The Trinity is Biblical

I would first like to remark that in order for me to properly respond to Pro's arguments, he must provide definitions for the terms I requested; they are as follows: Trinity, person, being, and God (in the sense of the phrase "There is one God"). It is essential that he defines these terms, because a debate cannot possibly be beneficial if the basic definitions behind essential concepts are not even clearly defined. Now I will flesh out the arguments for my belief that God is one person; I will deal with the arguments that Yahweh is NOT a Trinity, as well as the arguments raised by my opponent in the next round. It is also noteworthy that unless Pro can show that my argument that Yahweh is one person is unsound, all of the verses in the world that he cites cannot possibly prove the Trinity; if the Old Testament clearly declares that Yahweh is only one person, then that either means that the New Testament contradicts the Old, or that all of the verses which seem to imply Yahweh is more than one person can be interpreted differently; and since Pro clearly believes that the Bible does not contradict itself, in order for his arguments to stand, he MUST show that my argument is unsound, and that the Hebrew Bible does not teach that Yahweh is only one person. Also, it is a straw man argument to say that I think we should apply masculine singular pronouns to Yahweh in the EXACT same way that we apply them to men; I am not arguing that because masculine singular pronouns are used of Yahweh then he must be a male in the human sense, and therefore has all of the male body parts; that is ridiculous. I am simply arguing that since singular personal pronouns are only used of single persons, their usage concerning Yahweh indicates that he is a single person. A "Person" in the Hebrew Language: In the Hebrew Bible, the word soul (Hebrew: nephesh) is used as a metonym for a person. For example, David says that his soul is disquieted within him [1]; clearly this is just another way of saying that he (i.e., his whole person) is upset. Also, in every occasion where this word is used of or by someone, it is a reference to their/a person [2]. Furthermore, the fact that one could easily substitute the word person for the word nephesh strongly implies that when a person says "my soul" they mean "my person". And because Yahweh refers to himself with that same phrase on many occasions [3], the logical conclusion is that Yahweh is a single person. Yahweh Created Alone: More evidence that Yahweh is one person is found in passages which declare that Yahweh created alone (Isaiah 44:24), that he is one Yahweh (Deuteronomy 6:4), and that there are no Gods beside him (Isaiah 45:5). If Yahweh is being spoken of with the singular pronouns "you", "he", and "him", and speaks of himself in these passages with the singular pronouns "I" and "Me", then if the Trinity were true, it would follow that all three persons can be spoken of as "I" and "Me". It would have to be all 3 persons because if it was only 1 of the persons of the Trinity speaking, then that means that the other persons weren't involved in creation, which of course would contradict the Trinitarian idea that they were. So, since in Trinitarianism, "I", "Me", "him", and "he" must refer to multiple persons, and yet each person of the Trinity by himself is an "I", "Me", "him", and "he", then it follows that the Trinity teaches that 3 "HEs" are 1 "HE", which is a manifest contradiction. Therefore, in light of these verses, Trinitarians either have to admit that the Trinity teaches a contradiction, or that only one of the members of the Trinity created the world. The only other option would be the ad hoc resort to incomprehensibility, where Trinitarians say that because God is infinite, he does not have to conform to logical standards, and that even though we don't understand how it can be possible, we must accept it on faith. The biggest problem with this line of reasoning is that it is nowhere taught in the Bible; the Bible never claims that God is somehow exempt from the standards he himself set for the universe. Another major problem is that if one is to argue that he does not have to conform to logical standards, then with the same argument, one can justify him not having to conform to moral standards as well: ARGUMENT#1 Premise 1: God is infinite Premise 2: The standards of logic only apply to finite objects Conclusion: The standards of logic do not apply to God ARGUMENT#2 Premise 1: God is infinite Premise 2: The standards of logic only apply to finite objects Conclusion: The standards of logic do not apply to God In logic, a valid argument form is one in which the premises necessarily lead to the conclusion; it is also valid for any terms plugged into it. Therefore, since both arguments contain the same argument form, if Argument#1 is valid, then so is Argument#2. Since Trinitarians accept the conclusion of Argument#1, they must accept the conclusion of Argument#2; if they do not, then they must either admit that they are being completely inconsistent, or that both arguments are invalid. If Trinitarians want to maintain that God is not subject to logical standards, then to be consistent, they must maintain that he is not subject to moral standards either; and since no Trinitarian would argue that, it follows that either the Trinitarian will have to find a valid argument that shows why the standards of logic don't apply to God while other standards do, or admit that they do apply; and if they do apply (according to the aforementioned argument) then the Trinity is a manifest contradiction and cannot therefore be true. Prophetic Witness: Even more Biblical evidence that Yahweh is a single person is found in all of the recorded Biblical accounts of prophets speaking about the throne of God. There are several prophets who were given visions of Yahweh's throne room, and all of them portray Yahweh as a single person [4]. This is no problem for Unitarians, who believe God to be a single person; but it creates a major problem for Trinitarians. If Yahweh said that he was only one Yahweh, spoke of himself as one person, appeared to his prophets as one person, and inspired his prophets to write about him as one person; then to suddenly proclaim that he is three persons, and that they will be condemned to hell if they don't believe that would be extremely disingenuous. The fact that God would not intentionally mislead his people in such a blatant and pernicious way is proof positive that God never demanded such a change from his people, and he is what he always portrayed himself to be: one person. Anthropomorphic Language: The last piece of Biblical evidence that Yahweh is one person is found in the anthropomorphic language that is used to describe him. In the Hebrew Bible, Yahweh is spoken of as having fingers, taking walks in the garden, having white hair, having hands, having arms, and many other similar kinds of language [5]. Along the lines of the aforementioned argument, not only do these kinds of imagery point invariably toward a single person, but they would also be deceptive if Yahweh was really multiple persons. The fact that he inspired the Biblical writers to speak of him using all of these different ways that describe him as a single person is very powerful evidence that he meant them to understand that he was only one person; the only alternative is that he was intentionally misleading them. [1] Psalm 42:11 [2] There are too many examples to list them all, but here are a few: Gen. 12:13; Lev. 26:30; Judges 5:21; 1 Sam. 1:15, 24:11, 26:21; 1 Kings 1:29; Psalm 3:2, 16:2, 17:13, 22:20. [3] 1 Sam. 2:35; Psalm 11:5; Prov. 6:16; Isaiah 1:14; Jeremiah 5:9, 6:8, 12:7; Ezekiel 32:18; Amos 6:8 [5] Isaiah 6; Dan. 7; Rev. 7:10 [4] Gen. 3:8, 49:24; Exodus 8:19, 16:3, 31:18; Deut. 9:10, 5:15; Job 40:9; Dan. 7:9; Luke 11:20