Can Christians live without the doctrine of Trinity?

Faith & Science Conversation
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241

The rejection came as a result of Greek and pagan philosophy invading the church. The church was trinitarian from the beginning, inheriting that from the Jews and recognizing Jesus as Yahweh Who didn’t just walk on earth as a man but became a man.

242

You just described the Oriental Orthodox, the Orthodox, the Anglicans, and the Lutherans. All have continuity from the beginning, tracing their origins right back to the Apostles; all have apostolic succession, all have eucharistic continuity.

Some did, e.g. Calvin and Zwingli. Others reclaimed ancient universal practices that had been cast aside.

“Becomes Father to the Word” is one of the heresies that the doctrine of the Trinity rules out.

That’s contrary to what Jesus’ own words say – there is no room for “symbolized” in the text except in the ancient sense of a symbol being something that conveys what is portrayed.

Don’t forget that bishops were chosen by the congregations.

243

You are basically saying:

  1. The promise of Christ was made to the apostolic body as a whole.

  2. Therefore, no “fragment” of the Church can claim indefectibility.

  3. Once the successors of the apostles divide, no part may speak for the whole.

  4. Only a truly universal council, where all successors speak as one, can render binding judgment.

This creates serious historical and theological difficulties.

First, if the promise operates only when the apostolic body remains visibly undivided, then the promise becomes contingent on perfect human cohesion. Yet divisions appear already in the New Testament (1 Corinthians), and throughout history. No Father ever suggested that the Spirit’s assistance “switches off” when communion fractures.

Second, your appeal to Arius actually works against your thesis. During the Arian crisis, there was no moment of universal episcopal unanimity prior to Nicaea. For decades, the majority of Eastern bishops were ambiguous or semi-Arian. If the promise required the whole episcopate to speak as one before truth could be secured, then the Church would have lacked divine assistance precisely during its greatest doctrinal crisis. Yet Athanasius and others never argued that indefectibility had been suspended.

Third, you dismiss “historical criteria” and appeal instead to “the words of Christ.” But those words must be interpreted historically. The canon of Scripture, the doctrine of the Trinity, and the recognition of Nicaea itself are all historically mediated realities. If historical reception is irrelevant, then even Nicaea cannot be justified except by private interpretation of Scripture.

Fourth, your model leaves an unresolved structural problem after 1054. If neither side may claim the promise because both are “fragments,” then the living authority of the Church effectively ceased at that moment. You respond that previously defined truths remain true. Of course they do. But that is not the same as saying the Church retains the Spirit’s assistance in clarifying new disputes. Without that assistance, Christianity becomes historically frozen at its last uncontested council.

That seems to be the unavoidable implication of your framework: once a schism occurs, no part may speak decisively, and therefore no future clarification is possible.

But that was never how the early Church understood itself. Even amid division, the Church believed the Spirit continued to guide her, not because her members were perfectly unified, but because Christ’s promise did not depend on flawless human alignment.

So the real question is this: Does the promise of Christ operate only under conditions of complete visible unanimity, or does it remain active within the historical Church even when communion is wounded?

If it is the former, indefectibility becomes historically intermittent and the promise of Jesus is contingent upon human volubility (therefore it has no value). If it is the latter, then the existence of division does not automatically nullify the promise.

244

You’re right that several communities claim apostolic continuity. But the crucial issue is not self-claim, It is sacramental and ecclesiological recognition across traditions.

Here is the key point: neither the Catholic Church nor the Eastern Orthodox Church recognize the ministerial orders of most Protestant communities as valid in the historic sacramental sense. That is not polemics. It is a theological fact.

In patristic theology, apostolic succession involves:

  1. a valid episcopal ordination.
  2. performed by bishops within recognized succession
  3. with sacramental intent consistent with the Church’s understanding of priesthood

When the Reformers rejected the sacrificial priesthood and redefined ministry primarily as preaching office rather than sacramental mediation, they altered not only structure but sacramental theology.

In most Lutheran and Reformed territories:

  1. the historic episcopate was discontinued,
  2. ordination was performed without bishops in historic succession,
  3. the theology of priesthood was explicitly redefined.

From both Catholic and Orthodox sacramental theology, this breaks apostolic succession in the strict sense.

This is why:

  • Catholicism does not recognize Lutheran or Reformed ordinations as valid.

  • Orthodoxy, in general, does not either (even if pastoral practices vary).

That alone distinguishes them from Oriental and Eastern Orthodox Churches, whose orders are mutually recognized (with limited exceptions) as valid.

Now about the Eucharist: in classical sacramental theology (both East and West), the Eucharist requires:

  1. a validly ordained priest
  2. within apostolic succession
  3. intending to consecrate according to the Church’s faith

If ordination is invalid, Eucharistic consecration is not considered sacramentally valid.

That is why Catholic and Orthodox Churches do not recognize Protestant Eucharists as the sacramental Body and Blood in the same ontological sense.

This is not about “language differences.”
It is about sacramental ontology.

Luther retained belief in real presence.
But he rejected sacrificial priesthood and redefined ministry.
Zwingli explicitly denied real presence.
Calvin reinterpreted presence in spiritual rather than substantial terms.

These are not minor variations. They are theological reconfigurations and deviations.

Anglican orders were declared invalid by Rome (Apostolicae Curae, 1896) on grounds of:

• defective form
• defective intention
• theological redefinition of priesthood

Most Orthodox Churches also do not universally recognize Anglican orders, though some individual theologians have debated the matter.

So it is not accurate to say all these communions equally satisfy apostolic succession and Eucharistic continuity. From the standpoint of sacramental theology recognized across East and West, there is a clear distinction between:

  1. Churches maintaining historic episcopate and sacramental priesthood (Catholic, Orthodox, Oriental Orthodox)
  2. Communities that restructured ministry and reinterpreted Eucharistic theology (most Protestant bodies)

If apostolic succession is reduced to historical origin or institutional ancestry, then the term loses its patristic meaning.

In the early Church, succession was inseparable from:

• sacramental priesthood
• Eucharistic realism
• communion with other bishops

When those elements are structurally altered, the continuity is no longer simply “another branch of the same model.” It becomes a reconfiguration.

That is why neither Catholic nor Orthodox Churches treat Protestant ministry as equivalent in sacramental terms. And mind you, this is not a judgment about personal faith, It is a judgment about sacramental structure

245

I appreciate your lengthy response. I guess my premise was flawed. If Jesus was fully God who was enclothed with fully human nature, then I believe He was not omniscient in His incarnation. Therefore, His extensive knowledge about the end times in Matt 24 must have come from the revelation of the Holy Spirit who dwelled in Him. The point is the same however. Wasn’t the revelation of the Holy Spirit thru Jesus’ teaching and saying be taken as eternally true?

I would not say “override the doctrine”, but challenge the interpretation of the very doctrine it challenges. And yes, it could very well destablises literally every major Christian doctrine or it might not.

I agree totally that doctrinal coherence requires synthesis, but not compromise on our hermeneutic.

let’s take this example for the moment.
Classical theism of immutability of God says that God is unchangeable and therefore He could not even change His mind.

Several passages including the quote you mentioned wrote that God “repents” or “regrets” which indicates “change of mind”. Then of course we have to ask the question whether our immutable God can change His mind without affecting His divine nature. Then perhaps we can deduce from this 2 options:

  1. When the Bible says that “God repents”, it is because of anthropomorphic language. God did not or never or incapable of changing His mind. ….. our definition of immutability of God remains secure. We stay within classical theism aligned with historical traditions of the Church.
  2. Or we could understand that God is able to change His mind if He wants to. That is what the Scripture says. However, God change His mind does not affect His divine nature at all. Was God reactive to human actions? Did God react to our prayer at all?

I choose no 2 because I believe even major doctrines of the Church need to be evaluated by the very saying of a particular passage of the Scripture.

Interesting you used the quote by N.T. Wright because I personally heard his discussion with James White in “unbelievable podcast” that there are little nuggets of truth in Romans that should not be put under the rug, but for the truth to embrace all as a cohesive whole.

Actually, that is the whole point of my endeavour. I like to see the Scripture as a cohesive whole, not just sticking to certain doctrines while interpreting other passages. Perhaps our understanding of classical trinitarian doctrines needs some nuances. Eternal subordination view held by Wayne Grudem and Bruce Ware and the New Calvinist camp directly addressed this very issue. It does answer the contradiction I see in Matt 24:36 and other passages of the Bible.

246

In the same token, just because the Church has historically held certain beliefs do not make it right. Just take the example of geocentric vs heliocentric model held by the Church. We can see how the Church was resistant to the new idea even after observation by scientists such as galileo. It took centuries for the Church to finally admit its mistake and embrace heliocentric.

Is our understanding of God evolving? Always. There is so much of God we could not fathom or understand. The more we study Scripture, then the more we know about our God. I think that has become my endeavour.

247

It depends on the beliefs in question. The Church cannot err in her teachings on faith and morals; otherwise, Christ’s promise to send the Holy Spirit to guide us into the truth would be null and void, and Christianity would be no more divinely grounded than Pastafarianism or Mormonism.

I can hardly believe what I’m reading. These are scientific matters, and neither the Church nor the Bible was ever meant to be infallible in such areas. Questions of faith and morals belong to an entirely different category.

Evolving can never mean contradiction.

Unfortunately, if we study Scripture relying only on our own “human all too human” ideas, we end up more confused than ever, and you are the living embodiment of that.

248

Take the example of “the sale of indulgence”. Not sure what you take for that and what is the biblical basis for this?

249

You propose that perhaps God can “change His mind” without affecting His divine nature.

The problem is that fundamentally alters what we mean by God.

To change one’s mind entails:

  1. moving from one cognitive state to another
  2. acquiring new information or a new evaluative stance
  3. being temporally successive in one’s knowledge

But classical Christian theology (affirmed not only by Catholics and Orthodox but also by the Reformers ) holds that God is:

  1. eternal (not in time)
  2. simple (not composed of parts)
  3. pure act (not moving from potential to actual)

If God “changes His mind,” then:

  1. He was previously in a different epistemic state.
  2. He moves from potential knowledge to actual knowledge.
  3. He becomes temporally conditioned.

That does not merely nuance immutability, it abandons it.

The alternative explanation (anthropomorphic language) is not a dodgec it is an absolute hermeneutical necessity grounded in Scripture itself. The same Bible that says God “repents” also says: “I the Lord do not change” (Malachi 3:6)
“God is not a man, that He should repent” (Numbers 23:19)

So Scripture itself forces us to synthesize.

If you take Genesis 6:6 literally in a univocal sense, you must take Numbers 23:19 literally in the same way, and you end up being forced to deny one or the other, relying only on your personal and flawed understanding, whereas another person with another personal and flawed understanding will choose to follow the opposite and (apparently) opposing text as literal while discarding the text you chose to exalt. We, in other words, end up with absolute subjectivism and relativism.

You say doctrines must be evaluated by specific passages of Scripture but major Christian doctrine emerges precisely because isolated passages, taken in isolation, create tension:

  • Trinity: “The Father is greater than I” (John 14:28) vs “The Word was God” (John 1:1)

  • Incarnation: Jesus grows in wisdom (Luke 2:52) vs omniscience

  • Immutability: God “repents” vs God does not change

  • Justification: James 2 vs Romans 3

If each challenging passage has the authority to revise established doctrinal synthesis, then doctrine never stabilizes and it becomes permanently provisional and self-contradictory.

You now suggest that Jesus, being fully God but incarnate, was not omniscient in His incarnation and that His knowledge came through the Spirit.

But this creates not one but two major theological problems. Problem 1: If the Son ceases to be omniscient in the incarnation, then divine attributes become divisible.

Classical Christology teaches:

  1. The Son assumes a human nature.
  2. The divine nature remains intact.
  3. The properties of each nature remain proper to that nature.

Christ’s human intellect is finite.
But His divine nature is not diminished.

The traditional solution (articulated from Athanasius to Aquinas) is that Christ possesses:

  1. divine omniscience according to His divine nature
  2. finite human knowledge according to His human nature

This is not compromise. It is Chalcedonian logic.

If instead you say the Son simply “was not omniscient,” then either:

  • He ceased to be fully divine, or

  • Divine omniscience is not essential to divinity.

Both collapse Nicene theology.

Then you bring up the eternal subordination of the Son and this is where the issue becomes extremely serious.

The ESS position (Grudem, Ware) argues for an eternal functional subordination of the Son to the Father. But this has been heavily criticized — not only by Catholics and Orthodox, but by Reformed theologians themselves (e.g., Liam Goligher, Carl Trueman, Matthew Barrett).

Why?

Because Nicene orthodoxy affirms:

  • The Son is eternally begotten.

  • The Son is consubstantial with the Father.

  • There is no hierarchy of will or authority within the immanent Trinity.

If you posit eternal authority-submission within the Trinity, you introduce:

  1. ontological gradation
  2. asymmetry of will
  3. a structural hierarchy within the Godhead

That is dangerously close to subordinationism.

The Council of Nicaea was not merely about terminology. It was about protecting the full equality of the Son.

ESS attempts to solve a textual tension by introducing a metaphysical imbalance in the Trinity.

That is not nuance, it is a doctrinal shift.

To say that the Son is eternally subordinated to the Father is not merely a relational distinction, It introduces asymmetry: command presupposes superiority of authority; obedience presupposes submission to that authority.

If that structure is eternal and internal to God, then hierarchy is eternal and internal to God. But hierarchy within the Godhead implies gradation; gradation implies inequality; inequality within the divine being fractures simplicity.

At that point, we no longer have one simple divine will, but differentiated structures of willing.

That begins to resemble either:

  1. A form of tritheism (three centers ordered hierarchically), or
  2. A refined subordinationism (where one divine person is eternally functionally inferior).

And the second option, the “refined subordinationism” that posits eternal functional inferiority, is not compatible with classical Christian monotheism because:

  1. Authority belongs to nature.
  2. Will belongs to nature.
  3. God’s nature is one and simple.
  4. There cannot be asymmetrical authority without asymmetrical willing.
  5. Asymmetrical willing fractures divine simplicity.

That is why the early Church rejected subordinationism , because it introduced hierarchy within the divine being.

And hierarchy inside God undermines the metaphysical unity that makes Christian monotheism truly monotheistic.

You say you want Scripture as a cohesive whole but you are doing the exact opposite, as cohesion is not achieved by letting every difficult verse revise established metaphysical conclusions.

250

That’s a fair example to raise, but it seems that you don’t distinguish between doctrinal teaching and abusive practice.

The “sale of indulgences” was not a doctrinal teaching of the Church: It was a corruption of discipline and pastoral practice.

There is a crucial difference between:

  1. The doctrine of indulgences
    and
  2. The commercial abuse of indulgences.

The Church never taught that forgiveness could be bought. In fact, simony (the buying and selling of spiritual things ) has always been condemned (Acts 8:18–20).

What happened in the late medieval period was not the invention of a doctrine that money purchases salvation, it was the abuse of an existing penitential practice for fundraising purposes, especially in certain regions of Germany.

The Council of Trent explicitly condemned these abuses (Session 25), while reaffirming the doctrine itself.

So the real question is this: does the existence of corruption among clergy prove doctrinal error?

If so, then:

  1. The corruption of some bishops during the Arian crisis would invalidate Nicaea.
  2. Peter’s hypocrisy in Galatians 2 would invalidate apostolic authority.

But Christianity has always distinguished between the holiness of the divine promise
and the sinfulness of some of its ministers.

Indefectibility does not mean the Church never sins, it means the Church will not formally teach error in faith and morals as binding truth.

If a bishop abuses a doctrine, that is sin.
If a preacher distorts a practice, that is corruption.
But that does not mean the doctrinal core is false.

In other words: raising medieval corruption does not demonstrate that the Church taught heresy, It demonstrates that human beings can distort holy things, which Scripture itself repeatedly warns about

251

And by the way, you wrote:

“In the same token, just because the Church has historically held certain beliefs does not make it right.”

So are you saying that when Paul exhorts believers in 2 Thessalonians 2:15:

“So then, brothers and sisters, stand firm and hold fast to the teachings we passed on to you, whether by word of mouth or by letter”

he is commanding us to hold fast to teachings that might in fact be false? Not merely on peripheral or scientific matters ( which were never the concern of apostolic teaching or of Scripture itself ) but even in matters of faith and morals? Because if that is the implication, then the consequence is far more serious than you realize, I’m afraid.

If teachings handed down from the apostles, and consistently held by the Church from the beginning on essential questions of faith and moral truth, can be fundamentally mistaken, then the reliability of the entire apostolic deposit becomes unstable.

And if that deposit is unstable, then on what principled basis do we trust anything in Scripture at all? If the Church could be wrong about core doctrines of faith and morals from the earliest centuries, then every belief becomes potentially provisional. Everything becomes subject to revision. At that point, the problem is no longer about a specific doctrine, it’s about the trustworthiness of the apostolic witness itself.

Do you realize where that hermeneutic ultimately leads?

A serious question: why not trust what has been handed down to you, rather than relying on your own judgment to decide which passages of Scripture should be absolutized and which should be reinterpreted or basically handwaved (not to mention that you say you want to rely on Scripture, yet you are then compelled to sidestep 2 Thessalonians 2:15, which explicitly instructs believers to stand firm and hold fast to the traditions handed down to them, whether by word of mouth or by letters, which points in precisely the opposite direction of the method you are advocating which relies on complete subjectivism, so you are not only using a wrong method, your method is internally contradictory and self-destructive)?

There is a real danger here, the subtle temptation to believe that we are capable of reshaping the Faith according to our own reasoning, which is a form of spiritual pride we should all be cautious about. I say this not as an accusation, but out of genuine brotherly concern.

252

you do know that the idea of immutability of God was borrowed from Greek thought, from Plato and Aristotle. It was adapted by early christian thinker such as Augustine. Just because some christian thinker thought alike does not mean that the idea of immutability of God as hold by classical Christian theology is biblical. That idea need to be tested by the truth of the Scripture.
Num 23:19 God is not man, that he should lie,
or a son of man, that he should change his mind.
Has he said, and will he not do it?
Or has he spoken, and will he not fulfill it?

The text did not say that God can’t change His mind. He is God and He can change His mind if He chooses to. He is not God that is bound by our definition of God. Our concept of God should be derived from what the Scripture revealed to us.
2 Kings 20:1-11 give us a clearest example of God’s changing His mind.

  • Hezekiah was sick to the point of death.
  • Isaiah came with the prophecy, “Thus says the Lord, Set your house in order, for you shall die; you shall not recover.”
  • Hezekiah then prayed to the Lord and wept bitterly.
  • Before Isaiah had gone out of the middle court, another prophecy came to him.
  • The word of the Lord came to him : “Turn back, and say to Hezekiah the leader of my people.Thus says the LORD, the God of David your father: I have heard your prayer; I have seen your tears. Behold, I will heal you. On the third day you shall go up to the house of the LORD, and I will add fifteen years to your life. I will deliver you and this city out of the hand of the king of Assyria, and I will defend this city for my own sake and for my servant David’s sake.”

Please tell me that this is not a case of God changing His mind. He doesn’t have to, but He is able and can change His mind if He wants to.

A very serious matter indeed that I take this very seriously. As long as I have been in evangelical christian church, our consistent message concerning the sermons is the same, “Do not always trust the preacher, but test everything he said in light of the Scripture”, in prophecy, “Test the spirit whether it is of God”. We encourage the believers to read the Bible themselves. Why? Because we believe that the Holy Spirit can enlighten the heart of the believers. No longer believers should be swayed back and forth for unbiblical teaching, because we have the Bible and the Holy Spirit that enlightened the Bible for us. (Heb. 8:10-11) I understand that RCC might have a different approach on this and just trust the teaching of the Church. If you studied 2 Thes 2:15 carefully, Paul didn’t say to trust the tradition of the Church blindly, but by 2 means. “By our spoken word or by our letter”. Of course Paul was writing this letter when the apostles were still alive. While the Gospel were taught and spread orally among the churches, there were the apostles who stood ready to correct whatever was considered as incorrect teaching. As of today, we have only the written letters in the form of the Bible. How do we know if any oral teaching or traditions passed down to us are the correct one? We must use the Bible to evaluate those traditions.

253

To say that divine immutability comes from Plato or Aristotle and was later “imported” into Christianity by Augustine is a gross oversimplification of history.

Long before Augustine, Scripture itself affirms that:

  • God does not change (Malachi 3:6)

  • God does not lie or repent like a man (Numbers 23:19)

  • With God there is “no variation or shadow due to change” (James 1:17)

  • God declares “the end from the beginning” (Isaiah 46:10)

These are not Greek philosophical statements, they are biblical affirmations.

Now, it is true that early Christian thinkers used philosophical language to articulate these truths more precisely. But using philosophical vocabulary is not the same as borrowing foreign doctrine. Philosophy just provided conceptual tools, but the content was derived from Scripture.

Also let’s examine the Hezekiah narrative carefully.

Isaiah says: “You shall die; you shall not recover.”

Hezekiah prays.

God then says:“I have heard your prayer… I will add fifteen years.”

On the surface, this looks like a change of mind.

But there are only two logical possibilities:

A) God did not know Hezekiah would pray.
B) God knew Hezekiah would pray and incorporated that into His eternal decree.

If A is true, then:

  • God learns new information.

  • God revises His plans.

  • God is temporally reactive.

That flatly contradicts passages like Isaiah 46:10 and Psalm 139.

If B is true, then:

  • God eternally willed both the warning and the response.

  • The warning was a means to bring about the prayer.

  • The apparent “change” is from the human perspective, not from God’s eternal will.

Scripture frequently presents God as responding in time simply because we experience events in sequence. But describing God’s actions in temporal sequence does not require that God Himself undergo internal alteration.

This is called anthropomorphic or phenomenological language, and Scripture uses it constantly.

The same Bible that says God “repents” also says: ““God is not a man, that He should repent” (Num 23:19)

That tension forces interpretation. It cannot be resolved by literalizing only one side.

You say God is not bound by our definition of God. That is true. But neither is He bound by our surface-level reading of narrative language.

The question is not whether God can change His mind in the abstract.
The question is whether change is compatible with:

  • Divine eternality

  • Divine omniscience

  • Divine perfection

If God can change His mind, then either:

  • He lacked something previously, or

  • He gained something new

Either way, perfection becomes dynamic rather than complete. Can God be God if there was a moment where His perfection was incomplete?

That creates far more theological instability than immutability

Not to mention that, when Scripture says God “repents,” the pattern is consistent:

  • It describes covenantal interaction.

  • It emphasizes relational responsiveness.

  • It speaks from the human vantage point.

But when Scripture speaks directly about God’s being, it affirms constancy, faithfulness, and unchangeability.

The classical synthesis does not impose Greek thought on Scripture. It holds together both categories:

  • God truly responds in history.

  • God does not undergo internal mutation.

That distinction protects both divine transcendence and divine relationality.

And if God literally changes His mind:

  • Prophecy becomes provisional.

  • Divine foreknowledge becomes uncertain.

  • Trust in divine promises weakens.

Because a God who revises His intentions may revise them again. Immutability is not a philosophical luxury. It is the foundation of covenantal trust.

When Scripture says: “I the Lord do not change; therefore you are not consumed” (Mal 3:6)

It connects immutability to faithfulness.

So no, Immutability is not a pagan import imposed on the Bible. It is a theological conclusion drawn from the whole of Scripture, especially from the tension between texts that describe God’s actions in time and texts that describe God’s eternal being.

2 Kings 20 does not require a mutable God.
It requires a relational God who acts in history according to an eternal will.

If we interpret every anthropomorphic description literally, we will also have to say:

  • God has hands.

  • God has nostrils.

  • God sits physically on a throne in space.

Scripture speaks analogically.

The real question is not whether God “can” change His mind. The real question is whether a God who changes His mind is compatible with:

  • omniscience,

  • perfection,

  • eternality,

  • and covenantal reliability.

And that is where the classical doctrine remains deeply coherent.

254

And yet you do not believe that the Spirit guided the Church into the truth. Let me quote your own words from a few posts above: “Just because the Church has historically held certain beliefs does not make them right.”

If the Holy Spirit was not capable of guiding the Church into all truth, as John 16:13 says—“When the Spirit of truth comes, he will guide you into all the truth. For he will not speak on his own authority, but whatever he hears he will speak”—then let me ask you a sincere question:

How on God’s green earth can you trust your own understanding as coming from the Spirit?

After all, this is the same Spirit who (according to your view ) allowed the early Church to hold completely erroneous beliefs for centuries. One clear example would be Eucharistic realism. Because, historically speaking, the early Church was universally realist in its understanding of the Eucharist.

The historical evidence is widely acknowledged by scholars across different traditions:

J. N. D. Kelly, Early Christian Doctrines, p. 440:
“Eucharistic teaching, it should be understood at once, was in general unquestionably realistic. The consecrated bread and wine were regarded as, and spoken of as, the body and blood of the Lord.”

Everett Ferguson, Early Christians Speak, pp. 115–116:
“The bread and wine are spoken of as the body and blood of Christ, and the language is strongly realistic.”

Robert Louis Wilken, The Spirit of Early Christian Thought, p. 36:
“Christians believed that the bread and wine of the Eucharist were the body and blood of Christ.”

Louis Bouyer, Eucharist: Theology and Spirituality of the Eucharistic Prayer, p. 39:
“For the Fathers the Eucharist is not a mere symbol but the body and blood of Christ truly given.”

Henry Chadwick, The Early Church, p. 283:
“The Eucharist was understood to be the body and blood of Christ, and participation in it was regarded as a real sharing in the sacrifice of Christ.”

Jaroslav Pelikan, The Christian Tradition: A History of the Development of Doctrine, p. 204:
“The Fathers spoke of the Eucharist as the body and blood of Christ and treated it as a reality rather than a mere symbol.”

Adolf von Harnack, History of Dogma, Vol. 2, p. 144 (English edition):
“The elements were regarded as the body and blood of Christ, and participation in them was understood in a realistic sense.”

Johannes Quasten, Patrology, Vol. 1, p. 57:
“The Eucharist is clearly understood as the flesh of Christ, as seen especially in Ignatius of Antioch.”

William R. Schoedel, Ignatius of Antioch: A Commentary on the Letters of Ignatius of Antioch, p. 230:
“Ignatius’ understanding of the Eucharist is strongly realistic, identifying it with the flesh of Christ.”

If the Holy Spirit allowed the Church to teach such a massive falsehood (from the earliest centuries until the Reformation) then one of two conclusions must follow:

Either John 16:13 was not true, or the promise of John 16:13 is so dependent on human agency that it becomes practically unreliable, since there would be no objective way of determining who is right and who is wrong.

In either case, the claim that “the Holy Spirit enlightens the hearts of individual believers” becomes…well I think it’s self-evident what it becomes .

But one thing seems clear: for someone to assume that their personal interpretation is more spiritually enlightened than that of the Church Fathers, and the universal teaching of the Church across the first 15 centuries, would require no small amount of pride.

255

What I ask is where is the passage that say that God can’t change His mind. All the passages that reveal that He is God and He doesn’t change. It never said that God can’t change His mind.

do you ever think that perhaps that the way God wants us to understand Him? He gave us the plainest example so we can understand Him.

Isn’t that an example of God playing drama in history? He gave a false prophecy, but that false prophecy would not come true because God knew that Hezekiah would pray to Him. So, now we have a God who like to pretend giving false prophecy so that His children will pray and then God would give His true prophecy afterward. That is even more an impossibility of the God I know in the Bible. He will surely never give a false prophecy to His children.

256

You are asking for a verse that literally says, “God cannot change His mind.” , but that standard is inconsistent, because the Bible does not always express truths about God in the form “God cannot X.” Instead, it reveals God’s nature and attributes, and from those attributes certain things logically follow.

For example, where is the verse that literally says “God cannot sin”?

You will not find that exact sentence either. Yet Scripture clearly teaches it. Why? Because Scripture reveals that God is perfectly holy.

James 1:13 says: “God cannot be tempted with evil.”

Habakkuk 1:13 says: “You are of purer eyes than to behold evil.”

From those statements, Christians rightly conclude that God cannot sin, not because there is a verse with that exact wording, but because sin would contradict His nature.

The same principle applies here.

Scripture teaches that God is:

  1. Unchanging — “For I the Lord do not change.” (Malachi 3:6)
  2. Not like man — “God is not a man, that He should lie, nor a son of man, that He should change His mind.”(Numbers 23:19)
  3. Perfect in knowledge — “His understanding is infinite.” (Psalm 147:5)
  4. Declaring the end from the beginning — (Isaiah 46:10)

Now consider what it actually means to change one’s mind.Humans change their minds because:

  1. they learn new information,
  2. they realize they were mistaken, or
  3. they did not foresee something.

But none of these can apply to a God who is omniscient, eternal, and perfect.

So if someone claims that God literally changes His mind in the same way humans do, they are implicitly saying that God learns, improves His decisions, or revises His plans.

But that contradicts the very attributes Scripture gives Him, which is why the passages where God is said to “relent” or “repent” are therefore understood throughout historic Christian theology as anthropomorphic language, descriptions of God’s actions from the human perspective, not literal changes in the divine will.

Otherwise we would end up with a God who learns, corrects Himself, and revises His plans, which would make Him neither omniscient nor perfect, and at that point we would no longer be talking about the God revealed in Scripture.

So your interpretive rule is that when Scripture uses simple narrative language about God, we should take it in the most literal, surface-level way because that’s how God wants us to understand Him.

You know what? This is interesting! I like it, really! Let’s apply that rule consistently, though.

Scripture says:

  • “Smoke went up from His nostrils, and devouring fire from His mouth.” (2 Samuel 22:9)

  • “The Lord smelled the pleasing aroma.” (Genesis 8:21)

  • “He will cover you with His feathers, and under His wings you will find refuge.” (Psalm 91:4)

  • “The eyes of the Lord run to and fro throughout the whole earth.” (2 Chronicles 16:9)

  • “The Lord God was walking in the garden in the cool of the day.” (Genesis 3:8)

So if we read all of this in the most literal way possible, the picture of God becomes… quite something indeed…

A gigantic being with feathers and wings, eyes sprinting around the planet, smoke blasting out of His nostrils, fire shooting out of His mouth, strolling through gardens in the evening, and apparently sniffing the smell of burning animal flesh to enjoy the aroma.

That starts sounding less like the transcendent Creator of heaven and earth and more like some kind of cosmic dragon-bird hybrid with a barbecue hobby. Not even Lovecraft would come up with something like this. :sweat_smile::sweat_smile::sweat_smile::smiley::smiley::smiley::smiley:

But the Bible itself tells us:”God is spirit.” (John 4:24) and “God is not a man.” (Numbers 23:19)

Which means Scripture itself expects us to understand that this language is anthropomorphic, that is, God communicating divine actions in human terms.

So yes, God speaks in ways we can understand, but if your rule is that every narrative description must be taken at the most literal surface level, then the result is not a clearer doctrine of God.

The result is a very strange creature (to say the least, and I certainly would not want any part of such a being; Nyarlathotep * seems far more reassuring :joy:) that the Bible itself says God is not.

* https://lovecraft.fandom.com/wiki/Nyarlathotep “a tall, lean man of dead black colouration but without the slightest sign of negroid features: wholly devoid of either hair or beard, and wearing as his only garment a shapeless robe of some heavy black fabric. His feet were indistinguishable because of the table and bench, but he must have been shod, since there was a clicking whenever he changed position. The man did not speak, and bore no trace of expression on his small, regular features. He merely pointed to a book of prodigious size which lay open on the table…”

Yeah, bro, Imma take the good ol’ Nyarlathotep over the cosmic dragon–bird hybrid with a barbecue hobby any day of the week and twice on Sunday. :sweat_smile::smiley:

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See? You’re assuming that what happened with Hezekiah would amount to a false prophecy, but that assumption ignores a very common biblical pattern: conditional prophetic warnings.

In Scripture, announcements of judgment are often means God uses to provoke repentance, prayer, or humility. They are not necessarily unconditional decrees.

God explicitly explains this principle: “If at any time I declare concerning a nation or a kingdom that I will pluck up and break down and destroy it, and if that nation turns from its evil, I will relent of the disaster that I intended to do to it.”
— Jeremiah 18:7–8

So prophetic warnings can function as divine instruments that bring about the very response God intends. We see this clearly with Nineveh. Jonah proclaimed: “Yet forty days, and Nineveh shall be overthrown.” (Jonah 3:4)

Nineveh repented, and the destruction did not happen. That does not make Jonah a false prophet, because the warning accomplished its purpose.

The same pattern appears with Hezekiah. Isaiah says: “Set your house in order, for you shall die; you shall not recover.” (2 Kings 20:1)

Hezekiah prays, and God extends his life. The warning provoked the prayer through which God chose to grant the extension, so this is not God giving a “false prophecy.” It is God using a real warning as a means within His providence.

But here is the key point: this category does not apply to divine promises.

Warnings of judgment are often conditional. Promises grounded in God’s covenant and character are not.

258

That is not inconsistent my friend because you are giving passage after passage in the Bible in our discussion and I am asking where do you get that idea “God can’t change His mind” from. But you always go back to the definition of what it means to be immutable God (Greek thought, please check the history of greek thought) and then project that definition to interpret biblical passages. I am just asking a witness from the Bible that can clearly indicate that God can not change His mind.

The very passage you give in Jeremiah is very clear that God will relent from His intention. Another clear example that God did change His mind. Is that also anthropomorphic language?

259

I’ve clearly given it, it’s intrinsic to His nature, just like He cannot commit sin.

There is not a single passage in the Bible saying clearly that God cannot commit sin. Does this mean that it is conceivable that He can sin? Obviously not, for God is Holy, and His Holiness is incompatible with sin in any way, shape or form

Your literalism built upon your stubborn understanding of some isolated passages which (relying only on your own personal judgement) you absolutize is not going to take you anywhere.

**Epistle of James 1:17: “**Every good gift and every perfect gift is from above, coming down from the Father of lights, with whom there is no variation or shadow due to change.”

Let me quote from here What Is Divine Immutability? - Topical Studies | Bible Study Tools

“The Bible tells us, “Every good gift and every perfect gift is from above, coming down from the Father of lights, with whom there is no variation or shadow due to change” (James 1:17). This tells us God is who He is, and He doesn’t change, unlike the shadows we produce when the light around us changes. We change all the time, but He never does.

What Does the Bible Mean by Divine Immutability?

When the Bible says God doesn’t change, it is referring to His attribute of divine immutability. Since God is divine (divine is anything which refers to the one true God), we refer to God’s unchanging character as divine immutability.

God is unchangeable in any way, and therefore, unchanging. God cannot change His very essence or His mind because He is perfect in every way (Deuteronomy 32:4; 2 Samuel 22:31; Psalm 18:30). For God to even be able to change would nullify His perfection, and a perfect Being cannot change. How can God be perfect if he is open to change?”

So you understand that I can quote that passage just as you quoted the other one and we both can absolutize our own personal interpretations.

The passage is not describing God discovering new information or correcting a mistake, it is describing how God governs human history.

Jeremiah 18 is not a narrative about God suddenly changing His mind, It is God explaining a general principle of His rule: when people repent, judgment is withheld; when they persist in evil, judgment comes.

In other words, the passage is not saying God learns something He didn’t know. It is saying that repentance and judgment are built into the structure of His providence.

Think of it this way: when a judge says, “If you plead guilty and cooperate, the sentence will be reduced,” and then reduces the sentence after the plea, the judge has not changed his mind in the sense of discovering new information. The judge is applying the very rule he established beforehand. That is exactly what Jeremiah 18 is explaining.

So yes, the language is anthropomorphic in the sense that it describes God’s actions from the human perspective within history. But the passage itself actually presupposes a stable principle of divine governance.

Ironically, Jeremiah 18 is not evidence that God unpredictably revises His plans. It is evidence that His way of dealing with human repentance and rebellion is consistent and principled.

260

In that case, I agree to disagree. No more point of discussion that might be helpful for us. God bless your ministry brother, but I don’t think our further discussion will help me out with my searching for truth.