HOME | ARTICLES | BIBLES | LINKS | ~ the HeReTiC ~

Statements From Multiple Sources on the Trinity Doctrine

The "Trinity" Doctrine Enforced by Torture and Death
"The faithful who upheld Scriptural authority (over and above the pagan trinity compromise) were labeled “Judaizers” and were persecuted and killed." As Catholic influence spread in the middle ages across Europe and beyond, great numbers of people from many regions were forced to acknowledge acceptance of the trinity under pain of death. They spread the trinity doctrine by the edge of the sword, with infidels (heretics) routinely being slashed to death. This enforcement and submission was by the point of the sword, where Christian infidels were generally pierced to death."While not the central purpose of this book, it should be noted that the history of the trinity is indeed done of blood, murder and vicious savagery. It a history of intolerance and condemnation—of totally blind allegiance and conviction. Thousands who have lost their lives fighting for the cause of the trinity worshipped it in ignorance—never having been able to understand, let alone explain, it. Nevertheless, the trinity has survived as part of the trappings of a religious system that has sought to redefine God. To this end, this system and her wayward daughters have succeeded.

The Doctrine of Rome
Handbook for Today's Catholic, p. 11
"The mystery of the Trinity is the central doctrine of the Catholic faith. Upon it are based all the other teachings of the church."

Ratzinger, Joseph (1968. Introduction to Christianity, Munich, pp. 82, 83 ·
Professor Stuart G. Hall (former Chair of Ecclesiastical History at King's College, London, England)
„The basic form of our (Matthew 28:19 Trinitarian) profession of faith took shape during the course of the second and third centuries in connection with the ceremony of baptism. So far as its place of origin is concerned, the text (Matthew 28:19) came from the city of Rome.“

The Catholic Encyclopedia
“The baptismal formula was changed from the name of Jesus Christ to the words Father, Son, and Holy Spirit by the Catholic Church in the second century.” (p. 263)

“The threefold immersion is unquestionably very ancient in the Church. ...Its object is, of course, to honor the Three Persons of the Holy Trinity in whose name it [the baptism] is conferred.” (p. 262)

My Catholic Faith. Louis LaRavoie Morrow p. 393
“Question. Why do we make the sign of the cross?

“We make the sign of the cross to express two important mysteries of the Christian religion, the Blessed Trinity and the Redemption.”

Catholic reason for keeping Sunday
“Because "it is a day dedicated by the apostles to the honor of the most Holy Trinity.”

John Paul II, Crossing the Threshold of Hope, p. 3, 1994
The leader of the Catholic church is defined by the faith as the Vicar of Jesus Christ (and is
accepted as such by believers). The Pope is considered the man on earth who "takes the place" of the Second Person of the omnipotent God of the Trinity."

“Assumption of Mary,” Life magazine, October 30, 1950, p. 51.
As Roman Catholic Graham Greene wrote, “Our opponents sometimes claim that no belief should be held dogmatically which is not explicitly stated in scripture . . . . But the Protestant Churches have themselves accepted such dogmas, as the Trinity, for which there no such precise authority in the Gospels,”

Dictionaries
Nouveau Dictionnaire Universel, Paris, 1865-1870, Vol. 2, pg. 1467.
"The Platonic trinity, itself merely a rearrangement of older trinities dating back to earlier peoples, appears to be the national philosophic trinity of attributes that gave birth to the three hypostases or divine persons taught by the Christian churches.... This Greek philosopher's [Plato, fourth century B.C.] conception of the divine trinity... can be found in all the ancient [pagan] religions."

A Dictionary of Religious Knowledge" Lyman Abbott, 1875, p. 944.
"Precisely what the doctrine is, or precisely how it is to be explained, Trinitarians are not agreed among themselves"

"The trinity "is a corruption borrowed from the heathen religions, and ingrafted on the Christian faith"

A Catholic Dictionary: W.E. Addis and Thomas Arnold, 1960,
"On the whole the New Testament, like the Old, speaks of the spirit as a divine energy or power" pg. 810

"The third Person was asserted at a Council of Alexandria in 362 ... and finally by the Counci of Constantinople of 381"pg. 812.

Dictionary of the Bible, John L. McKenzie, S.J. (New York, 1965), p. 899:
“The trinity of persons within the unity of nature is defined in terms of ‘person’ and ‘nature which are G[ree]k 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.”

New International Dictionary of NT Theology Vol. 2, 1976, "God," p. 84
points out that "primitive Christianity did not have an explicit doctrine of the Trinity such was subsequently elaborated in the creeds of the early church"

The HarperCollins Bible Dictionary (Paul Achtemeier, editor, 1996, "Trinity").
"The formal doctrine of the Trinity as it was defined by the great church councils of the four and fifth centuries is not to be found in the NT [New Testament]"

New Bible Dictionary(1996, "Trinity"):
"The term 'Trinity' is not itself found in the Bible. It was first used by Tertullian at the c the 2nd century, but received wide currency [common use in intellectual discussion] and formal elucidation [clarification] only in the 4th and 5th centuries".

That same source goes on to explain that "the formal doctrine of the Trinity was the result of several inadequate attempts to explain who and what the Christian God really is . . . To deal with these problems the Church Fathers met in [A.D.] 325 at the Council of Nicaea to set out an orthodox biblical definition concerning the divine identity." However, it wasn't until 381, "at the Council of Constantinople, [that] the divinity of the Spirit was affirmed".

The Oxford Companion to the Bible (1999, p. 89).
"Because the Trinity is such an important part of later Christian doctrine, it is striking tha the term does not appear in the New Testament. Likewise, the developed concept of three coequal partners in the Godhead found in later creedal formulations cannot be clearly detected within the confines of the canon [i.e., actual Scripture]".

The Abingdon Dictionary of Living Religions, page 767:
TRINITY (Ch). The Dogma, formulated authoritatively in fourth century church Councils, that Christians worship one God in three persons (Father, Son, Holy Spirit) and one substance.

Under pressure to explain to a hostile Roman world how Christians counted themselves monotheists, Christian apologists (notably Justin Martyr, d. 165) combined Johannine and Stoic-Platonic understanding of the term Logos ("Reason," or "Word") in order to maintain that the Son was both God's own self-expression and a being distinct from him.

The New International Dictionary of New Testament Theology, Volume 3, page 1085:
Among the systems offering an explanation of the world in terms of the logos, there are the Mystery Religions. These cultic communities did not see their task as lying in the communication of knowledge of a scientific nature, but of mysteries to their initiates who strove for purification in the recurrent enactment of sacred actions. The Foundation for these cultic actions was Sacred Text. Among them were the cults of Dionysus, the Pytha-goreans, and the Orphic Mysteries. By means of these cults, non- Greek thought, such as in the Isis-Osiris Mysteries, which Osiris-- the logos created by Isis is the spiritual image of the world Similarly in the cult of Hermes, Hermes informed his son Tat in the Sacred Text belonging to the cult, how by God's mercy, he became logos, and thus a son of God. As such, he (Hermes) brought regulation and form into world, but himself remained a mediating being between God and matter, on one side, and God and man on the other. The logos can also, however, appear as the son of Hermes, resulting in a triple (trinity) gradation: God (who is Zeus), Son (Hermes), and LOGOS.

Encyclopedias
Mennonite Encyclopedia
anabaptists.org/../mennoen1.html
"In 529 AD Emperor Justinian revamped the Roman Civil Law and heresy was big on his list of crimes. The two heresies that were now punishable by death were not accepting the Nicene Creed and rebaptism."

The New Schaff-Herzog Encyclopedia of Religious Knowledge,
Samuel M Jackson, editor, (1911) Vol. 9, p. 91.
"The doctrines of the Logos [i.e., the "Word," a designation for Christ in John 1] and the Trinity received their shape from Greek Fathers,were who much.. .influenced, directly or indirectly, by the Platonic philosophy..That. errors and corruptions crept into the Church from this source can not be denied"

The Catholic Encyclopedia, 1912, Vol. 15,
"In Scripture there is yet no single term by which the Three Divine Persons are denoted together. The word ‘Trias’ (of which the Latin ‘Trinitas’ is a translation) is first found in Theophilus of Antioch about 180 AD.... Shortly afterwards it appears in its Latin form of ‘Trinitas’ in Tertullian" pg. 47.

"Nowhere in the Old Testament do we find any clear indication of a Third Person pg. 49".

In The Encyclopedia Americana (1956), Vol. XXVII, p. 294L.
“Christianity derived from Judaism and Judaism was strictly Unitarian [believing that God is one person]. 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.”

Encyclopedia Britannica, 11th ed., vol. 6, p. 284.
The doctrine of the trinity is “not primarily ethical nor even religious, but it is metaphysic What is the ontological relationship between these three factors [Father, Son and Spirit]? The answer is given in the Nicene formula, which is characteristically Greek”

Hubert Jedin, Ecumenical Councils of the Catholic Church: an Historical Outline,1960, p.28.
"The Alexandria catechetical school, which revered Clement of Alexandria and Origen, the greatest theologian of the Greek Church, as its heads, applied the allegorical method to the explanation of Scripture. Its thought was influenced by Plato: its strong point was [pagan] theological speculations. Athanasius and the three Cappadocians [the men whose Trinitarian views were adopted by the Catholic Church at the Councils of Nicaea and Constantinople] had been included among its members"

The New Catholic Encyclopedia 1967 Vol. XIII,
"The O[ld] T[estament] clearly does not envisage God's spirit as a person . . . God's spirit i simply God's power. If it is sometimes represented as being distinct from God, it is because the breath of Yahweh acts exteriorly. ... The majority of N[ew] T[estament] texts reveal God's spirit as something, not someone; this is especially seen in the parallelism between the spiri and the power of God. ... On the whole, the New Testament, like the Old, speaks of the spirit as a divine energy or power pg.574.

"For nowhere in the Old Testament do we find any clear indication of a Third Person.

Mention is often made of the Spirit of the Lord, but there is nothing to show that the Spirit was viewed as distinct from Yahweh Himself. The term is always employed to signify God considered in His working, whether in the universe or in the soul of man." pg575

The New Encyclopædia Britannica (1976), Micropædia, Vol. X, p. 126. & Vol. XI, page 928,
“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 Encyclopaedia of Religion (1987):
"Exegetes and theologians today are in agreement that the Hebrew Bible does not contain a doctrine of the Trinity, even though it was customary in past dogmatic tracts on the Trinity to cite texts like Gen. 1:26 'Let us make humanity in our image, after our likeness.' Although the Hebrew Bible depicts God as the Father of Israel and employs personifications of God such as Word, Spirit, Wisdom, and Presence, it would go beyond the intention and the spirit of the Old Testament to correlate these notions with later Trinitarian doctrine..."

McClintock and Strong, Cyclopedia of Biblical,
Theological and Ecclesiastical Literature,1987, Vol. X, p. 552
"[Matt. 28:19] proves only that there are the three subjects named,...but it does not prove, by itself, that all the three belong necessarily to the divine nature, and possess equal divine honor…This text, taken by itself, would not prove decisively either the personality of the three subjects mentioned, or their equality or divinity".

The International Standard Bible Encyclopedia (1988, Vol. 4, "Trinity," p. 914)
...that "'trinity' is a second-century term found nowhere in the Bible, and the Scriptures present no finished trinitarian statement". It further states that "church fathers crystallized the doctrine in succeeding centuries"—long after the apostles had passed from the scene.

The HarperCollins Encyclopedia of Catholicism
(Richard McBrien, general editor, 1995, "God," pp. 564-565).
"Today, however, scholars generally agree that there is no doctrine of the Trinity as such in either the OT [ Old Testament ] or the NT [ New Testament ] . . . It would go far beyond the intention and thought-forms of the OT to suppose that a late-fourth-century or thirteenth-century Christian doctrine can be found there . . . Likewise, the NT does not contain an explicit doctrine of the Trinity"

Professors/ Theologians
Karl Rahner, The Trinity, et al., pp.10-11.
“We must be willing to admit that should the doctrine of the Trinity have to be dropped as false, the major part of religious literature could well remain virtually unchanged…the Christian idea of the incarnation would not have to change at all if there were no Trinity”

Karl Rahner, Encyclopedia of Theology–Aconcise Sacramentum Mundi, page 1755, 1975
“Since revelation and salvation come in historical form, it cannot be expected that the Trinity of God should have been explicitly revealed in the OT.”
On the same page Rahner also said (note that 'ipsissima verba' is Latin for 'the very words')

“There is no systematic doctrine of the“immanent” trinity in the NT. The nearest to such a proposition is the baptismal formula of Mt 28:19, though it must be noted that modern exegesis does not count this saying among the ipsissima verba of Jesus.”

Catholic theologian Edmund Fortman - The Triune God, p. 9
"The Jews never regarded the spirit as a person; nor is there any solid evidence that any Old Testament writer held this view. . . . The Holy Spirit is usually presented in the Synoptics [Gospels] and in Acts as a divine force or power. ... Although this spirit is often described personal terms, it seems quite clear that the sacred writers [of the Hebrew Scriptures] never conceived or presented this spirit as a distinct person."

Catholic theologian Karl Rahner and biblical exegete Murray Harris
rightly admit that the NT never identifies the Holy Spirit as God. Thus, some Trinitarians have wrongly contended that it does in Acts 5.4.

(Karl Rahner, SJ (March 5, 1904 – March 30, 1984), was a German Jesuit priest and theologian who, alongside Henri de Lubac, Hans Urs von Balthasar, and Yves Congar, is considered one of the most influential Roman Catholic theologians of the 20th century.)

Fernando L. Canale, the Handbook of Seventh-day Adventist Theology,
Seventh-day Adventist Encyclopaedia Volume 12, page 138, ‘Doctrine of God'
“The concept of the Trinity, namely the idea that the three are one, is not explicitly stated only ASSUMED.”

Martin Luther, the German priest who initiated the Protestant Reformation,
(The Sermons of Martin Luther, J.Lenker, editor, Vol.3, 1988, p. 406).
"It is indeed true that the name 'Trinity' is nowhere to be found in the Holy Scriptures, but has been conceived and invented by man"

AHB Logan: Marcellus of Ancyra (Pseudo-Anthimus), On the Holy Church:
Text, Translation and Commentary. Verses 8-9. Journal of Theological Studies,
NS, Volume 51, Pt. 1, April 2000, p.95.
Now with the heresy of the Ariomaniacs, which has corrupted the Church of God...These then teach three hypostases, just as Valentinus the [Gnostic] heresiarch first invented in the book entitled by him On the Three Natures. For he was the first to invent three hypostases and three persons of the Father, Son and Holy Spirit, and he is discovered to have filched this from Hermes, Plato and Aristotle.

Professor Cyril Richardson,of church history at New York's Union Theological Seminary, though a dedicated Trinitarian himself, said this in his book Doctrine of the Trinity:
"My conclusion, then, about the doctrine of the Trinity is an artificial construct..It. produces confusion rather than clarification; and while the problems with which it deals are real ones, the solutions it offers are not illuminating. It has posed for many Christians dark and mysterious statements, which are ultimately meaningless, because it does not sufficiently discriminate in its use (1958, "pp. 148-149).

He also admitted, "Much of the defense of the Trinity as a 'revealed' doctrine, is really an evasion of the objections that can be brought against it" (p.16).

Professor Shirley Guthrie, Jr., of theology at Columbia Theological Seminary,
(Christian Doctrine, 1994, pp. 76-77).
"The Bible does not teach the doctrine of the Trinity. Neither the word 'trinity' itself nor s language as 'one-in-three,' 'three-in-one,' one 'essence' (or 'substance'), and three 'persons biblical language. The language of the doctrine is the language of the ancient church taken from classical Greek philosophy"

Professor Millard Erickson,
(God in Three Persons: A Contemporary Interpretation of the Trinity,1995).
Research professor of theology at Southwestern Baptist Theological Seminary, writes that the Trinity "is not clearly or explicitly taught anywhere in Scripture", yet it is widely regarded as a central doctrine, indispensable to the Christian faith. In this regard, it goes contrary to is virtually an axiom of biblical doctrine, namely, that there is a direct correlation between the scriptural clarity of a doctrine and its cruciality to the faith and life of the church.

"In view of the difficulty of the subject and the great amount of effort expended to maintain this doctrine, we may well ask ourselves what might justify all this trouble" (p.12).

Professor Erickson further states that the Trinity teaching "is not present in biblical though but arose when biblical thought was pressed into this foreign mold [of Greek concepts]. Thus, the doctrine of the Trinity goes beyond and even distorts what the Bible says about God". (p.20).

Professor Erickson later points out: "It is claimed that the doctrine of the Trinity is a very important, crucial, and even basic doctrine. If that is indeed the case, should it not be somewhere more clearly, directly, and explicitly stated in the Bible? If this is the doctrine that especially constitutes Christianity's uniqueness . . . how can it be only implied the biblical revelation?
. . . For here is a seemingly crucial matter where the Scriptures do not speak loudly and clearly. "Little direct response can be made to this charge. It is unlikely that any text of Scripture can be shown to teach the doctrine of the Trinity in a clear, direct, and unmistakable fashion"(pp. 108-109).

Professor Charles Ryrie, in his respected work Basic Theology, (1999, p. 89).
"Many doctrines are accepted by evangelicals as being clearly taught in the Scripture for which there are no proof texts. The doctrine of the Trinity furnishes the best example of this It is fair to say that the Bible does not clearly teach the doctrine of the Trinity . . . in fact there is not even one proof text, if by proof text we mean a verse or passage that 'clearly' states that there is one God who exists in three persons"

Theology Professors Roger Olson and Christopher Hall explain part of the puzzle in their book The Trinity 2002, pp. 1-2:
"It is understandable that the importance placed on this doctrine is perplexing to many lay Christians and students. Nowhere is it clearly and unequivocally stated in Scripture...
How can it be so important if it is not explicitly stated in Scripture? . . .
"The doctrine of the developed gradually after the completion of the New Testament in the heat of controversy, but the church fathers who developed it believed they were simply exegeting [explaining] divine revelation and not at all speculating or inventing new ideas. The full-blown doctrine of the Trinity was spelled out in the fourth century at two great ecumenical (universal) councils:
Nicea (325 A.D.) and Constantinople (381 .A.D.)"

Other Sources
Gregory of Nazianzus, Bishop of Constantinople, wrote in 380 AD:
"Of our thoughtful men, some regard the Holy Spirit as an operation, some as a creature and some as God; while others are at a loss to decide, seeing that the Scripture determines nothing on the subject" (Oratio 38: De Spiritu Sancto).

Second letter to the Bishop of London from Sir William Whiston. 1719 p15.
... there was “a greater number of interpolations and corruptions brought into the Scriptures by the Athanasians, and relating to the Doctrine of the Trinity, than in any other case whatsoever.”

John Adams ; American 2nd US President
“The Pythagorean, as well as the Platonic philosophers, probably concurred in the fabrication of the Christian Trinity.

The Church of our Fathers - 1950, pg. 46
"The day was to come when the Nicene party won out completely and then the emperors, who wished to prevent any more such quarrels, decreed that one who denied the Trinity should be put to death."

James White, Review and Herald November 29th article ‘Christ Equal with God’ 1877
The question of the trinity and the unity is not practical, and yet we call attention to it to guard the people against that terrible heresy that takes from our all-conquering Redeemer his divine power."

History of Christianity (1883, p. xvi).
"How Ancient Trinitarian Gods Influenced Adoption of the Trinity,"
The preface to historian Edward Gibbons'History of Christianity sums up the Greek influence on the adoption of the Trinity doctrine by stating: "If Paganism was conquered by Christianity, it is equally true that Christianity was corrupted by Paganism. The pure Deism [basic religion, in this context] of the first Christians . . . was changed, by the Church of Rome, into the incomprehensible dogma of the trinity. Many of the pagan tenets, invented by the Egyptians and idealized by Plato, were retained as being worthy of belief"

The Trinity (1890, Vol. 1, p. 574).
The link between Plato's teachings and the Trinity as adopted by the Catholic Church centuries later is so strong that Edward Gibbon, in his master work The History of the Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire, referred to Plato"as the Athenian sage, who had thus marvelously anticipated one of the most surprising discoveries of the Christian revelation"

The Influence of Trinitarian Doctrine on Translations of the Bible by John David Clark, Sr.
“What I discovered in most of the versions of the Bible produced by trinitarians which I studied is- irrefutable proof of intentional mistranslation of words which refer to God…

Christian trinitarians routinely and purposely mistranslate Greek pronouns, so as to promote the doctrine of the holy Trinity.”

“Christianity’s doctrine of a “holy Trinity” is simply NOT true. There is nothing in the scriptures which even suggests that it is, except to those who have already been taught to see it there. The doctrine of the Trinity is a heathen philosophical intrusion into the faith of Jesus…”

Einfhrung in die Textkritik des griechischen Testaments: Eberhard Nestle
“Learned men, so called Correctores were, following the church meeting at Nicea 325 AD, selected by the church authorities to scrutinize the sacred texts and rewrite them in order to correct their meaning in accordance with the views which the church had just sanctioned.”

-The Trinity- A Doctrine Overdue for Extinction; Part 2
“Imperfections in the King James Version” by Ted Whitten
“It’s interesting to see that many of the scriptural “evidences” said to be in favor of the doctrine of the Trinity, are…sometimes even outright forgery. These can often be exposed by even a cursory glance at an English/Greek interlinear Bible or a Greek concordance.”

Historian and science fiction writer H.G. Wells, in his noted work :
The Outline of History, (1920, Vol. 2, p. 499).
"There is no evidence that the apostles of Jesus ever heard of the trinity—at any rate from him"

The Story of Civilization, Caesar and Christ, Will Durant, Part III, 1944, p. 595
"Christianity did not destroy paganism; it adopted it ... From Egypt came the ideas of a divine trinity"

A History of Christianity Volume 1 1997 Kenneth Scott Latourette
"To enforce the decisions(about the trinity) of the Council of Nicea, Constantine commanded, with the death penalty for disobedience......."

Return to top

<º///><