The Trinity Doctrine Examined (Part 2)

THE THEOLOGICAL APPROACH

Read part 1 here.

I have attempted the Trinity debate in three approaches:

1. HISTORICAL AND HERMENEUTICAL CRITICISM

2. THEOLOGICAL APPROACH

3. PHILOSOPHICAL EXPLANATION

In part one I dealt with the case for hermeneutics in discussing the doctrine of trinity and I also included a brief history of the texts in a form of textual criticism and I advised all of you interested to make sure that whenever you attempt a doctrine construction using the Bible, you need to look at the Bible holistically and make sure you are consistent with the canonization of the Bible and its textual criticism before you even form a position on any subject matter. If you did not read part one, you seriously need to refer to it. Now am going to continue with the theological approach.

According to Charles F Hunting and Anthony F Buzzard the Trinity is a self inflicted wound and this is why.

For us to understand this issue Biblically we need to briefly but carefully look into the development of the Hebrew Religion from which all refer to. This is important because once we get to understand the Hebrew concept of God it will not be too difficult for us to grasp who God is and who he has evolved to become.

Am going to briefly state three stages of the development of the Hebrew religion and the first is:

1. THE INSTINCTUAL STAGE: Man is a worship creature, if he has no god to worship he creates one. Worship in man was the first civilization, and before man ever learnt to do a thing, he knew how to express his worship emotions. It is this stage that actually results into the second stage which is:

2. THE ANIMISTIC STAGE: Since man is by instinct a worship beast, he endeavors in all possible ways to express those emotions in the most ritualistic ways. And he does this instrumentally through all sorts of natural phenomenal objects. This is what we call Animism.

The term is taken in a wider sense to denote the belief in the existence of spiritual beings some attached to bodies of which they constitute the real personality (Souls), others without necessary connection with a determinate body (Spirits) (Hebrew Religion, P. 6). And these objects can be: Trees, Streams/springs, stones, rocks and mountains. It is at this stage that religion is Pantheistic in practice. The Hebrew religion was in its Semitic origins primitive and at this stage, until it developed to the third stage which is:

3. THE POLYTHEISTIC STAGE: At this point man believes in many gods or goddesses and each and every challenge in his environment has a deity to address it.

Most indigenous cultures are polytheistic at their developed stage. The Hebrew religion also was polytheistic before it matured to monotheism and that how we end up with Elohism in the Hebrew text. In my next submission I will introduce the Hebrew Polytheism and a few texts which the Trinitarians reference to defend this pagan teaching in the Christian Church.

The Hebrew Word Elohim (OLD TESTAMENT POLYTHEISM)

All the Trinatarians i have debated ask me the question of the meaning of “Let us….” in Genesis 1:26. It is interesting to note that in Genesis chapter one whenever the word God features, the Hebrew original text has ELOHIM not Yahweh.

The word ELOHIM however appears in the Old Testament also to be used in a singular form and with a singular meaning, we shouldn’t restrict it to plurality in meaning: If elohim  implies  more  than  one  person  in this  text,  how  is one going to explain that the identical  word,  elohim,  refers to Moses: “And  the  Lord  said to Moses, ‘See  I make  you God  [elohim] to Pharaoh,  and Aaron  your  brother shall  be your  prophet”  (Exodus.7: I)? Surely  no  one  would  claim  plurality for  the  one  person Moses.

The single pagan god  Dagon is  called  elohim (God): “The  ark of the God  [elohim] of Israel  must  not remain  with us, for His hand  is severe  on us and on Dagon  our god [elohim]” (1 Samuel. 5:7). Similarly,  the word elohim  is used to describe  the god of the Amorites: “Will you not possess  what Chemosh  your god [elohim] gives you to possess?” (Judges 11:24). Furthermore, the Messiah himself is addressed as Elohim (Psalm. 45:6). No one would contend that the Messiah is more than a single person.

A study of  the Hebrew word for God (elohim) lends no support  to the persistent idea that “God” in Genesis 1 exclusively implies God, the Father as well as His  Son and Spirit. It instead means many gods. In a sense the Hebrew mind argued that the gods not God created the world and this was religion at its polytheistic stage.

I will demonstrate that in my next submission but first let us first trace this term ELOHIM in the Hebrew text. We must underscore that the word Elohim in the Hebrew language evolution is a little bit a tricky one. Some scholars have argued that it is a word that is: PLURAL IN FORM BUT SINGULAR IN MEANING. Personally, this is right at only a grammatical level not completely true on a theological level. As someone who studied literature and socio-anthropology, I do understand what we call language evolution and what a word can become and mean circumstantially. The truth of the matter is that the Hebrew religion at its primitive stage was polytheistic.

The God we know as Yahweh is one who was first of all part of the League of many gods and that is why he had to take Abraham out of his country purposely to isolate him from the gods of the land. We all know that the Patriarchs and Matriarchs worshiped more than one god.

We all remember when Laban followed his daughters with Jacob who had stolen his gods. So according to me the Hebrew religion was polytheistic at a certain stage of its development. However if a Trinitarian takes advantage of this polytheistic stage to defend his trinity teaching, then they are wrong.

First, because polytheism is not restricted to three persons and neither did the Hebrew person appreciate all the gods to be equal as the doctrine contends. Secondly because the theology behind the word ELOHIM is that even Yahweh was never comfortable with being recognized in the league of gods. Exodus 20:1-3. Next am going to extensively explain that.

DEUTERO-ISAIAH AND THE HEBREW MONOTHEISM

In line of the progressive and installment revelation of this transcendent God we worship, the Lord revealed himself to Israel in a declaration that said: Hear or Israel thee Lord your God is one (Deuteronomy 6:4). And when he did so, all other gods were declared idols and he immediately became a war god who conquered other gods. And the law was given where the first law is about that. Allow me to reference from Anthony and Hunting book of: the Doctrine of trinity and i say this:  The Hebrew Bible and the New Testament contain well over twenty thousand singular pronouns and verbs describing the One God.

Language has no clearer or more obvious way of providing a testimony to Israel’s and Jesus’ monotheism. The being revealed in Israel’s Torah was a God to be sharply distinguished from the pagan gods of Egypt.  By an act of power He had rescued an enslaved nation from captivity. He was a God of awesome power and yet personal and approachable – a God to be loved, of whom it was said, “the Lord used to speak to Moses face to face, as a man speaks to his friend” (Exodus 33: 11). He was a person with whom David communed: “You have said: ‘Seek My face.’ My heart says to Thee, ‘Thy face, Lord, do I seek” (Psalm. 27:8).

At the Exodus, the Jews knew that for the first time in history, a whole nation was brought into intimate contact with the creator God through His constituted representative. This unparalleled event was to be embedded in the national consciousness forever. To be banished from their worship were the gods of the world around them.

Tragically, superstitious fears and the desire to be like the other nations sometimes tempted Israel to embrace the multiple gods of paganism. For this they suffered disastrously. Shortly after their flight out of Egypt, at fearful cost to themselves they built a golden calf as an object of worship.

The nation needed continually to be reminded of its unique creed: “Listen, Israel: Yahweh our God is the one, the only Yahweh” (Deut. 6:4).

Through the prophet Isaiah (Deautero-Isaiah), Israel was once again made aware of its national identity: “You are my witnesses … and understand that I am He. Before Me there was no God formed, and there will be none after me” (Isa. 43:10).

Theologies which promise their followers that they will one day become “God” seem not to grasp the exclusive prerogative claimed by the one who insists that there has been no God formed prior to Him and there will be none after Him. Isaiah’s continued emphasis on the oneness of God is pointed and clear.

He quotes God as saying, “I am the first, I am the last, and there is no God besides Me” (Isa.  44:6). the question   is repeated:   “Is there any God besides Me, or is there any other Rock? I know of none” (Isa. 44:8). We should not be surprised at the tenacity with which the Jews preserved the concept of one, single, unique creator God.

Their persistence was encouraged by Isaiah’s continued repetition   of the most important of all religious facts. The prophet again speaks of Israel’s God: “I, the Lord, am the Maker of all things, stretching out the heavens by myself and spreading out the earth all alone [or ‘who was with me?’]” (Isa.  44:24). Few statements could be better calculated to banish forever from the Jewish mind the idea that more than one person had been responsible for the creation.

The emphasis  is even more striking when this same writer,  in seven separate verses in the 45th chapter of his book, records  the following: “I am the  Lord, there  is no other; besides Me there  is no  God” (Isaiah.  45:5). These statements were designed to fix forever in Israel’s mind the idea that God is one.

The same One God continued through Isaiah to say: “It is I who made the earth, and created man upon it” (Isaiah. 45: 12). “Surely God is with you, and there is none else, no other God” (Isaiah.  45: 14). And again, “For thus says the Lord, who created the heavens (He is God who formed the earth and made it; He established it and did not create it a waste place, but formed it to be inhabited), ‘I am the Lord, and there is no other'” (Isaiah. 45:15).

Two further passages challenged Israel to faithful devotion to the One God: “Who has announced this from of old? Who has long since declared it? Is it not I, the Lord? And there is no other God besides Me. A righteous God and a Savior; there is none except Me. Turn to me and be saved, all the ends of the earth; for I am God and there is none other” (Isa.  45:21, 22).

The  concept  of  the  one-person   God was  not  limited  to  the prophet Isaiah.

Hosea  reports  Israel’s  God as saying: “Yet  I have been  the  Lord your  God  since the land  of Egypt; and  you  were not to know any god except Me, for there is no Savior besides Me” (Hos.  13:4). Moreover, the unique status of the One God was not limited   to those ancient days.

We receive   the  clear impression  from the prophet Joel, speaking of a future Israel after it has achieved  its promised greatness,  that the nation  would still, and forever,  be tied to the  One God: “Thus you will know that I am in the midst  of Israel, and that I am the Lord your God and there is no other” (Joel 2:27). Joel lets us know that whatever or whoever the God of the Jews of the Old Testament was, He was to remain their God in perpetuity.

 The Jewish mind was convinced that the One God, the creator, was also the Father of the nation.   So says the prophet Malachi: “Do we not all have one Father? Has not one God Created us?” (Mal. 2: 10). It was due to this conservatism and Jewish fundamentalism that Jesus was killed due to blasphemy. I will handle this in the philosophical part.