Trinity Is Doublethink
09 Jun '10 07:30Originally posted by Una“We Worship What We Know”
Again for every attempt to discredit the Trinity, there are real answers:
http://www.monergism.com/directory/link_category/Trinity/Biblical-Evidence-for-the-Trinity/
“THE Father Incomprehensible, the Son Incomprehensible, and the Holy Ghost Incomprehensible. The Father Eternal, the Son Eternal, and the Holy Ghost Eternal and yet they are not Three Eternals but One Eternal. As also there are not Three Uncreated, nor Three Incomprehensibles, but One Uncreated, and One Incomprehensible.” One or three, Christendom’s God, as here defined by the Athanasian Creed, is truly a mysterious, incomprehensible, unknown God.
“We worship what we know,” said Jesus. (John 4:22) He was speaking as a member of a people to whom Moses had said: “Listen, O Israel: Jehovah our God is one Jehovah.” Yes, faithful Jews worshiped a God they knew. As to Christians, not subject to the Jewish Law covenant but brought into a new covenant, it was prophetically said of them: “They will by no means teach each one his fellow citizen and each one his brother, saying: ‘Know Jehovah!’ For they will all know me, from the least one to the greatest one of them.” Such Christians do indeed know their God.—Deuteronomy 6:4; Hebrews 8:11.
“One God the Father”
Because they do not believe in the Trinity dogma, it has been said of Jehovah’s Witnesses that they practice “a form of Arianism.” But the fact that they are not Trinitarians does not make them Arians. In one of the few writings of Arius that has survived, he claims that God is beyond comprehension, even for the Son. In line with this, historian H. M. Gwatkin states in his book The Arian Controversy: “The God of Arius is an unknown God, whose being is hidden in eternal mystery. No creature can reveal him, and he cannot reveal himself.” Jehovah’s Witnesses worship neither the “incomprehensible” God of the Trinitarians nor the “unknown God” of Arius. They say, with the apostle Paul: “There is actually to us one God the Father, out of whom all things are.”—1 Corinthians 8:6.
Showing how vital it is to come to know God, Jesus said in a prayer to his Father: “This means everlasting life, their taking in knowledge of you, the only true God.” (John 17:3) The same apostle who recorded those words of Jesus also wrote: “We know that the Son of God has come, and he has given us intellectual capacity that we may gain the knowledge of the true one [Jehovah]. And we are in union with the true one, by means of his Son Jesus Christ. This is the true God and life everlasting.”—1 John 5:20.
Some translators give a Trinitarian twist to 1 John 5:20. The Living Bible renders the end of this verse: “Jesus Christ his Son, who is the only true God; and he is eternal Life.” Of course, both Catholic and Protestant Bibles differentiate between Jesus and “the only true God” in John 17:3. And in his Theological Investigations, reputed Catholic scholar Karl Rahner states that “in St. John’s First Epistle ὁ θεός [“the God”] so often certainly means the Father that it must be understood of the Father throughout the Epistle.” Also, the French Protestant Bible du Centenaire concedes in a footnote that the Greek allows for a non-Trinitarian translation. Incidentally, it should not be forgotten that, probably in the fourth century C.E., an overzealous Trinitarian Latin scribe added to 1 John 5:7 the words “the Father, the Word and the holy spirit; and these three are one.” This addition, known technically as the “Johannine Comma,” was protected by the Vatican until 1927, in spite of the fact that even some Catholic scholars had raised doubts about its authenticity as early as the sixth century. This dishonest insertion shows the lengths to which Trinitarians will go in their efforts to prove their doctrine.
God’s Name and the Trinity
Something that makes God very real to Jehovah’s Witnesses is their knowledge and regular use of his personal name, Jehovah. (Psalm 83:18) When a member of one of Christendom’s churches reads in his Bible the anonymous expression “the name of the Lord,” it means little or nothing to him. Similarly, when he prays “hallowed be thy name,” the chances are that he does not know what name he is praying about. Jehovah’s Witnesses know their God, they know his name and, like the psalmist and Jesus himself, they love their heavenly Father’s name.—Psalm 5:11, 12; John 12:28; 17:6, 26.
Since God’s personal name appears literally thousands of times in the original-language Bible, why has it been expunged from many of Christendom’s Bible translations, and why is it never used by the hundreds of millions of Catholic, Orthodox and Protestant “Christians”? Could the dogma of the Trinity have anything to do with this most extraordinary religious fact?
Interestingly, the Catholic Jerusalem Bible renders Deuteronomy 6:4: “Listen, Israel: Yahweh our God is the one Yahweh.” And a footnote, after giving another possible translation, states: “But it is more likely that we have here a declaration of monotheistic faith.” This, then, is the one God of whom Jesus, speaking as a Jew, stated: “We worship what we know.” (John 4:22) And this Catholic Bible admits that the name of that one God is Yahweh, or Jehovah. Now, according to Trinitarian theology, Yahweh, or Jehovah, is the name of the God of the Hebrew patriarchs and the Jews, the God whom Jesus came to reveal as “the Father,” or “God the Father.” It follows that for Trinitarians the divine name Yahweh, or Jehovah, designates only one of the supposed “Three Persons” of the “Godhead.” The “Second Person” has a name (Jesus), but the “Third Person” is the anonymous “Holy Spirit.” Christendom’s churches cannot logically use a name for God that does not designate the entire “Godhead.” So their members are condemned to worship a mysterious triune God that has no name.
Yet, instinctively, many Catholics feel the need to worship someone they can know and name. This, no doubt, explains why many of them worship Jesus or even Mary. This same instinct to worship a God one can name is even reflected in religious architecture. In scores of Catholic chapels, churches and cathedrals in France and other countries, above the high altar or elsewhere there is a gilded, rayed nimbus representing divine glory. In the center is a triangle, symbolizing the Trinity. Paradoxically, inside the triangle is the Tetragrammaton, the four Hebrew consonants of God’s name, Jehovah. But how many Catholics today realize that it is God’s name?
“One Lord, Jesus Christ”
After having stated: “There is actually to us one God the Father, out of whom all things are, and we for him,” the apostle Paul added: “And there is one Lord, Jesus Christ, through whom all things are, and we through him.” (1 Corinthians 8:6) Jehovah’s Witnesses subscribe to that further statement. Jehovah, the Father, is the Source; Jesus, God’s “only-begotten son,” the “firstborn of all creation,” is the means by which the Father accomplishes His will.—John 1:2, 3, 14; Colossians 1:15, 16.
Because the fourth-century dissident theologian Arius stated the Biblical truth that “the Son is not unbegotten,” and Jehovah’s Witnesses accept that truth, The New Encyclopædia Britannica states: “The Christology of Jehovah’s Witnesses, also, is a form of Arianism.” First, it must be stated that Jehovah’s Witnesses do not have a particular “Christology,” defined as “the theological interpretation of the person and work of Christ.” They share the view of the Christian layman who is recorded as having bluntly told the wrangling theologians assembled in Nicaea in 325 C.E.: ‘Christ did not teach us dialectics, art, or vain subtleties, but simple-mindedness, which is preserved by faith and good works.’ Apparently this man had suffered for his faith in Christ, even as many of Jehovah’s Witnesses have. Like him, they have no faith in theological philosophy. They accept with simplicity what the Bible states about God, Christ and the holy spirit, and they are willing to suffer for their simple faith and prove it by good works.
Secondly, Jehovah’s Witnesses cannot be accused of Arianism, inasmuch as they disagree with Arius’ views in many respects. For example, Arius denied that the Son could really know the Father. The Bible teaches that the Son ‘fully knows’ the Father and that the Son is “the one that has explained him.” (Matthew 11:27; John 1:14, 18) Arius claimed that the Word became God’s Son “by adoption” because of his virtue or moral integrity. The Bible says that he was created by Jehovah as his “only-begotten son.” (John 1:14; 3:16; Hebrews 1:2; Revelation 3:14) Arius taught that Christians could hope to become equal to Christ, whereas the Bible states that God gave him “the name that is above every other name.” (Philippians 2:9-11) Far from being modern-day Arians, Jehovah’s Witnesses believe what the Bible says.
“The Only-Begotten God”
Jehovah’s Witnesses do not deny Jesus’ godship, or divinity. But they do not share the Trinitarians’ philosophical understanding of these terms. When Trinitarians speak of the “divinity of Jesus,” they do not mean that he is “a god” or “godlike,” but that he is “God,” one of the three co-eternal persons of the “Godhead.” Perhaps this explains why many of Christendom’s Bibles render John 1:18: “No one has ever seen God; the only Son, who is in the bosom of the Father, he has made him known.” (Revised Standard Version) The majority of the oldest Greek manuscripts show, not “the only Son,” but “the only-begotten god.” The Expositor’s Greek Testament admits: “The MS. [manuscript] authority favours the reading θεος [god]; while the versions and the [Church] Fathers weigh rather in the opposite scale.” Why? Because they feared anti-Trinitarians for whom “this appellation [‘only-begotten god’] happily distinguished Him [the Son] from the Father.”
Recognizing the Scriptural fact that Jesus is “a god” or “mighty one,” Jehovah’s Witnesses are not disturbed by John 20:28, where it is recorded that the apostle Thomas exclaimed to Jesus: “My Lord and my God!” For one thing, Thomas could have been using the word “G...
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