For WillPower and other trinitarians: Excerpts from The Doctrine of the Trinity, Christianity's Self Inflicted Wound, by Anthony Buzzard & Charles Hunting:
Forward;
"Professor Buzzard and Charles Hunting point out that one of the great marvels of Christian history has been the ability of post-biblical theologians to convince Christian people that three Persons are really one God. Paul preached the whole counsel of God (Acts 20:28). Why did he not explain the Trinity?"
Forward;
"... the doctrine of the Trinity is an adult theological myth. Christianity condemns the world for imposing the unproved theory of evolution on mankind. But orthodoxy imposes something equally problematic: a multiple-person God." (Sidney A. Hatch, B.A. (UCLA),M.Div. (American Baptist Seminary of the West), Th. M. (Dallas Theological Seminary;
Page 6,7;
"Trinitarian dogma is one of the great enigmas of our time. The fact that it defies both conventional logic and rational explanation does not seem to diminish the Trinitarians desire to protect at all costs his complex theological formula. We are puzzled at the agitation that is created when the Trinity is questioned. This seems to point to a lack of confidence in what is claimed to be the unquestionable party line of virtually all Christian ministers. The common branding of all objectors as unbelievers does nothing to reassure us."
Page 45
"...the Apostles claimed to have found "the one whom Moses in the Law, and the prophets wrote, Jesus of Nazareth" (John 1:45). That predicted Messiah was not God, but God's ultimate human spokesman. To claim, therefore, that John intended to present Jesus as God would throw his own testimony into hopeless contradiction."
" Paradoxically, traditional theology has attributed to Jesus the claim to be God, a blasphemy which he discounted by asserting his claim to be the Son of God. Son of God is a legitimate title for a supreme representative of God, since the judges themselves have been referred to as gods (John 10:34; Psalms 82:6), which for Jesus is the equivalent to Son of God (John 10:36). To be the Son of God was to to demonstrate perfect obedience to the Father, the ideal status of Israel whose citizens are destined to be "sons of the living God (Hos 1:10). "Son of God" is also the recognized title of the Messiah, God's chosen king. And it was to prove the Messiahship of jesus that John penned his entire Gospel (John 20:31)." (The Doctrine of the Trinity: Christianity's Self Inflicted Wound, 1998, Anthony F. Buzzard, Charles F. Hunting, International Scholars Publications, Page 309)
"Much of the confusion which obstructs clear thinking about the Godhead may be traced to a prime cause. We have not reckoned with changes in the meaning of words, effected by time, as language is transplanted from one culture to another. A foremost example of this is the term "Son of God," which most today unconsciously translate as "God, the Son," a meaning which it cannot possibly bear in the original Christian documents." (The Doctrine of the Trinity: Christianity's Self Inflicted Wound, 1998, Anthony F. Buzzard, Charles F. Hunting, International Scholars Publications, Page 3)
"The meaning of words must be sought within the environment in which they were written. The Bible was not composed in the 20th century, nor did it's writers know anything of the subsequent creeds and councils. Context is all-important in determining the author's intent. Within the pages of [the Bible] Jesus never referred to himself as God. The fact is that the New Testament applies the word God -- in it's Greek form ho theos -- to God, the Father alone some 1350 times. The words ho theos (i.e. the one God), used absolutely, are nowhere with certainty applied to Jesus." (The Doctrine of the Trinity: Christianity's Self Inflicted Wound, 1998, Anthony F. Buzzard, Charles F. Hunting, International Scholars Publications, Page 84
