Sitting on the beach in Nassau now
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I was joking. I’m not the one who is obsessed with the fine points of capitalization. I’m big on understanding what people mean. That usually involves asking them what they mean, or looking at the context of what they are saying, not referring to dictionaries.
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Dear Roger,
There are number of reasons that the trinity is a problem. The fist is that it is statements like you have made that make Christian teaching offensive to logical thinkers. You have agued that Jesus is God because He is good, yet Jesus said He is not good. (Besides the 13 other passages where He says He is not God.)
But the most important reason is: “The only way to eternal life is through Jesus.” Anything that stands in the way of this path to Jesus, including the confusion that He is somehow also God, is an affront to the restoration process. Satan believes in God and without God, he would not exist. Satan’s battle is with the King of Heaven, the only begotten Son. His fight is with the Kingdom, not the Father. This is why belief in God alone does not bring eternal life, only by accepting the King (The Tree of Life). The trinity is one of the many stones that Satan has laid in the path to salvation.
Best Wishes, Shawn
Shawn, can I ask you a question. What do you hear when I or Roger or someone else says ‘Jesus is God’? Do you take that to mean that we think that Jesus and the Father are somehow the same person? Or do you take it to mean something else?
It would be really helpful to know what definition and usage you are working from in your responses so that we can more effectively interact with your concerns and objections. The more detail you can give us to your understanding of the Trinitarian phrase ‘Jesus is God’ the better.
Thanks in advance 
Dear Liam,
Sorry, I was answering Roger specifically who said “Jesus was inherently Good and thus God.” When I hear this I do not see the two separate beings: The Father and The Son, who is the King of the Father’s creation. Nor do I see how the seven Spirits of God (Rev 4:4–5) fit into a Trinitarian worldview. I my worldview, these are separate and distinct divine (holy) spirits who carry out the Will of the Father, under the guidance of the King.
How can Satan be the enemy of the Son and not the Father?
How can Satan be our enemy and not the enemy of the Father Who loves us?
The Father gave His Son to be crucified for our sins so that we might be members of God’s Kingdom. Satan and Satan’s followers do their damnest to frustrate God’s plan and therefore they will be condemned to spend eternity in Hell separated from God and God’s people. I know that you don’t believe this, but this is the logical impact of what you say.
The logical problem of the Trinity is the philosophical problem of the One and the Many. It is the problem of how can Reality be both Unitary and Complex?
God has given us the answer to this problem through the Trinity. If we do not accept God’s help in this area we must bear the consequences, which is the confusion we are experiencing in the world today. See my essay on Using the One and the Many on Academia.edu.
You argued that Jesus asked the question, Why do you call me good?’ because Jesus did not want the Rich Young Ruler to confuse Him with the Father.
However the rich young ruler was a member of the Jewish leadership class. It was more likely that he was asking a question in bad faith trying to trap Jesus. It appears that the question was asked in good faith, but there is no way that the rich young ruler would confuse Jesus with the Father. The opposite was true, which is why Jesus said what He said. Jesus is good as the Father is good, because Jesus is God.
You mean “not the Father,” which is not a problem. Everyone knows that the Son is not the Father, although He is God like the Father.
Dear Roger,
How can both Jesus and the Father be God? For me, God = Father = Creator. Jesus = Son = King = Shepard. The Father and the Son share the same essence, but are unique, separate divine beings.
Best Wishes, Shawn
The essence of the Trinity is that there are three “Whos” (Father, Son, Holy Spirit) in one “What” (God). This does not seem incompatible with your concept of the unique personhood of each being.
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Dear John,
I understand the framework of the Trinity, but find no support for it in the bible. Up until now I have just spoke of the difficulties between what Jesus says about God. I have not even spoken about the lack of support for the Holy Spirit as a single entity as you describe as a “Who”.
The vision of the throne of God given to us by John is the greatest contradiction to the trinity, with seven spirits of God, 24 Elders and four beasts present. There is no “three” in this vision.
The seven spirits imagery is from Revelation which is Jewish apocryphal genre. I would be very cautious about a literal exegesis of the verses therein referring concretely to seven actual spirits. Apocryphal literature is highly symbolic writing and Revelation is John’s attempt to describe the indescribable. The imagery is not typically meant to be a physical description of a concrete entity. The numbers 7, 12, and their multiples come up repeatedly through the book are are meant to reflect perfection and completeness. I am not advocating the impossibility of a literal interpretation, but as this is the only Biblical reference to seven spirits, as the genre is highly symbolic literature, and as virtually everywhere else in the NT the Holy Spirit is referred to in the singular, I would be very hesitant to extract from Revelation a literal interpretation that God or Christ has seven spirits.
Do you believe that the Holy Spirit is (are 
) an entity separate from God the Father or Jesus Christ?
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Dear John,
Sorry to see you disregard Jesus’ revelation to John, but the same revelation of seven and 24 were given to Moses in the description of the Menorah - the heavenly family tree. (Exodus 25:31-40).
Yes, I believe there are multiple holy spirits. Jesus promised to send the Comforter, the Teacher and the Spirit of Truth (John 14:17 15:26 16:13), using distinctive names of those He would ask the Father to send in HIs name. With billions of individuals living int his world, how is it so hard to imagine that there are many more in the spiritual world?
Best Wishes, Shawn
Ps. This discussion should help to show that the trinity belongs outside of Christina orthodoxy, as it has nothing to say about the need to love our enemies (Matt 5:44) or that the only way to eternal life is through Jesus, not the Holy Spirit and not through God. The most quoted biblical verse says nothing about a trinity.
For God so loved the world, that he gave his only begotten Son, that whosoever believeth in him should not perish, but have everlasting life. (Jh 3:16)
That’s interesting - coming from you and given what you said in a prior post:
While the historical church has in fact taken seriously the entire thrust of the gospels (and especially John) to wrestle out all its implications and meaning, you have disregarded all of that and instead built an entire edifice of (questionable at best?) understanding on some special number gleaned from some particular verse tucked away in apocalyptic symbolism.
Most Christians, in contrast, want to (challenge ourselves to) attend to the bulk of scripture, and let that shape our approach to this or that curious verse. You seem to prefer the reverse where the tail wags the dog, and you let your understanding of a particular verse drive your rejection of much that the church finds in the gospel testimonies.
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“The most quoted biblical verse says nothing about a trinity.” @Shawn_Murphy
Not so
For God (the Father) so loved (through the Holy Spirit) the world that the Father gave His Only Begotten Son (through the Holy Spirit,) that whosoever believeth (through the Spirit) in the Son should not perish, but have everlasting life (with and through the Father.)
Yes, they are both God. The formula of Nicaea is that they are homoousion, they are of the same divine nature or essence. One God, but three distinct Persons. The Father is not the Son. The Son is not the Spirit. The Father is not the Spirit. Yet the Father, Son, and Spirit are individually and collectively fully God.
Homoousion is a Christian theological term, most notably used in the Nicene Creed for describing Jesus as “same in being” or “same in essence” with God the Father. The same term was later also applied to the Holy Spirit in order to designate him as being “same in essence” with the Father and the Son. from the Wikipedia
Mervin, I added clarification to my post “greatest contradiction to the trinity” because that was the subject I was talking about.
Dear Mervin,
I am sorry you see it this way. I do in fact look at the entire Scripture, and consider the hand of the scribes in it. In this thread I have quoted 14 verses where Jesus says He is not God and asked for one where He says He is. All I receive back is manmade doctrine. I do know the arguments for this doctrine, but is not my job here to disprove, just to demonstrate that the trinity doctrine has nothing to do with core message of Jesus, and thus, should not be part of orthodoxy.
In my opinion, the trinity causes confusion and add no value. It a remnant of a pagan emperor with much baggage that cannot be read out the Bible. Why support it when the only defense is “its doctrine”? And, as I have previously said, it draws attention away from Jesus Christ, our savior, who is the only way to eternal life.
Best Wishes, Shawn
I don’t appreciate being gaslighted, so please refrain from doing so in the future.
Revelation, like Daniel and Ezekiel, is Jewish apocryphal literature. By design it is highly symbolic writing. I don’t say this because I have a low view of Scripture; on the contrary, respecting the different types of Biblical genres is critical to accurate exegesis and is a necessary safety mechanism to avoid heretical teachings. Ignoring the symbolism reflected in this form of writing and randomly ascribing very literal exegetical analysis to individual details outside the context of the whole book is begging for the development of false teachings. That Revelation is Jewish apocryphal literature is validated almost universally by both Christian and Jewish scholars of this type of writing. Respecting that fact is to bestow the respect Biblical revelation deserves.
Your reference to the lamp stand as a type of God’s spirit has no basis in fact. We do indeed see the 7 and 12 motifs yet again, but that is simply because, as I stated above, these numbers were considered to reflect perfection; Biblical patterns of sevens and twelves are salient features throughout scripture. But to specifically force the notion that the lamp stand is a type of God’s Spirit is conjecture. There is no scriptural evidence that the lamp stand represents God’s “seven spirits”; that seems to be nothing but speculation. This is not an exegesis but an eisegesis, and that I absolutely will disregard.
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Dear John,
I had no intension of gas-lighting you, it was directed as general comment towards theologians. The Jewish scribes did not understand the gifts given to them either. But that is another story.
You have made my point clearly in your statement above. 7 and 12 represent perfection and perfection is God, not three. God is not an interior decorator, but the Menorah had been denigrated to a mere “lamp stand” as you indicated. Its importance is as significant as the 10 commandments. The seven spirits of God are also reflected in the names of the seven weekdays, with Sun-day representing the light of the world, the Son of God.
You have quoted 13 verses that say Jesus is not the Father and one verse where He indicates that He is Good like the Father If you are looking for verses where Jesus says He is God, look to John 10:30(NIV2011)
30 I and the Father are one.”
and John 14:9 (NIV2011)
9 Jesus answered: “Don’t you know me, Philip, even after I have been among you such a long time? Anyone who has seen me has seen the Father. How can you say, ‘Show us the Father’?
and other places where Jesus exercises the authority of God.
Mark 2:5-10 (NIV2011)
5 When Jesus saw their faith, he said to the paralyzed man, “Son, your sins are forgiven.”
6 Now some teachers of the law were sitting there, thinking to themselves,
7 “Why does this fellow talk like that? He’s blaspheming! Who can forgive sins but God alone?”
8 Immediately Jesus knew in his spirit that this was what they were thinking in their hearts, and he said to them, “Why are you thinking these things?
9 Which is easier: to say to this paralyzed man, ‘Your sins are forgiven,’ or to say, ‘Get up, take your mat and walk’?
10 But I want you to know that the Son of Man has authority on earth to forgive sins.”
John 5:16-18 (NIV2011)
16 So, because Jesus was doing these things on the Sabbath, the Jewish leaders began to persecute him.
17 In his defense Jesus said to them, “My Father is always at his work to this very day, and I too am working.”
18 For this reason they tried all the more to kill him; not only was he breaking the Sabbath, but he was even calling God his own Father, making himself equal with God.
and
Luke 6:5 (NIV2011)
5 Then Jesus said to them, “The Son of Man is Lord of the Sabbath.”
Constantine was Not a pagan emperor.
The Trinity has defined Christianity against those like the Jehovah’s Witnesses, the Mormons, and even current Evangelicals who make the faith into a legalism and deny the saving power of Jesus Christ.
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You must use different names of the days. The English names are based on gods associated with the planets used originally to name the days.
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