Can Christians live without the doctrine of Trinity?

[mitchellmckain (Scientist and Christian)]

@Miekhie

As a christian, I must confess that I am struggling with the doctrine of trinity. I found the doctrine to be incomprehensible and what is more …. it is not revealed directly in the Bible.

I like the doctrine of the Trinity. And I was not raised Christian at all – nor did I accept anything just because somebody said so. Not being in the Bible is actually one of the reasons why I like it. But there are more…

reasons I like the doctrine of the Trinity

Another discussion about Muslims and the Trinity

@Miekhie

I looked at the history of theology and how the doctrine came to be and still are confused. How can human beings are able to define God (as in the traditional teaching of Trinity) as such? How can we define God by human ingenuity and creativity?

That is not where it came from. The doctrine of the Trinity was simply a picture of God derived from taking all of text in the NT seriously. They simply were not comfortable with being dismissive of various parts of the text as a non-Trinitarian approach seems to require.

@Miekhie

The first 300 years of the early church were doing just fine without this doctrine.

While the formal doctrine came later, reference to the belief in a Trinitarian God is another matter. Since it was referred to by Tertullian 200 AD, the claim this is not part of early Christianity is not likely. Frankly, everyone reads whatever they want to believe into the earliest Christianity. There simply is no proof for any such claim. The earliest writing of Christian belief seems to be the Didache which includes a trinitarian baptismal formula. So there is good reason to believe this belief was common in early Christianity and the whole point of the early ecumenical councils was simply to write down what most Christians already taught and accepted as true.

@Miekhie

Now that we have access to the Bible and as I have the commitment to go back to the biblical source and only the Bible. I don’t see how I should embrace this doctrine of Trinity. Actually, I even believe that the Apostles and early church Fathers did not have any idea of the doctrine of Trinity. So my question is Why this doctrine of Trinity has become the pillar of faith in Christian belief today while no one can define it perfectly or even understand it completely. Can we just do away with this doctrine without any problems with the church today?

No. Because it is part of the earliest definition of what Christian belief consists of. It is the only thing which really distinguishes Christianity from other religions. And thus calling yourself Christian without this belief is a little dishonest.

@Miekhie

Perhaps it might be easier to evangelise to a muslim without this doctrine.

Seems to me the attempt would be without content. Why not simply convert to Islam yourself?