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The Distortion of the Trinity: an Investigation of the Trinity As Evidenced in The

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The Distortion of the Trinity: an Investigation of the Trinity As Evidenced in The LIBERTY UNIVERSITY SCHOOL OF DIVINITY The Distortion of the Trinity: An Investigation of the Trinity as Evidenced in the Teachings of Three Major Religions. A Thesis Submitted to The Faculty of the School of Divinity In Candidacy for the Degree of Master of Arts in Christian Apologetics School of Divinity By Laken Hendron Lynchburg, Virginia April 26, 2019 i Abstract The nature of the Trinity is a central and salvific doctrine within biblical Christianity. The divine nature of the person of God the Father, Son and Holy Spirit is pertinent to Christian teachings and a proper understanding of God is crucial to authentic worship and belief. Cults or heterodoxic religions, such as Mormonism, Jehovah’s Witnesses, and Oneness Pentecostalism have discounted, distorted or dismissed the Three-in-One doctrine of the Trinity, as found in classical Christian theism. These false doctrines can affect teachings about justification, sanctification, the role and work of the cross and an understanding of the nature of God. The nature of the Trinity can be better understood after a careful examination of three major cultic offshoots of Christianity and their distortion of the Trinity, as evidenced by their teachings in comparison to Scripture. Abstract length: 134 words ii Contents Introduction ....................................................................................................... 1 Biblical and Scriptural Development of the Trinity .................................... 2 Biblical Development .................................................................................. 2 Scriptural Development ............................................................................... 8 Church Fathers and Historic Trinitarian Documents ................................... 49 Church Councils and Trinitarian Doctrine ................................................... 57 Names and Origins of Trinitarian Heresies ................................................. 60 Mormons .......................................................................................................... 66 Mormon Doctrine of God ............................................................................ 66 Apologetic Defense ...................................................................................... 72 Jehovah’s Witnesses ........................................................................................ 76 Jehovah’s Witnesses Doctrine of God .......................................................... 78 Apologetic Defense ....................................................................................... 83 Oneness Pentecostal Church ........................................................................... 84 Oneness Pentecostal Doctrine of God ............................................................ 86 Apologetic Defense ........................................................................................ 88 Biblical Defense of the Trinity ....................................................................... 92 Bible Verses that Demonstrate the Trinity ................................................... 93 Bible Verses Commonly Used Against the Trinity ..................................... 106 Theological Defense of the Trinity ................................................................. 117 Salvation Through the Cross, Christ and His Deity ...................................... 117 God and the Holy Spirit, Defense of His Deity and Person .......................... 119 Philosophical Defense of the Trinity ............................................................. 120 iii The Sufficiency of God ..................................................................................... 120 The Love of God ............................................................................................... 121 The Eternity of God .......................................................................................... 122 Conclusion ........................................................................................................ 123 Bibliography ..................................................................................................... 126 iv Introduction This paper will examine and critically engage the different distortions of the doctrine of the Trinity taught in three religious’ cults, displaying how each has distorted the traditional, orthodox understanding of the triune God. The religions that will be apologetically examined are Mormonism, Jehovah’s Witnesses, and Oneness Pentecostals. Each religion discussed in this paper exhibits teachings that were deemed heretical in early Christianity. The doctrine of the Trinity is vital and speaks to the nature of God. The distortion of the Trinity affects who God is and how He relates to His creation. The doctrine of the Trinity should be defended. Without the Trinity, the church does not have the God of the Bible, but rather a distorted depiction and a god made in man’s image. “Scripture demands from us the acknowledgment of the Unity of the Godhead, and also of those interior distinctions between Father, Son, and Spirit which we can only express by our word Person.”1 In order to discuss orthodox teaching compared to heretical teaching of the Trinity, definitions must be understood. The definition of Trinity is that there is one God, and three distinct divine persons. The use of the word “person” regarding the Trinity means “that each of them subsists distinct from the others in the divine nature.”2 Trinity “signifies the number of persons in one essence; and hence we cannot say that the Father is the Trinity.”3 “The Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit who deserve to be called God, and yet there is but one God, not three.”4 1 W.H. Griffeth Thomas, The Holy Spirit of God (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1976), 127. 2 Thomas V. Morris, “The Doctrine of the Trinity”. In Christian Apologetics: An Anthology of Primary Sources, edited by Khaldoun A. Swies and Chad V. Meister, 229-235 (Grand Rapids, MI: Zondervan, 2012), 220. 3 Ibid., 220. 4 James Porter Moreland and William Lane Craig, Philosophical Foundations for a Christian Worldview (Downers Grove, IL: InterVarsity Press, 2017), 575. 1 In the Trinity, “there is one divine substance or essence or nature and three persons or perhaps hypostases.”5 The “unity of God is understood by one divine essence common to all three persons.”6 The Father, the Son and Holy Spirit are each God.7 “As the living God, He is always beyond our necessary and particular description of Him.”8 It must be understood that the Trinity “transcends reason”, but this does not negate the reality or objective truth found in the doctrine, that must be defended against heresy.9 Biblical and Scriptural Development of the Trinity Biblical Development An examination of the biblical development of Trinitarian doctrine provides a clear understanding of the triune nature of God. It is crucial to demonstrate the alignment of Christianity’s belief in the Three-in-One with the Judaic monotheistic God of the Old Testament. Jewish scriptures reflect that Israel was commanded from the very beginning to worship the one God, with one of the “clearest expressions of monotheistic belief” found in the forty-third through forty-eight chapters of Isaiah.10 The Jews resisted worship of any figure including 5 Neil Ormerod, The Trinity: Retrieving the Western Tradition (Milwaukee, WI: Marquette University Press, 2005), 14. 6 Kyle Claunch, “What God Hath Done Together: Defending the Historic Doctrine of the Inseparable Operations of the Trinity.” Journal of the Evangelical Theological Society 56, no.4 (2013): 781. 7 Stephen Bullivant, The Trinity: How not to be a Heretic (New York; Mahwah, NJ: Paulist Press, 2015) NP. 8 John G. Flett, “In the Name of the Father, the Son and the Holy Spirit: A Critical Reflection of the Trinitarian Theologies of Religion of S. Mark Heim and Gavin D’costa.” International Journal of Systemic Theology 10, no. 1(2008): 90. 9 Morris, “The Doctrine of the Trinity”, 220. 10 Larry W. Hurtado, Lord Jesus Christ: Devotion to Jesus in Early Christianity (Grand Rapids, MI: William B. Eerdmans Publishing Co., 2003), 30. 2 “divine agents” such as angels; the only recipient of their worship was the “one God of Israel.” 11 The monotheism of Second Temple Judaism was strict as well.12 Jewish monotheism in the Roman period accommodated honorific rhetoric about various “principal-agent figures”, such as angels, and exalted figures like Moses, but drew a firm line between these and the one God in the “area of cultic practice,” reserving worship for the one God.13 This defiantly monotheistic stance was the chief characteristic of Jewish religion in this time period.14 The worship of another deity was possibly the “greatest sin possible” for a Jew.15 Most Jews of the Second Temple period had well-defined ideas as to how the “uniqueness of God should be understood.”16 This “uniqueness of divine identity” was characterized especially by two features, specifically that the one God is sole ruler of all things and the one God is sole creator of all things.17 Paul and the Jewish Christians’ “Christ-devotion” is “expressed in the context of a firmly monotheistic stance.”18 New Testament texts include Jesus in the “unique divine creation of all things” and “the unique divine sovereignty of all things.”19 Jesus is identified in these texts by the divine name, which “names the divine unique 11 Hurtado, Lord Jesus Christ, 47. 12 Richard Bauckman, Jesus and the God of Israel: God Crucified
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