Answers to "Unitarian" Objections to the Trinity

[Steve Born]

Here's a book that has greatly contributed to my understanding of "Godhead" issues:  God Crucified - Monotheism and Christology in the New Testament by Richard Bauckham.  The claim is often heard from opponents of the Trinity that the "strict monotheism" of the Old Testament, or a first-century Jewish understanding of the Apostle's proclamation of Jesus, rules out a Trinitarian understanding of the Christ presented in the New Testament.  This book shows why that claim is false. From the back cover: "Recent discussion of the interpretation of New Testament Christology has been closely linked with debate about the nature of Jewish monotheism in the period. This book argues that once Judaism's perception of the uniqueness of God is correctly understood, it becomes clear that the first Christians simply included Jesus in the unique identity of the God of Israel. "According to Richard Bauckham, the earliest Christology was already the highest Christology, a fully divine Christology entirely compatible with the Jewish monotheistic understanding of God. In place of the misleading categories of "functional" and "ontic" Christology, he argues that' New Testament Christology is best viewed as a Christology of 'divine identity.'  For such a Christology, the exalted Christ and the earthly, crucified Jesus both belong to the unique identity of God. This approach, in turn, has important consequences in the New Testament's understanding of God. The divine identity - who God truly is - is to be seen in Jesus' humiliation, suffering, and death as well as in his heavenly glory. "Originating as the prestigious 1996 Didsbury Lectures, God Crucified makes a significant contribution to biblical studies of interest to Jews and Christians alike . "Richard Bauckham is professor of New Testament studies at St. Mary's College, University of St Andrews, Scotland."

[Smokey Jack]

I was going to write an article of my own on the UPC's view of Jesus, but then I came across this article.  It's written by another Lutheran who used to be a Oneness Pentecostal, in fact a UPC minister, and it gives a great explanation of why, even though UPC doctrine eschews the use of words not found in the Bible, it still ends up teaching a false Christ instead of the true Christ of the Bible:

The Christology of the Modern Day Modalists by Jim Pierce

Stuff Happens!

[Steve Born]

A young follower of Don Barnett's posted these interesting "preliminary" questions to Trinitarians on his own Facebook site recently.  Since I'm a Trinitarian, and since, contrary to his own claim of openness and honesty he doesn't allow public response on either place he's posted these questions (his Windows Live blog as well as his Facebook site), here are my answers:

"If you were found to be wrong, according to Scripture, would you be willing to admit it? If you admitted it, would you change your beliefs?"

Of course I'd be willing to admit it and to change my beliefs.  I believe in the doctrine of the Trinity because I've been convinced it accurately and carefully represents the nature of God as revealed by the Scriptures in contrast to claims by false teachers who twist the Scriptures.

"Do you believe you hold the truth perfectly concerning this subject? Is there a possibility you could be interpreting something incorrectly?"

No, I don't believe I hold the truth perfectly on this subject, or on any other for that matter.  Of course there's always the possibility I could be interpreting something incorrectly.  I am always ready to listen to reasoning from the Scriptures that would show me so.  I believe that Christian doctrine should be drawn from the Scriptures alone and should be normed only by the Scriptures; several times I've changed my beliefs or refined them further in response to sound teaching from the Scriptures.

"Why is it you believe what you do? Were you taught it formally, or did you come to the conclusions mostly on your own?"

I was raised in the Lutheran Church and accepted what I was taught there without much question, so until my early twenties I held an unexamined belief in the doctrine of the Trinity. It seemed to me to make sense according to the Bible, in which I could see the Father, the Holy Spirit, and Jesus all being spoken of as God. I didn't really think about it much, though. As most adolescents, I thought of the "traditional" church as dead and boring, didn't really pay much attention to its teaching, and wanted to find something in my own way distinct from the approach of my parents' generation. I was fairly easily persuaded to accept a "Oneness" system of belief and join the church that taught it (Community Chapel) when I moved away from my home state to the Seattle, Washington, area in the late seventies. In that church I was formally taught an anti-Trinitarian system and held to it out of a reasoned belief in what I thought the Scriptures said, according to what its pastor said they meant, anyway.  Later, that church and its system of belief collapsed, and I thought it prudent to reconsider what I had been taught there.  I had to conclude, based on a study of the Chapel claims about both the Scriptures and about church history, that its case against the doctrine of the Trinity did not hold up.

"Are you willing to honestly consider another's viewpoint, or do you just want to 'prove that you're right'?"

I honestly want to consider the viewpoints of others, and have many times.

"Will you try to shift the subject if you are found without an answer?"

No.  My experience in my own discussions, though, has been that opponents of the Trinity are the ones who are found without an answer, and invariably either shift the subject or just shut down.

"Why is it so important to you that you maintain belief that Jesus is inherently divine?"

To me, it is simply a matter of accepting who the Bible says He is.  To deny that Jesus is God would be for me to reject plain facts revealed to me by the Word of God.

"Do you believe The bible contains contradictions? Is God logical? Though many things in God's word may be difficult to understand, or only received by revelation, do you believe God wrote His word in an understandable, coherent fashion?"

I don't believe that the Bible contains contradictions from God's viewpoint, but since He exists in a realm outside of space and time that surpasses human understanding, some things that He tells us about His nature and purposes will inevitably fall outside of human reason and experience. So I don't believe God is always bound to human logic or reason, but is bound instead only to what He reveals to us in the Word of God. I do believe that God wrote his Word in an understandable, coherent fashion so that man may easily understand the things that he needs to for salvation.

"How much confidence do you place in creeds?"

I assume you're speaking here of what are commonly called the ecumenical creeds accepted by the Roman Catholic, the Eastern Orthodox, and the Protestant churches alike.  I am confident that those do express a sound confession of the apostolic, Biblical faith in opposition to false teachers who were twisting the Scriptures to deny that faith.

"Does the fact that most of Christendom holds the doctrine of the Trinity have any influence upon you, or do you strictly gather your doctrine from the Bible, regardless of what others believe?"

I get my doctrine from the Bible, regardless of what others believe.  The fact that most of Christendom holds the doctrine of the Trinity doesn't have much influence upon me, as I showed when I willingly abandoned that doctrine for nearly twenty years.   I had no problem in denying the Trinity and going against the majority of Christendom, and adopting the doctrinal beliefs of a "Oneness" church, Community Chapel and Bible Training Center.  But it collapsed in a horrible scandal, leaving me in an unsuccessful search for a church I thought was as good as it had been.  Then about ten years later I heard that the former pastor of the church had changed his beliefs in an even more radical anti-Trinitarian direction, now stating that Jesus wasn't God whereas before, when I was a member of his church, he had affirmed Jesus was both man and God.  This left me very confused. I knew I needed to take a fresh look at the Bible for myself, independently of any pastor or church's teaching, no matter who they were or how big of a group they represented.  I was (at first) startled to see a picture of Jesus emerge from the Scriptures that looked very much like what I had been trying to deny all those years under the Chapel's teaching.  That began a process of re-investigating both the Bible and the creeds to see if they really were as the Chapel had represented them.  I had to conclude they weren't.

[Mark Webster]

Thank you for answering my questions.

I wish to make only one point: Whether or not a church collapses has nothing to do with the accuracy of the doctrine taught there. Moreover, Don has shifted to a strictly "unitarian" position since. He preached a 48-part series in 2002, "Jesus, the Last Adam, Was Man Indwelt by God, Not Both God and Man."

I apologize for the difficulty you had responding on my FB/Live account. I have recently made update which should allow for comments by all.

[Steve Born]

Mark,

You write,

I apologize for the difficulty you had responding on my FB/Live account. I have recently made update which should allow for comments by all.

Yes, I noticed that not long after posting my remarks.  Thank you.  But now, strangely, when I logged in to Facebook this morning, I noticed public posting to your Wall is again disabled there.  However, I have noticed that Facebook has intermittent and seemingly random bugs, so perhaps this is yet another instance of that.

In any case, here are my answers to the questions you posted there (saying, "If one answers 'no' to any of these questions, they ought to dispose of the book immediately, preferably to someone who will answer 'yes' to the questions") that one should ask themselves before reading Buzzard's books, after I myself had posted there that I plan on doing that.

"1. Is there any possibility I'm wrong concerning this subject?"

Yes, sadly, the course of my life has shown me I am only human, and so there is always the possibility I'm wrong on this subject, as of course on any other.

"... Am I perfect in my Christology?"

No, I'm not perfect in my Christology.  That would suggest that one could exhaust the treasures of scripture in one's earthly lifetime, and I do not think that's possible.

"2. If I were shown to be incorrect, could I admit it to myself?"

Yes, if I were shown to be incorrect by clear reasoning based on plain Scripture, I would gladly admit to myself.  I've done so before when convinced by the Scriptures that I had been wrong in what I believed.

"3. If I could admit it to myself, would I be willing to change?"

Yes, again.  I would be willing to change, and have done so in the past.  When I've admitted to myself that my beliefs have strayed from the truth revealed by Scripture, I've changed in spite of heated objections from those who still held beliefs I had become convinced were the product of deceptive teaching.

"4. Will I ignore contradictions in my own theology if they are exposed?"

I'm supposed to answer "yes" to this if I want to read this book?  

But seriously, no, I would not ignore contradictions in my own theology if any are exposed.  But that all depends, of course, on the nature of the alleged contradiction, on what it really "contradicts," that is.  Many would-be theologians have alleged that the Scriptures that speak of Jesus as God contradict the Scriptures that speak of Jesus as man.  Then they offer various harmonizations of the two sets of passages that end up denying the plain meaning of one set or the other.  They might end up with a theology of their own that has no contradictions, but such a theology is a product of their own reasoning and their own human preconceptions, not of the words of Scripture.  In fact, their theology contradicts simple Scriptural words.  That's the kind of contradiction that I will not ignore.  When one smooths over alleged Scriptural contradictions by eliminating anything that offends human reason, one has built a naturalistic theology that ignores or denies some parts of Scripture instead of humbly accepting all of Scripture as the revealed Word of God to man.

"5. Will I seek to reconcile those contradictions if they exist?"

Yes, I will gladly rectify anything in my theology that is shown to contradict Scripture.   But these terms "my Christology" and "my theology" are really a bit misleading.  I'm not seeking to build any Christology or theology of my own, but to discover what God, in giving the Scriptures, would have His church to believe and to teach to the world as His saving truth.