Why I am a Trinitarian

This article will not take a theological or doctrinal approach to the question of the Godhead, but will consider the philosophical implications of belief options. I will, however, begin with inspection of a Bible text I believe supports my ideas.

The book of Genesis gives very short treatment to a very large portion of the earth's history; the period from the fall of Adam and Eve through the Deluge to the move of Jacob's family to Egypt. Certainly Adam and Eve had much knowledge about God, having spoken to him* face to face.

* I use the male pronoun on the basis of tradition. I believe God transcends human gender distinctions.

But it seems almost certain that much of this knowledge was permanently lost in the years following the flood. The Bible doesn't give us much to go on, but Hebrew tradition suggests that even Abraham had difficulty with the appropriate form of worship of the Creator-God (later known as Yahweh).

After spending years in Egypt, God's people needed to be reintroduced to him. The plagues on Egpyt, followed by the miraculous deliverance at the Red Sea established God as a defender of the oppressed and a benefactor of the needy. They also met a God whose purity destroyed sin and sinners. The mountain of God (traditionally called Sinai) was made off limits to the people while God manifested his presence there.

After giving the law, God called Moses to bring to the mountain with him Aaron, Nadab and Abihu, and seventy of the elders of Israel. (Exodus 24) I quote now from verses 9-11 (in the New International Version).
Moses and Aaron, Nadab and Abihu, and the seventy elders of Israel went up and saw the God of Israel. Under his feet was something like a pavement made of sapphire, clear as the sky itself. But God did not raise his hand against these leaders of the Israelites; they saw God and they ate and drank.


As an interesting side note, some scholars insist that when God informed Moses of the tablets of stone he actually said "the" stone, implying that the original stones came from this sapphire pavement.

Anyway, several chapters later Moses speaks alone with God and asks to see his glory. God responded (Exodus 33:19, 20):
"I will cause all my goodness to pass in front of you, and I will proclaim my name, the LORD, in your presence. I will have mercy on whom I will have mercy, and I will have compassion on whom I will have compassion. But," he said, "you cannot see my face, for no one may see me and live."


Later in the same chapter God explains that he will place Moses in a cleft in a rock, cover it with his hand, and only remove his hand when Moses can only see his back. And in the next chapter we learn that after Moses returned the people asked him to wear a veil because his face was too radiant to look at.

Here's a contradiction for which the Old Testament can provide no explanation. How could 74 Israelites see God and immediately eat and drink when later Moses could see only part of God and follow the encounter with forty days of fasting? How could the 73 who saw God the first time have no problem speaking to the people, while Moses had to wear a veil?

I do not offer these incidents as proof that the Godhead involves multiple persons. It simply indicates that God presents himself differently in different situations. But it is an indication to me that even these early Israelites had a sense of the multiple representations of the ONE God.

I had an interesting discussion with a couple of unitarians who were obviously trying to proselytize me. They challenged me for specifics about how the personalities of my triune God related to one another. Then, when I had given them the best answer I could, they replied that another person (a member of the congregation I attended) had explained it differently. "It can't be a very good doctrine, can it, if everyone who holds it has a different idea about it?" they challenged.

I didn't have this answer for them then, but I offer it now. There have been several accidents at the intersection just yards from our house in the three years we've lived here. Imagine you're a police officer called to investigate one of these; a three-car pile up in which one man is injured badly enough to require hospitalization. When you arrive you find fifteen people standing around, all claiming to have seen the accident. When you question them for details they all tell exactly the same story.

If you aren't beginning to get suspicious that this accident may have been staged as insurance fraud then you aren't very familiar with human nature. If the accident were real you would expect to hear fifteen or more versions of what happened. You would take each story, compare it to the physical evidence and to the likely biases of the teller (for example, one of the drivers) to get the most accurate rendition possible of the event.

The truth about God is far more intricate than the facts about an auto accident. This is a truth we will never fully comprehend even after our mental powers have been restored. Since we cannot fully know, how can we expect our ideas to match exactly? What I'm saying is that I'm not here to tell the unitarians they are wrong, for I'm sure there's a truth I don't understand behind their teaching. I simply try to expose the philosophical problems I see with their explanation which have led me to accept the less than certain explanation given by the doctrine of the Trinity.

The real issue that divides trinitarians and unitarians is not so much the one versus three it appears to be as it is a question of the divinity of Jesus Christ. Trinitarians accept that Jesus was very God come to earth in human form. Unitarians and certain "liberal" Christians have varying explanations for the origin of the man who had such an impact on the history of earth. To their credit some of these doctrines do much to break down the walls that separate practicioners of the various monotheistic religions. Moslems accept Jesus as a prophet with much to say about God that is useful. Vacant an insistence on the divinity of Jesus there's little to separate Moslems, Christans, and even Jews.

But I have yet to come across a belief system that doesn't carry with it profound philosophical implications. What are the effects on one's world view of dropping the insistence that Jesus was an eternally pre-existent part of God?

Whether that poses a problem depends on your view of the plight of humanity. If you think man is in a temporary difficulty from which he can, given the proper assistance, eventually work his way out, then the nature of Christ isn't of so much consequence. But if, like me, you see sin as a downward spiralling curse that will, unchecked, lead humanity to ruin and extinction; and if you believe that humanity is powerless against it, with or without help, then the nature of the one who would "save his people from their sins" becomes quite critical.

I don't have time here to explain my views on the nature of sin or of the human condition. But I do believe divine intervention is the only salvation for humanity, both individually and as a species. And the Bible teaches that the focal point of that intervention is the vicarious death of Jesus Christ.

The doctrine of the divinity of Christ teaches that sin is such an enormous problem that God himself had to die to take care of it. Denying the divinity of Christ reduces the enormity of the sin problem. If God lost his own life to rescue humanity from its own rebellion then he must love his creation beyond measure. If, instead, God applied a "third party" remedy, then he does in fact love humans, but the extent of that love is blunted.

Douglas Adams, ever ready to poke fun at any aspect of human endeavor, writes of the "Dish of the Day" in his book The Restaurant at the End of the Universe. His heros arrive unexpectedly at the establishment of that name. The waiter approaches and asks them if they'd like to meet the "Dish of the Day." Later a "large fat meaty quadruped" arrives and offers parts of its body for their meal.

In the discussion about the merits of eating an animal (or even a vegetable) that follows the animal reveals that "...it was eventually decided to cut through the whole tangled problem and breed an animal that actually wanted to be eaten and was capable of saying so clearly and distinctly, and here I am."

There is a particularly distasteful version of unitarianism