Website owner: James Miller
The Christian concept of the Trinity
In the New Testament we read about three entities: God, Jesus the son of God, and the Holy Spirit. From there Christian theologians of early Christianity developed the idea of the “Trinity”. The concept of the Trinity is that there is one God who exists in three different forms (or “persons”): the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit. [The Holy Spirit is first mentioned in the New Testament in John 14:16 where Jesus told his disciples that when he died God would give them the Holy Spirit, the Spirit of Truth, to teach them and help them.]
The concept of the Trinity is another of those theological concepts that are a little mind-defying, hard to grasp, hard to get your mind around. It is a concept that I in the past have not given much thought to except to note that I personally think of Jesus and God as being separate beings — and noting that Jesus always talked about God as a separate being. He taught us how to pray to God and always spoke of God as a separate entity from himself. In my concept there is one God and Jesus is a divine being subordinate to God. For me, the idea that the Father, the Son, and the Holy Ghost are all divine doesn’t mean they are the same or equal entities. Jesus said that God’s spirit was in him but that doesn’t mean that he and God were the same being. And I pray only to God, I worship only God. I don’t pray to Jesus as some do. I think my view of things is the one that the New Testament presents. I don’t see scriptural justification for the concept of the Trinity. And I distrust abstruse theological concepts. In John 10:30 Jesus said, “I and my Father are one”, but I take that and similar statements to mean that they are one in spirit.
Where did this concept of the Trinity come from? On what scripture is the concept based? I ask these questions because it seems illogical and nonsensical to me to say that something can be both one and three at the same time.
I am wondering if the concept of the trinity is similar to the dogmatic Catholic position that Jesus was both wholly human and wholly divine at the same time. Both ideas sound like mind defying intellectual nonsense to me. The idea of the trinity apparently became part of Catholic doctrine around the end of the fourth century. Before that the idea was disputed.
I have a strong skepticism of dogmatic systems. And I have a strong skepticism of the mind of man and distrust abstruse concepts. In addition I suspect a great deal of foolishness in Catholic dogma and theology. Considering the great amount of emphasis in both the Old and New Testaments on idol worship as being wrong, all of the statues and images of the Catholic church certainly cause me to be uncomfortable. And the practice of praying to the Virgin Mary and to saints doesn’t sound at all like the Christianity I know from the New Testament. You pray to God, not to dead souls. These practices do suggest to me pagan practices. The Catholic Church is in a difficult position because of its claim of being infallible. That doctrinal position means it can’t admit to being wrong about anything. And I think that there is a whole lot in it that is wrong. Some people just follow tradition. Tradition is their authority. That is a mistake. Because a practice or belief is centuries old doesn’t make it right.
25 Dec 2020
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