podcast 248 – How Trinity theories conflict with the Bible – Trinities
Excerpt:
In trinitarian tradition, the one God is the Trinity. In the New Testament, the one God is the Father. One can’t consistently affirm both claims, which is why there is a clash between trinitarian traditions (since about the late 300s) and the New Testament. Protestants, I suggest, should stick with the latter.
But the social pressures, at least for the theologically educated, are so strong that we should not deviate from longstanding Catholic and Protestant tradition. For many, it is just unthinkable that the mainstream could have made a mistake here. The NT just must be consistent with catholic traditions here – it must.
One answer to that is: wait – you’re a Protestant, right? You can’t say that! (Supply your own counterexamples from church history.)
At any rate, it is demonstrably a mistake to think you can coherently affirm both that God is the Father and that God is the Trinity. The demonstration is below. I use that word “demonstration” very deliberately. I mean that there is a proof of inconsistency that any trinitarian can see is valid (i.e. there is no mistake in reasoning) and it employs only premises to which the trinitarian is committed simply by being a trinitarian. This proof puts the trinitarian in a very hard spot. She can either embrace the apparent contradiction, which looks very foolish when you actually say what that apparent contradiction is (instead of obliquely gesturing at it), or she can deny obvious biblical teachings, or she can deny obvious, self-evident truths. Any way she turns, her Trinity theory comes at a high price!
[more...]
Excerpt:
In trinitarian tradition, the one God is the Trinity. In the New Testament, the one God is the Father. One can’t consistently affirm both claims, which is why there is a clash between trinitarian traditions (since about the late 300s) and the New Testament. Protestants, I suggest, should stick with the latter.
But the social pressures, at least for the theologically educated, are so strong that we should not deviate from longstanding Catholic and Protestant tradition. For many, it is just unthinkable that the mainstream could have made a mistake here. The NT just must be consistent with catholic traditions here – it must.
One answer to that is: wait – you’re a Protestant, right? You can’t say that! (Supply your own counterexamples from church history.)
At any rate, it is demonstrably a mistake to think you can coherently affirm both that God is the Father and that God is the Trinity. The demonstration is below. I use that word “demonstration” very deliberately. I mean that there is a proof of inconsistency that any trinitarian can see is valid (i.e. there is no mistake in reasoning) and it employs only premises to which the trinitarian is committed simply by being a trinitarian. This proof puts the trinitarian in a very hard spot. She can either embrace the apparent contradiction, which looks very foolish when you actually say what that apparent contradiction is (instead of obliquely gesturing at it), or she can deny obvious biblical teachings, or she can deny obvious, self-evident truths. Any way she turns, her Trinity theory comes at a high price!
[more...]