An Appeal to Trinitarian Christians
Historical Background of the Trinity
By
The current mainstream teaching in Christianity is that God is a coequal, coeternal, one-substance trinity, and that Jesus Christ is God. This doctrine is considered by many as the cornerstone of Christianity, but where did this doctrine come from? The historical record is overwhelming that the church of the first three centuries did not worship God as a coequal, coeternal, consubstantial, one-substance three in one mysterious godhead. The early church worshipped one God and believed in a subordinate Son. The trinity originated with Babylon, and was passed on to most of the world's religions. This polytheistic (believing in more than one god) trinitarianism was intertwined with Greek religion and philosophy and slowly worked its way into Christian thought and creeds some 300 years after Christ. The idea of "God the Son" is Babylonian paganism and mythology that was grafted into Christianity. Worshipping "God the Son" is idolatry, and idolatry is Biblically condemned; it breaks the first great commandment of God of not having any gods before him (Exodus 20:3). Then three centuries after Christ the corrupt emperor Constantine forced the minority opinion of the trinity upon the council of Nicea. The Christian church went downward from there; in fact some of the creeds and councils actually contradict each other. The council of Nicea 325 said that "Jesus Christ is God," the council of Constantinople 381 said that "the Holy Spirit is God," the council of Ephesus 431 said that "human beings are totally depraved," the council of Chalcedon 451 said that "Jesus Christ is both man and God." If you follow the logic here then first you have Jesus Christ as God, then you have man totally depraved, and then you have Jesus Christ as man and God. If Jesus Christ is both man and God does this mean that God is also totally depraved? Well maybe the doctrine of the coequal, coeternal, one-substance, mysterious three in one triune godhead is deprived of any historical foundation tying it into the Christianity of the Bible and the Christianity of the first three centuries. However the historical information ties the trinity into various pagan origins.
And yet most Christian churches continue to teach and believe the doctrine that God is a coequal, coeternal, one-substance, mysterious three in one triune godhead, and that Jesus Christ is God, and that the trinity is "the cornerstone of Christianity".
The Church of the First Three Centuries 1865 Alvan Lamson
" . . . The modern doctrine of the Trinity is not found in any document or relic belonging to the Church of the first three centuries. . . so far as any remains or any record of them are preserved, coming down from early times, are, as regards this doctrine an absolute blank. They testify, so far as they testify at all, to the supremacy of the father, the only true God; and to the inferior and derived nature of the Son. There is nowhere among these remains a coequal trinity. . . but no un-divided three, -- coequal, infinite, self-existent, and eternal. This was a conception to which the age had not arrived. It was of later origin."
During the first three centuries, Christians did not believe that Jesus Christ was coequal, and coeternal with God, or that he was God the Son, they believed that Jesus Christ was subordinate to God, and that he had a beginning, that he was born. Those that believed otherwise were the exception.
The Doctrine of the Trinity Christianity’s Self-Inflicted Wound 1994 Anthony F. Buzzard Charles F. Hunting
"Those Trinitarians who believe that the concept of a Triune God was such an established fact that it was not considered important enough to mention at the time the New Testament was written should be challenged by the remarks of another writer, Harold Brown:"
"It is a simple fact and an undeniable historical fact that several major doctrines that now seem central to the Christian Faith – such as the doctrine of the Trinity and the doctrine of the nature of Christ – were not present in a full and self-defined generally accepted form until the fourth and fifth centuries. If they are essential today – as all of the orthodox creeds and confessions assert – it must be because they are true. If they are true, then they must always have been true; they cannot have become true in the fourth and fifth century. But if they are both true and essential, how can it be that the early church took centuries to formulate them?"
A History of the Christian Church 2nd Ed. 1985 Williston Walker
"AD 200. . Noetus had been expelled from the Smyrnaean church for teaching that Christ was the Father, and that the Father himself was born, and suffered, and died."
Man’s Religions John B. Noss 1968
"The controversy first became heated when Apollinarius, a bishop in Syria . . . asserted that Christ could not have been perfect man united with complete God, for then there would not have been one Son of God, but two sons, one by nature and one by adoption, the first with a divine, the second with a human will. Such a thing seemed inconceivable, religiously abhorrent."
"Nestorius . . . preached a sermon against calling the virgin Mary ‘the mother of God’ declaring she did not bear a deity, she bore a man,"
Numbers 23:19 states that God is not a man. God was not born, and God certainly did not die, but when people deviate from what the Bible teaches you can come up with the bizarre complexities of trinitarian religious mysteries that contradict logic, common sense and God’s Word.
New Bible Dictionary 1982
"The word trinity is not found in the Bible . . ."
". . . it did not find a place formally in the theology of the church till the 4th century."
". . . it is not a biblical doctrine in the sense that any formation of it can be found in the Bible, . . ."
"Scripture does not give us a formulated doctrine of the trinity, . . ."
The HarperCollins Encyclopedia of Catholicism 1995
". . . scholars generally agree that there is no doctrine of the trinity as such in either the Old Testament or the New Testament."
If the trinity is the cornerstone of Christianity then how did the church of the first three centuries get along so well without it? If the trinity is the cornerstone of Christianity then why is it not mentioned in the Bible?
The Encyclopedia Americana 1956
"Christianity derived from Judaism and Judaism was strictly Unitarian (believing in one God). The road which led from Jerusalem to Nicea was scarcely a straight one. Fourth century trinitarianism did not reflect accurately early Christian teaching regarding the nature of God; it was, on the contrary, a deviation from this teaching."
The trinity is a deviation from believing in one God; it is a deviation from what the early church taught and it is a deviation from the scripture.
The New Catholic Encyclopedia 1967
"The formulation 'one God in three persons' was not solidly established, certainly not fully assimilated into Christian life and its profession of faith, prior to the end of the 4th century."
Who is Jesus? Anthony Buzzard
"The Old Testament is a strictly monotheistic. God is a single personal being. The idea that a trinity is to be found there or even in any way shadowed forth, is an assumption that has long held sway in theology, but is utterly without foundation."
The New Encyclopedia Britannica 1976
"Neither the word trinity, nor the explicit doctrine as such, appears in the New Testament, nor did Jesus and his followers intend to contradict the Shema in the Old Testament: 'Hear, O Israel: The Lord our God is one Lord' (Deut. 6:4). . . The doctrine developed gradually over several centuries and through many controversies. . . . By the end of the 4th century . . . the doctrine of the trinity took substantially the form it has maintained ever since."
The Shema consists of three sections of scripture Deuteronomy 6:4-9, 11:13-21, and Numbers 15:37-41. It is called the Shema after the Hebrew word hear, the first word in Deut. 6:4. The Shema was to be recited twice daily once upon arising and once when going to bed. So the Old Testament Jews would start and finish their day with 'Hear O Israel: The Lord our God is one Lord.'
The Complete Word Study Old Testament 1994
"To the Jew, (Deut. 6:4-9) this is the most important text in the Old Testament. Jesus himself called the injunction in 6:5 'the first and great commandment' Matt.22:36-38. . . Moses is teaching not only the priority of belief in one God, but also a means to preserve that belief. As time went on, the proper understanding of the Shema with its spiritual implications was no longer grasped by the people. This absence of saving knowledge became a factor in their spiritual downfall."
Whenever God's people forget that there is only one God and they follow after other gods this will result in their downfall. This can be seen time and time again in the Old Testament where God's people forsook the Lord and then evil came upon them. God does not send this evil, but He warns us to stay away from the evil of worshipping more than one God.
Dictionary of The Bible 1995 John L. Mckenzie
"The trinity of God is defined by the church as the belief that in God are three persons who subsist in one nature. The belief as so defined was reached only in the 4th and 5th centuries AD and hence is not explicitly and formally a biblical belief."
Why You Should Believe In The Trinity 1989 Robert M. Bowman Jr.
"The New Testament does not contain a formalized explanation of the trinity that uses such words as trinity, three persons, one substance, and the like."
The New International Dictionary of New Testament Theology 1976
"The Bible lacks the express declaration that the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit are of equal essence. [said Karl Barth]"
Exploring The Christian Faith 1992
"nowhere in the Bible do we find the doctrine of the trinity clearly formulated"
"People who are using the King James Version might be inclined to point to I John 5:7 'For there are three that bear record in heaven, the Father, the Word and the Holy Ghost' But it is now generally recognized that this verse does not belong to the original text of the letter; it is a later insertion."
"The theological formulation took place later, after the days of the apostles."
"the doctrine of the trinity is not found in the Bible"
"The doctrine was to develop along mainly Greek lines"
Take note of the words "explicitly and formally", "formalized explanation", "express declaration", and "clearly formulated". These words are indicative of the fact that all the clear verses on the subjects of God, Jesus Christ, and Holy Spirit do not even hint at a trinity. There are only a few verses that seem to hint at a trinity, and then only when they are twisted. The difficult or unclear verse must always be interpreted in light of the clear verses. If God is a coeternal, coequal, one substance, three-in-one Godhead, trinity, if that is what God really is, then he would have made himself known as such to the first century apostles; they would have made the trinity part of their beliefs teachings and writings. They would have used words like God the Son, coequal, coeternal, one substance, or trinity, but the scripture is devoid of all of these trinitarian words and phrases because the first century apostles did not believe or teach, or write about God being a trinity, or Jesus Christ being God. But the pagan and Greek and Babylonian religions used those words.
Dictionary Of The Bible 1995 John L. Mckenzie
"The trinity of persons within the unity of nature is defined in terms of 'person' and 'nature' which are Greek philosophical terms; actually the terms do not appear in the Bible. The trinitarian definitions arose as the result of long controversies in which these terms and others such as 'essence' and 'substance' were erroneously applied to God by some theologians."
The Rise of Christianity W.H.C. Frend 1985
"For him [Clement] the trinity consisted of a hierarchy of three graded beings, and from that concept - derived from Platonism - depended much of the remainder of his theological teaching."
The Doctrine of the Trinity Christianity’s Self-Inflicted Wound 1994 Anthony F. Buzzard Charles F. Hunting
"Eberhard Griesebach, in an acedemic lecture on "Christianity and humanism" delivered in 1938, observed that in its encounter with Greek philosophy Christianity became theology. That was the fall of Christianity. The Problem thus highlighted stems from the fact that traditional orthodoxy, while it claims to find its origins in scripture, in fact contains elements drawn from a synthesis of Scripture and Neo-Platonism. The mingling of Hebrew and Greek thinking set in motion first in the second century by an influx of Hellenism through the Church Fathers, whose theology was colored by the Platonists Plotinus and Porphyry. The effects of the Greek influence are widely recognized by theologians, though they go largely unnoticed by many believers."
". . . the Trinity is an unintelligible proposition of platonic mysticisms that three are one and one is three" [quote from Thomas Jefferson]
The Greek mythology and pagan religious beliefs were derived from Babylon.
Nouveau Dictionnaire Universel 1870
"The Platonic trinity, itself merely a rearrangement of older trinities dating back to earlier peoples, appears to be the rational philosophic trinity of attributes that gave birth to the three hypostases or divine persons taught by the Christian churches . . . This Greek philosopher's (Plato, 4th century BC) conception of the divine trinity . . . can be found in all ancient (pagan) religions"
The Two Babylons 1916 Rev. Alexander Hislop
"Egypt and Greece derived their religion from Babylon"
Microsoft Encarta Funk & Wagnalls 1994
"Neoplatonism is a type of idealistic monism in which the ultimate reality of the universe is held to be an infinite, unknowable, perfect One. From this One emanates nous (pure intelligence), whence in turn is derived the world soul, the creative activity of which engenders the lesser souls of human beings. The world soul is conceived as an image of the nous, even as the nous is an image of the One; both the nous and the world soul, despite their differentiation, are thus consubstantial [one substance] with the One."
Microsoft Encarta Funk & Wagnalls 1994
"The theologians Clement of Alexandria, Origen, and St. Augustine were early Christian exponents of a Platonic perspective. Platonic ideas have had a crucial role in the development of Christian theology"
The Rise of Christianity W.H.C. Frend 1985
"we find Christianity tending to absorb Greek philosophical values, until by the end of the third century the line between the beliefs of educated Christian and educated pagan in the east would often be hard to draw."
The early Christians began mixing Greek and pagan and Babylonian philosophical and religious trinitarian concepts with their Christian doctrine which lead them to begin considering the trinity, and after three centuries that thinking finally took hold. Acts 17:22 says that the Greeks were too superstitious, and I Corinthians 1:22 says that the Jews require a sign and the Greeks seek after wisdom. The Greeks were too intellectual in their approach to God’s Word. They became wise in their own eyes and the truth of God’s Word became foolishness to them, so they grafted their own superstitious philosophical wisdom into God’s Word and changed the truth into a lie; they changed Son of God to God the Son.
Catholic Encyclopedia 1991
"The term 'Trinity' does not appear in scripture"
"(The Doctrine of the Trinity) - hammered out over the course of three centuries of doctrinal controversy against modalism and subordinationism"
Why You Should Believe In The Trinity 1989 Robert M. Bowman Jr.
"Roman Catholics . . often claim that the trinity is not a biblical doctrine and was first revealed through the ministry of the church centuries after the Bible was written. This is in keeping with the Roman Catholic belief that Christian doctrine may be based either on the Bible or on church tradition."
The Roman Catholic Church did not get the doctrine of the trinity from the Bible, they hammered out their own theology of what they wanted God to be over several hundred years, and mixed Greek philosophy with Babylonian mystery religion, and their own private interpretations of the Bible.
I Peter 1:20, 21 Knowing this first, that no prophecy of the scripture is of any private interpretation. For the prophecy came not in old time by the will of man: but holy men of God spake as they were moved by the Holy Ghost.
II Timothy 2:15 Study to shew thyself approved unto God, a workman that needeth not to be ashamed, rightly dividing the word of truth.
People don't respect God’s Word, they are more interested in inventing their own theology by the will of man instead of believing the word of God, they are not interested in rightly dividing God's word of truth. The trinity is private interpretation and wrong dividing of God's word.
Jesus Christ is not God 1975 Victor Paul Wierwille
"Long before the founding of Christianity the idea of a triune god or a god-in-three persons was a common belief in ancient religions. Although many of these religions had many minor deities, they distinctly acknowledged that there was one supreme God who consisted of three persons or essences. The Babylonians used an equilateral triangle to represent this three-in-one god, now the symbol of the modern three-in-one believers."
"The Hindu trinity was made up of the gods Brahma, Vishnu and Shiva. The Greek triad was composed of Zeus, Athena and Apollo. These three were said by the pagans to 'agree in one.' One of the largest pagan temples built by the Romans was constructed at Ballbek (situated in present day Lebanon) to their trinity of Jupiter, Mercury and Venus. In Babylon the planet Venus was revered as special and was worshipped as a trinity consisting of Venus, the moon and the sun. This triad became the Babylonian holy trinity in the fourteenth century before Christ."
"Although other religions for thousands of years before Christ was born worshipped a triune god, the trinity was not a part of Christian dogma and formal documents of the first three centuries after Christ."
"That there was no formal, established doctrine of the trinity until the fourth century is a fully documented historical fact."
"Clearly, historians of church dogma and systematic theologians agree that the idea of a Christian trinity was not a part of the first century church. The twelve apostles never subscribed to it or received revelation about it. So how then did a trinitarian doctrine come about? It gradually evolved and gained momentum in late first, second and third centuries as pagans, who had converted to Christianity, brought to Christianity some of their pagan beliefs and practices."
Who is Jesus? Anthony Buzzard
". . . we shall find not a hint that Jesus believed himself to be an uncreated being who had existed from eternity. Matthew and Luke trace the origin of Jesus to a special act of creation by God when the Messiah’s conception took place in the womb of Mary. It was this miraculous event which marked the beginning—the genesis, or origin of Jesus of Nazareth"
Arius and his followers believed that Jesus Christ was created, that he was not in the beginning with God. They believed that he had a beginning, whereas God has no beginning. This makes Jesus Christ substantially different from God, which means he cannot be of one-substance with God as the trinitarians believe.
Documents of the Christian Church 2nd Ed 1963 Henery Bettenson
(quotes from Arius and his followers)
"If, said he, the Father begat the Son, he that was begotten had a beginning of existence; hence it is clear that there was a [a time] when the son was not."
"The Son of God is from what is not and there was [a time] when he was not; saying also that the Son of God, in virtue of his free will, is capable of evil and good, and calling him a creature and a work."
The Rise of Christianity 1985 W.H.C. Frend
"If the Father begat the son, there must be when he was not. He could not therefore be coeternal with the Father."[said by Arius]
Man's Religions 1968 John B. Noss
"Arius held that Christ, . . . was a created being; he was made like other creatures out of nothing, . . . The Son, he argued, had a beginning, while God was without beginning."
The Church in History 1964 B. K. Kuiper
"The heathen believe in many gods. Arius thought that to believe that the Son is God as well as that the Father is God would mean that there are two Gods, and that therefore the Christians would be falling back into heathenism."
Arius believed that Jesus Christ was born, that he had a beginning, he believed that Jesus Christ was the created Son, not the Creator, and for taking the Word of God literally he was excommunicated and anathematized. Starting with Nimrod in ancient Babylon until today man has stubbornly rebelled against the doctrine of one God.
Exodus 20:3 Thou shalt have no other gods before me.
Exodus 34:14a For thou shalt worship no other god:
The trinity is idolatry, it puts Jesus Christ as a god before God.
Forgers of the Word 1983 Victor Paul Wierwille
"To say Jesus Christ is God the Son is idolatry. To say Jesus is the Son of God is truth."
I Samuel 15:23 For Rebellion is as the sin of witchcraft, and stubbornness is as iniquity and idolatry.
Deuteronomy 6:4 Hear O Israel: The Lord our God is one Lord:
The Lord God Almighty, the Creator, the Father of Jesus Christ is one God not three, not three-in-one, not one-in-three, ONE! and only ONE! God is not a three-headed multi-personality trinity.
The Bible clearly refers to Jesus Christ as the Son of God 50 times; it never refers to him as God the Son. The phrase, Son of God, is in the genitive case; showing that Jesus Christ originated from and belongs to God. In no way can the Son of God be the same as God the Son, that violates grammar, language and common sense. God the Son is not a biblical term, it does not appear in the Greek, Hebrew, or Aramaic texts. God the Son is however a Babylonian term. The Babylonians made Nimrod a god, and when he died they deified his son Tammuz as God the Son. Making God a man and man a god was invented in Babylon. This idolatry and false belief has been carried into pagan religions, and it has worked its way into Christianity as the doctrine of the trinity.
Ravaged By The New Age 1996 Texe Marrs
"Nimrod, the first of the great Babylonian rulers, was also declared to be the first of the man-gods."
The Two Babylons 1916 Rev. Alexander Hislop
"He was worshipped in Babylon under the name of El-Bar, or 'God the Son'."
It is clear that the trinity does not have a Biblical origin. It can be traced back to ancient Babylon, pagan Greeks and Romans. It was forced upon the Christian Church by the emperor Constantine. It was adhered to by bishops who were afraid to speak against it. Then when the Protestants broke away from the corrupt Roman Church most of them still carried the pagan doctrine of the trinity, because they had practiced error for so long that they accepted the trinitarian doctrine.
Encyclopedia Britannica 1968
"The Council of Nicaea met on May 20, 325. Constantine himself presiding, actively guiding the discussion, and personally proposed the crucial formula expressing the relation of Christ to God in the creed issued by the council. 'of one substance with the father.' Over-awed by the emperor, the bishops, with two exceptions only, signed the creed, many of them against their inclination. Constantine regarded the decision of Nicaea as divinely inspired. As long as he lived no one dared openly to challenge the creed of Nicaea."
The Origins of Pagan and Christian Beliefs Edward Carpenter 1920 1996
"And when at the Council of Nicea (325 AD) it [the early church] endeavored to establish an official creed, the strife and bitterness only increased."
"-the Nicean creed had nothing to propound except some extremely futile speculations about the relation to each other of the Father and the Son, and the relation of both to the Holy Ghost,"
Man's Religions 1968 John B. Noss
"This creed, adopted under pressure from the emperor, who wanted peace, did not immediately solve the doctrinal difficulties or save the peace. The phrases (not made) and (of the same substance with the Father) were bitterly denounced by many"
The Rise of Christianity 1985 W.H.C. Frend
"The Emperor exerted all his influence toward winning unanimous acceptance and nearly succeeded. Only two bishops stood out against it; but two other senior bishops refused to sign the anathemas against Arius and were exiled."
Constantine was really only interested in unifying the empire and gaining more power. He broke truces, started wars, and even had relatives killed to further his power. Constantine was more interested in unity than in getting the correct doctrine of the trinity. In fact before he died Constantine switched sides and took Arius’ position regarding the trinity instead of the position that he forced through the council of Nicea. Without Constantine's presiding, actively guiding, and actively controlling the discussion there would not have been a 'coequal' 'coeternal' 'God the Son' Nicene creed. But what manner of man was this person who pushed through this doctrine which was to become the cornerstone of Christianity?
A History of Christianity Volume 1 1997 Kenneth Scott Latourette
"Constantine. . . although only a catechumen, [One who is being instructed in a subject at an elementary level] presided over its [the council of Nicea] opening session, and was active in its deliberations. Whether Constantine appreciated the niceties of the questions at issue is highly doubtful, for he was a layman, a warrior and administrator, not a philosopher or an expert theologian."
The Rise of Christianity 1985 W.H.C. Frend
"Like all great conquerors from Alexander to Napoleon or even Hitler his [Constantine's] aim was unity and unification on a worldwide scale."
A History of the Christian Church 2nd Ed. 1985 Williston Walker
"He [Constantine] accepted the pagan title of Pontifex Maximus, and his coins still showed the emblems of the Sun-God."
Babylon Mystery Religion 1981 Ralph Woodrow
". . his [Constantine's] conversion is to be seriously questioned. Even though he had much to do with the establishment of certain doctrines and customs within the church, the facts plainly show that he was not truly converted-not in the Biblical sense of the word."
"Probably the most obvious indication that he was not truly converted may be seen from the fact that after his conversion he committed several murders-including the murder of his own wife and son!"
"Yet in 326-very shortly after directing the Nicean Council-he had his son put to death."
The Doctrine of the Trinity Christianity’s Self-Inflicted Wound 1994 Anthony F. Buzzard Charles F. Hunting
"It was Constantine who by official edict brought Christianity to believe in the formal division of the Godhead into two – God the Father and God the Son. It remained the task of a later generation to bring Christianity to believe in the Triune God."
". . . years after winning this heaven-inspired triumph, history divulges that the alleged follower of Jesus murdered an already vanquished rival, killed his wife by having her boiled alive in her own bath – and murdered an innocent son." [speaking of Constantine]
A History of Christianity 1976 Paul Johnson
". . . appears to have been a sun-worshipper, one of a number of the late pagan cults which had observances in common with Christians. Worship of such gods was not a novel idea. Every Greek or Roman expected that political success followed from religious piety. Christianity was the religion of Constantine’s father. Although Constantine claimed that he was the thirteenth apostle, his was no sudden Damascus conversion. Indeed it is highly doubtful that he ever truly abandoned sun-worship. After his professed acceptance of Christianity, he built a triumphal arch to the sun god and in Constantinople set up a statue of the same sun god bearing his own features. He was finally deified after his death by official edict in the Empire, as were many Roman rulers."
". . . His private life became monstrous as he aged . . . His abilities had always lain in management . . . [he was] a master of . . . the smoothly-worded compromise."
It would be an understatement to say that Constantine was a crooked politician; yet this is the man who is mainly responsible for the Nicene Creed's doctrine of the coequal, coeternal, one substance three in one God. One day he is setting the doctrine for the Christian church another day he is murdering people; it would seem that to anyone with any common sense that formulating church doctrine should not be done by a non-repentant murderer. How many of you would like to have a non-repentant murderer setting your Christian doctrine? Yet if you believe the Nicene Creed you have done just that.
Documents of the Christian Church 2nd Ed 1963 Henery Bettenson
"The decisions of Nicea were really the work of a minority, and they were misunderstood and disliked by many"
Forgers of the Word 1983 Victor Paul Wierwille
"The truth of Jesus Christ the Son of God was deliberately forged into the doctrine of God the Son. Seeds of Jesus Christ as God were planted and sprouted during the lifetime of Paul, continued growing during Timothy's lifetime and flourished shortly thereafter, reaching full bloom for all future creeds by 325 AD"
"The doctrine that Jesus Christ the Son of God was God the son was decreed by worldly and ecclesiastical powers. Men were forced to accept it at the point of the sword or else, Thus, the error of the trinity was propounded to the end that ultimately people believed it to be the truth. Thus Christianity became in essence like Babylonian heathenism, with only a veneer of Christian names."
A History of Christianity Volume 1 1997 Kenneth Scott Latourette
"To enforce the decisions of the Council of Nicea, Constantine commanded, with the death penalty for disobedience, the burning of all books composed by Arius, banished Arius and his closest supporters, and deposed from their sees Eusebius of Nicomedia and another bishop who had been active in the support of Arius."
The Rise of Christianity 1985 W.H.C. Frend
"the controversial term, defining the son as Consubstantial with [homoousios] the father was introduced by Constantine. The term was objectionable to any Origenist bishop and had been rejected by Dionysius of Alexandria when used by the Libyan bishops, and the Council of Antioch"
"The great majority of the eastern bishops were placed in a false position. they dared not challenge the emperor"
A History of the Christian Church 2nd Ed. 1985 Williston Walker
"The majority (of the bishops) were conservatives in the sense that they represented . . . subordinationism of the eastern tradition. The Emperor himself was present at the assembly and dominated its proceedings."
"From the very beginning, however, people like Eusebius of Caesarea had doubts about the (Nicene) creed, doubts focused on the word 'homoousios'. (Greek for one substance) . . . The term was non-Scriptural, it had a very doubtful theological history."
"Eusebius of Nicomedia and all save two of the other bishops, signed the creed-willing no doubt, to go along with what the emperor wanted. Yet he and many others continued to suspect its language."
The majority of the bishops at the council of Nicea believed in what is called subordinationism, which is a belief that Jesus Christ is subordinate to God the Father, not coequal, not coeternal, and not God the Son. The teachings of Arius were condemned in 325, but the teachings of Arius did not die, by 359 Arianism was widely accepted, that is until the minority trinitarian bishops found another emperor that they could get to propose their trinitarian creed at the Council of Constantinople in 381.
Man’s Religions John B. Noss 1968
"The doctrine of the trinity he [Michael Servetus] felt to be a Catholic perversion and himself to be a good New Testament Christian in combating it. . . According to his conception, a trinity composed of three distinct persons in one God is a rational impossibility;"
Saying that Jesus Christ is not God does not degrade Jesus Christ it merely sets things in their proper order so we can know God and worship Him in spirit and truth.
John 14:6 Jesus saith unto him, I am the way the truth and the life: no man cometh to the Father, but by me.
John 14:13 And whatsoever ye shall ask in my name, that will I do that the Father may be glorified in the Son.
Satan the Devil strongly desires man to worship him instead of the one true God, and when he can't achieve his primary goal then his next desire is to get man to worship anything other than the true God. Satan has been quite successful in tricking good Christians into worshipping Jesus Christ as God instead of worshipping the one true God, the Father of Jesus Christ.
Eph 5:14 Wherefore he saith Awake thou that sleepest, and arise from the dead, and Christ shall give thee light.
We can no longer be lulled to sleep by the bizarre, complex, confusing, ritualistic, mysterious Babylonian traditions of trinitarian doctrines. We must come back to God’s Word and worship the one true God; the Father of Jesus Christ.
1 Corinthians 8:4b there is none other God but one.
1 Corinthians 8:6 But to us there is but one God, the Father, of whom are all things, and we in him; and one Lord Jesus Christ, by whom are all things, and we by him.
The Doctrine of the Trinity Christianity’s Self-Inflicted Wound 1994 Anthony F. Buzzard Charles F. Hunting
"The God of Moses, Isaiah, Jesus, and the apostles was one person, the Father. One cannot be made equal to two or three. All that can be done with one is to fractionalize it. Divide it into smaller segments and it is no longer one. Expand it, and in spite of prodigious mental gymnastics on the part of Trinitarians, it cannot be made into two or three and still remain one."
". . . it is not uncommon for religious leaders to insist that you must believe in the Trinity to be a Christian, or be branded a cultist."
"One of the great marvels of Christian history has been the ability of theologians to convince Christian people that three persons are really one God."
A Statement of Reasons for Not Believing the Doctrine of the Trinitarians Concerning the Nature of God and the Person of Christ 1833 Andrews Norton
"When we look back through the long ages of the reign of the Trinity . . . we shall perceive that few doctrines have produced more unmixed evil."
The Bible does not give us a doctrine of a trinity, the historical record shows that modern Christian trinitarian beliefs were not formulated until about 300 years after the death of Jesus Christ, but in pagan religions trinitarian beliefs date back to ancient Babylon, thousands of years before Jesus Christ. The coequal, coeternal, one substance, three in one trinity is not a Christian Biblical doctrine; yet there are those who insist that it is the cornerstone of Christianity.
In our day and time the doctrine of the trinity is a cornerstone of idolatry.
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