Having concluded a consideration of various biblical statements which demonstrate that God is a Triune being, a Trinity, as each member of the Trinity is identified by likewise attributes, each is a person, each is co-equal and co-eternal let us now consider various anti-Trinitarian views.
Jehovah’s Witnesses:
The Watchtower Bible and Tract Association-the Jehovah’s Witnesses-deny God’s Triune nature as we shall see (more information on Jehovah’s Witnesses is found here).
Reasoning from the Scriptures, p. 405
some Trinitarians emphasize their belief that Jesus Christ is God, or that Jesus and the Holy Ghost are Jehovah. Not a Bible teaching.
Make Sure of All Things (Brooklyn, NY: Watchtower Bible and Tract Society, 1953), p. 188
Not a triune god, which false doctrine would deny his almighty supremacy.
Mankind’s Search for God, p. 356-357
Christ Jesus as the Word was a spirit creation and came to earth in obedience to his Father’s will_The holy spirit is God’s active force, or energy in action, not a person.
In the view of Jehovah’s Witnesses Jehovah is the God (capital “G”) and Jesus is a god (lower case “g”). Thus, they are polytheists in that they affirm the existence of various gods even if they designate one as major and others a minor.
In the Jehovah’s Witnesses “translation” of the Bible, the New World Translation John 1:1 reads,
In [the] beginning the Word was, and the Word was with God, and the Word was a god.
That little word, that letter, “a” is enough to move from monotheism to polytheism.
Also, note how since they believe that Jehovah created Jesus they cannot allow the Bible to state what the Bible states. Consider how they insert brackets into the text of Colossians 1:15-17,
He is the image of the invisible God, the firstborn of all creation; because by means of him all [other] things were created in the heavens and upon the earth, the things visible and the things invisible, no matter whether they are thrones or lordships or governments or authorities. All [other] things have been created through him and for him. Also, he is before all [other] things and by means of him all [other] things were made to exist.
The bible sates that He, Jesus, created “All things…is before all things…all things were made to exist” but since their doctrine contradicts the words of the Bible they make the Bible say that Jesus created “All [other] things…is before all [other] things…all [other] things were made to exist.”
Christian Science:
Note immediately that Mary Baker Eddy’s Christian Science is neither Christian nor scientific but is akin to mind science or science of mind groups which promulgate various concoctions of eastern philosophy/mysticism packaged in Christian terminology.
Anecdote: very early in my Christian walk I heard about Michael Behe’s book Darwin’s Black Box.
Having never even heard of Christian bookstores I had no idea where such books were available. Yet, I recalled that in my neighborhood there was a “Christian Science Reading Room.” Ah yes, Michael Behe is a Christian and he was writing about science so…
Well, I went in to ask about the book and was told that they do not carry anything like that. Of course, the “Christian Science Reading Room” is a “Christian Science” study center-what did I know.
Mary Baker Eddy, Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures (Boston, MA: Published by the Trustees under the Will of Mary Baker G. Eddy, 1875), p. 331
God is individual, incorporeal. He is divine Principle, Love, the universal cause, the only creator, and there is not other self-existence. He is all-inclusive, and is reflected by all that is real and eternal and by nothing else.
He fills all space, and it is impossible to conceive of such omnipresence and individuality except as infinite Spirit or Mind. Hence all is Spirit and spiritual. Life, Truth, and Love constitute the triune Person called God, – that is, the triply divine Principle, Love. They represent a trinity in unity, three in one, – the same in essence, though multiform in office: God the Father-Mother; Christ the spiritual ideal of sonship; divine Science or the Holy Comforter.
Mary Baker Eddy, ibid., p. 256
The theory of three persons in one God (that is, a personal Trinity or Tri-unity) suggests polytheism.
Mary Baker Eddy, ibid., p. 361
Christ, as the true spiritual idea, is the ideal of God_The Christian who believes in the First Commandment is a monotheist_and recognizes that Jesus Christ is not God, as Jesus himself declared, but the Son of God.
Mary Baker Eddy, ibid., p. 332
The Christ is incorporeal, spiritual, – yea, the divine image and likeness, dispelling the illusions of the senses; the Way, the Truth, and the Life_The corporeal man Jesus was human.
Mary Baker Eddy, The First Church of Christ Scientist and Miscellany (Boston, MA: Published by the Trustees under the Will of Mary Baker G. Eddy, 1913), p. 261
Christ is the Truth and Life born of God – born of Spirit and not of matter. Jesus, the Galilean Prophet, as born of the Virgin Mary’s spiritual thoughts of Life and its manifestation.
Mary Baker Eddy, Miscellaneous Writings 1883-1896 (Boston, MA: Published by the Trustees under the Will of Mary Baker G. Eddy, 1896), p. 84
The spiritual Christ was infallible; Jesus, as material manhood, was not Christ.
By now, you can readily see how knowing the biblical statements about the Trinity, about God’s nature in general and about the attributes of the members of the Trinity in particular you can dispel false doctrines.
For example, “God the Father-Mother; Christ the spiritual ideal of sonship; divine Science or the Holy Comforter” not according to a study of the Bible.
Was Christ a “spiritual idea” or “incorporeal, spiritual” but a separate being named Jesus was “was human”?
Note that Luke 1:30 announces the birth of Jesus “behold, you will conceive in your womb and bring forth a Son, and shall call His name Jesus” and 2:10-11 goes on to state that this Jesus who was born was “born to you this day in the city of David a Savior, who is Christ the Lord.” Thus, Jesus who is the Christ was born to Mary and Joseph and not Jesus who took on the Christ nature later on in His life.
Early Church Fathers:
Let us conclude by noting what some early church fathers thought about Jesus’ divinity and the Trinity.
1st Clement AD 95-96,
For, as God liveth, and as the Lord Jesus Christ and the Holy Ghost live,-both the faith and hope of the elect, he who in lowliness of mind, with instant gentleness, and without repentance hath observed the ordinances and appointments given by God-the same shall obtain a place and name in the number of those who are being saved through Jesus Christ, through whom is glory to Him for ever and ever. Amen.
Ignatius AD 110,
Nevertheless, I have heard of some who have passed on from this to you, having false doctrine, whom ye did not suffer to sow among you, but stopped your ears, that ye might not receive those things which were sown by them, as being stones of the temple of the Father, prepared for the building of God the Father, and drawn up on high by the instrument of Jesus Christ, which is the cross, making use of the Holy Spirit as a rope, while your faith was the means by which you ascended, and your love the way which led up to God.
Ye, therefore, as well as all your fellow-travellers, are God-bearers, temple-bearers, Christ-bearers, bearers of holiness, adorned in all respects with the commandments of Jesus Christ, in whom also I exult that I have been thought worthy, by means of this Epistle, to converse and rejoice with you, because with respect to your Christian life ye love nothing but God only. For the Son of God, who was begotten before time began, and established all things according to the will of the Father, He was conceived in the womb of Mary, according to the appointment of God, of the seed of David, and by the Holy Ghost.
These things [I address to you], my beloved, not that I know any of you to be in such a state; but, as less than any of you, I desire to guard you beforehand, that ye fall not upon the hooks of vain doctrine, but that you may rather attain to a full assurance in Christ, who was begotten by the Father before all ages, but was afterwards born of the Virgin Mary without any intercourse with man. Some of them say that the Son is a mere man, and that the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit are but the same person, and that the creation is the work of God, not by Christ, but by some other strange power.
Polycarp AD 155,
Wherefore also I praise Thee for all things, I bless Thee, I glorify Thee, along with the everlasting and heavenly Jesus Christ, Thy beloved Son, with whom, to Thee, and the Holy Ghost, be glory both now and to all coming ages. Amen.
IrenaeusAD 160-180,
Wherefore, as I have already stated, no other is named as God, or is called Lord, except Him who is God and Lord of all, who also said to Moses, “I AM That I AM. And thus shalt thou say to the children of Israel: He who is, hath sent me unto you;” and His Son Jesus Christ our Lord, who makes those that believe in His name the sons of God. And again, when the Son speaks to Moses, He says, “I am come down to deliver this people.”
For it is He who descended and ascended for the salvation of men. Therefore God has been declared through the Son, who is in the Father, and has the Father in Himself-He who is, the Father bearing witness to the Son, and the Son announcing the Father.-As also Esaias says, “I too am witness,” he declares, “saith the Lord God, and the Son whom I have chosen, that ye may know, and believe, and understand that I am.”
Tertullian,
In various ways has the devil rivaled and resisted the truth. Sometimes his aim has been to destroy the truth by defending it. He maintains that there is one only Lord, the Almighty Creator of the world, in order that out of this doctrine of the unity he may fabricate a heresy. He says that the Father Himself came down into the Virgin, was Himself born of her, Himself suffered, indeed was Himself Jesus Christ.
Note also other historically significant references:
In 112 AD, while he was Governor of Bithynia in Asia Minor, Pliny the Younger (Plinius Secundus) wrote to Emperor Tarjan in Epistles 10.96,
the method I observe towards those who have been denounced to me as Christians is this: I interrogate them whether they were in fact Christians; if they confess it, I repeat the question twice, adding the threat of capital punishment; if they still persevered, I ordered them to be executed_they were in the habit of meeting on a certain fixed day before it was light, when they sang in alternate verses a hymn to Christ, as to a God.
Also, in 170 AD Lucian of Samosata wrote the following in, The Death of Peregrine 11-13,
The Christians, you know, worship a man_deny the gods of Greece, and worship the crucified sage.
These attest to early church belief in Jesus’ divinity.
Lastly, note that a church was been discovered in Megiddo, Israel which dates to 200-250 AD. Excavations uncovered a large tile floor and wall remnants. There are mosaics of fish which were the original Christian symbol. Also found were some inscriptions inlaid into the mosaic one which reads, “Akeptous, the God-loving, offered this table for (the) God Jesus Christ, as a remembrance” (“Akeptous” is the name of the woman who offered this “remembrance”).
In this regard my essays Historical Jesus – Three Centuries Worth of Citations and Flavius Josephus, the Historical Jesus and Pseudo-Skepticism Outdated By Four Decades may be of interest.
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