The Trinity is True.

Thank you for being in this debate. I apologize for being so rude! I am going to present my opening argument. 1.The word trinity is not in the bible: To assume what is not stated must not be true is an argument from silence. Further, to say that the doctrine of the Trinity is not true because the exact word "Trinity" is absent from the Bible is self-refuting. What is not at all considered is that even terms like, "Bible," (a Lat. term) or "self-existent," are not mentioned in Scripture and both are biblical truths.If we were only limited to strict biblical words, then, we would have to, when teaching out of the New Testament, use only Koine Greek words that the New Testament authors utilized! Employing unbiblical words does not violate the rules of sola-Scriptura, which says Scripture alone is the sole infallible regula fidei ("rule of faith") for the church, as long as the unbiblical words are wholly consistent with Scripture. Holding firm to the regula fidei the early church would use unbiblical words to explain and define the biblical data revealed within the pages of the Holy Writ. In other words, "Trinity" is merely a precise doctrinal word that defines the biblical revelation that is so overwhelmingly found in Scripture: God the Father sent God the Son; the Eternal Word, in which He became flesh (cf. John 1:1; 6:37-40; 17:5). After which God the Son died in the place of the believer whereby His death provides full atonement for the sins of His people (cf. Matt. 1:21; Rom. 8:32), and God the Father and God the Son sent the God the Holy Spirit to empower the church, and dwell with believers: "When the Helper comes, whom I will send to you from the Father, that is, the Spirit of truth who proceeds from the Father, He will testify about Me" (John 15:26; emphasis added). Again, this point must be understood: We cannot confuse biblical data with doctrinal words that merely define that data. The doctrine of the "Trinity" was derived from the Scriptural data. Biblical scholar Benjamin B. Warfield explains the difference: Precisely what the New Testament is, is the documentation of the religion of the incarnate Son and the outpoured Spirit, that is to say, of the religion of the Trinity, and what we mean by the doctrine of the Trinity is nothing but the formulation in exact language of the conception of God presupposed in the religion of the incarnate Son and out poured Spirit. (Benjamin B. Warfield, Biblical Doctrines (Carlisle: The Banner of Truth Trust, 1929, 146.) Thus the Tri-Unity of God is based on biblical data. The formulation of doctrinal words, however, came later when Christians, developed the precise term "Trinity" that simply defined the biblical data, because of the heresies that denied the biblical data in some way or other. As with the doctrinal terms like "Substitutionary Atonement," "Incarnation" or even the term "Gospel." All these terms came later after the apostolic age, which the church used to define the revelation or data that is clearly contained in Scripture. Moreover, salvation is completely dependent on the Tri-Unity of God (i.e., soteriological Trinity). Example: The Covenant of Redemption, that is, all that the Father gives to Christ will come and He will raise them up at the last day (cf. John. 6:37ff). That Jesus is the Mediator between God (the Father) and man (cf. 1 Tim. 2:5) can only be true if Jesus is God and is a distinct Person from the one He is mediating for. Again, this point must be understood: we cannot confuse the Scriptural data of the Trinity with the doctrinal word, "Trinity" that defines the biblical data. 2. Premise #1: There is only one God This premise is almost universally accepted by those who claim to be Christians. For this reason, it should suffice to simply cite I Timothy 2:5, which reads: "For there is only one God, and there is only mediator between God and mankind, himself a man, Christ Jesus...." 3. Premise #2: There are Three Persons called God. The Father is called God. That there is a person named the Father, who is called God, is acknowledged by a host of Biblical passages, such as I Cor. 1:3, which reads: "May God our Father and the Lord Jesus Christ send you grace and peace." (see also, Rom 1:7; I Pet 1:17). 4. The Deity of the Son. The Bible also asserts that Jesus of Nazareth is God. That is, the Son is God as well as the Father. In John 8:56-59 Jesus calls Himself "I am," equating himself with Jehovah God of the Old Testament (Ex. 3:14). Christ's participation in the creation of the cosmos necessitates that He is God (John 1:3 and Collosians 1:16 cf. Isaiah 44:24). These three passages, when carefully compared and with one another, clearly affirm the deity of Christ. The last passage, Isaiah 44:34, states that Jehovah *alone* made all things. The first and second passages both affirm that all things were made through Christ. Therefore, if Jehovah *alone* made all things, and all things were made through Christ, it logically follows that Christ is in fact Jehovah God. The text of Scripture, and the force of logic, leaves us with no other option. The Apostle John calls both God and Jesus *the First and the Last* and *the Alpha and the Omega* (Rev. 1:18,17;22:13), and hence equates Jesus with God. Other passages of the New Testament which implicitly or explicitly affirm Christ's deity include Mark 2:5-7, John 20:28-29, John 1:1-14, and Collosians 2:9. In reply to many of these passages, those who accept the authority of Scripture and yet deny the deity of Christ, such as the Jehovah's Witnesses and the Way International, cite passages in the Bible which apparently conflict with Christ's deity, e.g., those which seem to say that Jesus does not possess the attributes of God (e.g., Luke 18:18,19; John 14:28; I Cor. 11:3, 15:28; Collosians 1:15). The use of these passages rests on a misunderstanding of the nature of Christ's incarnation. When God became man in Christ Jesus God the Son did not "give up" his divine attributes, but simply took on a human nature and denied his human mind access to his divine mind. Consequently, when he said he did not know something he was speaking truly since in the incarnation he willingly gave up access to omniscience, though he remained omniscient, since God cannot give up any of his attributes and still remain God. Therefore, when Jesus said "the Father is Greater than I" (John 14:28), he was referring to his current incarnate position in relation to the first person of the Trinity. This also counts against Oneness, because to say that the "Father" is greater than "I" is to imply two different persons. If they were the same person, one could not be greater than the other; they would be equal. The incarnation, since it involves the Son taking on human nature and thus becoming positionally inferior to the Father, explains how the Father can be greater than the Son and yet the Father and Son share the same nature of deity. The Oneness view can't do that, and the your view cannot explain the deity-affirming passages. It seems that the traditional view does the trick rather nicely. That is why the church fathers, the church councils, and the three major branches of Christendom have seen the doctrine of the Trinity and the Son's Deity as a natural result of a plain reading of the Biblical text. 5. The Deity of the Holy Spirit The deity of the Holy Spirit has been questioned by many cultic groups. For example, the Jehovah's Witnesses state that the term "Holy Spirit" merely refers to the "invisible active force of the Almighty God that moves his servants to do his will" ("Let God Be True," rev. [1952], 89). In other words, the Holy Spirit is not only not deity, he is also *not a person*; it is an impersonal force which God actively employs. That is, for the the "Holy Spirit" is to God what the left-hook is to fictional Rocky Balboa: an impersonal "it" directed by a personal being. This being the case, it is necessary that we first show that the Bible teaches the personhood of the Holy Spirit. A sufficient condition for being a person is that he-she be a "self-conscious or rational being" (*Random House Dictionary*, 1075). Self-consciousness entails attributes such as knowing, thinking, and communicating. The following passages clearly show that the Holy Spirit is considered a person in Holy Scripture: And when he comes [the Holy Spirit], he [the personal pronoun] will show the world how wrong it was about judgment [communication].... But when theh Spirit of truth comes he will lead you to the complete truth, since heh will not be speaking as from himself but will say only what he has learned [knowing and thinking]; and he will tell you of the things to come [communicating]." (John 16:8,13) One day while they were offering worship to the Lord and keeping a fast, the Holy Spirit said [communicating], "I [first personal pronoun] want Barnabas and Saul set apart for the work which I have calle them." (Acts 13:2) In both these passages the Holy Spirit is described as acting in very way a self-conscious person acts: He communicates, thinks, knows, and is described in personal pronouns (i.e., "he" and "I"). Furthermore, there are several other passages that portray the Holy Spirit as exhibiting attributes that are exclusive of personhood. For example, the Holy Spirit is described as consoling (Acts 9:31), helping us in our weakness (Rom 8:26), forbidding (Acts 16:6,7), and able to be lied to (Acts 5:3). Moreover, the Holy Spirit can be grieved (Eph. 4:30) and insulted (Heb. 10:29), and is said to possess a will (I Cor. 12:11). The Bible also plainly teaches the *deity* of the Holy Spirit by attributing to him characteristics that are possessed only by God. For example, the Spirit is described as *Eternal*, having no beginning and no end (Heb 9:14). Moreover, he described as *Omniscient* (I Cor. 2:10,11), *Sovereign* (I Cor. 12:6,11), and *possessing the wrath of God* (Heb. 3:7-12).