It is my opinion that by excluding man,the doctrine of the Trinity, as it is understood today, obscures the full truth as to man’s true position in the world as well as our true relationship to our God. The founding fathers of America came to recognize this very truth and thus Thomas Jefferson wrote it in the Declaration of Independence. All men are created equal and have been endowed by our Creator with the gifts of His Spirit, which includes all having the power to rule under God. Once we come to realize this biblical principle, it destroys the principalities and the powers of the world, those who claim to be "chosen by God, all the kings and queens of “royal blood”, the ruling classes, the monarchies, the dictatorships, the governments of man who have established themselves above all the rest.

Well . . . that’s not exactly what Jefferson said–or at least, not what made it into the Declaration of Independence. OTOH, I’m not sure how Trinitarianism excludes anything you’ve said.

Cindy, you’re right.The Declaration does state it a little differently. I paraphrased, hence no quotation marks.
It is the bible that teaches we are all connected to God in spirit. He is in us, we are in Him, and together we are one .However the doctrine of the Trinity says nothing of the like. It says that God is three “persons” in one. This trilogy only consists of God the Father, God the Son(Jesus), and God the Holy Spirit. This leaves the questions: who are we, and what is our relationship to God?

I guess people have all kinds of ways of looking at the Trinity, LLC. Myself, I see this as a plural singular (or is that the other way round?) noun. Such as “community” or “family.” God is community, and God is One. We are one with Christ, thus we partake of the divine nature. We are many persons, but we are one individual; the One New Man, with Christ as our head. The bride of Christ, the sons of the Father, the temple of the Spirit. I don’t see us as being left in the dust at all. I don’t think we will become gods, though if we were to see ourselves 10K years from now (if such a thing as years is still coherent in our “future” state) we might think we were looking at gods. We are in the inner circle. God has invited us in, and we have said “Yes!” It’s the ultimate “in group,” and no one is out. I love it!

Cindy, I agree. We are not left in the dust. As it says in Genesis 2:7,“And the Lord God formed man of the dust of the ground, and breathed into his nostrils the breath of life; and man became a living being.” God created man in His own image, therefore we have the divine nature of our Maker. We love. We forgive. We create. We have compassion. We have minds to think for ourselves, etc., etc… When we live by the truths of God’s Spirit that can be found in our hearts and minds, we are the sons of God. The bible also teaches that man, being made in God’s image, was also given rule over the earth. As Psalms 82:6 says, "I said “You are gods, and all of you are children of the Most High.” Again Jesus says in John 10:34 "Is it not written in your law, 'I said, “You are gods?”
I don’t think that the doctrine of the Trinity reflect these biblical truths.

True… but only because the Trinity doctrine is not consistent.

IF “I and the Father are one” MEANS “Trinity” as is often claimed (as opposed to being ONE IN PURPOSE) THEN surely Jn 17:21 equates believers as being on par with God, i.e., divine.

I believe that humans are physical beings as well as spiritual beings. Unless we created ourselves, the essence, spirit, substance, heart and mind, (whatever we choose to call it), of which we are made, comes from our Creator. The “Trinity”, however, states that there are only three spiritual beings made of the same “substance”- the Father, the Son (Jesus), and the Holy Spirit. This makes man separate from God. One has to wonder why that is.?? As was once believed, God was something totally separate and other, while man was basically just a part of the animal kingdom. Of course, God was just too complex for the common man to understand. It took those with “special knowledge and connections” to understand and thus give directions to the simple-minded people. In my opinion, the Trinity is a stumbling block. I believe as Moses says in Deuteronomy 30:11 and 30:14, “For this commandment which I command you today, it is not too mysterious for you , nor is it far off.” “But the word is very near you , in your mouth and in your heart, that you may do it.”

That is indeed an argument put forward BUT Scripture doesn’t appear to say this… IF it did it would be case closed by the texts stating such, however they don’t.

THAT indeed was the position religianity successfully pushed upon the dull masses, but again totally false.

In my opinion, only to the degree we decide not to step around it.

Of course man is made of “God stuff.” What else could there be of which to make man? We come forth from the Father and to the Father we will again draw near. For a time it is necessary for us to be somewhat separate, at least in our perception, so that we can develop into persons who are not mere extensions of God. In a sense, we must be extensions of Him, but only as children are extensions of their parents–not as fingers are extensions of a hand–that would negate our personhood, and I am convinced that God wants us to be persons. That’s the whole reason for the epistimological distance, imo. We couldn’t have developed into genuine persons without it–we would have been fingers rather than sons; puppets rather than people.

Bottom line though, the whole human race is one, even though we are many persons. In a lesser sense, all of creation is one, though we were made the lords of this world (Does that include more than earth? I have no clue.) If we and the earth are one, does that mean the earth will one day be human? I don’t think so–It may become sentient one day–even the very planet–and attain personhood–but that is so very, very far out in what we see as time that it doesn’t even signify for us today–even if it’s more than fantasy. Even if that were true, though, I think that it would always be the earth, and we will always be humans, and God (though the entire creation is made of His substance) will always be God in a sense that we will never be God. We are humans and, imo, humans we will remain, though we will be always becoming more and more what humans were always meant to be; a reflection of the glory and love of God. Not withstanding all that, the entire creation, cannot cease to be one with God, nor can it cease to be itself. The two things aren’t mutually exclusive. We are not God, but we are God’s children who will, as we grow, become more and more like Him. It doesn’t follow that we will BE Him.

Cindy, I agree. We are not God. I would say that we are separate “persons” made up of the essence ( “God stuff” ) of our Creator. I would suppose that this would make us somewhat divine should we be following the ways of Him who made us. The Bible sees man’s relationship to God as that of a Husband and wife, Father and son, and King and prince. As mentioned before, the Trinity paints a different picture. Keep in mind that this doctrine did not come about until hundreds of years after Christ. It seems to promote the idea of a “God family”, one that does not include man. It makes one wonder if there was not perhaps some Greek/Roman influence on the doctrine, as they believed in such “God families”. Also, many in those days did not have a Bible in hand, and many could not yet read. I’m sure there were those who did not want to give up their “in group” status. This may have had some influence as well. For extending from the Trinitarian belief is the teaching that God gave all power and authority to His Son, Jesus. What happened to God giving man dominion over the earth? This takes us back to the belief that God has all power and authority, and those “appointed by God” tell man what God says. Only this time it becomes Jesus who has all power and authority, and those “appointed by God” tell man what Jesus says. I suspect that man may have been up to his same old tricks. And so Jesus says in Matthew 24:4, “Take heed that no one deceives you.”

However, Scripture does affirm that the Son is of the same essence as the Father.

He [the Son] is the radiance of the glory of God and the exact imprint of his essence …

I think “essence” is the correct translation of “υποσσστασις” in this verse.
The Greek word can also be “ground of being” or “undergirth”.

The following definition is from Strong’s Lexicon:

Some lexicons also include “substance” as a translation.

“brightness” = <ἀπαύγασμα> apaugasma; “express image” = <χαρακτὴρ> charaktēr; “person” = <ὑποστάσεως> hupostaseōs

It might be textually more precise to say the Son was “the exact imprint” of his essence… “exact imprint” however doesn’t necessitate ontological sameness of essence. A mirror or photograph will give you the exact imprint/image of that which it captures or reflects and yet is not the “essence” thereof itself… it RESEMBLES it. Jesus was God’s Man… THEREFORE when He spoke God spoke.

No it doesn’t. Rational creatures are still analogous to God in those ways.

The key points of the doctrine “came about” no later than Paul’s epistles (and I would argue much earlier): one and only one self-existent ground of all reality; identified variously as the Father, the Son (born, living, dying, and raised again as Jesus Christ), and the Holy Spirit; with actual personal relationships between them; including authority relationships (especially the Son’s submission to the Father, the self-begetting Person still being the God of the self-begotten Person, and the God of the self-given Person for that matter although the topic doesn’t seem to come up in the scriptures, if trinitarian theism is true).

There is only one way all those points add up. The points can be disputed as actually being there, but that’s what the disputes were about, and denying one or more points leads to something else. Refining the implications of the details took centuries, although the refining started no later than about a hundred years after Christ. (Early-mid 100s. And probably earlier, but we don’t have surviving texts before then showing people refining the implications, so it’s hard to say.) Before then it was mainly a question of who or Who to religiously worship. After then it was mainly a question of who or Who to religiously worship and why. Some of the delay was related to the delay in collecting a canonical set of texts, since the point was to work out the implications of the faithful deposit.

Neither the Greco-Roman pagans nor the Greco-Roman philosophers believed that the ultimate ground of all existence is personal (or actively self-existent either, thus not actively self-begetting and self-begotten), much less that it is a personal relationship. So no, they didn’t believe in “such” God-families.

The Trinity doesn’t exclude rational creatures from being in God’s family any more than sheer monotheism excludes it, considering that either way man is not and cannot be the one and only ground of all reality. The Trinity does involve such personal relationships being ultimately fundamental to all reality, which is a hugely important claim (not least for universal salvation!) – for one thing it ratifies that God, despite being God and not a creature, can and does seek familial relationships with not-God creatures, which the Greco-Roman philosophers hotly denied (treating the “fatherhood” of God as being, at best, a useful allegory.)

God still shares dominion over the earth with creatures, by and under His own authority. The Incarnation doesn’t change this concept. A denial of trinitarian theism (with an Incarnation or otherwise) doesn’t suddenly lead to God giving all power and authority to not-God creatures instead of retaining all power and authority as the one and only ground of all existence.

Admittedly, the factors you’re talking about played a part and were always going to play a part; they played a part when the Imperial court and military were largely Arian and neo-Arian, too. People still claimed to be “appointed by God” to tell man what God says. Just like in Judaism; just like in Islam afterward; just like in all religions where God bothers to do anything at all in Nature.

Only this time, under trinitarian theism, a man Who always was and is and will be the one with all power and authority (being the self-existent ground of all reality) sacrifices Himself for His own worst enemies as an example of what true authority means, shattering (in principle if not yet in practice) all subsequent claims to despotic authority even in the name of God.

Man, being up to his same old tricks, perverted that, too – including by denying that a self-sacrificial benevolent interpersonal relationship is the highest authority and even the one and only ground of all reality.

But that isn’t the fault of the idea that a self-sacrificial benevolent interpersonal relationship is the highest authority and even the one and only ground of all reality.

“For many will come in My name saying, ‘I am the Christ’, and will mislead many.” God shares His authority with us, but it’s His authority, not the authority of anyone less than God Most High; and what that authority means is very importantly different if trinitarian Christianity is true.

There were many Roman/Greek Gods who had personal relationships amongst themselves. In fact many had wives and children. The concept of a triple deity goes way back and was common in old world mythology. Some examples are Zeus, Athena an Apollo, Orsis, Isis and Horus, Jupiter, Juno and Minerva. As I mentioned before, they were separate from man. What makes the Trinity any different in this respect? I think the Jewish people had it right. There is only one true God, and all who follow His laws and ways are sons of God.

But they were not regarded as the ground of all existence, either together or separately. Nor were any of the supposed triple groupings you mentioned ever regarded as sole triple groupings, or even the most important triple groupings. (For that matter, I don’t recall Zeus and two of his children being a triple grouping at all.) They were only gods, and petty, selfish creatures even in their own cosmologies. They are only separate from man by being incidentally more powerful; compared to God (or even to fundamental irrational and amoral Kaos in their own cosmology) they are on the same level as man, not separate from man, categorically. That doesn’t count the lack of a true Incarnation, including Horus and Osiris, the former of whom doesn’t have a virgin birth either. Nor any kind of resurrection. Nor does his father Osiris have any kind of resurrection, only a minor resuscitation – mainly so his wife can necrophile his body and conceive Horus! Who has only a minimal personal relationship with his dead father Osiris. And the Isis cults tended to focus on Osiris or on Horus, not both – there was no ‘trinity’ in that sense either.

To call any of those groupings a triple deity (singular), is stretching haarrrrrrrrd to try to find some significant parallel. It’s the type of worthless argument Jesus Mythers and other hypersceptics come up with. (Man up to his same old tricks again. )

Those groupings (at least two of them somewhat arbitrary, as there was no special relationship between Athena and Apollo as children of Zeus, and Minerva/Athena was very explicitly not the child of Juno/Hera and had no special relationship with her either) are categorically NOT the same as an interpersonal self-begetting self-begotten self-giving relationship at and as the one and only self-sacrificial and actively self-existent ground of all reality. They aren’t even close; they aren’t even close to even being close. The fact that you’re appealing to wives-and-children as a supposed parallel, only shows you don’t understand the thematic points of what you’re criticizing at all: the Holy Spirit is never treated as the wife of God, and Mary is not sexually impregnated the way Zeus did with his adulterous liaisons (betraying his actual wife Hera/Juno) nor even the way Osiris does with Isis to beget Horus; nor is Mary even slightly on par with the Father and the Son (or the Spirit either), despite what you may have heard from Muslims I guess…??? Even Catholics (eastern or western) don’t go that far with Mary, despite their reverential language for the God-bearer.

The only one distantly close to even being close (so to speak) is Zeus & Athena, simply because Athena is born directly from the mind of Zeus, and (usually) has some thematic connections to Reason – which I suppose is why two of your three groupings included her. But then that isn’t a trinity even in the most basic notion of three persons, so you (or your source) had to cast around randomly for other deities in the pantheon that had some personal relation to Zeus.

I will add that I would say EXACTLY THE SAME THING if I was a dedicated atheist instead. It would be abundantly clear to me that if trinitarian Christians had borrowed from some religion for their Trinity, they borrowed from Judaism and its scriptures – which not-incidentally is what the trinitarian Christians themselves universally claimed, following suit with what their Christian scriptures universally claim, over-against the very idea of borrowing from non-Jewish religions – and maybe also from the intertestamental focus on the Memra of God being God Himself and yet also somehow personally distinct as an agent of God. And also borrowing from the religion of the Christian canonical texts, if I thought the concepts there were quite distinct from trinitarianism but close enough in topic occasionally to feasibly be borrowing from (as the trinitarians themselves universally claimed anyway).

I’ve never heard an argument against the Trinity that touches my Trinitarian beliefs as a member of the Eastern Orthodox Church. Anyone who is serious about learning what the Orthodox Church teaches about the Trinity can read the Church’s liturgical texts. I can recommend some particular ones to anyone who might be interested.

I don’t think the Trinity comes from the scriptures. The Jewish people believed in one God only. Nowhere in the Bible does it say that God is three “persons”. Jesus is referred to as the Son of God, not God the Son. In fact, when God speaks, He says “I” not “We”. So, I would say that to find a trinity of Gods mentioned in the Bible is really stretching it. From the beginning to the end, the Bible speaks of God’s love for man as told through the history of the Jewish people. This relationship consists of one God ( the Father) and man (the son). To say then that God came to reveal Himself as three Gods in one, and that the Son happens to be another God “person”, seems inconsistent with scripture.
Jason, If God is self-existing as you mentioned, then there is no need for another. I’m not sure what you are trying to say about the ground of all reality. If perhaps what you are suggesting is that love cannot exist by itself, then I would say that only two are necessary. But, if the two are of the same essence then I would say that only one is necessary since it basically boils down to loving one’s self. Then again, you may be talking about something completely different.
P.S. I am not an atheist.

How about, “Let’s make man in our own image?” (Gen 1:26)

However, that does not in itself indicate that God is plural.

Paidion, Somehow I just knew you’d point that verse out.
I’m just saying, in looking at the history of the Roman Catholic Church and it’s very powerful clergy, it seems to me that something was being misinterpreted.