Do You Think The Bible Teaches A Trinity As Religions Teach?

minimus

I’m not asking whether you believe in the Bible. I just want your opinion as to whether you think the Bible teaches it. I don’t, for what it’s worth.

Certainly not. Even many proponents of the trinity accept that it’s not taught in the Bible as such, but claim it's implicit, compatible with, or that the trinity can be derived from scripture. Catholics don’t even need to prove it comes from the Bible since they allow that God used the church to lead them to the truth beyond the close of the Bible canon.

john.prestor

The Bible doesn't teach anything first of all, but does any Biblical author teach the trinity as we know it today in orthodox Christianity? No, they don't. The closest we come is 1 or 2 Timothy where 'Paul' (probably the liar Polycarp) charges his readers in the name of 'God, Jesus, and the holy angels' to keep his word or something, the Catholic renegade Alfred Loisy sees that as the first appearance of any trinity whatsoever. According to Clement of Alexandria who wrote in the late 2nd century the Gnostic Valentinus, who wrote in the early 2nd century, first referred to a trinity in his writings.

vienne

No, the Trinity doctrine does not appear in the Bible.

minimus

And yet most religions teach this doctrine . Never made any sense to me.

dropoffyourkeylee

I think it likely that the writer of the gospel of John believed Jesus was God. John 1:1 and John 8:58 are hard to explain otherwise.

cofty

It is a post-biblical attempt to excuse the early Church's worship of Jesus with their heritage of monotheism.

NOBODY can state the trinity simply in their own words without resorting to esoteric Greek terms, contradicting themself and/or committing heresy.

Vanderhoven7

There seems to be mystery in scripture regarding the being of God.

Just off the cuff.

Who was God talking to when He made man. "Let us make..." Who is the us?

Isaiah tells us that there was no God with God and that He created everything by Himself. And yet the NT tells us that Christ made everything that was made.

Christ tells us to baptise in the name of the Father, Son and Holy Spirit, not the names plural, one name for 3. What is the Father's name must be the Son's name as well as the name of the Spirit.

Three times Jesus is identified in the NT as "ho Theos" or the God, not a God.

God claims to be the only Saviour and will not share His glory with anyone else, but Jesus as Saviour of the world, asks to have that glory restored.

Jesus accepts worship as well as the honour equal to the Father. He is Lord of all, Lord of lords, all power in heaven and earth is His. Is the Father, the Lord of the Lord of lords? Does the Father have more power than all power in heaven and earth?

I would be reticent to give less honor worship and praise to Jesus than I would the Father.

Excuse the rant ....(;^)

slimboyfat

John 1 doesn’t teach that Jesus is the creator on any reasonable reading.

1. It says the Word was “with” God.

2. Verse 3 says God created “through” the Word.

3. The Word is described as “god” without the article not “God” with the article.

4. Verse 18 says that the Word is an “only begotten god”, not almighty God.

5. The rest of the gospel teaches that Jesus owes his life and is obedient to God, such as John 6:57.

6. Early interpreters such as Origen said that John 1 presents Jesus as a “second God”.

7. In John 8:58 Jesus was claiming to be older than Abraham and identifying himself as the messiah. He is not claiming to be eternal. In fact he elsewhere stated that he is not eternal. (John 6:57 and elsewhere)

8. I admit that John 20:28 is a problem and I don’t know what the answer is. But given everything else the book says about Jesus I just don’t think it makes sense to conclude that the author believes Jesus is almighty God.

Anders Andersen

Consider this: originally the Bible is the product of religious beliefs and culture, not the other way around.

It's rather silly to try and (re)create a religion based on a book that (incompletely) captures the religous thoughts and practices that 'inspired' it.

Of course the book is also he capture of a moment in time. The religious beliefs that are written down at one time continue to develop and evolve. An example of this is the evolution of God and morality from the OT to the NT.

So does it make sense that the religious community continued to develop their beliefs? Sure. So they added the trinity, an idea not yet captured in the Bible.

Then again, what exactly is the difference between the letters attributed to Paul, John, etc, and the letters and edicts somewhat later? They all simply reflect the religious thoughts of the day...

Do You Think The Bible Teaches A Trinity As Religions Teach?

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