Life according to Gordon

A recent trend among the Facebook-addicted to further bolster the narcissistic web-trendy persona has been to take a series of online quizzes that automatically post their results to your profile. So a little while ago I spotted a quiz that asked, "What's Your Bible IQ?" The result which I hoped for (and admittedly somewhat expected) was that it deemed me a "Bible scholar," meaning that I answered the majority of the questions correctly. (There were some pretty tough questions in there too, mind you!) It's been awhile since I've taken that quiz, so I don't really remember the majority of the questions it asked; however, there was one particular question that stuck out in my mind. It asked, essentially, "how many times is the Trinity referenced in the Bible?" It's a good question, I think, because I think it's an easy "trap" for anyone who's gone to a mainstream church their whole life but have never really invested their time to actually reading the Bible or trying to interpret anything for themselves. Spoiler: the answer is zero.

Yes, the concept of the Trinity, or tripartite Godhead made up of the Father, the Son, and Holy Spirit, one of the fundamental tenets of many mainstream denominations, one of the most essential pieces of modern Christian dogma, is not actually mentioned in the Bible even once. Not directly, anyway. The concept of the Trinity is purely an interpretation, and one that I find to be a rather strange interpretation. Some people will get absolutely up-in-arms over even the mere suggestion that the Trinity might just be myth, even though the real, Biblical evidence can be shown to refute it. And that fascinates me. I remember when I took that 600-level Religious Studies course, at one point it was mentioned that the whole concept of the Trinity was solidified as creed in the Council of Nicaea in the year 325. So it was almost 300 years since Jesus' ascension that this was accepted as a sanctioned Christian belief. Although that's not wholly surprising, since I think it took a similarly long time to standardize which books were going to be included in the Bible and which books didn't make the cut.

Then, recently, I came across an absolutely fascinating article examining the historical background of the council of Nicaea and the power struggle between Arius and Athanasius. Arius taught a non-Trinitarian view of Christianity, while Athanasius spearheaded the Trinity. So naturally, they came into conflict, and because the article author certainly knows more about it than I do, I'll just give you a sample of the article here.

There are numerous accounts of Athanasius' followers beating and murdering non-trinitarian Christians in the lead-up to the Council of Nicea, torturing their victims and parading their dead bodies around. Non-trinitarians were accused of "rending the robe of Christ", crucifying Him afresh, and far worse. It would be wrong to think of the dispute as a matter of learned men of God disagreeing with each other over a matter of Biblical interpretation. Athanasius, who had the ear of Constantine more than Arius, was out for victory. He therefore emotionalized the issue and used every manner of politics and destruction of his opponents in order to get Constantine to come down on his side, exile Arius for heresy, and therefore leave him as the senior churchman of the Roman empire--which meant major political power, in an empire which had newly adopted Christianity and sought to enforce it as the empire's religion. It's highly significant that the draft 'creed' relating to the Godhead was initially acceptable to Arius; but because Alexander and his side simply wanted Arius 'out', they made the language more extreme; so that reconciliation wouldn't be achieved. And so they added the clause that Jesus was homoousios, of the same substance, with the Father--knowing Arius would have to reject this. Again, this was no outcome of sober, sincere Bible study. It was pure politics.

This kind of thing fascinates me. The battle between Trinitarian and non-Trinitarian churches rages on today, though thankfully I don't think we see quite as many instances of parading around the dead bodies of opponents. The things that have been done in the name of Christianity and its various sects always baffles my mind. The crusades, the invasion and forced conversion of indigenous people by the Spanish conquistadors, witch hunts, and even the torture and murder of so-called Arian heretics, all show a stark contrast with anything and everything Jesus ever said. Jesus was a consistent proponent of the "love thy neighbor as thyself" doctrine, the "do unto others as you would have them do unto you" doctrine, and the "turn the other cheek" doctrine, through and through. So how anyone has ever been able to sanely extrapolate that killing in his name is a good thing is just beyond me. Nowadays it seems the conflict between different sects is a lot more passive-aggressive, with differing denominations decrying each other as being false or cultish, and emotionalizing the issue just the same, but without the whole "we'll kill you if you disagree" part. Although from the way some people get so flustered over this, I don't think it's entirely by choice that they hold back in this regard.

So feeling inspired to learn more, after reading that article, I went digging and found an interesting collection of Biblical quotes and corresponding analyses on the website of a church that identifies as being "Biblical Unitarian." Specifically they cover 17 verses from the Old Testament and 88 verses from the New Testament, all of which are the quotes most typically used in support of the concept of the Trinity. I thought it was very good, honest analysis of each Bible verse. And I do appreciate the disclaimer they have at the top, which starts off, "please feel free not to believe everything you find here." The site seems very genuine in its attempt to discuss each verse rationally and with proper historic context and does not attempt to force any particular doctrine down ones throat, so to speak, at least as I read it. And again, I find it all fascinating. I thought I'd quote here a sample of the analysis given on that site, in particular addressing what is probably the most famous quote given to support the idea of the trinity, namely John 10:30 ("I and my father are one").

There is no reason to take this verse to mean that Christ was saying that he and the Father make up "one God." The phrase was a common one, and even today if someone used it, people would know exactly what he meant--he and his father are very much alike. When Paul wrote to the Corinthians about his ministry there, he said that he had planted the seed and Apollos had watered it. Then he said, "he who plants and he who waters are one" (1 Cor. 3:8 -- KJV). In the Greek texts, the wording of Paul is the same as that in John 10:30, yet no one claims that Paul and Apollos make up "one being." Furthermore, the NIV translates 1 Corinthians 3:8 as "he who plants and he who waters have one purpose." Why translate the phrase as "are one" in one place, but as "have one purpose" in another place? In this case, translating the same phrase in two different ways obscures the clear meaning of Christ's statement in John 10:30: Christ always did the Father's will; he and God have "one purpose."

I tried to confirm this myself by searching for the original Greek texts of both Biblical verses online, and learned two things: they were somewhat hard to find in the first place, and I don't speak Greek. I did notice that there was definitely a grouping of words in the first quote that was identical to a grouping of words in the second quote, which is enough for me. Plus I also noticed that in about half of the different English versions of the Bible, that line in 1 Corinthians 3:8 is translated as "are one" while the other half translate it as "have one purpose." Personally I have to agree with the Biblical Unitarian analysis here; why on Earth would certain editions of the Bible translate the two verses differently even though they have the same structure in Greek? (Probable answer: because the ones responsible for translating in the first place either wanted to find better support for the idea of the Trinity / Jesus' divinity, or felt pressure from above to do so.) So anyways, like I said, this kind of thing fascinates me, and I would recommend that you take a moment to look at some of the other analysis if this similarly interests you.