by A.S.K. Joommal

            As if the Doctrine of Atonement was not enough to bewilder the simple, good Christians, the Church Councils of earlier centuries of the Christian era burdened them with a further confusing dogma known as TRINITY. Trinity is one of the fundamental pillars of Christian belief. Without faith in this doctrine, the Christianity of a Christian is as incomplete and wanting as a square table with only three legs! 

            At about the middle of the third century there arose a sect, the Sabellians, which created a further division in the Church. This sect did not concede divinity to Christ – regarding him only as a man – but believed that a certain energy proceeding from the Supreme Father had united itself with the man Jesus thus making him the son of God. This strange doctrine, regarded  by Gibbon as an approach to Unitarianism, was the cause of serious disorders in the Christian Church and led to the declaration by Origen* in the early part of the 4^th century, of the doctrine  of three distinct personalities in the Godhead. Tritheism, or the belief in three gods, was only a modification of the ancient paganism suited to the character of the people who had adopted the creed of Christ. Polytheism (belief in many gods) was ingrained in their nature, and tritheism was a compromise between the teachings of Jesus and the ancient worship of a number of gods. As time went on, tritheism became absorbed into the doctrine of trinity. 

            Christians cannot claim Trinity to be an exclusively Christian belief, manufactured and patented by God for the followers of Jesus only. We find that in the Egypt of old, a trinity of gods – Horus, Isis and Osiris – were worshipped by the Egyptians long, long before the advent of Christianity. 

            It is also no secret that in the ancient Persian religion of Mithraism, Mithra was one of the persons of the trinity. Trinity is also to be found in the Hindu religion of India. The three persons of the Hindu Trinity are Brahma, Vishnu and Siva. The Persians and Hindus of yore, like the Christians of present-day, believed that their saviour-god died for the sins of the believers. 

            The person to whom Christianity owes its belief in Trinity and Incarnation was St. Basil (330-79) of Cappadocia. It was, however, Theophilus, the Bishop of Antioch, who was the first to employ the word Trinity or Triad. Trinity means a group or combination of three individuals or entities, or the state of being three or threefold. In the religious language of the Christians, Trinity means the union of three persons of the Godhead: God the Father, God the Son, and God the Holy Ghost. These three are distinct persons, yet they are one. In nature and essence all three are one. They are co-equal and consubstantial, that is, they are made of the same essence. The one is in all three, and the three are all in one. 

            We do not understand this. You, the reader, may not understand it. Our Christian friends themselves do not understand it. But they maintain that if you believe in the Holy Trinity, you will be SAVED. 

            The Trinity is a Holy Mystery. It is the mystery of mysteries. If the doctrine of Atonement confuses you, the dogma of Trinity confounds you completely. Try as diligently, as conscientiously and as painstakingly as you may, you simply cannot solve this arithmetical puzzle. All the multiplication tables we learnt at school prove useless when it comes to working out the Trinity. By all rules of Mathematics, three times one equals to three (3 x 1 = 3). But in Christian arithmetic, three times one equals to one! (3 x 1 = 1). Of course you would NEVER be able to work this out because it is a mystery. And we are told by the priests NOT to use our reason in trying  to understand the dogmas of the Church. So that is the crux of the matter. We are not supposed to use our God-given power of reasoning in order to understand that which we are asked to believe. Our belief in these doctrines must be BLIND, UNQUESTIONING, ABSOLUTE! Whoever questions these beliefs, albeit in all sincerity in order   to understand them, is doomed to eternal damnation. 

            If the author of this book does not understand this doctrine, it does not matter. If you, dear reader, do not understand it, it is of no consequence because you are only a layman; but what about the deeply learned theologians and professors of Christianity who ought to know better and who, without mincing words, admit total  failure in understanding the mysterious Trinity? Does not one’s common sense tell one that most certainly there must be something awfully wrong, something terribly illogical, something unspeakably ridiculous about this doctrine that even those who profess to “understand” it and who preach it, do not understand it at all? How could they ever understand it, for it was never divinely revealed, but is merely a man-made theory! 

            The wisest of the Christian theologians, the great Athanasius himself, had candidly confessed that whenever he forced his understanding on the question of Trinity, “his toilsome and unavailing efforts recoiled on themselves; that the more he thought, the less he comprehended; and the more he wrote, the less capable he was of expressing his thought."** 

            The only reference to Trinity in the Bible is to be found in the First Epistle of St. John, Chapter 5, Verse 7: “For there are three that bear record in heaven, the Father, the Word, and the Holy Ghost: and these three are one.” This reference is not found in any Greek manuscript because the Doctrine of Trinity was not part of the Church’s teaching until it was incorporated into Christianity at the Council of Nicaea, 325 A.C. Consequently this verse is now omitted from the Revised Version of the Bible which was published in 1881. 

            In the Revised Version of the New Testament there is no reference whatsoever to the Trinity, and the Church has not a scrap of authority for claiming that Jesus is part of God and that they, together with the Holy Ghost, make up one God. The intelligent (!) leaders of the Church today know this, but in spite of the fact that they have not a particle of evidence to justify the preaching of this doctrine, they continue to do so Sunday after Sunday, making the people think that they have divine authority for this belief. 

            If the Church elders have any respect for Reason and Truth, they will realize that this doctrine on which the whole structure of superstition is built, has no theological, moral or logical justification whatsoever. They will appreciate that Trinity is an ancient belief that can be traced back thousands of years into the dim and misty past.

              To a rational mind, Trinity is an insult to God. It is the kind of blasphemy, I make bold to say, that God will never forgive. Trinity is a remnant and relic of the remote PAGAN past. Jesus Christ preached pure, unadulterated monotheism. His simple, beautiful religion was defiled by his followers who incorporated into it large quantities of Roman, Greek, Egyptian and other pagan mythology. In scores of places in the Bible we read how emphatically Christ asserted the unity, the ONENESS of God. This Oneness of God, of course, was too simple a belief  for  the early Church fathers who in Bithynia established the Nicene Creed by dividing ONE God into three, thus complicating matters for everybody and confounding generation after generation of Christians. 

            The Holy Ghost, which is the connecting link, is the third person of the Holy Trinity. What exactly is the function of the Holy Ghost? If God, Christ and the Holy Ghost are ONE although they are THREE, then where does the function of one end and of the other two begin? Have these three beings assigned to themselves different tasks and do they do them collectively as one or severally as three – each in his own  area of activity? The writer of this book maintains that these are questions to which there are NO answers, and they must forever remain a mystery.  

The Church Councils 

            General Councils of the Church used to be held every fifty or hundred years to decide on important matters of belief affecting Christianity. 

            The following is a list of the General Councils recognized by the Roman Catholics: 

              The common purpose of the first eight councils was to determine whether specific theological novelties were orthodox (i.e. consonant with the Bible faith as handed down) or heretical (not orthodox). The rest of the councils, all held in Western Europe, have dealt extensively with church discipline and morals. Two of them, the Second Council of Lyons and the Council of Ferrara-Florence, were occupied with abortive reconciliations between East and West. 

            The ascription of deity to Jesus by the Church is shown in the development of the Doctrine of Trinity by the General Councils of the Church:

UNITY OF GOD IN THE BIBLE 

            As opposed to the Doctrine of Trinity which is man-made, we find the Unity of God proclaimed in scores of places in the Bible. From the time of Abraham all the prophets of God, including Moses and Jesus, preached the uncompromising UNITY of God. But those who inherited the religion of Jesus and established the so-called “Church”, divided God into three parts thus totally adulterating the simple, beautiful creed that Jesus preached. The Christianity of to-day bears no resemblance whatsoever to the pure, monotheistic religion of Jesus. The Christianity preached by modern churches (which has been aptly designated as “Churchianity”) is as far removed in character, essence and content from the Religion of Jesus as chalk is from cheese! St. Paul, the Jewish convert to Christianity, altered this religion to such an extent by his own opinions and assertions that very little has remained to distinguish Christianity from “Peculiarity.” The faith, therefore, as practised by present-day Christians, is a strange mixture of paganism, Paulianity and Churchianity. It has no connection at all with the dispensation brought by Jesus Christ, the holy PROPHET of God! 

            To come back to the Unity of God as contained in the Bible: this would best be illustrated by actual quotations from the holy book of Christians. We find that the Old Testament lays great emphasis on the expression “ONE God” 

1.          “I AM THE LORD THY GOD, WHICH HAVE BROUGHT THEE OUT OF THE LAND OF EGYPT, OUT OF THE HOUSE OF BONDAGE. THOU SHALT HAVE NO OTHER GODS BEFORE ME.” (Exodus. 20:1-3) 

2.          “HEAR O ISRAEL, THE LORD OUR GOD IS ONE LORD.”  (Deuteronomy, 6:4) 

3.             “BEFORE ME THERE WAS NO GOD FORMED. NEITHER SHALL BE AFTER ME.”  (Isaiah, 43:10) 

4.          “I, EVEN I, AM THE LORD; AND BESIDES ME THERE IS NO SAVIOUR.” (Isaiah, 43:11) 

5.          “THUS SAITH THE LORD, KING OF ISRAEL. I AM THE FIRST AND I AM THE LAST; AND BESIDES ME THERE IS NO GOD.”   (Isaiah, 44:6) 

6.          “IS THERE A GOD BESIDE ME? YEA, THERE IS NO GOD; I KNOW NOT ANY.”  (Isaiah, 44:8) 

7.          “I AM THE LORD, AND THERE IS NONE ELSE; THERE IS NO GOD BESIDE ME.”  (Isaiah, 45:5) 

8.          “I AM GOD AND THERE IS NONE ELSE; I AM GOD, AND THERE IS NONE LIKE ME.”    (Isaiah, 46:9) 

            The NEW TESTAMENT is no less emphatic on the indivisibility and absolute ONENESS of the Lord Almighty. In perfectly clear and lucid terms, Christ testifies to the unqualified UNITY of God as follows: 

1.          “And this is life eternal, that they might know Thee, the ONLY true God, and Jesus Christ, whom Thou hast sent.” (John, 17:3) 

            Note that Christ here refers to himself as one who is “sent” by the Almighty and NOT as God or son of God. Christ here is addressing God. If he were God, how could he address himself? 

            Christians argue that in their vocabulary ONE God stands for a triune godhead comprising God the Father, God the Son, and God the Holy Ghost; that the three are ONE and one is THREE. But this contention is refuted by the above-quoted verse in which the Messiah is mentioned as distinct from the ONLY TRUE GOD. The words are:  “…the only true God AND Jesus Christ whom Thou hast sent.” Here the expression “the only true God” is used distinctly separate from the Messiah who is NOT INCLUDED in it. The “AND” in the above verse clearly separates “the only true God” from “Jesus Christ whom Thou hast sent.” 

            It is quite clear, therefore, that THE ONLY TRUE GOD is distinctly different and discrete from Christ, and is not in conjunction with him. If Christ were God, he would not have been mentioned SEPARATELY, which shows that he is NOT  a part of the Person of the ONLY God. 

2.          “The first of all the Commandments is, Hear, O Israel; The Lord our God is ONE Lord.”  (Mark, 12:29) 

3.          “And call no man your Father upon the earth: for ONE  is your Father, which is in heaven.” (Matthew, 23:9) 

            It is interesting to note here that Christ did not say “…For THREE is your Father, which is in heaven.” Furthermore, he emphasized the fact that call no MAN your Father. His prophetic vision had indicated to him that after him his followers would deify him and call him God. Thus, being a mere man and mortal, and being fully aware of his own human nature, he had forewarned his followers NOT to call any Man (meaning himself) their Father, stressing the fact that the Father is only ONE, which is in Heaven! 

4.          “Thou shalt worship the Lord thy God, and him ONLY  thou shalt serve.” (Matthew, 4:10) 

            If Christ was God and if he were aware of the triune character of his Godhood, then he would have commanded his followers thus: “Thou shalt worship the Lord thy God in His three manifestations, and the Father, the Son and the Holy Ghost shalt thou serve.” The reason why Jesus did not say so is too obvious to merit any amplification here. 

5.          “Why callest thou me good? There is none good but ONE, that is God.” (Mattew, 19: 16-17) 

             In spite of all this overwhelming Biblical evidence of the Unity, the ONENESS of the Lord Almighty, Christians have set Him up into three distinct personalities and still have the audacity to call Him “One” God – all three of them gathered in one! 

            To the monotheistic mind, such dogmas that violate the Absolute ONENESS and Indivisibility of the Lord Almighty, are sheer blasphemy. 

            The Bible invites our Christian friends to believe in ONE God. But they are defying the Bible and adhere to what the padres and bishops are asking them to believe. In other words they have given their bishop’s word priority and honour above the word of their Bible. It means that they are loyal to their parish priest, but not loyal to God. It means that the Bible is relegated to a secondary place and the priests’commands have taken precedence over the commandments of God. Actually, the priests and bishops have themselves disregarded the commandment of God by believing Him to be THREE gods in one when God asks them to believe in Him as ONE, SINGLE God. So if the shepherds themselves have gone astray, who can blame the flock for getting lost beyond recall in a welter of dogmatic confusion? 

            What amazes one is that despite all their learning these “Men of God” have failed dismally to use their God-given gift of reason. And they have forbidden their congregation also, on pain of eternal damnation, to use their sense of reason. William Drummond had made a most pregnant remark when he said: “He who will not reason is a bigot, he who cannot is a fool; and he who dares not is a slave!” 

            No slavery is more abject, and no slave is in a more terrible condition than he whose every single brain-cell is enchained to senseless, incomprehensible dogmas, and who makes no effort at all to free himself from this slavery, knowing – consciously or unconsciously perhaps – the utter absurdity of the doctrines he professes to cherish as true.

TEN QUESTIONS ON TRINITY 

(1) Jesus “was crucified through weakness” (2 Corinthians, 13:4). Since a weak God was unable to bear the burden of all the sinners of the world, he was tied with two other gods to make him strong. Three gods are stronger than one God. This principle has been enunciated in the Bible in the following words:  “A threefold cord is not quickly broken.” (Ecclesiastes, 4:12). If such is not the case, then is there any other plausible explanation of this unity of the gods in the trinity? When Jesus died on the Cross, what happened to the other two persons of the Trinity? Did they also die with him? 

(2) (a) Did God ever claim in the New Testament that he is the first person of the trinity? 

     (b)   Did Jesus ever claim in the New Testament that he is the second person of the trinity? 

     (c)   Did the Holy Ghost ever make a statement to any of the ecclesiastical gentlemen that he is the third person of the trinity? 

(3)             According to Christian theology, God, Jesus and the Holy Ghost are consubstantial, that is, they are of one and the same substance. Of what substance are the three persons of the trinity made? If we can establish the substance of one person, we can establish the substance of the other two, because all three are of the same substance. Regarding the substance of Jesus, the Bible  says the he “was made of the seed of David” (Romans, 1:3). Therefore, are not the Father and the Holy Ghost of the same substance as Jesus, i.e. of the seed of David? 

(4)             Christians assert that Christ is co-equal with the Father. If this is the case, then how do they explain the following statement of Jesus: “My Father is greater than I”? (John, 14:28) 

(5)             Christians also believe that Jesus is co-equal with the Holy Ghost, but Christ thought otherwise: “And whosoever speaketh a word against the son of Man, it shall be forgiven him: but whosoever speaketh against the Holy Ghost, it shall not be forgiven him, neither in this world, neither in the world to come.” (Matthew, 12:32). Is it not clear from this that Jesus was decidedly inferior to the Holy Ghost? 

(6)             According to the Athanasian Creed, “The Holy Ghost is of the Father and of the Son: neither made, nor created, nor begotten, but proceeding.” The question is: how and where is it proceeding from, and at what rate, and to what end? 

(7)         The Son and the Holy Ghost are not Father, nor the Father and the Holy Ghost are begotten, nor the Father and the Son are proceeding. Each of them is distinct from others as day is distinct from night. How, then, can they merge in one body without losing their separate identity? 

(8)         If the three persons of the trinity are one, and according to the Athanasian Creed, “none is afore, or after other: none is greater, or less than another”, then why could not the order in which the three persons appear, be reversed, that is, the Holy Ghost, the Son, and the Father as the first, second and third persons of the trinity respectively? Like a ball, if you turn it upside down, its position will remain the same. 

(9)         Jesus came “in the likeness of sinful flesh” (Romans, 8:3). How, then, can Jesus be in the likeness of God or be His Co-Equal if he was in the likeness of sinful flesh? “Shall mortal  man be more just than God? Shall a man be more pure than his Maker?” (Job, 4:17) 

(10)      Jesus was circumcised (Luke, 2:21). The missing foreskin indicates that he was not in the perfect form as when he was born. So how can an imperfect man be equal to a perfect God? 

*  ORIGEN:  Origenes Admantius  (A.C. 185? – 254?) was an Alexandrian writer, Christian theologian and teacher.

** “Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire” by Edward Gibbon.