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How strange it is that some Trinitarians are actually fond of asserting the veracity of their doctrine while simultaneously admitting its incomprehensibility! One time Daniel Webster was asked, “How can an intelligent man like you believe that three is one?” He replied, “I do not pretend to understand the arithmetic of heaven.” Mr. Webster was like most Trinitarians, who accept their doctrine by blind faith as an unfathomable mystery that originated in heaven even though they assent to its utter incomprehensibility.
Abraham Lincoln (1809 – 1865) was perhaps the greatest president in U.S. history and one of the greatest men of God in his generation. As a U.S. Senator campaigning to become the sixteenth U.S. president, the media asked him why he had never joined a church. Being a lawyer, Mr. Lincoln replied, “It’s because I can’t understand their creeds.” One wonders if he had in mind mostly Trinitarianism. Lincoln came from the region where the anti-Trinitarian Christian Church denomination was centered.
Many Trinitarians, both clergy and laity, insist that their doctrine is so complex that it is best to believe it and leave it. They mean, “leave it only for scholars to discuss.” Trinitarians have a famous ditty that can strike fear into the heart of most any Trinitarian who might be considering arguments for the implausibility of their doctrine. It is this:
Try to explain the doctrine of the Trinity and you’ll lose your mind.
But try to deny it and you’ll lose your soul.22
Restitution of the True Doctrine of God and Christ
Hans Kung critiques the doctrine of the Trinity as it relates to inter-religious dialogue between adherents of Judaism, Christianity, and Islam. He then states:
I shall try to sum up in three sentences what seems to me to be the biblical nucleus of the traditional doctrine of the Trinity, in light of the New Testament considered for today:
-To believe in God the Father means to believe in the one God, creator, preserver and perfecter of the world and humankind; Judaism, Christianity, and Islam have this belief in one God in common.
-To believe in the Holy Spirit means to believe in God’s effective might and power in human beings and the world: Jews, Christians, and Muslims also have this belief in God’s Spirit in common.
-To believe in the Son of God means to believe in the revelation of the one God in the man Jesus of Nazareth who is thus God’s Word, Image and Son.23
Here is a restitution of the Bible‘s teaching on God the Father, Jesus Christ, and the Holy Spirit. I couldn’t have said it better myself. Without admitting it, Kung redefines the doctrine of the Trinity as follows: (1) the one God is exclusively the Father, (2) the Holy Spirit is the power of God, and (3) Jesus’ uniqueness is that God the Father has revealed Himself fully in Him. Kung adds, “For the New Testament, as for the Hebrew Bible, the principle of unity is clearly the one God (ho theos: the God = the Father).”24
22Cited by Millard J. Erickson, Introducing Christian Doctrine, ed. L. Arnold Hustad (Grand Rapids: Baker, Seminary, 1992), 105. According to Lewis Sperry Chafer (Systematic Theology, 8 vols. [Dallas: Dallas Theological Seminary, 1947], 1:288), Robert South (Works, 2:184) penned the original as follows: “As he that denies it may lose his soul; so he that too much strives to understand it may lose his wits.”
23Hans Kung, Credo: The Apostles’ Creed Explained for Today (ET 1992; repr. Eugene, OR: Wipf and Stock, 2003), 154.
24Ibid.
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