely understand it (the Christian concept of the Trinity). The Trinity is a concept that is impossible for any human being to fully understand, let alone explain.” (GotQuestions)

Because we cannot understand God

Gotquestions then adds that people cannot understand the Trinity doctrine because humans cannot understand God:

“God is infinitely greater than we are; therefore, we should not expect to be able to fully understand Him.”

However, this argument, that we cannot understand the Trinity doctrine because we cannot understand God, is invalid. It confuses the Trinity doctrine with God:

We cannot understand God fully.

Yes, we will never be able to understand God fully. He exists without a cause. The infinite miracles in this world and the infinite size of the universe should teach us that God is infinitely beyond us:

“As the heavens are higher than the earth,
So are My ways higher than your ways
And My thoughts than your thoughts” (Isa 55:8-9).

God reveals Himself to the capacity of His creatures but we will never in this life or the next reach the end of His infinity.

The doctrine is a human invention.

The Trinity doctrine, in contrast, was developed by finite human minds as an explanation of God. The Bible presents an extremely high view of Christ. For example:

• • God made the world “through” Him (Heb 1:2).
  • He upholds the universe by the word of God’s power (Heb 1:3).
  • He is “the first and the last” (Rev 1:17).
  • “In Him all the fullness of Deity dwells in bodily form” (Col 2:9).

This creates the challenge of explaining how Christ relates to God. The Trinity doctrine became the generally accepted explanation of Christ but is not merely an interpretation of the Bible. For example, the Biblical evidence showing that the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit are one Being, that the Father and Son have the same substance (homoousios), or that Jesus Christ has two natures, is very weak. These things were added to the Bible. Hanson confirms that it is ‘development’ rather than ‘interpretation’:

“We must ask whether this doctrine of the Holy Trinity, achieved after so long and trying an experience of controversy … was an interpretation of the Bible, or whether it should rather be regarded as a development. “ (Hanson)

“The Bible does not give us a specifically Christian doctrine of God, though it gives us the raw material for this. When the NT was canonized, in effect by the middle of the third century … (it) did not supply anything more than some hints towards the formation of a specifically Christian doctrine of God.” (Hanson)

“I think that a consideration of the whole history of the gradual formation of this doctrine must convince students of the subject that the doctrine of the Trinity is a development.” (Hanson)

Since human minds devised the Trinity doctrine, it is false logic to argue that the Trinity doctrine is incomprehensible because God is incomprehensible. Other human minds must be able to understand it. It must be logically consistent and must be tested against the Scriptures.

Hanson, of course, is a Catholic, and Catholics have no problem accepting doctrines that are not clear in the Bible. They understand ‘the church’ to be the source of true doctrine and the Bible is simply part of the revelation that came through the church.

On the other hand, Protestants would not easily admit that the Trinity doctrine was a development. They are committed to Sola Scriptura and do their best to show that the building blocks of the Trinity doctrine are in the Bible. In effect, they read these things into the Bible.

Contradicts the Bible

In fact, this website argues that the Trinity doctrine contradicts the Bible: 

While the Trinity doctrine teaches that the Father and Son are a single Being with a single mind, the distinction between them, as two distinct minds, is visible and clear in the Bible. (Read more) 

And while the Trinity doctrine claims that the Father and the Son are equal in all respects. this website shows that Jesus is subordinate to the Father.

ORIGIN

This site discusses the origin of the Trinity doctrine in about 50 articles. Very briefly:

In the second century, Logos theology dominated the church, teaching that, when God decided to create, God’s Logos became a second hypostasis alongside God. This view was opposed by Monarchianism, which taught that the Father and Son are a single hypostasis (Person).

In the third century, Origen expanded Logos theology to teach three hypostases. That was opposed by Sabellianism, which was a revised form of Monarchianism but still taught only one hypostasis. Sabellius himself was excommunicated in 220 but the Controversy continued. The Council of Antioch in 268 rejected the Sabellian Paul of Samosata.

After Christianity was legalized in the fourth century in 313, this Controversy continued. The Nicenes, led by Athanasius, took the ‘one hypostasis’-side. (Read more) The Arians defending three hypostasis.

At Nicaea, the ‘one hypostasis’-side was victorious because the emperor took their side. (Read more) However, in the decade after Nicaea, all leading ‘one hypostasis’ theologians were deposed. After that, the term homoousios also disappeared from the Church’s vocabulary. (Read more)

Up to this point, the West was not involved in the Controversy. However, after Athanasius had been deposed, he appealed to the West. In 341, the West accepted Athanasius and continued to defend the ‘one hypostasis’-view. (Read more) However, the ‘three hypostasis’-view remained dominant.

During the 360-370s, the Eastern pro-Nicenes (the Cappadocians) began to defend the Nicene Creed but taught three divine but equal hypostasis. (Read more) This caused bitter conflict between the Western pro-Nicenes (including Athanasius) and the Cappadocians. (Read more)

Emperor Theodosius became emperor in 379 and issued the Edict of Thessalonica in 380 in which he made the Western pro-Nicene (one hypostasis) theology the State Religion of the Roman Empire.

Later, the Church added the Cappadocian ‘three hypostases’ formula but without Basil’s idea of three distinct minds. The Church’s theology remained essentially Athanasian ‘one hypostasis’, as we today see in the Trinity doctrine.

Through the protection of the Roman Imperial Forces until the 8th century, and other rulers in later centuries, the Roman Church (the State Church of the Roman Empire) survived after the Roman Empire fragmented and became the Church of the Middle Ages.  

CONCLUSIONS

Social Trinity

In contrast to the traditional Trinity doctrine, some modern theologians propose a ‘Social Trinity’ which describes the Father, Son, and Spirit as three real Persons with three distinct wills and minds; “three Centres of Consciousness” (Hanson, p. 737), but so united in love and purpose that they act as One. (See – Tuggy) A risk of this view, similar to the Cappadocian view, is that three equal divine wills and minds are open to the charge of tritheism. However, this article only considered the standard, traditional Doctrine.

Discuss this with your pastor.

If you want to know what your church teaches, ask your pastor whether there are one or three divine minds. And ask whether the Son of God died, or a mere human being. Your pastor might not know how to answer. The real Trinity doctrine is carefully hidden beneath a cloud of cliches. The pastor might try to avoid the subject or hide behind these vague cliches.  

Mark of True Christianity

For many people, the Trinity doctrine is the mark of true Christianity:

“What they reveal is that statements about God as one substance and three hypostases are, first of all, boundary statements: statements that mark out, in the name of the community of Christian faith and worship, the limits of what represents biblical and ecclesial faith from what lies outside it.” (Anatolios, xiii-xvi)and Arianism is similar to the mark of the beast.

In contrast, the Arian view is regarded as similar to the Mark of the Beast. Therefore, do not be surprised if your questions are met with fierce aggression.

SUMMARY

The Trinity

In the traditional formulation of the Trinity doctrine, the Father, Son, and Spirit are one God existing as three Persons. The term “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. Consequently, it is misleading to describe them as “Persons.” They are better described as “three ways of being or modes of existing as God.”

The Trinity doctrine is sometimes explained, using Greek terms from the fourth-century Controversy, as one ousia (substance) and three hypostases. But the term hypostasis is also misleading 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, implying a distinct mind.

One might respond and say, yes, that may be the standard 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, that would be three Gods (tritheism). The only valid way to propose three Minds is to admit that the Son and Spirit are subordinate to the Father. But that is Arianism. To avoid both tritheism and Arianism, the Trinity doctrine has to say that the Father, Son, and Spirit are a single Being with a single mind. 

The Trinity doctrine may be compared to what the Arians believed. It is often claimed that the Arians believed that Jesus is a created being. That might have been what Arius taught but it was most certainly not what the mainstream 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 but as subordinate to the Father.

The Incarnation

In the Trinity doctrine, since the Father and Son are a single Being with a single mind, the Son cannot become incarnate. 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 Being and since God cannot suffer or die, the Son is impassible, meaning He 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.

This can again be compared to the Arian view, in which the Son has a reduced divinity that allows Him to become incarnated, suffer, and even to die. 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 eternal Son experienced all of Jesus’ suffering and He died.

The Deception

The Trinity doctrine is not explained to ordinary Christians. We are not told that the ‘Persons’ are not real ‘Persons’ with distinct minds or that the eternal Son of God did not die. The explanation of the Trinity doctrine is limited to superficial but misleading cliches, such as that God is one Being existing as three Persons.

We are also told that humans cannot understand the Trinity doctrine because humans cannot understand God. That, however, is false logic. Indeed, we cannot understand God fully. However, the Trinity doctrine is not revealed in the Bible but is a human invention. Therefore, human minds must be able to understand it. It must be logically consistent and must be tested against the Scriptures.

Contradicts the Bible

This website argues that the Trinity doctrine contradicts the Bible: 

While the Trinity doctrine teaches that the Father and Son are a single Being with a single mind, the Bible presents them as two distinct Beings with two distinct minds. (Read more) 

And while the Trinity doctrine claims that the Father and the Son are equal in all respects. this website shows that the Bible presents Jesus as subordinate to the Father.

OTHER ARTICLES

• • • Origin of the Trinity Doctrine – Including the pre-Nicene Church Fathers and the fourth-century Arian Controversy
    • All articles on this website
    • Is Jesus the Most High God?
    • Trinity Doctrine – General
    • The Book of Daniel
    • The Book of Revelation
    • The Origin of Evil
    • Death, Eternal Life, and Eternal Torment

FOOTNOTES

• 1
  González, Justo L. (1987). A History of Christian Thought: From the Beginnings to the Council of Chalcedon. Nashville, TN: Abingdon Press. p. 307.
• 2
  Lewis Ayres, Nicaea and its legacy, An Approach to Fourth-Century Trinitarian Theology, 2004
• 3
  Khaled Anatolios, Retrieving Nicaea, 2011
• 4
  RH = Bishop R.P.C. Hanson, The Search for the Christian Doctrine of God – The Arian Controversy 318-381, 1987