ShupFace

Tonight we learned about the Trinity at church. The sermon was pretty decent and when we came home Cat and I looked up the Athanasian Creed for more details. I was momentarily sidetracked when another hit on my Google search led me to a Unitarian website.

Unitarians believe that there is one God, but no Trinity. They believe that the Holy Spirit is another name for God and Jesus is a completely unique individual, but is ultimately still just a man. On the front page of their website is a small list of verses commonly used to support Trinitarian doctrine.

John 8:58, “Before Abraham was, I am”, and John 10:30, “I and my father are one”, are both quoted and an argument is made for why neither statement should be read as Jesus saying he is God. In neither explanation of the verse do they mention that in both cases the Jews wanted to stone Jesus for blaspheming. We know that it is possible to read his words as blasphemy because the Jews say it outright in 10:33, “We are not stoning you for any of these [miracles],” replied the Jews, “but for blasphemy, because you, a mere man, claim to be God.” It’s no good claiming they misunderstood. A skilled speaker, teacher and all round learned dude like Jesus would have known exactly the impact his words would have. If he is not one with God why would he skirt the very edge of blasphemy like that?

Then I noticed a link to more Verses Commonly Used to Try to Support the Doctrine of the Trinity. The number of verses alone (seventeen in the old testament and eighty-nine in the new testament) is a persuasive argument for the Trinity. You can argue that every single one is a mistranslation or misunderstanding, but after a while the argument starts to wear a little thin.