Tradition, Religion and Theological Politics

by Keith Relf

In matters of faith, don't be misled by cunning arguments or clever rhetoric. Take time to prove all things for yourself. Even the ancient Bereans didn't swallow everything the Apostle Paul said, but they "searched the Scriptures daily to see whether those things were so" (Acts 17:11).

A professor of logic made the following astute statement regarding what is required for the logical interpretation of the Bible:

"Selecting texts to give a one-sided presentation of the truth is a widespread method of propagating erroneous views [like "heaven" when you die or the Trinity]. Out of the Bible can be drawn phrases or verses that justify everything under the sun, including contradictories. Read in context, the Bible may be a liberal document, but it is not that liberal. What we need to know is if the Bible as a whole supports a given position.

"The disciplines of logical reasoning are fast becoming a thing of the past, an artifact of a classical education. Feelings, emotions and rhetoric are most often the basis of what passes for 'reasoning' today. But, if we are ever to 'correctly handle the word of truth' (2 Timothy 2:15), we are going to have to learn to think correctly."

Some have said Christianity is a philosophy, not a religion. "To properly study the discipline known as philosophy, it is not enough just to learn what great thinkers believed. You must learn to think yourself. Accept something only if, after you have thought about it, it seems correct to you. Then you will be doing and not just learning about philosophy; you will be a philosopher." [1] This excellent advice applies equally to the study of theology.

For 1700 years the church has been smitten with heresy and division. Earnest saints, caught in a morass of theological and philosophical gobbledygook, fumble with impossible mathematics and confused grammar. Certain experts exhibit the arrogance of their unrecognized ignorance, and in earlier times piously acted with pagan brutality in defense of a deception. Truly, knowledge without wisdom and the baubles of education paraded as intelligence.

Isaac Watts, the great hymn writer ("When I Survey the Wondrous Cross," etc.), said of those espousing the Trinity doctrine: "But how can such weak creatures ever take in so strange, so difficult and so abstruse a doctrine as this [the Trinity], in the explication and defense whereof multitudes of men, even men of learning and piety, have lost themselves in infinite subtleties of dispute and endless mazes of darkness? And can this strange and perplexing notion of three real Persons going to make up one true God be so necessary and so important a part of that Christian doctrine, which, in the Old Testament and the New, is represented as so plain and so easy, even to the meanest understandings?" [2]

Here is another comment which, although addressing a different subject, defines a principle by which doctrine is enshrined and enforced in theological training establishments:

"His listeners perpetuate his bigotry which he wrongly received from others before him, to this day, just as students repeat their classroom instruction and scientists parrot the 'expert.' We should be able to do better...By and large seminary trained theologians oppose or are indifferent to biblical and scientific creationism. But it does not take a seminary degree to know that the Bible teaches creation...In fact it probably takes seminary training to accept the [popular] perversions of Scripture." [3]

Sincere and noble persons once believed the earth was flat. Saintliness and sincerity are not proof of enlightenment! And how often are the majority right?

"We will have to be honest enough to admit that majority opinions are not automatically the correct ones and that tradition, uncritically accepted, may have gone far in burying the original faith as Jesus and the apostles taught it. It may be that we should take seriously the observation of Canon H.L. Goudge when he wrote of the disaster which occurred 'when the Greek and Roman rather than the Hebrew mind came to dominate the church.' It was 'a disaster in doctrine and practice,' according to Canon Goudge, `from which the Church has never recovered."' [4]

Today eminent scholars will say this doctrine of the Trinity is a "cornerstone of our faith" and it must be believed for one to be saved. How can one believe in a "mystery" that cannot be understood or explained? It was something neither the Messiah nor the apostles ever mentioned. We are told by some preachers to "take it by faith" -- faith in whom? How can one trust any mere human's opinion in these matters when Almighty God Himself has not said a plain word about it?

Also, interestingly, how often do you hear the Trinity mentioned in an evangelistic appeal? How can the "seekers" be counted "saved" if no mention has been made that they must believe three equals one and three minus one equals three and a lot of stuff about the Savior, YEHOVAH's "only begotten Son" being "eternally begotten"! The creed says one must believe the Trinity to be saved. It seems that the Messiah, the Apostles and most evangelists are very remiss not to mention something they are supposed to believe is so vitally important.

"No responsible New Testament scholar would claim that the doctrine of the Trinity was taught by Jesus or preached by the earliest Christians or consciously held by any writer of the New Testament." [5]

Look to the pit from whence it was dug. Read of the brutality, superstition and ignorance that surrounded the compiling of the Trinity doctrine. Read The Jesus Wars by Philip Jenkins. Learn of the chaos and bigotry which ruled the early church councils where these ideas where "cooked up." Ask if the behavior of the bishops could be considered "Christian." Learn how a pagan emperor decided on and enforced the Trinitarian doctrine.

"My inclination is to avoid all assemblies of bishops because I have never seen any council come to a good end nor turn out to be a solution of evils. On the contrary it usually increases them" (Gregory of Nazianzus, 4th century, quoted in The Jesus Wars by Philip Jenkins).

John Calvin, "the great reformer," was responsible for murder. He saw to it that a young, brilliant Spanish doctor/theologian was burned at the stake because he wouldn't confess the doctrine of the Trinity. Now an unrepentant Calvin is a source of theological inspiration to a large section of Christendom. But do men pick grapes from a thorn bush or figs from a thistle? See what Jesus said, "You will know them by their fruits. Do men gather grapes from thorn bushes, or figs from thistles?" (Matthew 7:16; Luke 6:44).

Experts speak of Scripture being destroyed or altered, to give support to orthodox doctrine (see Bart Ehrman, The Orthodox Corruption of Scripture).

Great minds like Isaac Newton, whom Einstein admired, denied the Trinity. Newton said, "In disputable places I love to take up what I can best understand. 'Tis the temper of the hot and superstitious part of mankind in matters of religion ever to be fond of mysteries and for that reason to like best what they understand least."

John Milton, acclaimed poet and author of Paradise Lost, wrote a book refuting the idea of the Trinity (Last Thoughts on the Trinity). The book has hardly seen the light of day. Isaac Newton's writings on this subject are nearly impossible to find. Other great thinkers such as John Locke were unable to reconcile the idea of YEHOVAH God as a Trinity with either reason or logic.

Dr. W. R. Matthews (1940): "It must be admitted by everyone who has the rudiments of an historical sense that the doctrine of the Trinity, as a doctrine, formed no part of the original message. St. Paul knew it not, and would have been unable to understand the meaning of the terms used in the theological formula on which the Church ultimately agreed." [6]

Dear reader, would YEHOVAH God make the way of salvation an inscrutable "mystery"? If the Messiah came to show us the way, why did it take another several hundred years of bitter argument until that "way" was declared at Chalcedon (451 AD) in impossible and illogical language? The Gospel is Good News and what good is news that cannot be understood? Take time to pray, study and think about the words of Moses, of the Messiah, or Paul, Peter, John without trying to make them say something other than the plain meaning of the words. What is the clear sense that you get from their teaching concerning the identity of YEHOVAH God and of the Messiah?

And don't fall into the trap of allowing an odd verse to be "interpreted" to say something clearly in conflict with the rest of Scripture. YEHOVAH has spoken plainly, not in riddles or mysteries, and He has declared Himself to be ONE divine Person. The Messiah's creed, citing the Hebrew Bible, is the creed to be clung to.

"Hear, O Israel: The LORD our God is one LORD" (Deuteronomy 6:4).

"Jesus answered him, 'The first of all the commandments is, Hear, O Israel; The LORD our God is one LORD'" (Mark 12:29).

"This is eternal life, that they know You, the only true God, and Jesus Christ, whom You have sent" (John 17:3). The Father is the "one and only true God."

Yeshua is the man Messiah, YEHOVAH's agent and the second Adam (1 Timothy 2:5; Malachi 2:10).

"Jesus said, 'I am ascending to my Father, and your Father; and to my God, and your God'" (John 20:17). The Messiah has a God.

"But to us there is but one God, the Father, of whom are all things, and we in Him; and one Lord Jesus Christ, through whom are all things, and we through him" (1 Corinthians 8:6). One God -- the Father.

"The God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, who is blessed forever" (2 Corinthians 11:31). The Messiah has a "God and Father."

"Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ" (Ephesians 1:3). The Messiah has a "God and Father."

"One God and Father of all, who is above all, and through all, and in you all" (Ephesians 4:6).

"For there is one God, and one mediator between God and men, the MAN Christ Jesus" (1 Timothy 2:5). Yeshua is a "MAN," "Son of God" and "Son of Man" (Luke 1:26-35).

"Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ who...has caused us to born again to a living hope through the resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead" (1 Peter 1:3). God could not die.

The following is an attempt to "explain the Trinity" by Robert G. Ingersoll from 1897:

"So it is declared that the Father is God, and the Son God and the Holy Ghost God, and that these three Gods make one God. According to the celestial multiplication table, one times one is three, and three times one is one, and according to heavenly subtraction if we take two from three, three are left. The addition is equally peculiar. If we add two to one we have but one. Each one is equal to himself and the other two. Nothing ever was, nothing ever can be more perfectly idiotic and absurd than the dogma of the Trinity. How is it possible to prove the existence of the Trinity? Is it possible for a human being, who has been born but once, to comprehend, or to imagine the existence of three beings, each of whom is equal to the three? Think of one of these beings as the father of one, and think of that one as half human and all God, and think of the third as having proceeded from the other two, and then think of all three as one. Think that after the Father begat [brought into existence] the Son, the Father was still alone, and after the Holy Ghost proceeded from the Father and the Son, the Father was still alone -- because there never was, and never will be but one God. At this point, absurdity having reached its limit, nothing more can be said except: 'Let us pray."'

Those who disfellowship believers and claim one must believe the doctrine of the Trinity to be saved mount an attack against the One "God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ," who nowhere in the inspired Scriptures said a word about a Trinity. The word "three" occurs in no Bible verse in connection with YEHOVAH God.

"There is one God, and one mediator between God and men, the MAN Christ Jesus" (1 Timothy 2:5).

"Do we not all have one Father? Has not one God created us? Why do we deal treacherously each against his brother so as to profane the covenant of our fathers?" (Malachi 2:10).

Footnotes:

[1] Rogers and Baird, Introduction to Philosophy, 1981.

[2] William G. Eliot, Discourses on the Doctrines of Christianity, Boston: American Unitarian Association, 1877, pp. 97,100.

[3] John Morris, The Young Earth, Master, p. 120, 124.

[4] Anthony Buzzard, Who Is Jesus?

[5] Dr. A.T. Hanson, Professor of Theology, University of Hull, The Image of the Invisible God, SCM Press, 1982.

[6] W.R. Matthews (Dean of St Paul's), God in Christian Thought and Experience.

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