The Trinity: A False Doctrine

"As a trinitarian, I believe that therea are three COMPLETELY seperate persons, and ONE God. Not three Gods, but ONE. When it says "The Lord our God is one Lord" we believe just that. We believe in only one God who consists of three persons, and therefore this verse and its like are not problematic at all." You miss my point. I realize that you don't view this scripture as problematic. The question is not "can this scripture be made to fit the trinity" or vice versa. The question is, why should I or anyone else not take that verse at face value? I believe I pointed out that the scripture did not say "There is only One God, but that "the Lord our God is One Lord." Who, when reading that scripture, would come to the conclusion that God is somehow mysteriously three separate eternal "persons" (which, in any definition, amounts to three Gods) which make up One Lord? It takes some rather amazing intellectual acrobatics to come to such a conclusion. What you appear to be doing is playing with definitions. By any definition, a completely separate and eternal being is a God and according to the Trinity, there are three of these beings. Ergo, three gods. This is reinforced by your statement that "God the Son IS God." If God the Son is God, God the Father is God, and God the Holy Spirit is God, then there are three Gods. To deny that is to deny basic principles of reasoning and definition. It is interesting to note that several heathen belief systems had trinities. The novelty of monotheism is that it denied the existence of multiple Gods, or persons within a godhead, if you wish to quibble over definition again. I'm afraid you are going to have to try much harder to stop me in my tracks. I'm well aware that "Elohim" is a plural form. I studied Hebrew shortly before going on a church trip to Israel two years ago. I have a friend who was formally Jewish. It took him several years of self-indoctrination before he was finally able to reconcile the Trinitarian doctrine to the scripture. Having a knowledge of Hebrew, he pointed out the plural form used in Genesis as knock-down grag-out proof of the Trinity doctrine. Out of curiosity, I mentioned this to our Jewish guide while in Israel, thinking, like you, that it would stop her in her tracks. Without the slightest pause, she explained that to refer to God--an eternal, omniscient and omnipotent being--in the singular would be utterly insufficient and even disrespectful. It is a cultural convention, not an indication that God is three. God is not one in the sense that your index finger is one, but neither is He some schizophrenic Captain Planet, God forbid. It's also interesting to note that, in Hebrew, the word for "water" "mayim" and "heaven" or "heavens" both have plural endings, yet these are clearly not single things made up of a plurality of anything. There are probably more such Hebrew words, but my Hebrew is very limited. As for the passages describing man's creation, have you ever heard of the royal "we?" Especially during the King James era, monarchs referred to themselves in the plural. God is simply referring to himself in the same way. Most of the verses used to support the Trinity represent nothing more than a misunderstanding, and disconnection between modern and middle English, nothing more. The following is a link to a Jewish website which addresses some commonly misused and misinterpreted scriptures used to support the Trinity. Beings that these are Hebrew scholars, I think it would be difficult to argue against them. Until you study another language, it is difficult to imagine the difficulty of translation. http://www.jewsforjudaism.org... Back to John 1:1-3, where does it even say that the word is a person? The verse speaks of the Word of God. His Word is no more a "person" than "Annals of the World" by Ussher. And yet, His Word is the expression of Himself, and IS Him, in that sense. It is also that by which He created the world, since, after all, God SAID "let there be light." And, by the way, which person of the godhead was saying "let there be light," or was it all three of them in unison? "Now your getting it! God the Son IS God. Always has been, and always will be. He is just as much God as the Father is. Take a look at these verses..." I'm even more confused. If God the Son IS God, then why do we need God the Father and God the Holy spirit? If God the Son is God, then there's nothing he can't do, and, therefore, no need for the other two persons. That leads to another question: why do we need three persons? What purpose is served by there being three persons in the godhead? Scripture makes no sense whatsoever with a Trinitarian view. However, if you view the Father, Son, and Holy Ghost as different manifestations of the One, and very single, God, things start to fall together. Take John 14:8,9 "8 Philip saith unto him, Lord, shew us the Father, and it sufficeth us. 9 Jesus saith unto him, Have I been so long time with you, and yet hast thou not known me, Philip? he that hath seen me hath seen the Father; and how sayest thou then, Shew us the Father?" Notice he didn't say "show us God," he specifically said "shew us the Father." If the Trinity is true, then Jesus was mistaken. Those who knew Him had seen God the Son, not God the Father, and as you said before, the two of them are quite separate. However, if Jesus was God the Father in human flesh, this scripture makes perfect sense. Remember when Gabriel came to Mary? He told her that "he shall be called Emmanuel, which being interpreted is, God with us." If the Trinity is true, why didn't Gabriel say "God the Son with us." Because, after all, God the Father and God the Son are quite separate. Or, did Gabriel mean that all three persons were going to indwell Jesus, so that he would be all three at the same time? That is your only choice, according to your own delineation between "person" and "god." Once again, it makes no sense unless you see God as taking on forms. In the form of Jesus Christ, he was, indeed, God with us. Before that, he was the Father, or God above us. And as the Holy Spirit he is God IN us. Not three separate persons, but one God taking different forms. That reminds me once again of Ephesians 4:6, which I noticed that you failed to address, although you may simply have run out of room. "One God and Father of all, who is above all, and through all, and in you all." It is possible that with this explanation you find that we don't disagree at all, and in the past I have found that words are the only real barrier between what two people may believe. Still, this may not be the case. You mention John 17:10 and ask why Jesus claimed to share the same attributes as God if He is not God. I'm not sure exactly how that question follows from that particular verse, but it is still a valid question. Simple: Jesus IS God. Not God the Son but God Himself in the flesh. If the Trinity is true, the Jesus couldn't possibly be God, because he was only God the Son. Since the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit are three separate persons that comprise the One God, then without the Father and the Holy Spirit, Jesus was only 1/3 God. If each of the separate persons is completely God, then I once again ask why does any one of them need the other two? Once again, you run into a contradiction. I appeal, once again, to Reductio ad Absurdum. "This scripture clearifies the diety of not only the Son , but also the Father. Jesus came that we might know that of Him who is true (God the Father) and know that we can be in Him who is true by being in the Son." So, is God the Son not also "Him who is true?" Is God the Father the only person in the godhead who is true? Once again, this verse makes no sense if you accept the trinity. Since when does the fact that every church YOU'VE been to baptizes in the name of the Trinity justification for doing so?