This is a response to the article entitled, “Misconceptions: The Trinity” on the “God Loves Mormons” Website; to read previous refutations of their articles about The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, see the following:
Review of Can Our Works Save Us? Refuting Sola Fide
The video can be seen here:
The article/transcript reads as follows:
One of the most common misconceptions Mormons have about Christianity is in regards to the Trinity. It is often thought that Christians believe in one God that operates in three different modes. Kind of like a man who has three different jobs: One day he works as a Fireman, another as a Teacher, and yet another as a police officer. His daily operations change depending on which job he is performing that day. This view of one God operating in three different modes (Father, Son, and Spirit) is called “modalism”.
BUT THIS IS NOT WHAT CHRISTIANS BELIEVE!
In fact, Modalism has been refuted by the Christian church as heresy ever since the 3rd century.
The Bible teaches that there is one God who exists in three persons…and that there is a distinction between the three persons of the Trinity. In other words, the Father is NOT the Son, the Son is NOT the Spirit, and the Spirit is NOT the Father.
This means that Father, Son and Spirit exist in eternal relationship together. God did not create the world because He was lonely! And He doesn’t have split personalities! Even before the world began, there was love, communication, and unity within the equal-yet-distinct members of the Trinity. Relationship is part of God’s very nature.
So when Jesus prays to His Father…He is not praying to Himself (Luke 22:42)! When Jesus promises to send the Holy Spirit to help us, He doesn’t mean that He will be coming—but in a different form (John 14:15-17). When He commands His disciples to baptize in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit (Matthew 28:18-20)…He is not teaching us to refer to God by three different names. Jesus is teaching us to acknowledge the TRINITY.
There is only one God, who exists in three persons. The Father is NOT the Son, the Son is NOT the Spirit, and the Spirit is NOT the Father.
It is true that some (not all) Latter-day Saints misunderstand the Trinity in terms of Modalism; however, if the author were intellectually honest, he would admit that many within the various Trinitarian groups out here, including his sliver of Protestantism, while professing to be Trinitarians, are, functionally, modalists. I have encountered many Protestants, Catholics, and others who confuse “being” with “person,” and think that the Father is numerically identical to the person of the Son and the Spirit. This is often brought about through the various attempts to use analogies to demonstrate the Trinity, however, they tend to end up teaching a Christological heresy, often either Arianism or modalism; this is brought out (albeit, comically) in the following video by a Lutheran:
John Henry Cardinal Newman noted the following about the theological heresies that result in using analogies:
The truth is, every illustration [of the Trinity], as being incomplete on one or other side of it [i.e. the human or divine natures or “sides” of Jesus], taken by itself, tends to heresy. The title Son by itself suggests a second God, as the title Word a mere attribute, and the title Instrument a creature. All heresies are partial views of the truth, and are wrong, not so much in what they say, as in what they deny. (Athanasius, “Four Discourses Against the Arians,” trans. John Henry Newman, in Schaff, Nicene and Post Nicene Fathers, Series II, vol. 4, p. 322 n. 2; square brackets my own, added for clarification)
To see how unbiblical Trinitarianism is, especially within the realm of its Christology, see, for example, the following paper which answers many of the common "proof-texts" for the Trinity and texts often raised against the Latter-day Saint position:
Latter-day Saints have Chosen the True, Biblical Jesus
The author is also being disingenuous by appealing to Matt 28:18-20 to support the Trinity due to the use of the singular "name" in Matt 28:19.
Firstly, there is no mention or hint of the Father, Son, and Holy Ghost , as a whole and/or individually, being numerically identical to the “one God.” That is something that must be read into this verse (eisegesis). Verse 18 should be the verse that controls the exegetical possibilities one can derive from this baptismal formula, as Jesus, even after the ascension and his exaltation by the Father (cf. Phil 2:5-11), states that "All power is given unto me in heaven and earth," showing it was not intrinsically His prior to such (clearly supporting a form of subordinationist Christology). One should also see John 20:17 and the Christology of the Epistle to the Hebrews, including Heb 1:8-9, where there is a God above Jesus, notwithstanding his exalted state.
Secondly, notwithstanding the apologists’ use of “name” (ονομα) being singular, this poses no problem for Latter-day Saint theology. “Name” in the Old and New Testaments often meant one’s “title” (as in Isa 9:6) and/or the power and authority one possessed./acted under. Consider, just as one of many examples, John 5:43, a saying of Jesus Himself:
I am come in my Father's name, and ye receive me not: if another shall come in his own name, him ye will receive.
Just as Christ in this verse comes in his Father's "name" (i.e., authority), so also his followers baptise by the authority of the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit, which is a single authority and power.
A related passage would be John 17:26:
And I have declared unto them thy name, and I will declare it; that the love wherewith thou hast loved me may be in them, and I in them (cf. 2 Sam 8:13; Isa 55:13; Jer 13:11 Ezek 22:5; Rev 3:2).
Richard Hopkins, in his book, Biblical Mormonism (Horizon, 1994), offered an alternative approach to this verse, viz. that the singular form of the word "name" is correctly used to shorten the passage from "in the name of the Father, and in the name of the Son, and in the name of the Holy Ghost." Hopkins further argued that, if the plural form were used, it would signify that the passage had been shorted from "in the names of the Father, and in the names of the Son, and in the names of the Holy Ghost." Therefore, the use of the singular is proper where each person is designated in the phrase has His own name (Hopkins, p. 79). While I don't accept this interpretation, it is not an impossible reading of the evidence.
Taking a prima facie and even secunda facie reading of this verse, it clearly presents the Father, Son, and Spirit as three separate persons in the normative understanding of that term, not the later post-biblical theories about the distinction between the persons of the Tri-une God. If anything, this would support, not creedal Trinitarianism, but Social Trinitarianism, which allows for the Father, Son, and Spirit to be three separate persons in the proper meaning of the term, with their own centre of consciousness, as advanced by the likes of Richard Swinburne. For a book-length treatment on the issue of “person” in Trinitarian circles, see Persons: Human and Divine (Cambridge University Press, 2007), eds. Peter Van Inwagen and Dean Zimmerman.
It should also be noted that, since the beginning of the Church, Latter-day Saint baptism is performed using the same formula; note D&C 20:73:
The person who is called of God and has authority from Jesus Christ to baptise, shall go down into the water with the person who has presented himself or herself for baptism, and shall say, calling him or her by name: Having been commissioned of Jesus Christ, I baptise you in the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Ghost. Amen.
This is the same formula I was baptised under. Furthermore, such a phrase appears in the current (1985) LDS hymnal, such as “Arise, O God, and Shine,” with the final stanza reading (emphasis added):
To God, the only wise. The one immortal King, let hallelujahs rise from ev'ry living thing: let all that breathe, on ev'ry coast, praise Father, Son, and Holy Ghost.
Many Trinitarian apologists are much more cautious about using the baptismal formula as positive evidence for the Trinity, in contrast to Shamoun, Ron Rhodes, and others. JP Holding, a critic of the LDS faith, writes:
I would begin by noting that our own study of the Trinity makes absolutely no use of Matthew 28:19. This verse is not particularly useful for Trinitarian defense as it theoretically could support any view -- modalism, even tritheism, could be permitted from this verse, for it only lists the members of the Triune Godhead with absolutely no explanation as to their exact relationship.
Verse 18 would indicate that the Father is in a functionally superior relationship to the Son, but that says nothing about an ontological relationship; though one may justly argue that it is very unlikely (but not impossible) that all three would be named together if there were not an ontological equality, lest God's glory somehow be compromised.
None of the earliest commentators on this verse (e.g., Tertullian; Ignatius of Antioch; Origen) ever used the verse to support the concept of metaphysical “oneness” of the Father, Son, and Spirit; such is a later development in the Christian interpretative tradition.
While other important points could be raised, I will discuss just one more--in reality, the Trinitarian apologists who appeal to Matt 28:19 are guilty of question begging. Simply because a verse or pericope has the three persons of the Godhead together, that is definitive “proof” of their co-equality, co-eternality, and all other elements required for creedal Trinitarianism. However, triads appear all throughout the New Testament, and yet, there is often an explication of one of the members being superior to the other two, showing that a triad, in and of itself, is insufficient to cite for evidence of co-equality.
For instance, in 1 Cor 13:13, we read:
And now abideth faith, hope, charity, these three; but the greatest of these is charity.
Just because faith, hope, and love (KJV: charity) are in a triadic proximity to one another, similar to the Father, Son, and Spirit in Matt 28:19, such does not prove ontological equality since one of these is said to be the greatest; this should, at the very least, force one to be very cautious to present this verse as positive evidence of Trinitarian theology.
If one wishes to absolutise Matt 28:19, within a Trinitarian hermeneutic, such would cause all sorts of problems with one's exegesis and theology. Note 1 John 5:8:
One would have to conclude, based on the interpretive framework many Trinitarian apologists employ, that this shows that the Trinity is composed of Spirit, water, and blood. In reality, in this verse, and in Matt 28:19, there is no triune being/entity in view here.
If one wishes to absolutise Matt 28:19, within a Trinitarian hermeneutic, such would cause all sorts of problems with one's exegesis and theology. Note 1 John 5:8:
There are three that testify: the Spirit and the Water and the blood, and these three agree (NRSV).
One would have to conclude, based on the interpretive framework many Trinitarian apologists employ, that this shows that the Trinity is composed of Spirit, water, and blood. In reality, in this verse, and in Matt 28:19, there is no triune being/entity in view here.
Indeed, the early Christians, such as Tertullian, used triadic language, but when one examines the totality of their writings, they did not hold to modern Trinitarian theology and thought. In the case of Tertullian, we find that he did not believe Jesus eternally pre-existed and that "spirit" was material, a rejection of "divine simplicity," a necessary element in later Trinitarian theologies.
Recently, one Evangelical apologist for the Trinity, in an interview on Dale Tuggy's "Trinities podcast" (see here) has argued that being baptised into the name of “x” presupposes the “divinity” (understood within the Trinitarian understanding of such a concept) of “x.” However, this is greatly flawed. For instance, in 1 Cor 10:2, the Israelites were baptised into Moses:
And were all baptised unto Moses (εις τον Μωυσην) in the cloud and in the sea.
Another problem with the argument of Trinitarians who claim that the triadic expression in Matt 28:19 is proof (whether implicit or explicit) of creedal/Latin Trinitarianism is that it makes nonsense of other triadic verses. Notice the following locution that is common in the Bible, “God of Abraham, and of Isaac, and of Jacob.” Does that mean that mean that the “God” of Abraham is a different divine person from the God of Isaac, who is a different person from the God of Jacob? Or that Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob are three persons who share the same “divine being”? Such leads to all types of interpretive and theological nonsense!
Lest a Trinitarian read the phrase, “God of Abraham, and of Isaac, and of Jacob” as somehow evidence of the Trinity (three divine persons in the one God), Jesus is distinguished from this triadic phrase, not included in it (or “the divine identity” to use Richard Bauckham’s term); notice the following verse:
The God of Abraham, and of Isaac, and of Jacob, the God of our fathers, hath glorified his Son Jesus; whom ye delivered up, and denied him in the presence of Pilate, when he was determined to let him go. (Acts 3:13)
In this verse, Jesus is distinguished, not just from the person of the Father (tolerated, albeit ambiguously, by Trinitarians), but God, which is unacceptable in Trinitarian theology.
With respect to the singular "name" in the passage, interestingly, in the Old Testament, both the Hebrew and LXX uses the singular “name” for multiple persons and gods who, undoubtedly, did not share a singular name. Consider:
Male and female he created them; and blessed them, and called their name Adam, in the day when they were created. (Gen 5:2)
The angel which redeemed me from all evil, bless the lads; and let my name be named on them, and the name of my fathers Abraham and Isaac; and let them grow into a multitude in the midst of the earth. (Gen 48:16)
And he called the name of the place Massah, and Meribah, because of the chiding of the children of Israel, and because they tempted the Lord, saying, is the Lord among us, or not? (Exo 17:7)
And in all things that I have said unto you be circumspect: and make no mention of the name of the other gods, neither let it be heard out of thy mouth. (Exo 23:13)
But the prophet, which shall presume to speak a word in my name, which I have not commanded him to speak, or that shall speak in the name of other gods, even that prophet shall die. (Deut 18:20)
That ye come among these nations, these that remain among you; neither make mention of the name of their gods, nor cause to swear by them, neither serve them, nor bow yourselves unto them. (Josh 23:7)
And the name of the man was Elimelch, and the name of his wife Naomi, and the name of his two sons Mahlon and Chilion, Ephrathites of Bethlehemjudah. And they came into the country of Moab, and continued there. (Ruth 1:2)
And I have been with thee whithersoever thou hast walked, and have cut off all thine enemies from before thee, and have made thee a name like the name of the great men that are in the earth. (1 Chron 17:8)
The memory of the just is blessed, but the name of the wicked shall rot. (Prov 10:7; note that "name" in the Hebrew and LXX is singular; "wicked" is plural in both texts [רְשָׁעִים and σβεννυται])
A good case can be made that a Hebraism/Aramaicism appears in the Greek of Matt 28:19.
While much more could be said, Matt 28:19 is clearly not evidence of Trinitarianism.
As with the other articles that have been reviewed, there is no meaningful exegesis of the biblical texts; just Evangelical Protestantism assumed to be true which results in eisegesis.
As with the other articles that have been reviewed, there is no meaningful exegesis of the biblical texts; just Evangelical Protestantism assumed to be true which results in eisegesis.