Issues with Trinitarianism and its Christology — Part 2

Issues with Trinitarianism and its Christology — Part 2

Thomas Allen

    15. Except for the heretical subordinationists and modal trinitarians, one question that Trinitarians have never been able to answer satisfactorily, except perhaps to themselves, is how three distinct persons, each of whom is fully God, are not three Gods. That is, how can God consist of three distinct Gods without being three Gods? Most Trinitarians just assert that three Gods are one God with no real Scriptural proof. Others claim that it is all a mystery beyond human comprehension, although they offer no Scripture that explicitly states such mystery. How can the Godhead consist of three persons, each of whom is fully God, while not having three Gods? Furthermore, where do the Scriptures explicitly claim that God is three persons, three beings, three Gods, three modes, three attributes, or three somewhats, etc.?
    16. The more honest Trinitarians admit the doctrine of the Trinity is nowhere expounded in the New Testament. It cannot be found in either the Old Testament or the New Testament. Neither Paul nor any of the other apostles taught it — and would not understand today’s orthodox Trinity Doctrine. The Trinity Doctrine rests upon the authority of the Church, i.e., the Pope: The Church declares that the Trinity Doctrine is true; therefore, it is true.
    17. The Trinity Doctrine seems to have been developed — albeit, most likely, subconsciously — primarily to justify error. Christ instructed people to pray to and worship God the Father, whom Christ claimed was the only true God (John 17:3). He never instructed them to pray to or worship the Messiah; neither did Paul, Peter, nor other apostles. After the apostles died, people began praying to and worshiping Christ. Instead of correcting this error, the leaders and intellects of the Church began applying Greek philosophy to the teachings of Jesus and the apostles to justify worshiping Christ. The same can be said for other errors that became doctrines of the Catholic Church. Examples are praying to saints and Mary and declaring Mary to be the mother of God (she eventually supplanted Christ, who had become God, as the mediator between man and God). Instead of correcting errors, Church leaders and intellects sought to justify them.
    18. Platonic philosophy and Gnosticism have defined and defended the Trinity Doctrine. They provide the terms, e.g., one substance, person, and trinity, used to define the Trinity.
    19. Unlike various subordination doctrines, the orthodox Trinity Doctrine did not grow organically from the Scriptures. Moreover, many Scriptures that Trinitarians use to support their doctrine testify against it.
    20. If the Trinitarians are correct, then the God of the Old Testament cannot be the God of the New Testament. In the Old Testament, God is described as a unipersonal God. Most Trinitarians now admit that the Old Testament describes a unipersonal God and not a triune God. However, according to the Trinitarians, the New Testament describes God as a triune God. That is, three Gods, persons, or whatevers are one God. Moreover, a triune God of three Gods, three persons, or three whatevers differs significantly from a unipersonal God of one God, one person, or one whatever. Now more Trinitarians, especially Catholics, are admitting that the Scriptures do not support the Trinity Doctrine as expressed in the Athanasian Creed or other similar creeds. It relies on revelation and Church tradition.
    If the Trinitarians and Jewish rabbis are correct, then Marcion was correct when he said that the God of the Old Testament and the God of the New Testament are two different Gods. However, his explanation of the two different Gods was incorrect.
    21. Honest Trinitarians acknowledge that they worship a triune God. Thus, they are not monotheists in the sense of the Old Testament worship of a unipersonal God, whom good Jews worship. If Christians claim that the God of the Old Testament is a triune God and the Jews claim that he is a unipersonal God, then either one is wrong or God suffers from dissociative identity disorder. (If Christians assert that the Jews are wrong, then they need to explain their antisemitism.)
    22. Trinitarians claim that God became flesh so that he could experience suffering, ignorance, death, etc. like humans. Such a claim impinges on God’s omniscience. If God is omniscient, he knows how it is to suffer and die like humans. He knows how it is to be a dog or a flea without becoming one.
    Furthermore, if most theologians, both orthodox and heterodox, are correct about God being impassible, how could he experience pain, etc. like a human? Yet, many Trinitarians claim that God had to become man so that he could suffer like man.
    Moreover, how could God really die and still be eternal? If he were to die, he would cease being eternal. Or, is the pagan Greek idea of death, which most Christians believe, correct: Death is not a cessation of consciousness; it is a metamorphosis from one state of conscious being to another state of conscious being. And, the Hebrew idea of death is wrong: Death is the cessation of consciousness; this is the concept taught in the Old Testament. If death is a metamorphosis, then the Son changed state or condition. An attribute of God is that he is unchangeable. In any event, God the Son either ceased being eternal or changed state. Therefore, he ceases being equal to God the Father, who is eternal and unchangeable. Thus, the Trinity Doctrine collapses.
    According to the Hebrews, the body and soul are one. When the body dies, the soul also dies. All consciousness ceases at death.
    According to the pagan Greeks, the body and soul are two. When the body dies, the soul continues to exist in a conscious state.
    23. The triune God is not a personal God, a real being with a personality, will, and desire. He, or perhaps more correctly, it, is an essence, substance, and entity — an abstraction.
    24. If Jesus is God, why does he always pray to the Father and never to himself, who is also Deity, or to the Holy Spirit? Why does he ask the Father for what is in his own power as God the Son?
    25. If God the Father is the God of God the Son (Jesus declares that his Father is his God in John 20:17), then who is the God of God the Father? For God the Son, who has a God, to maintain his equality with God the Father, God the Father must also have a God. Likewise, God the Holy Spirit must also have a God. Who is the God of God the Holy Spirit? Moreover, if Jesus is God, how can he have a God?
    26. According to the Trinity Doctrine, the Son is eternal and is also begotten. He who is begotten cannot be eternal because he has a beginning — when he is begotten. An eternal being has no beginning or ending. Thus, the Trinity Doctrine contradicts itself with an oxymoron: the Son being begotten and eternal.
    Moreover, God is self-existing. He who is begotten, the Son, is not and cannot be self-existing. Furthermore, how can an unbegotten being, the Father, be the same kind of being as a begotten being, the Son?
    27. Unless the separationists are correct, why did Jesus cry out while he was dying on the cross? After all, according to many Trinitarians, Jesus’ God nature did not abandon his human nature while he was dying on the cross. As God the Son indwelt him, why did he need to cry out to God? God was already a part of him.
    28. To prevent God from dying on the cross, Trinitarians must have Jesus’ divine nature abandoning Jesus’ human nature by or at the time Jesus dies. The Valentinians solve the problem of God dying by having Christ, who is the divine nature, separating from Jesus, who is the human nature, just before the crucifixion. To avoid having God die, Trinitarians must adopt a Valentinian-like doctrine. However, to avoid the heresy of Valentinianism, Trinitarians seem to have the human nature of Jesus leaving the divine nature of Jesus at death. Whereas Valentinians have the divine leaving the human, Trinitarians have the human leaving the divine.
    29. Trinitarians subvert the title of the “Son of God” into “God the Son,” a title that the Scriptures never give Jesus. The two phrases mean different things. “X the son” has an entirely different meaning than “the son of X.” Isaac the son means Isaac as the son of Abraham; he is not Abraham. The son of Isaac means Jacob; he is not Isaac; nor is he Abraham. Likewise, “God the Son” has a different meaning than “the Son of God” and refers to a different person, being, entity, or whatever.
    30. When Jesus speaks, is he speaking in his divine nature as God or is he speaking in his human nature as man? Most assume that when he says something that sounds godly to them (e.g., “I and the Father are one” – John 10:30), he speaks as God. However, if he says something that sounds humanly to them (e.g., “the Father is greater than I” – John 14:28), he speaks as man. How do they know with absolute certainty which is speaking? Moreover, being ignorant of a triune God and the incarnation of God, which thus made Jesus have two natures and two wills, his audience would have always understood him speaking as a man. (Clergy often preach “context relevance” and the “way the audience at that time who received the remarks would have understood them.” Jesus’ audience at that time would have always understood him to be speaking as a man. If he intended otherwise, he was deceiving, i.e., lying to, his audience.)
    Where does the Bible expressly state that Jesus has two natures and two wills? Where does the Bible even strongly imply such?
    31. The doctrine of Jesus possessing two natures raises several questions. Did the two natures exist before the Incarnation? If they did, how did or could the Father and Son still be of one substance? If they did not, when and how was Jesus’ human nature combined with his divine nature? What prevented the divine nature from dominating? How can Jesus’ humanity be like the rest of humanity if he lacked the ability to sin like the rest of humanity? What Scriptures support the answers to these questions?
    Jesus was tempted like all other men (Hebrews 4:15). If he were God or had a divine nature, he could not have been tempted like other men. Being tempted like other men implies the ability to sin. Under the Christology of the Trinity Doctrine, Jesus could not sin. An attribute of God is his inability to sin. If Jesus consisted of two natures, divine and human, then his divine nature would have coerced the human will not to sin.
    32. An angel strengthened Christ in the garden of Gethsemane. However, if he possessed divinity in conjunction with humanity, why would he have needed such assistance? Such assistance would have been wholly unnecessary.
    33. When Christ speaks of himself, he uses the pronoun “I.” He is speaking of his whole person and not of only part of his person. According to Trinitarian Christology, Christ is one person who consists of a divine nature and a human nature. So, when he says, “My Father is greater than I” (John 14:28 ), he is speaking of himself as the whole person consisting of both divine and human natures. Therefore, by this assertion, he declares himself, both of his natures, inferior to God the Father.
    34. If Thomas calling Jesus God (John 20:28) identifies Jesus as one of the Persons of God, then God making Moses God (Exodus 7:1) should make Moses a Person of God. If not, why not? After all, God speaks much more authoritatively than Thomas.
    35. An important part of the Christology of Trinitarianism is the doctrine of the Incarnation. Not until 451 was this doctrine formerly defined when the Council of Chalcedon promulgated it. The reason that 350 years were needed to develop it was that nowhere does the Scriptures described such a doctrine — although the first chapter of John may weakly hinted at it. Moreover, the doctrine of the Incarnation resembles pagan mythology more than biblical truth. That is, the notion that God Himself descended from Heaven, took the form of a man, and dwelt among humans strongly resembles pagan mythology.

Copyright © 2019 by Thomas Coley Allen.

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Issues with Trinitarianism and its Christology — Part 1

Issues with Trinitarianism and its Christology — Part 1

Thomas Allen

    Trinitarianism and its Christology may be 100 percent correct, which would be surprising because they are manmade. The following issues and problems with Trinitarianism and its Christology are presented in no order of importance.
    1. The way that the creeds relating to the Trinity Doctrine and its Christology were developed and adopted is a disgrace to Christianity and an insult to Jesus. Their development and adoption depended mostly on speculation, intrigue, and violence and little on Christian charity, forgiveness, humility, restraint, and the Scriptures. They were long on speculation and short on Scripture. Their adoption depended much more on conniving and coercing than on reasoning and persuading. The doctrine of the faction that excelled in cunning, scheming, bribing, and wielding the sword won and became orthodox. Most of the leaders at the councils that adopted these doctrines seemed to be extremely egotistical and void of humility. More often than not, individual egos seemed to be more important than God, Christ, or the Scriptures. The winner got everything, and the losers were anathemized and were often exiled and stripped of their property. Thus, the dissidents were not allowed the dignity of maintaining their opinion. They had to agree with the majority of the council or be anathemized and, otherwise, punished.
    Especially in the Eastern Empire, Christians believed in the vendetta and carried their grudges for a century or more. When they gained enough power in a council, they would declare the theological ancestors of their theological opponents heretics, even if they had been dead for more than a century.
    Furthermore, the discussions of the various councils often concerned church politics more than Christian doctrine. Usually, the side that won the debate had imperial support and became orthodoxy. Imperial support came not only from the emperor, but also his family, courtiers, and the bureaucracy. Moreover, religious issues were often used to advance political issues. Thus, the development and adoption of the Christian creeds on the Trinity and related issues depended much more on politics, both secular and church, than on theological debate.
    When these doctrines were adopted, the behavior of Christians was like that of radical Muslims of today. Both the clergy and laity behaved like today’s college students who seek to oppress all with which they disagree; they disdained the free exchange of ideas. The councils that developed these Christian doctrines often behaved like political conventions at their worst. All sorts of corruption (bribery, threats, violence, etc.) and political influence were used to win the agreement. Slogans, symbols, stereotypes, and guilt by association were used much more frequently to advance doctrinal discourse than reasonable, intelligent, and logical debate.
    Moreover, the laity did not behave any better than their leaders in the councils. Often, they acted worse. Although the laymen were ignorant of the theology involved, they were hostile toward anyone who disagreed with them.
    Arguments for the various competing doctrines were often written so convoluted, complex, and technical that few could understand them.
    If it were not for several emperors of the Roman Empire, the Nicene Trinity may never have become the orthodox doctrine of the Catholic Church. These emperors enforced the Nicene Trinity doctrine, while suppressing competing doctrine.
    Christianity would have been a more peaceful and Christlike religion if both the “orthodox” and “heterodoxy” had followed the Scriptures instead of abandoning them in favor of speculation. In developing their doctrines, both the orthodox and heterodoxy seem to prefer speculation to the Scriptures, although both used selected Scripture to support their speculations. Moreover, to have used persuasion instead of coercion to convince opponents of the error of their doctrine would have resulted in a more peaceful, trusting, and loving society.
    If the clergy had expended the effort of living as Christ taught instead of forcing their speculations about his being on everyone else, this era would have been much more peaceful and probably would have made greater advancement in Christianity. Moreover, a united Roman Empire would most likely have lasted longer, and Islam may never have left the Arabian peninsula.
    2. Jesus’ rise to become God Himself, i.e., the eternal God the Son, who is equal to the Father, had much more to do with Christianity becoming the state religion of the Roman Empire than with anything in the Scriptures. Jesus had to lose his image as a human rebel against the Empire. Furthermore, having Jesus as God suited the autocratically ruled Empire much better than having Jesus remaining a humble man. As a result, the gospel texts that stressed Jesus’ humanity and supported his subordination to the Father, were minimized. Paul’s letters describing Jesus’ crucifixion and resurrection were transformed from the political context in which these events occurred to a cosmic event.
    3. How many orthodox Trinitarians realize that the prevailing (orthodox) idea of the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit for about 200 years before Constantine made Christianity the state religion was similar to the heresy of the Jehovah Witnesses: the preexisting Son was subordinate to the Father and was not eternal and the Holy Spirit was an attribute or operation of the Father instead of a person of a triune God (however, many believed that the Holy Spirit was a person, but inferior to the Father and the Son). Before then, the prevailing idea of the Father, Son, and the Holy Spirit was similar to the heresy of the Biblical Unitarians (not to be confused with Unitarian Universalists) and Christadelphians.
    4. In the early days of Christianity, people believed that if the state (country) practiced an incorrect form of Christianity, God would punish that state and society with wars, plagues, famines, and other disasters. If true, Orthodoxy must have been an incorrect form of Christianity because the Roman Empire collapsed under Christianity. Furthermore, Orthodox Christianity in North Africa and the Middle East fell to Islam.
    5. The Church Fathers who developed the Nicene Creed used Platonic philosophy and speculative reasoning in deriving their Creed. Scriptural support in its development was scant. Scriptural support came later when the Scriptures were interpreted to support a predetermined dogma.
    6. A majority vote in a council of bishops decided to change the unipersonal God about whom Jesus preached and to whom he prayed to a triune God of God the Father, God the Son, and God the Holy Spirit. Thus, they elevated the man Jesus to Deity (Paul, Peter, and John referred to Jesus as a man and never as God Himself). Moreover, the council was not even representative of the Church as a whole — as though a council could change God.
    7. From the late fourth century onward, anyone who disagreed with the Catholic doctrine of the Trinity (or any other Catholic doctrine) has been branded a heretic. For more than a thousand years, free religious debate ceased. Apparently, the Trinity Doctrine is so insecure that Trinitarians must suppress any questioning of their doctrine. Moreover, Trinitarians became notorious for their book burning.
    8. Ask a Trinitarian if there is only one God, and he will answer, “Yes.” Ask him if Jesus is God, and again he will answer, “Yes.” Next, ask him if the Heavenly Father is God, and he will answer, “Yes.” Finally, ask him if Jesus is the Heavenly Father, and he will answer, “No.” Thus, the Trinitarian says that there is one God, and then he says that there are two Gods. Which is correct? For there to be only one God, the answer to one of the questions must be incorrect: Jesus is not God; the Heavenly Father is not God; or Jesus is the Heavenly Father. This is the logical and reasonable conclusion. However, the Trinitarian would muster all the logic that Trinitarianism allows and declare, “Not two Gods, but three Gods who are one God” and then quote the Athanasian Creed, “So the Father is God, the Son is God, and the Holy Spirit is God; and yet they are not three Gods, but one God.” Thus, he shows that the Trinity Doctrine is void of logic and reason and relies mainly on mere assertion (and for hundreds of years, on political power).
    9. For many Trinitarians, the test of a true Christian is not believing Jesus, loving him, and striving to follow his example and teachings. It is believing what some ancient councils, about which most Christians know nothing, said about his nature.
    10. Why do Protestants reject the doctrine of Mary being the Mother of God? It is such a component part of the Nicene Trinity Doctrine that for a thousand years any Trinitarian who questioned it was excommunicated and condemned as a heretic.
    11. Jesus, Paul, and John had plenty of opportunities to explain clearly this previously unknown triune God, yet they failed to do so. Why? Completely alien to their Jewish audience, who believed in a unipersonal God, was the concept of a triune God. So obscure is the support of the doctrine of the Trinity and dual nature of Christ in the New Testament that around 400 years after the crucifixion of Jesus, a good application of Greek philosophy, and the frequent use of force against dissenters were needed to discover it.
    12. Nowhere does the Bible declare that there are three equal, eternal beings, each of whom possesses all the attributes of Deity, yet they together constitute but one God. Moreover, nowhere does the Bible claim that Jesus had both a human nature and a divine nature and that these two natures made one person. As these concepts would have been completely new to the Jewish audience to whom Jesus and the apostles preached, one would think that they would have explained these new concepts in detail.
    13. The Trinity Doctrine and its Christology of Jesus having two natures are two dogmas that have been so deeply inculcated in the Christian mind that few Protestants question it — and the few who do are usually condemned as heretics. Yet, these two dogmas are based on Catholic tradition instead of the Scriptures. Whatever scriptural support is given for them it is via Catholic traditional interpretation of Scriptures. However, these supporting verses can just as easily and usually more legitimately be interpreted such that they do not support the Catholic dogma of the Trinity Doctrine and its Christology. (Another Catholic doctrine based more on tradition than on the Scriptures is that of the unity of man, i.e., all humans are descended from a common set of parents. It has been so ingrained in the minds of men that even secular humanists, atheists, and nearly all other non-Christians do not question this dogma. The disagreement between them and the traditional Catholic dogma is when the initial set of patents came into being and how they came to be. Moreover, both believe in Darwinism although many of the followers of the traditional Catholic doctrine deny it.) So much for Protestantism’s boast of freeing itself from Catholic dogma.
    14. Beyond the comprehension of mere Christians are the Trinity Doctrine and its concomitant Christology. Only an enlightened elite, the illuminated ones, can truly understand them — so asserts Gregory of Nazianzus, a principal force behind making the Holy Spirit a coequal, coeternal God along with the Father and the Son. Moreover, Gregory rejected the notion that one can come to know God by applying rational thought to the Scriptures. Apparently, a great deal of philosophical speculation is necessary to really know God. Consequently, Gregory’s claim that only the enlightened can understand the mystery of God is akin to Gnosticism, for the Gnostics maintained that only the enlightened can comprehend the mystery of God.

Copyright © 2019 by Thomas Coley Allen.

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Milton on the Son of God – Part 1

Milton on the Son of God – Part 1

Thomas Allen

    John Milton (1608–1674), who is best known as the author of Paradise Lost, believed in an unipersonal God instead of the triune God of three persons or gods in one God of today’s orthodox Christianity. Thus, Jesus is the Son of God and not God the Son. The following summaries Milton’s view of Christ Jesus, the Son of God, as presented in Milton on the Son of God and the Holy Spirit from His Treatise on Christian Doctrine (London, England: British & Foreign Unitarian Association, 1908). About 150 years would pass before Milton’s essay was published. Page numbers enclosed in parentheses are to the book referenced above. My comments are enclosed in brackets.
    Milton notes that according to the Catholic Church, the Trinity Doctrine cannot be “proved from any passage of Scripture” (p. 1). [At least Catholics are more honest than Protestants.]
    His notion that Christ Jesus is not the second person of a triune God, Milton derives from the Scriptures and the Scriptures alone. [The Trinity Doctrine relies heavily on Greek philosophy, primarily that of Plato and his followers.] For him, the Scriptures alone are “the rule of faith” (p. 1).
    First, Milton discusses generation, “whereby God, in pursuance of his decree, has begotten his only Son” (p. 3). “Generation must be an external efficiency, since the Father and Son are different persons” (p. 3), which the Trinitarians acknowledge. Whereas Milton argues that the Son has a beginning, Trinitarians argue that he is “generated from all eternity” (p. 3).
    Milton notes that “the Father be said in Scripture to have begotten the Son in a double sense, the one literal, with reference to the production of the Son, the other metaphorical, with reference to his exaltation” (p. 4). However, many Trinitarians “have applied the passages which allude to the exaltation and mediatorial functions of Christ as proof of his generation from all eternity” (p. 4). Nevertheless, they claim “that it is impossible to find a single text in all Scripture to prove the eternal generation of the Son” (p. 4).
    Citing John 1:1-3, John 17:5, Colossians 1:15, 16, 18, Revelations 3:14, 1 Corinthians 8:6, and Hebrews 1:2, 5:10, Milton believes “the Son existed in the beginning, under the name of the logos or word, and was the first of the whole creation, by whom afterwards all other things were made both in heaven and earth” (p. 4). Milton states,  “All these passages prove the existence of the Son before the world was made, but they conclude nothing respecting his generation from all eternity” (p. 5). [Milton’s Christology is similar to that of the Arians and the Jehovah’s Witnesses, both of whom claim that the Son is God’s first creation. Contrary to this notion is that of Unitarians who believe that the Son first existed outside the mind of God when God begot him in the womb of Mary.]
    Citing verses concerning Christ’s “resuscitation from the dead, or to his unction to the mediatorial office” (p. 5), Milton concludes “that however the generation of the Son may have taken place, it arose from no natural necessity, as is generally contended, but was no less owing to the decree and will of the Father than his priesthood or kingly power, or his resuscitation from the dead” (pp. 6-7). Moreover, Jesus is called the Son of God “because he had no other Father besides God[:] . . . ‘God was his Father,’ John v. 18” (p. 7). God created Adam from dust and, therefore, was Adam’s creator. However, God is “properly the Father of the Son made of his own substance” (p. 7). [Trinitarians agree with him about the Son being the same substance as the Father.] He continues, “Yet it does not follow from hence that the Son is co-essential with the Father, for then the title of Son would be least of all applicable to him, since he who is properly the Son is not coeval with the Father, much less of the same numerical essence, otherwise the Father and the Son would be one person; nor did the Father beget him from any natural necessity, but of his own free will — a mode more perfect and more agreeable to the paternal dignity” (p. 7). He concludes that “the Son was begotten of the Father in consequence of his decree, and therefore within the limits of time, for the decree itself must have been anterior to the execution of the decree, as is sufficiently clear from the insertion of the word ‘to-day’” (p. 8).
    Citing several verses (John 1:14, 18, 3:16, 18, and 1 John 4:9) where the Son is called “only begotten,” Milton comments, “Yet he is not called one with the Father in essence, inasmuch as he was visible to sight, and given by the Father, by whom also he was sent, and from whom he proceeded; but he enjoys the title of only begotten by way of superiority, as distinguished from many others who are also said to have been born of God. . . . But since throughout the Scriptures the Son is never said to be begotten, except, as above, in a metaphorical sense, it seems probable that he is called only begotten principally because he is the one mediator between God and man” (p. 9).
    Next, he cites several verses (Romans 8:29, Colossians 1:15, 18, Hebrews 1:6, and Revelations 3:14) that refer to the Son as the “first born.” All these “passages preclude the idea of his co-essentiality with the Father, and of his generation from all eternity” (p. 9). [Some Unitarians disagree with Milton on his notion of the preexisting Son. According to some Unitarians, the Son existed in God’s mind as part of his foreordained plan. He did not really come into existence until his miraculous conception.]
    Milton notes that “since to generate another who had no previous existence, is to give him being, and that if God generate by a physical necessity, he can generate nothing but a co-equal Deity, which would be inconsistent with self-existence, an essential attribute of Divinity” (p. 10). Then, he inquires into “how or in what sense God the Father can have begotten the Son” (p. 10). After reviewing the Scriptures, he concludes “that God of his own will created, or generated, or produced the Son before all things, endued with the divine nature, as in the fulness of time he miraculously begat him in his human nature of the Virgin Mary” (p. 10). Moreover, “God imparted to the Son as much as he pleased of the divine nature, nay, of the divine substance itself, care being taken not to confound the substance with the whole essence, which would imply, that the Father had given to the Son what he retained numerically the same himself; which would be a contradiction of terms instead of a mode of generation” (p. 11).
    About the few verses that call the Son, God, which lead to the Trinitarian absurdity of trying to make two to be one, Milton remarks that Trinitarians could have avoided “such violence to reason” (p, 11) if they had paid attention to the Scriptures. Then he cites Psalm 82:6 where God calls the children of Israel gods and John 10:35. [Also, Moses is called God in Exodus 4:16 and 7:1. See below where Milton discusses this issue further.]
    According to the Scriptures, “there is in reality but one true independent and supreme God” (p. 13). Furthermore, “human reason and the common language of mankind, and the Jews, the people of God, have always considered him as one person only” (p. 13). Milton turns to the Scriptures to identify who this God is.
    Since Jesus, the only begotten Son, is in the bosom of the Father (John 1:18), he should know who is God. According to Jesus’ testimony, the Father is the one true God. This testimony is given in Mark 12:28, 29, and 32: “‘Hear, O Israel, the Lord our God is one Lord’ or as it is in the Hebrew, ‘Jehovah our God is one Jehovah’” (p. 14). This conversation between Jesus and the scribe shows that the “unity of God is intended his oneness of person” (p. 15). John 8:41, 54 proves that God is the Father: “[W]e have one Father, even God. . . . [I]t is my Father that honoureth me; of whom ye say that he is your God.” For more proof, Milton cites John 17:3 (“this is life eternal, that they might know thee, the only true God, and Jesus Christ whom thou hast sent”) and John 20:17 (“I ascend unto my Father and your Father; and to my God and your God”). Therefore, if “the Father be the God of Christ, and the same be our God, and if there be none other God but one, there can be no God beside the Father” (p. 16).
    Moreover, Paul, like Jesus, teaches that there is but one God, the Father. [Paul does not teach a triune God or that the Father is one person in God and Jesus is another person in God, yet both are one God.] To support his argument (p. 16), Milton cites 1 Corinthians 8:4-6 (“there is none other God but one . . . there is but one God the Father”). As only one God exists, then not only are all other essences excluded, but all other persons are excluded (p. 16). In the above-cited passage, Paul clearly distinguishes Jesus Christ from God, who is the Father. Referring to 1 Corinthians 8:4-6, Milton adds that if a different causation “of whom all things” applies to God the Father and “by whom are all things” applies to Christ the Son, then“if a difference of causation prove a difference of essence, he [Christ] is distinguished also in essence” (p. 16). He adds, “Besides, since a numerical difference originates in difference of essence, those who are two numerically, must be also two essentially” (p. 17).
    Milton argues that when the Scriptures declare that all things are by Christ, “it must be understood of a secondary and delegated power” (p. 18).
    Referencing Ephesians 4:4-6, Milton argues that “there is one Spirit, and one Lord; but the Father is one, and therefore God is one in the same sense as the remaining objects of which unity is predicated, that is, numerically one, and therefore one also in person” (p. 19). Then, he cites 1 Timothy 2:5 (“there is one God, and one mediator between God and men, the man Christ Jesus”). He states that “the mediator, though not purely human, is purposely named man, by the title derived from his inferior nature, lest he should be thought equal to the Father, or the same God, the argument distinctly and expressly referring to one God” (p. 19). Rhetorically, he asks “how anyone can be a mediator to himself on his own behalf” (p. 19). [Some Unitarians would strongly object with Milton about Jesus not being purely human. If he were not purely human, he could not have been tempted as humans {Hebrews 2:18 and 4:15} are, suffered like them, or died like them, etc. He was like a man in all respects {Hebrews 2:17}. However, Jesus was a uniquely special man in that he was a special messenger of God the Father with a divine mission whose authority came directly from God the Father. He is the one and only Son of God, who has a unique and intimate relationship with God. Moreover, he was filled with the spirit of God. Unfortunately, Milton could not wean himself from the Greek philosophy that had infected Christianity and that underlies the Trinity Doctrine. Thus, he literally interprets passages that suggest that the Son really existed before his conception. Yet, he does not literally interpret passages that declare the Son to be a real man — fully human like every other human but without sin. Consequently, for him as for Trinitarians, the Son is man but not a man. A preexisting spirit incarnated in a human body may become man, but he cannot become a man. One can only become a man if his beginning is with conception — unless all humans preexist spiritually and are incarnated in a human body, which is a concept that nearly all Christians reject — Origen and those who believe in reincarnation being exceptions.]
    Next, he quotes Romans 5:10 (“we were reconciled to God by the death of his Son”). He remarks, “To whatever God we were reconciled, if he be one God, he cannot be the God by whom we are reconciled, inasmuch as that God is another person; for if he be one and the same, he must be a mediator between himself and us, and reconcile us to himself by himself; which is an insurmountable difficulty” (pp. 19-20). [Moreover, how can an immortal, eternal God die? Trinitarians would argue that only the human nature of Jesus died; his divine nature did not. Then many of these same Trinitarians would declare that mankind could not be saved except by the death of God.]
    Milton notes “that the Father alone is a self-existent God, and that a being which is not self-existent cannot be God” (p. 20). This is so evident that no explanation should be required. Then, he remarks:

[I]t is wonderful with what futile subtleties, or rather with what juggling artifices, certain individuals have endeavoured to elude or obscure the plain meaning of these passages; leaving no stone unturned, recurring to every shift, attempting every means, as if their object were not to preach the pure and unadulterated truth of the gospel to the poor and simple, but rather by dint of vehemence and obstinacy to sustain some absurd paradox from falling, by the treacherous aid of sophisms and verbal distinctions, borrowed from the barbarous ignorance of the schools (p. 20).

[Thus, he lambastes Trinitarians.]
    Trinitarians interpret John 10:30 (“I and my Father are one”) to mean that the Son and the Father are one in essence. Milton answers, “Two things may be called one in more than one way” (p. 21). In the previous verse (John 10:29), Jesus said that his Father was greater than all. In John 10:34-36, Jesus denies making himself God. About John 10:36, Milton writes, “This must be spoken of two persons not only not co-essential, but not coequal” (p. 21).
    Moreover, by failing to mention the Holy Spirit, John 10:30 fails to support the Trinity Doctrine. “[T]he Son and the Father without the Spirit are not one in essence” (p. 22) — so argue Trinitarians.
    How are the Son and Father one? “[T]hey are one, inasmuch as they speak and act with unanimity” (p. 22). Jesus said, “believe the works; that ye may know and believe that the Father is in me, and I in him” (John 10:38) and “the words that I speak unto you, I speak not of myself, but the Father that dwelleth in me, he doeth the works” (John 14:10). Thus, when Jesus says that “I and my Father are one,” he means one in “intimacy of communion” (p. 22). He does not mean the unity of essence. He “declares himself to be one with the Father in the same manner as we are one with him — that is, not in essence, but in love, in communion, in agreement, in charity, in spirit, in glory” (p. 22). In support of this conclusion, he cites John 14:20, 21 and 17:21-23.

Copyright © 2018 by Thomas Coley Allen.

Part 2

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The Beliefs of the Early Anabaptists -- Part 1

The Beliefs of the Early Anabaptists

Thomas Allen

    The following is a brief presentation of the beliefs of the early Anabaptists as presented in The Dutch Anabaptists: The Stone Lectures Delivered at the Princeton Theological Seminary, 1918-1919 by Henry Elias Dosker (published by The Judson Press, Philadelphia, 1921). Page numbers enclosed in parentheses are to Dosker’s book referenced above.
    According to Doctor Harnack, the Anabaptists “‘were three hundred years ahead of their time’” (p. 1). “Doctor Vedder calls them ‘the radical Reformation’” (p. 2).
    Initially, two primary factions of Anabaptist existed: the radical and the conservatives. The radical faction lasted only about two decades before it burned itself out. However, their violent behavior left such a disdainful taste in Europe that Protestants and Catholics would persecute the Anabaptist for most of the sixteenth century and even beyond. Some of the beliefs of a few leaders of the radical Anabaptists are presented in the appendix.
    Furthermore, many beliefs of the conservative Anabaptists, such as their rejection of infant baptism and taking oaths, terrified both Catholics and Protestants alike. Thus, both persecuted even the conservative Anabaptist. Luther, Melanchthon, Calvin, Zwingli, and other Protestant leaders condemned them as disciples of Satan (pp. 44-45). Seldom did the persecutors distinguish or even attempt to distinguish the various factions of the Anabaptist. They were all the same: heretical enemies of Church and State.
    Unlike the radical Anabaptists, the conservative Anabaptists had no political aspirations or millennial dreams and shunned carnal lusts (p. 94). For the most part, the conservative “withdrew from the world with almost ascetic austerity” (p. 94). However, many of them manage to acquire a good deal of wealth. Unlike the radical Anabaptists, who paid little or no attention to the Scriptures, the conservatives “depended absolutely on the Scriptures for their faith” (p. 94).
    In their practices, the Anabaptist had “[n]o regular priesthood, great simplicity of worship, no bearing of arms, no oath, but simple affirmation, separation between Church and State, and rebaptism of those who joined them from the old Church” (p. 16). They did not recognize infant baptism; they only accepted “adult baptism, based on the confessed faith of the candidate” (p. 17). Anabaptists “were well versed in the Scriptures, exceedingly strict in their lives, and rigorous in their church discipline” (p. 33).
    They believed themselves to be the chosen people; all others were gentiles. Only they were true Christians (p. 189).
    Anabaptists had no fixed ecclesiastical organization. Each congregation was autonomous (p. 201).
    Anabaptists believed in the absolute authority of the Holy Scriptures. They relied “on the Scriptures and on them alone” (p. 151). Each individual decided for himself what the Scriptures meant. However, they gave little weight to the doctrine of inspiration. Furthermore, “they spiritualize the Scriptures . . . [and] believe them explicitly” (pp. 152-153).  Nevertheless, they tended to read the Scriptures extremely literally. Still, the Scriptures “have an inner meaning, which may or may not be the same to different individuals” (p. 153). Following the Church of Rome, nearly all Anabaptists seem to accept the Apocrypha of the Old Testament as canonical (p. 153).
    Baptism was a distinguishing characteristic of the Anabaptist. The distinction was not in the form or method of baptism. The Anabaptists followed the common practices of the day of using affusion, i.e., pouring water over the head, or sprinkling (pp. 32, 180). (Baptism by immersion was not used until the mid-seventeenth century when their Baptist descendants adopted immersion, which was the form used by the early Christians, as the only appropriate method of baptism [pp. 176-177, 182]) Initially, rebaptism was optional (p. 32).
    Their distinction was their refusal to baptize infants and to accept the baptism of infants. To the Protestants and Catholics of the sixteenth century, such treatment of infants made them child-murders because “the age-long doctrine of the Church of Rome anent the absolute necessity of baptism to secure the salvation of the child” (p. 44). (Most Anabaptists did not even accept the baptism of children or teenagers.) Thus, the distinguishing characteristic “is the status of the child in the church of God. . . . It is the question of the immutability of the God of the covenant [Old Testament] and of the permanency of the covenant of grace [New Testament] and therefore of the true Scriptural significance of the sacrament of baptism” (pp. 183-184).
    Anabaptists believed in “adult baptism on confession of a personal faith in Christ” (p. 176). According to Anabaptist teaching, faith must precede baptism. As infants and young children lack the capacity to understand the gospel, the baptism of infants and young children was rejected. Moreover, “[i]nfant baptism is anti-Christian and of Satanic origin” (p. 185).
    The Anabaptists were not Trinitarians in the orthodox sense of the Trinity. They objected to the Trinitarian teachings of “consubstantiality” and “person” because of their lack of Scriptural support. However, they freely used the term “Trinity” by which they seem to mean God’s impenetrability or an expression of God’s being (pp 153-154).
    They may not have been Trinitarians in the sense of the Athanasian Creed. However, many Anabaptists believed that the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit were so intertwined that they were inseparable — the “one is not without the other,” that is, the “one must be conjoined with the other, or the entire Deity is denied”  (p. 156). Others held that only one God existed, and in the New Testament, this God is called the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit (p. 156).
    For most, “the Holy Spirit has no independent personal existence. He is merely the ‘inspiration,’ ‘the inward moving of the heart to things that are good’” (p. 155). Moreover, “God’s Spirit cannot thus separate itself from God” (p. 155). Besides, “God’s Spirit can [not] be conceived apart from himself . . . [or else the Spirit] would form a separate, self-existent, personal being” (p. 155). Also, the Father is a self-existing being, but the “Holy Spirit is no independent or personal being” (p. 155).
    In summary, the Anabaptists lacked a clear idea of the Trinity. Some approached the Catholic Trinity Doctrine whereas others resembled  Modalism (God, who is one person, exists in three modes or manifestation: the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit). Yet, others approached Unitarianism or Socinianism (p. 157).
    Some Anabaptists believed that Jesus Christ had two natures: divine and human (p. 157). Others denied Christ divine honors (p. 159). Still, for others, Christ had only a divine nature.
    On the incarnation, most Anabaptist believed “that Christ had not taken his human body from Mary” (p. 82). They rejected the notion that Christ was incarnated of the Virgin Mary because of her sinful flesh (p. 160). Christ, the Word, did not take “his flesh and blood from the Virgin Mary; but has become flesh and blood in Mary’s womb, that is, he has been changed into it” (p. 160).
    God “‘has sent his own eternal word of power into this world, in the flesh, which has become flesh and a body, in form like any other man, without sin, and that he has been a bodily, visible word of God. . . . He has not taken flesh unto himself, but has become flesh and a body’” (pp. 160-161). Thus, Christ did not take his flesh and blood from Mary. He, as the Word, was made flesh and blood in Mary. Therefore, Christ did not possess two natures (p. 162).
    Whereas the Mennonite Anabaptists and most other Anabaptists accepted the notion of a preexisting Christ and, by that, an incarnation similar to that taught by the Church of Rome, some rejected it. For those who rejected the incarnation, Jesus was a natural but a sinless man. However, “‘God’s word, God’s will, God’s spirit, [and] God’s nature’” (p. 163) indwelt Christ along with an imminent conversation with God, which made him more than Adam’s flesh. Christ was the Son of God, “in so far as he was like God, in all the operations of heart and soul and mind, and thus felt himself to be the Son of God” (p. 164).
    However, most Anabaptists accepted the divinity of Christ. As for his humanity, most believed that the “‘Word within the body of Mary was changed into flesh, without taking over anything from the nature of Mary’” (p. 165). Christ had abandoned “his first, eternal, divine substance or essence . . . [and] was changed into another, i.e., a human substance and thus became man, able to suffer and to die, and has lost his first essence’” (p. 166). Thus, Christ had no human father or mother or relations. Nevertheless, many embraced the Catholic concept of the incarnation (p. 170).
    Anabaptists believed “that sin entered this world through Adam’s disobedience” (p. 171). However, Christ removed everything that Adam’s sin introduced, including death, into the world. As for children, the obedience of Christ, not baptism, liberates children from the liability of eternal damnation. Thus, “‘they deny absolutely that original sin, in young children, tends to eternal death’” (p. 172). For most Anabaptists, the atonement of Christ wiped out original sin.
    Anabaptists believed that all have sinned, but most believed that all “are called to salvation, because Christ died for all. This universal call presupposes the power to answer it. The cause of one’s damnation never lies with God” (p. 174).  Although God forces no man, he desires all to turn from self to him. They contend that all “salvation is from grace, but that grace is common to all” (p. 175). Like the Church of Rome, “they saw in justification a medicinal rather than a forensic act of God” (p. 175).
    Anabaptists “believed in salvation through Christ, but they glorified the Christian life” (p. 152). This stress was the result of “the legalistic character of their theology” (p. 152). Many so overemphasized the Christian life in the present that little regards were given to heaven or hell (p. 175).
    Anabaptists opposed “the mass, with its altars, images, garments, and, all its
heathenish ceremonies” (p. 151). Most followed the teachings of other Protestants on the Lord’s Supper. However, a few modified it (p. 185). Their churches lacked musical instruments (p. 214).
    A major cause of strife among the Anabaptists was the “ban”, i.e., excommunication. One congregation would ban one of its members or even another congregation over matters ranging from important doctrinal issues to such trivial matters as how one walked. Although the Anabaptists were “governed by the principle of individualism” (p. 190), the ban became popular and was a major cause of controversy among the  Anabaptists and the primary cause of schisms.
    Anabaptists were “a body of believers who had deliberately turned their backs on the world and now were a people separate unto the Lord” (p. 189). Any member who failed to live up to the ascetic standards of the congregation was banned, excommunicated. Whereas some congregations were fairly tolerant, others were extremely strict and would ban a member for any deviation.
    An example of the rigorousness of the ban was a marriage between a church member and a nonchurch member. For some, only marriages between members of the Anabaptist church were recognized (in this regard, they were similar to the Church of Rome). Anyone who married someone outside the church was banned and could never be reconciled or readmitted to the church (p. 190).
    Besides an inappropriate marriage, a person could be banned because his house, furniture, clothing, or ornamentation was above the standards of the congregation. (Although the Anabaptists did not condemn wealth, they did condemn ostentatiousness [p. 199].) Likewise, one could be banned for social contact with nonchurch members or a banned person or for attending the funeral of a nonchurch member (p. 194).
    Members of the church were not to have anything to do with a banned person, even if the person banned was a parent, child, spouse, or sibling. The ban prohibited all intercourse with the banned person, including buying, selling, eating, drinking, or conversing (p. 193).
    Although eschatology was important to many Anabaptists in the early years, the fanaticism that it caused resulted in the Mennonite descendants of the Anabaptists virtually to ignore eschatology, the future, heaven, and hell (p. 196).
    Women were not allowed to speak in their meetings and were not allowed to vote in the election of elders and deacons (p. 17). However, women occupied an honored place in their church life (p. 214).
    Some beliefs peculiar to a small minority of Anabaptist were polygamy (because “the Bible saints had practised it” [p. 82]) and the refusal to wear clothes (because “they were the naked truth, the image of God, and therefore were ashamed of nothing” [pp. 88-89].
    As shown above, the Anabaptists lack uniformity in their beliefs. They were highly variable on many important doctrines of Christianity, which should be expected from its decentralized structure and individualism with each congregation and even each individual free to decipher the truth from the Holy Scriptures.
    Because of the fanatics, the name “Anabaptist” had become synonymous with “violence, outrage, rebellion, sensuality, and every kind of outrage” (p. 92). Because of the stigma attached to “Anabaptist,” most Anabaptists rebranded themselves under different names. They became the Baptists and Mennonites. Many faded into the nonconformist movement in the Church of England (p. 46). Also, included among their descendants are the Quakers, English Independents, and Congregationalists (pp. 292-293).

Copyright © 2018 by Thomas Coley Allen

Part 2: Appendix

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