Talk:Trinity

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Alternative outlines / definitions

From Theopedia’s Trinity article:

  1. There is one and only one God.
  2. God eternally exists in three distinct persons.
  3. The Father is God, the Son is God, and the Holy Spirit is God.
  4. The Father is not the Son, the Son is not the Father, the Father is not the Spirit, etc.

From Berkhof’s Systematic Theology:

  1. There is in the Divine Being but one indivisible essence (ousia, essentia).
  2. In this one Divine Being there are three Persons or individual subsistences, Father, Son, and Holy Spirit.
  3. The whole undivided essence of God belongs equally to each of the three persons.
  4. The subsistence and operation of the three persons in the divine Being is marked by a certain definite order.
  5. There are certain personal attributes by which the three persons are distinguished.

From Rob Bowman’s The Biblical Basis of the Doctrine of the Trinity:

  1. There is one God (i.e., one proper object of religious devotion).
  2. This one God is a single divine being, called Jehovah or Yahweh in the Old Testament (the LORD).
  3. The Father of our Lord Jesus Christ is God, the LORD.
  4. The Son, Jesus Christ, is God, the LORD.
  5. The Holy Spirit is God, the LORD.
  6. The Father, Son, and Holy Spirit are each someone distinct from the other two.

From Philip Ryken and Michael LeFebvre’s Our Triune God[1]:

  1. God the Father is God.
  2. God the Son is God.
  3. God the Holy Spirit is God.
  4. The Father is not the Son.
  5. The Son is not the Spirit.
  6. The Spirit is not the Father.
  7. Nevertheless, there is only one God.

From the Catholic Encyclopedia:

The Trinity is the term employed to signify the central doctrine of the Christian religion — the truth that in the unity of the Godhead there are Three Persons, the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit, these Three Persons being truly distinct one from another.

From an article at Desiring God:

(1) The Father, Son, and Holy Spirit are distinct Persons, (2) each Person is fully God, (3) there is only one God.[2]

Wayne Grudem’s Systematic Theology:

Sometimes people use three different names when referring to God: God or Father, Jesus Christ, and the Holy Spirit. But these are more than simply different names for one person; they are, in fact, the names of three very distinct persons. But even though God the Father, God the Son (Jesus), and God the Holy Spirit have eternally existed as three distinct persons, there is only one God. This is called the doctrine of the Trinity.[3]

The Athanasian Creed:

And the catholic faith is this: that we worship one God in Trinity, and Trinity in unity, neither confounding the persons nor dividing the substance.

Westminster Confession of Faith:

2.3. In the unity of the Godhead there be three persons, of one substance, power, and eternity; God the Father, God the Son, and God the Holy Ghost. The Father is of none, neither begotten nor proceeding; the Son is eternally begotten of the Father; the Holy Ghost eternally proceeding from the Father and the Son.

Westminster Larger Catechism:

Q. 8. Are there more Gods than one?
A. There is but One only, the living and true God.

Q. 9. How many persons are there in the Godhead?
A. There be three persons in the Godhead, the Father, the Son, and the Holy Ghost; and these three are one true, eternal God, the same in substance, equal in power and glory; although distinguished by their personal properties.

Q. 10. What are the personal properties of the three persons in the Godhead?
A. It is proper to the Father to beget the Son, and to the Son to be begotten of the Father, and to the Holy Ghost to proceed from the Father and the Son from all eternity.

Q. 11. How doth it appear that the Son and the Holy Ghost are God equal with the Father?
A. The scriptures manifest that the Son and the Holy Ghost are God equal with the Father, ascribing unto them such names, attributes, works, and worship, as are proper to God only.

Scott Swain’s The Trinity: An Introduction:

  1. There is one God, the source and end of all creatures.
  2. The Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit are identical with the one God and, as such, are on the divine side of the distinction between the one God and all creatures.
  3. The Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit are distinguished from each other only by relations of origin.
  4. The relations of origin that distinguish the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit do not follow as a consequence of the one God’s will to create. Rather, God’s will to create follows the relations of origin that distinguish the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit.
  5. Certain creatures are destined by God’s grace to be embraced within the relations of the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit, to the praise of his triune glory.
  6. God himself, through the missions of the Son and the Spirit, brings it about that certain creatures are embraced within the relations of the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit.

On the economical Trinity

On the economical/functional Trinity, the following articles are very helpful for understanding the context and full meaning of the phrase “only begotten Son”.

— Avatar.png Joey 19:44, 20 June 2012 (UTC)

Generation and procession in the creeds and confessions

Nicene Creed
And in one Lord Jesus Christ, the only-begotten Son of God, begotten of the Father before all worlds . . . begotten, not made . . . And I believe in the Holy Spirit, the Lord and Giver of life; who proceedeth from the Father and the Son.
Athanasian Creed
The Father is made of none, neither created nor begotten. The Son is of the Father alone; not made nor created, but begotten. The Holy Spirit is of the Father and of the Son; neither made, nor created, nor begotten, but proceeding.
Westminster Confession II.III
The Father is of none, neither begotten nor proceeding; the Son is eternally begotten of the Father; the Holy Ghost eternally proceeding from the Father and the Son.
Westminster Larger Catechism
Q. 10. What are the personal properties of the three persons in the Godhead?
A. It is proper to the Father to beget the Son, and to the Son to be begotten of the Father, and to the Holy Ghost to proceed from the Father and the Son from all eternity.

The Trinity Delusion

Check out this website some time: http://www.angelfire.com/space/thegospeltruth/trinity.html

LDS Conference talks referencing the Trinity and/or the Trinitarian creeds

More LDS resources about the Godhead

  • Come Unto Christ website › Beliefs › Common Questions › Do Mormons believe in the Trinity? — “The Holy Trinity is the term many Christian religions use to describe God the Father, Jesus Christ, and the Holy Ghost. Latter-day Saints believe very strongly in all three, but we don’t believe they’re all the same person.”
  • New Era article: Learning About the Godhead — “While today’s traditional Christianity asserts that the three members of the Godhead are all one person (called the “Trinity,” a belief based on a man-made council that wrote the Nicene Creed in A.D. 325), we know that the Father and the Son each have bodies of flesh and bones and that the Holy Ghost is a personage of spirit.”
  • Seminary study guide lesson: Mosiah 15–16: Abinadi teaches about Jesus Christ’s role as Redeemer — “Point out that some passages in the scriptures refer to Jesus Christ as the Father. This does not mean that He and Heavenly Father are the same person.”

“Without body, parts, or passions”

This line actually comes from the Westminster Confession (weird coincidence, huh?). — Actually, I learned recently this same language does appear in many of the confessions, including the Thirty-nine Articles of the Anglican Church (1571), the Irish Articles of Religion (1615), the Westminster Confession (1647), and the London Baptist Confession (1689).

The word “passions” here is actually a KJV-ism. It is the Greek word ὁμοιοπαθής (homoiopathēs) found in Ac 14:15 and Jas 5:17, and is rendered in most modern translations as “of like nature” rather than “of like passions”.

“Without parts” doesn’t mean without body parts like arms or legs. This isn’t just affirming God’s incorporeality. It is way more fundamental than that. It means he’s simple, not complex, indivisible. As in, the Father isn’t one part (one-third) of God, he is fully God; the Son isn’t one part (one-third) of God, he is fully God; etc. Also, God’s attributes are not things he has but things he just fundamentally is. God doesn’t possess love, as if love is a separate piece glued onto God, God simply is love. God’s attributes aren’t each different pieces of God. All the attributes hold together at once. God is entirely loving, entirely holy, entirely self-existent, etc.

Anthropomorphite heresy

In The Library Of Christian Classics, Vol. XII: Western Asceticism, an interesting account is given of an Anthropomorphite monk who was asked to pray after having finally assented to the orthodox view. He found that he could not, having no image in his mind on which to focus, and cried out, “Woe is me! They have taken my God away from me, and I have none to grasp, and I know not whom to adore or to address.” This has been quoted by some LDS, notably Jeffrey R. Holland. I don’t think LDS are taking it out of context, but reading it in context of the full account is illuminating.

Jones of Nayland’s proof texts

Transcribe proof texts from The Catholic Doctrine of a Trinity (Google Books), chapter III, “The Plurality and Trinity of Persons”, p. 131, and chapter IV, “The Trinity in Unity”, p. 159.

Awesome infographic from Challies

http://www.challies.com/resources/visual-theology-the-trinity

My Trinity Sunday School lesson

What is the Trinity? Need to work insights from this study back into this topic.

Denial of eternal generation

“Let me ask of my reader, wherever, alike with myself, he is certain, there to go on with me; wherever, alike with myself, he hesitates, there to join with me in inquiring; wherever he recognizes himself to be in error, there to return to me; wherever he recognizes me to be so, there to call me back. . . . And I would make this pious and safe agreement, . . . above all, in the case of those who inquire into the unity of the Trinity, of the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit; because in no other subject is error more dangerous, or inquiry more laborious, or the discovery of truth more profitable.”[4]

The Trinity in Gender Debates by Fred Sanders

18 Theses on the Father and the Son by Fred Sanders

What Would Augustine Say to Evangelicals Who Deny the Eternal Generation of the Son? by Keith Johnson

Quotes from those who deny eternal generation (William Lane Craig, J.P. Moreland?, Mark Driscoll, Gerry Breshears, Millard Erickson, Paul Helm, Loraine Boettner, and Robert Reymond—where’d I get this list and have I gotten it entirely wrong? I was confused for a while thinking eternal generation and EFS were the same thing, and may have implicated some in denying eternal generation who actually deny EFS and affirm eternal generation.):

Rather than one member of the Trinity being the source of the others’ being, and thus superior to them, we would contend that each of the three is eternally derived from each of the others, and all three are eternally equal.[5]
Similarly, on the view presented here, the persons of the ontological Trinity can be as similar to one another as three distinct persons can be, knowing, willing, and loving the same things (though each from a different personal angle, so to speak), so that it may well be arbitrary which person plays the role of “Father” and which of “Son.” . . . The Son is whichever person becomes incarnate, the Spirit is He who stands in the place of and continues the ministry of the Son, and the Father is the one who sends the Son and Spirit.[6]

Quotes from those who uphold eternal generation:

God has given form and order to the history of salvation because he intends not only to save us through it but also to reveal himself through it. The economy is shaped by God’s intention to communicate his identity and character.[7]
And when they show up in person, they behave as themselves. Their eternal personalities, we might say, are exhibited here in time.[8]

Bible words?

Can trinitarianism be expressed using biblical terms instead of the extra-biblical terms we currently use?

Extra-biblical term Candidate biblical term(s)
Trinity Godhead*
God the Father God the Father
God the Son Lord Jesus Christ, Son of God
God the Holy Spirit Holy Spirit, Spirit of God
Substance, essence, being [9] God [Elohim or Theos]
Yahweh
Godhead* (“divine being”, “deity”, “divinity”)
Name
Spirit?
Life?
Person [10] Person
Substance
Subsistence
Nature
Essence
Spirit?
Soul (psychē)?
Co-equal, co-eternal, co-essential
Generation Begotten
Procession Sent
Ontological
Economic Economic (Eph 1:10)

* I want to use the same biblical term for both “Trinity” itself and “substance, essence, being”. Does this say something about our use of those terms? Is the term Trinity interchangeable with the term substance?

The Cappadocian fathers, Basil in particular, argued that God is three hypostaseis (“persons”) in one ousia (“essence,” or “substance”). Although helpful, the term also led to confusion. Western theologians described God as one substantia in three personae, with confusion arising out of the fact that substantia was the Latin equivalent to hypostasis.[11]

(Robert Letham also gives excellent analysis of how hypostasis and ousia were used in different ways in the early centuries of Christianity in chapter 5 of his The Holy Trinity.)

More revelant oneness passages?

Are Neh 9:6; Jn 8:41; 10:16; Heb 2:11 relevant to God’s oneness?

Abstract oneness vs. literal numerical oneness

The word for one in Greek, εἷς, is an adjective. All adjectives can be expressed in any gender, since they have to agree in gender with the thing they’re modifying. The three forms of εἷς are εἷς/μία/ἕν (M/F/N).

When equating two things in a predicative grammatical construction (i.e. this is that), the two things you’re equating have to be nouns. You can use an adjective on either side of the equation, but then you’re implying that the adjective describes an unsupplied but nevertheless implied noun (you're the best [person]).

My current (and I’ll readily admit perhaps wrong) understanding of this is, in Greek, if the implied noun is a definite thing, the adjective will be masculine, but if the implied noun is an abstract thing, the adjective will be neuter. So, if two people are one (that’s an adjective in Greek, remember) in an abstract way, like oneness of purpose or will, it would be expressed with the neuter form as in John 10:30: “ἐγὼ καὶ ὁ πατὴρ ἕν ἐσμεν.” If something is literally numerically one, that would be expressed in the masculine form as in Mark 12:29: “κύριος εἷς ἐστιν”.

I’ve divided out the only places where the neuter form is used and listed them in my “unity of the persons” section. All instances where the masculine, literal, numerical sense of one is used I have placed in the “God is one” section.

I arrived at the above conclusions in a Google Hangouts conversation with Steve spanning several days in early January 2015, sparked by the Leonardo Boff quote found in this FairMormon wiki page: Question: What does John 10:30 have to do with Trinitarianism?:

The basic reason for this choice is to be found in John 10:30: “The Father and I are one” (hen). Note that Jesus is not saying, “The Father and I are numerically one” (heis), but uses a term meaning “we are together” (Greek hen, as used again in v.38: “The Father is in me and I am in the Father”). The union of the Father and Son does not blot out the difference and individuality of each. Union rather supposes differentiation. Through love and through reciprocal communion they are one single thing, the one God-love.[12]

(It’s important to note Leonardo Boff is a social trinitarian, but many of the scholars below agree with him.)

Here’s another similar quote found in the same section of that FairMormon wiki page:

[John 10:30] was a key verse in the early Trinitarian controversies. On the one extreme, the onarchians (Sabellians) interpreted it to mean “one person”, although the “one” is neuter, not masculine. On the other extreme, the Arians interpreted this text, which was often used against them, in terms of moral unity of will. The Protestant commentator Bengel, following Augustine, sums up the Orthodox position: “Through the word ‘are’ Sabellius is refuted; through the word ‘one’ so is Arius . . .” [In the Gospel of] John . . . all these relationships between Father and Son are described in function of the one’s dealings with men. It would be up to the work of later theologians to take this gospel material pertaining to the mission of the Son ad extra and draw from it a theology of the inner life of the Trinity.[13]

And here’s another similar quote I found around the interwebtubes:

I and the Father are one (Gk. hen): The neuter gender rules out any thought of meaning “one Person”. This is not a comment on the Godhead. Rather, having spoken of the sheep’s security in both Himself and the Father, Jesus underlines what He has said by indicating that in action the Father and He can be regarded as a single entity, because their wills are one.[14]

Furthermore, there is this page about Greek grammar that I found interesting. In a section headed “substantive function,” it explains: “The neuter form is normally used when the adjective refers to an abstract concept rather than a person or physical object.” But I don’t think this is enough of a smoking gun since the construction in John 10:30 is clearly not the substantive function, but the predicate function as described in a different section of that Greek grammar page. The page is silent about how gender is used in the predicate function, so I can’t be certain whether it really works the same way or not.

Here’s another page of Greek grammar that has a ton of rules for number and gender of predicate adjectives. It doesn’t say what it would mean if the two subject nouns agree in gender but the predicate adjective is neuter. It says the predicate adjective should agree in gender or be masculine if the two subjects have different genders.

Here’s another quote, from a post on Yahoo! Answers UK:

Even Trinitarian scholar Robert Young commented on this knowledge of the word “one” at John 10:30 in his Young’s Concise Critical Bible Commentary: “The particle en [hen] being of the neuter gender, can hardly signify ‘one being, i.e. one God,’ but rather ‘one in will, purpose, counsel . . .” —p. 62, Baker Book House, 1977.

Ladies and gentlemen, none other than John Calvin, commenting on John 10:30:

The ancients made a wrong use of this passage to prove that Christ is (ὁμοούσιος) of the same essence with the Father. For Christ does not argue about the unity of substance, but about the agreement which he has with the Father, so that whatever is done by Christ will be confirmed by the power of his Father.[15]

And here is Calvin commenting on John 17:21:

Again, it ought to be understood, that, in every instance in which Christ declares, in this chapter, that he is one with the Father, he does not speak simply of his Divine essence, but that he is called one, as regards his mediatorial office, and in so far as he is our Head. Many of the fathers, no doubt, interpreted these words as meaning, absolutely, that Christ is one with the Father, because he is the eternal God. But their dispute with the Arians led them to seize on detached passages, and to torture them out of their natural meaning, in order to employ them against their antagonists. Now, Christ’s design was widely different from that of raising our minds to a mere speculation about his hidden Divinity; for he reasons from the end, by showing that we ought to be one, otherwise the unity which he has with the Father would be fruitless and unavailing. To comprehend aright what was intended by saying, that Christ and the Father are one, we must take care not to deprive Christ of his office as Mediator, but must rather view him as he is the Head of the Church, and unite him with his members. Thus will the chain of thought be preserved, that, in order to prevent the unity of the Son with the Father from being fruitless and unavailing, the power of that unity must be diffused through the whole body of believers. Hence, too, we infer that we are one with the Son of God; not because he conveys his substance to us, but because, by the power of his Spirit, he imparts to us his life and all the blessings which he has received from the Father.[16]

Even more quotes! This one from D.A. Carson (and by the way I love everything he has to say about this verse in his Pillar New Testament Commentary):

The word for ‘one’ is the neuter hen, not the masculine heis: Jesus and his Father are not one person, as the masculine would suggest, for then the distinction between Jesus and God already introduced in 1:1b would be obliterated, and John could not refer to Jesus praying to his Father, being commissioned by and obedient to his Father, and so on. Rather, Jesus and his Father are perfectly one in action, in what they do: what Jesus does, the Father does, and vice versa (cf. notes on 5:19ff.).[17]

Here’s one from John Peter Lange and Philip Schaff:

The neuter ἕν denotes, according to the connection and for the purpose of the argument, unity of will and power, which rests on the unity of essence or nature; for power is one of the divine attributes which are not outside of the divine essence, but constitute it.[18]

Here’s one from Gerald Borchert:

The statement in 10:30 that “I and the Father are one” has been an important battleground of theology. The first matter to note is that the word “one” here is neuter (hen) and not masculine (heis), so the text is not arguing for a oneness of personalities or personae (to use the Latin concept) but rather something akin to a oneness of purpose and will.[19]

And one from Gordon J. Keddie:

He and his Father are ‘one’ (the neuter ἕν / hen) in purpose, but distinct persons (which would require the masculine heis).[20]

Way more great similar quotes here: https://dustinmartyr.wordpress.com/2014/04/05/review-of-bart-ehrmans-how-jesus-became-god-part-4-john-1030/

On a tangentially related note, there is this from John Peter Lange and Philip Schaff:

In this brief sentence we have, as Augustine and Bengel observe, a refutation both of Arianism and Sabellianism; ἕν refutes the former by asserting the dynamic (and, by implication, the essential) unity of the Father and the Son, Ἐγώ καὶ ὁ πατήρ and ἐσμεν refute the latter by asserting the personal distinction. Sabellianism would require the masculine εἶς instead of the neuter, and this would be inconsistent with ἐσμεν and the self-conscious Ἐγώ.—P. S.][21]

Lange and Schaff are undoubtedly referring to this from Bengel:

By the expression, we are, Sabellius is refuted; by the word, one, Arius is refuted.[22]

And this from Augustine:

In these two words, in that He said one, He delivers you from Arius; in that He said are, He delivers you from Sabellius.[23]

Incidentally, the Comma Johanneum of 1Jn 5:7 uses the same neuter grammatical construction of Jn 10:30; 17:11, 21–22.

Not commenting on the same passage, but I think this is relevant:

Augustine comments on Jesus’s Johannine prayer “that they may all be one. As you, Father, are in me and I am in you, may they also be in us” (John 17:21). The unity of the church, always a passionate theme for Augustine, is here presented as a reflection of trinitarian life effected by the salvific intercession of Christ—“that just as Father and Son are one not only by equality of substance but also by identity of will, so these people, for whom the Son is mediator with God, might be one not only by being of the same nature, but also by being bound in the fellowship of the same love.”[24]

Colwell’s Rule and John 1:1

D.A. Carson has some very salient things to say about Colwell’s Rule and John 1:1 in his book Exegetical Fallacies:

It is now well known that in a clause like καί θεὸς ἦν ὁ λόγος (kai theos ēn ho logos, usually rendered “and the Word was God,” John 1:1), the noun with the article is the subject, even though it is placed after the verb. The more difficult question in such cases is whether any rule governs the anarthrous noun before the verb: how do we know whether it is definite or indefinite, “God” or “a God”?

In 1933 E. C. Colwell published an important article that addressed the matter. He studied definite predicate nouns (their “definiteness” was determined by his own judgment) both before and after the verb, both with and without the article. He observed, among other things, that if a definite noun preceded a copulative verb, it was normally anarthrous; if it followed, it was articular. Applied to John 1:1, this rule means it is quite responsible to take θεός (theos) to mean the definite “God,” not the indefinite “a god,” since according to Colwell 87 percent of definite predicates before the verb in the Greek New Testament are anarthrous.

Colwell’s work has been widely cited, but it has some methodological weaknesses:

. . . while the [Colwell] canon may reflect a general tendency it is not absolute by any means; after all, it takes no account of relative clauses or proper nouns, and he has also omitted a considerable class of “qualitative” nouns like that in ὁ θεὸς ἀγάπη ἐστίν. Moreover, he is the first to admit the lack of objectivity in his method of counting: he professes to include only definite nouns among his anarthrous predicates, and the degree of definiteness is extremely difficult to assess.

Beyond even these limitations, however, Colwell’s rule can easily be abused. The fallacy in many popular appeals to Colwell is in thinking the part of his rule that pertains to John 1:1 is based on an examination of all anarthrous predicates that precede copulative verbs. If that were the case, his figure of 87 percent would be impressive. But in fact he only claims to have examined definite anarthrous nouns (as he determines “definiteness”). Recently one of my students, Ed Dewey, used our GRAMCORD facilities to retrieve every anarthrous noun (including definite, indefinite, qualitative, and proper nouns, with a residue of ambiguous entries) that precedes the copulative verbs γίνομαι (ginomai) and εἰμί (eimi) in the Greek New Testament. He discovered that definite nouns and indefinite nouns make up an approximately equal proportion of the entire list.

In other words, it is a fallacy to argue, on the basis of the fact that a predicate noun preceding a copulative verb is anarthrous, that it is highly likely to be definite. Statistically this is no more likely than the conclusion it is indefinite. Colwell’s rule never claims otherwise: it begins with the criterion of “definiteness” and then develops its breakdown. As such, it is still valuable, and certainly allows for the interpretation “and the Word was God” in John 1:1, if other contextual indicators suggest it (and they do). Moreover, McGaughy has developed a new rule that makes the conclusion quite certain in this case. But Colwell’s rule itself must not be abused.[25]

Practical implications of the Trinity

  • Van Til’s Insights on the Trinity by Ralph Allan Smith
  • The Doctrine of the Trinity: No Christianity Without It by Kevin DeYoung
  • Divine simplicity accounts for how all of existence began and how God could be alone in the beginning. (This is similar to the idea of “irreducible complexity” in intelligent design/evolution debates. Three Gods alone in the beginning would be an irreducibly complex system.)
  • Divine simplicity is necessary for God to be the ground for all laws, principles, morals.
  • Atonement requires that Jesus be fully God (as well as fully man).
  • The personal and relational nature of God depends on the Trinity.
  • The gospel is Trinity-shaped.
  • Human relationships are grounded in trinitarian unity/diversity.
  • Prayer is communion with the triune God.
  • Scripture is the Word of God revealed by the Spirit.
  • Unity and diversity within the universe stand or fall on the Trinity.
To illustrate the significance of the Trinity to our faith, consider just briefly the relation of the doctrine of the Trinity to the Christian understanding of salvation. In order for us sinners to be saved, one must see God at one and the same time as the one judging our sin (the Father), the one making the payment of infinite value for our sin (the divine Son), and the one empowering and directing the incarnate—human—Son so that he lives and obeys the Father, going to the cross as the substitute for us (the Holy Spirit). The Christian God, to be savior, must then be Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. That is, our salvation comes as the Father judges our sin in his Son, who became incarnate and lived his life in the power of the Spirit as the perfect and sinless God-man, and accomplished his perfect obedience to the Father through the power of the Spirit. Disregard the Trinity and you necessarily undermine salvation.[26]

Nothing we do as evangelicals makes sense if it is divorced from a strong experiential and doctrinal grasp of the coordinated work of Jesus and the Spirit, worked out against the horizon of the Father’s love. Personal evangelism, conversational prayer, devotional Bible study, authoritative preaching, world missions, and assurance of salvation all presuppose that life in the gospel is life in communion with the Trinity. Forget the Trinity and you forget why we do what we do; you forget who we are as gospel Christians; you forget how we got to be like we are.

The central argument of this book is that the doctrine of the Trinity inherently belongs to the gospel itself. It is not merely the case that this is a doctrine that wise minds have recognized as necessary for defense of the gospel, or that a process of logical deduction leads from believing the gospel to affirming the doctrine of the Trinity, or that people who believe the gospel should also believe whatever the God of the gospel reveals about himself. No, while all those statements are true, they do not say enough, because there is a Trinity-gospel connection much more intimate than those loose links suggest. Trinity and gospel are not just bundled together so that you can’t have one without the other. They are internally configured toward each other. Even at risk of being misunderstood before the full argument emerges in later chapters, let me say it as concisely as possible: the gospel is Trinitarian, and the Trinity is the gospel. Christian salvation comes from the Trinity, happens through the Trinity, and brings us home to the Trinity.[27]

“Relations of origin”

There are four relations of origin in the Trinity. The Father’s is paternity, the Son’s filiation. The Father and the Son both participate in the relation of origin called spiration, and the Spirit’s is procession. Sometimes the Son and Spirit are both said to proceed from the Father, in which case the relations can also be termed generation/procession and spiration/procession.

“There is also a fifth notion that does not characterize a relation: innascibility (unoriginatedness).”[28] The Father is, to quote the Athanasian Creed, “made of none, neither created nor begotten”, and therefore has the personal property of innascibility.

Trinity in the Book of Mormon?

See Experiment › Trinity?.

References from The Ology

References from The Ology

Dt 6:4; Isa 48:16; Mt 3:16–17; 28:19; Jn 14:26; 2Co 13:14; 1Ti 2:5

Matthew 3:16–17 in Christian Trinity literature

  • I love this short and sweet article that teaches the Trinity doctrine from Jesus’ baptism: https://www.crossway.org/articles/the-doctrine-of-the-trinity-in-the-bible/
  • http://www.desiringgod.org/articles/what-is-the-doctrine-of-the-trinity
  • http://www.gotquestions.org/Trinity-Bible.html
  • http://christianity.about.com/od/glossary/g/trinitydoctrine.htm
  • Marty Machowski. The Ology, p. 17.
  • “All one need do is consider the baptism of Jesus, or Jesus’ prayer in the garden of Gethsemane, to realize that the Bible requires that the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit must each be present and subsisting at the same time. God, then, must be simultaneously Father, Son, and Holy Spirit, not just one of these ‘modes’ of the divine expression at a time.” —Bruce Ware. Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. Kindle location 419.
  • “When Jesus was baptized, ‘the heavens were opened to him, and he saw the Spirit of God descending like a dove and coming to rest on him; and … a voice from heaven said, “This is my beloved Son, with whom I am well pleased” ’ (Matt. 3:16–17). At this moment, all three members of the Trinity were performing three distinct activities: God the Father was speaking, God the Son was being baptized, and God the Holy Spirit was resting on the Son.” —Wayne Grudem. Christian Beliefs. Kindle location 489.[29]
  • “And this one God also reveals Himself in three persons. After Jesus was baptized in the Jordan River, the gospel writer Mark describes the interaction between the three persons of the Trinity in these words: ‘When he came up out of the water, immediately he saw the heavens being torn open and the Spirit descending on him like a dove. And a voice came from heaven, “You are my beloved Son; with you I am well pleased”’ (Mark 1:10–11).” —Ken Golden. Presbytopia. Kindle location 259.
  • https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dGoeAkLJzog
  • In the insight box of the daily devotional Our Daily Bread on Feb 4, 2005: “The baptism of Jesus is one of the passages in the New Testament that validates the doctrine of the Trinity—the three-in-one personhood of God. The Father speaks from heaven, the Spirit descends as a dove, and the Son obeys, perfectly pleasing the Father (vv. 16–17). Even though the word trinity never appears in Scripture, there is ample evidence of this truth, including the Great Commission in Matthew 28:19–20 where Jesus’ followers are commanded to baptize new believers in the name of the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit. Can you find other places in the New Testament where the three persons of the Godhead are mentioned together?” [30]
  • WCF II.III only cites four prooftexts for the Trinity: 1Jn 5:7; Mt 3:16–17; Mt 28:19; 2Co 13:14 (and some modern editions now omit 1Jn 5:7).
  • “One episode stands out in the New Testament witness as a uniquely rich locus of Trinitarian interpretation. Jesus’ baptism in the Jordan River by John is widely recognized as a Trinitarian manifestation of a special character. It is commemorated in the Eastern churches as epiphany or theophany, precisely because the one God is manifested there in a threefold way. ‘The primitive Christians used to say to any that doubted of the Trinity, abi ad Jordanem et videbis, Go to Jordan and you will see it.’” —Fred Sanders. The Triune God (New Studies in Dogmatics). pp. 195-196.
  • “Some liberal scholars have argued that belief in Jesus’s deity with the doctrine of the Trinity as its logical conclusion was the result of Greco-Roman influences. The implausibility of this idea is increasingly recognized. On the contrary, belief in the Trinity arose from the drama—the events that unfolded not in Athens or Rome centuries later—but in Jerusalem in the wake of Christ’s resurrection. . . . In fact, at Jesus’s baptism there were three divine persons: the Father whose voice was heard, the Spirit who descended in the form of a dove, and Jesus of whom the Father said, “This is my Son, whom I love; with him I am well pleased” (Matt 3:17).” —Michael Horton (2016). Core Christianity: Finding Yourself in God’s Story.
  • Matthew 3:16–17 is the first passage listed in italics under the header for “Part One: Biblical Foundations” in Robert Letham’s The Holy Trinity (2016, p. 14).
  • Ryken and LeFebvre give an extended exposition of Jesus’ baptism (notably from Luke instead of Matthew) in chapter 4 of their Our Triune God.
  • Scott Swain in his The Trinity: An Introduction introduces the grammar of the Trinity in chapter 1 using the baptismal formula in Matthew 28:19. When he turns to consider the wider biblical basis for the Trinity in chapter 2 the first passage he considers is Matthew 3:16–17.

Separate spirits/souls?

On Jonathan’s Every Verse page, Godhead: Separate Beings?, he lists verses he claims show that the Father, Son, and Holy Ghost have separate spirits and/or souls. Here are my own similar findings:

Father’s spirit (pneuma)

Distinguishable in any meaningful way from the Holy Spirit / Spirit of God?
Jn 4:23–24

Son’s spirit (pneuma)

Mt 27:50 (cf. Lk 23:46); Mk 2:8; 8:12; Jn 13:21 — see also 1Co 15:45; 2Th 2:8

“Spirit of Christ”

Gal 4:6; Php 1:19; 1Pe 1:11

Father’s soul, life (psychē)

Mt 12:18; Heb 10:38?

Son’s soul, life (psychē)

Mt 20:28 (cf. Mk 10:45); Mt 26:38 (cf. Mk 14:34); Jn 10:11, 15, 17; 12:27; Ac 2:27 (cites Ps 16:10); 1Jn 3:16

Son’s mind (nous)

1Co 2:16

Spirit’s mind (phronēma)

Ro 8:27

Father’s will, Son’s will, Spirit’s will

—

Social Trinitarianism

Is Social Trinitarianism basically tritheist or is there more nuance there?

More distinction verses

  1. God spoke from heaven while Christ was on the earth - Matt. 3:17; 17:5; Mark 1:11; Luke 3:22; John 12:28-30
  2. God is a separate witness of Christ - John 5:36-37; 8:17-18
  3. Christ was "with" God in the beginning - John 1:1-3,10,14; 6:38; 16:28; 17:3,52; 20:21; 1 Jn. 4:14; Eph. 3:9
  4. Christ is God's Son - Mark 9:7; John 3:16; 9:35-37; 17:1; 20:17,21,31; Eph. 3:14; Heb. 1:6; 5:5
  5. Christ prayed to his Father - Matt. 6:6-9; 26:39; 27:46; Luke 23:34; John 12:27-28; 16:26; 17:10-11
  6. Christ was seen standing at the right hand of God - Mark 16:19; Luke 22:69; Acts 2:33; 7:55-56; Rom. 8:34; Eph. 1:20; Col. 3:1; Heb. 1:3; 10:12; 1 Pet. 3:22; Rev. 3:21
  7. The Father committed all judgment unto the Son - John 5:17-20,22-23; Rom. 2:16; 2 Tim. 4:1
  8. God anointed Jesus Christ - Acts 10:38; Heb. 1:9
  9. God honored, blessed and glorified Christ - Matt. 12:18; John 5:26; 12:23; 17:1,24; Acts 3:13; 5:30-31; 2 Pet. 1:17-18; Phil. 2:9
  10. Jesus was raised up by God - Acts 5:30-31; 1 Pet. 1:21
  11. God and Jesus are plural (we, our, us) - Gen. 1:26; Isa. 6:8; John 14:23; 17:11,22
  12. God "sent" Christ to atone for us - Mark 9:37; John 3:16; 5:24; 6:38; 7:28-29; 8:42; 12:44-45; 17:3-4,6-10,18,25; 20:21; 1 Jn. 4:14
  13. Christ asked men to pray to God in his name - Matt. 6:6; Col. 3:17; Heb. 7:25-26
  14. Christ spoke of his Father in heaven - Matt. 10:33; 16:15-19; John 14:12; 20:15-17.
  15. Only God knew the exact time of the end; Christ did not then know - Mark 13:32; Matt. 24:36
  16. God the Father is Christ's God - Mark 15:34; John 20:17; Eph. 1:17; 1 Pet. 1:3
  17. Christ's will and doctrine were separate from God's - Matt. 26:39-42; Luke 22:41-42; John 5:30; 7:16-17; 14:10
  18. Christ did his Father's not his own work - Luke 2:49-50; John 17:3-4
  19. Christ came in his Father's name - John 5:43
  20. Christ came from and returned to God - John 14:12; 16:27-28,30; 1 Pet. 3:21-22
  21. The Father was "greater than" the Son - John 10:29; 14:28; 1 Cor. 15:28
  22. We come to the Father only by the Son - John 14:6
  23. Christ will deliver up the kingdom to God - 1 Cor. 15:24
  24. Christ is mediator between God and men - 1 Tim. 2:5; Heb. 8:6; 9:5; 12:24

This list came from FairMormon › Mormons, polytheism and the Nicene Creed.

Why do modern translations prefer Lord over Yahweh or Jehovah?

Note, I haven’t been consistent about keeping the small caps in these quotes, largely because I’ve copy/pasted this mostly on my phone. I need to come back (probably when I’m on my Mac), and clean this up a bit.

Two interesting articles about this:

Preface to the NRSV

Careful readers will notice that here and there in the Old Testament the word Lord (or in certain cases God) is printed in capital letters. This represents the traditional manner in English versions of rendering the Divine Name, the “Tetragrammaton” (see the notes on Exodus 3:14, 15), following the precedent of the ancient Greek and Latin translators and the long established practice in the reading of the Hebrew Scriptures in the synagogue. While it is almost if not quite certain that the Name was originally pronounced “Yahweh,” this pronunciation was not indicated when the Masoretes added vowel sounds to the consonantal Hebrew text. To the four consonants YHWH of the Name, which had come to be regarded as too sacred to be pronounced, they attached vowel signs indicating that in its place should be read the Hebrew word Adonai meaning “Lord” (or Elohim meaning “God”). Ancient Greek translators employed the word Kyrios (“Lord”) for the Name. The Vulgate likewise used the Latin word Dominus (“Lord”). The form “Jehovah” is of late medieval origin; it is a combination of the consonants of the Divine Name and the vowels attached to it by the Masoretes but belonging to an entirely different word. Although the American Standard Version (1901) had used “Jehovah” to render the Tetragrammaton (the sound of Y being represented by J and the sound of W by V, as in Latin), for two reasons the Committees that produced the RSV and the NRSV returned to the more familiar usage of the King James Version. (1) The word “Jehovah” does not accurately represent any form of the Name ever used in Hebrew. (2) The use of any proper name for the one and only God, as though there were other gods from whom the true God had to be distinguished, began to be discontinued in Judaism before the Christian era and is inappropriate for the universal faith of the Christian Church.

Preface to the NASB

The Proper Name of God in the Old Testament: In the Scriptures, the name of God is most significant and understandably so. It is inconceivable to think of spiritual matters without a proper designation for the Supreme Deity. Thus the most common name for the deity is God, a translation of the original Elohim. One of the titles for God is Lord, a translation of Adonai. There is yet another name for which is particularly assigned to God as His special or proper name, that is, the four letters YHWH (Exodus 3:14 and Isaiah 42:8). This name has not been pronounced by the Jews because of reverence for the great sacredness of the divine name. Therefore, it has been consistently translated Lord. The only exception to this translation of YHWH is when it occurs in immediate proximity to the word Lord, that is, Adonai. In that case it is regularly translated God in order to avoid confusion.

It is known that for many years YHWH has been transliterated as Yahweh, however no complete certainty attaches to this pronunciation.

Preface to the NIV (1984)

In regard to the divine name YHWH, commonly referred to as the Tetragrammaton, the translators adopted the device used in most English versions of rendering that name as “Lord” in capital letters to distinguish it from Adonai, another Hebrew word rendered “Lord,” for which small letters are used. Wherever the two names stand together in the Old Testament as a compound name of God, they are rendered “Sovereign Lord.”

Preface to the ESV

In the translation of biblical terms referring to God, the ESV takes great care to convey the specific nuances of meaning of the original Hebrew and Greek words. First, concerning terms that refer to God in the Old Testament: God, the Maker of heaven and earth, introduced himself to the people of Israel with a special personal name, the consonants for which are YHWH (see Exodus 3:14–15). Scholars call this the “Tetragrammaton,” a Greek term referring to the four Hebrew letters YHWH. The exact pronunciation of YHWH is uncertain, because the Jewish people considered the personal name of God to be so holy that it should never be spoken aloud. Instead of reading the word YHWH, therefore, they would normally read the Hebrew word ’adonay (“Lord”), and the ancient translations into Greek, Syriac, and Aramaic also followed this practice. When the vowels of the word ’adonay are placed with the consonants of YHWH, this results in the familiar word Jehovah that was used in some earlier English Bible translations. As is common among English translations today, the ESV usually renders the personal name of God (YHWH) by the word Lord (printed in small capitals). An exception to this is when the Hebrew word ’adonay appears together with YHWH, in which case the two words are rendered together as “the Lord [in lowercase] God [in small capitals].” In contrast to the personal name for God (YHWH), the more general name for God in Old Testament Hebrew is ’elohim and its related forms of ’el or ’eloah, all of which are normally translated “God” (in lowercase letters). The use of these different ways to translate the Hebrew words for God is especially beneficial to English readers, enabling them to see and understand the different ways that the personal name and the general name for God are both used to refer to the One True God of the Old Testament.

ESV Interview: Why is YHWH translated “the LORD”?

The question of why we translated the Divine Name the way we did in the Old Testament as the LORD, which is the tradition, rather than Yahweh, which is what most scholars think is pronounced, is a very good question. And in our revised preface we will explain why we chose to stay with the English Bible convention, which is the LORD (and the LORD is in small caps).

When the Hebrew Bible was first written, they only wrote the consonants, and they assumed you knew how to pronounce the words, and so they didn’t have to write the vowels. But after a while, they began to put in the vowels because people didn’t always remember how to pronounce things.

And that led to a particular problem, namely that by the time the vowels were added, nobody was pronouncing the Divine Name any longer. And the Jews when they would read it would always say, “Adonai”, which means the Lord. We know that this is an early practice because in the Septuagint, the Greek translation made as early as the third century B.C., they were already translating the Divine Name with the Greek word for the LORD. And so that’s what became the convention for all Bible translations, is to do precisely that.

I think it’s a good idea for several reasons. One is that, well, we’re not exactly sure how the Hebrew word was to be pronounced. I think that Yahweh is probably right, but it is worth discussing and debating.

But perhaps even more importantly, when you have the New Testament using the Old, they are using a Greek translation of the Old Testament, which has the LORD in it. And it’s very important for Bible readers to see exactly what’s going on when the New Testament writers make use of the Old Testament. And for that reason we are happy to use the convention that was established by the Septuagint so that you can see, for example, in a passage like 1 Peter 3:15, where Jesus Christ is called the Lord, whom we are to regard as holy. You can see that Peter is using a passage from Isaiah about the Lord, the God of Israel, and applying that title to our Savior and making a strong affirmation of his deity.[31]

Q&A: Translation Decisions for the CSB

Why did the Christian Standard Bible move away from the HCSB’s use of “Yahweh”?

In the Old Testament, God gives his personal name more than 6,000 times. Known as the Tetragrammaton, the name is YHWH in the Hebrew text. It cannot be pronounced unless vowels are added.

Traditionally, English Bible translations have chosen not to supply vowels in order to make YHWH pronounceable; they simply render this name as a title (Lord). This practice shows sensitivity to some who believe that to call God by his personal name is too informal. There is also debate as to which vowels should be added to YHWH to make it pronounceable. The HCSB broke with tradition and rendered YHWH as “Yahweh” 656 times in the Old Testament. The intent was to share with the reader God’s personal name in contexts where God was referring to his name.

Four considerations led the CSB Translation Oversight Committee to depart from the HCSB practice and come into alignment with other English translations.

First, the HCSB was inconsistent by rendering YHWH as “Yahweh” in only 656 of 6,000+ occurrences of YHWH. In many cases, a single verse contains multiple occurrences of YHWH in the Hebrew. As an example of inconsistency, the HCSB in Job 1:21 read: “The Lord gives, and the Lord takes away. Praise the name of Yahweh.” Verses like this raised the question: what criteria did HCSB follow in choosing between “Yahweh” and “Lord”? Criteria were stated in the HCSB Introduction, but many readers felt that the approach should be fully consistent, rendering YHWH as “Yahweh” every time or else returning to the traditional “Lord.”

Second, full consistency in rendering YHWH as “Yahweh” would overwhelm the reader. As an example, Numbers 9:23 would read as follows if HCSB had been fully consistent in its use of “Yahweh.” “They camped at Yahweh’s command, and they set out at Yahweh’s command. They carried out Yahweh’s requirement according to Yahweh’s command through Moses.”

Third, consistent feedback from readers showed that the unfamiliarity of “Yahweh” was an obstacle to reading the HCSB. For example, many reported that they felt “Yahweh” was an innovation, and they misunderstood the intent behind using the formal name of God. A translation that values accuracy and readability was thereby limited by a translation choice that did not provide clarity to the reader.

Fourth, when quoting Old Testament texts that include an occurrence of YHWH, the New Testament renders YHWH with the word kurios, which is a title (Lord) rather than a personal name. With this precedent in hand, most English translators have chosen to render YHWH as “Lord” rather than “Yahweh.”

For these reasons, CSB is in line with the majority of English translations in its rendering of YHWH as “Lord.” In places where God introduces or emphasizes his covenant name, CSB has a footnote, saying, “Lit Yahweh.”[32]

Preface to the LSB

Names of God: In the Scriptures, the name of God is significant and understandably so. Traditionally, the translation “God” renders the Hebrew word Elohim. Likewise, the word “Lord” is a translation of Adonai. In the LSB, God’s covenant name is rendered as Yahweh. The meaning and implication of this name is God’s self-deriving, ongoing, and never-ending existence. Exodus 3:14–15 shows that God Himself considered it important for His people to know His name. The effect of revealing God’s name is His distinction from other gods and His expression of intimacy with the nation of Israel. Such a dynamic is a prevalent characteristic of the Scriptures as Yahweh appears in the OT over 6,800 times.

In addition to Yahweh, the full name of God, the OT also includes references to God by a shorter version of His name, Yah. By itself, God’s name “Yah” may not be as familiar, but the appearance of it is recognizable in Hebrew names and words (e.g. Zechar-iah, meaning Yah remembers, and Hallelu-jah, meaning praise Yah!). God’s shortened name “Yah” is predominantly found in poetry and praise.

The translation “Yahweh” is substantiated by scholarly reconstruction as well as by historical discussions in Theodoret, Epiphanius, Clement of Alexandria, Origen, and Aquila. Consequently, those latter individuals affirm the usage of God’s covenant name in the period of the early church. Preserving this in translation foundationally records what is present in the OT text. It also allows proper distinction between God’s personal name and the title “Lord” (Adonai), which emphasizes God’s authority. Even more, it helps the reader to engage God with the name which He gifted to His people. Thus, the reintroduction of God’s personal name into the translation of the OT is a feature that enhances the precision, intensity, and clarity of the biblical text in English.

The NT uses the term “Lord” (Kurios) to translate Yahweh. The LSB maintains the translation “Lord” and does not change those instances to Yahweh. In cases when “Lord” explicitly translates Yahweh in a quotation of the OT, a footnote is provided stating such. Nevertheless, the LSB maintains the translation of “Lord” in the NT for the same reason it upholds Yahweh in the OT: because that is what is written in the original text. Just as translations preserve the distinct wording between an OT passage and its quotation in the NT, so this distinction is preserved.

While there may be several factors behind this shift from Yahweh to Lord, for the apostles, one purpose centers on the declaration that Jesus Christ is Lord. Because the NT writers rendered Yahweh as Lord, they showed that Jesus is both Lord over all (even over Caesar, Acts 25:26) and none other than Yahweh Himself (Acts 2:25, 34, 36). Hence, the term “Lord” is a profound title showing Christ’s supremacy in heaven and earth. That being said, the significance of this title presumes that one understands the movement from Yahweh to Lord. By rendering what is written in both OT and NT, one can observe this shift and the fullness of its theological import.

Procession in Trinitarianism vs. Neoplatonism

I don’t have much to say on this now, but putting it here so I don’t forget it: When Neoplatonism explains the procession (emanation) of the nous and the psychē from the One it uses the Greek prohodos[33], but the Nicene Creed uses the Bible terms monogenēs (Jn 1:14) and ekporeuomai (Jn 15:26) instead. (And I’ll save you the trouble of looking: the Athanasian Creed was originally in Latin, so it of course doesn’t use the same terms.)

Modalism contradicts the doctrine of divine simplicity!

From Dolezal’s Trinity, Simplicity and the Status of God’s Personal Relations:

What is removed from our ordinary conception of mode when we speak of God is its function as a quality modifying or conveying some additional actually to a thing in which it inheres – such as a mode of subsistence that a creature does not possess in virtue of its essence per se. Since God’s essence is infinite it cannot possibly be determined to subsist as Father, Son and Spirit by the reception of additional forms or modes of being.

He’s not actually talking about modalism here. He’s simply qualifying the proper ways we use the word “mode” in trinitarian doctrine, but it struck me that he’s specifically defining trinitarian modes in such a way as to exclude any act-potency/being-becoming composition in God, but modalism is totally all about that.



Does the doctrine of divine simplicity contradict God’s tripersonality?

  1. Ryken, Philip Graham; LeFebvre, Michael. Our Triune God: Living in the Love of the Three-in-One (p. 20). Crossway. Kindle Edition. #
  2. http://www.desiringgod.org/articles/what-is-the-doctrine-of-the-trinity #
  3. Grudem, Wayne; Grudem, Elliot (2009-03-10). Christian Beliefs: Twenty Basics Every Christian Should Know (Kindle Locations 482-485). Zondervan. Kindle Edition. #
  4. Augustine, On the Trinity 1.3.5. #
  5. Erickson, Millard J. (2000). Making Sense of the Trinity: Three Crucial Questions (p. 90). Baker Publishing Group. Kindle Edition. #
  6. Craig, William Lane. “A Formulation and Defense of the Doctrine of the Trinity”. Unabridged version of chapter 29 from Philosophical Foundations of a Christian Worldview (ed. J. P. Moreland and William Lane Craig; Downers Grove, IL: InterVarsity, 2003). p. 18. [1] #
  7. Sanders, Fred (2010). The Deep Things of God: How the Trinity Changes Everything (p. 133). Crossway. Kindle Edition. #
  8. Sanders, Fred (2010). The Deep Things of God: How the Trinity Changes Everything (p. 151). Crossway. Kindle Edition. #
  9. The word οὐσία is used twice in Lk 15:12–13, but not the way we use it of God in trinitarianism; it is used of substance in the sense of goods, property, or money. #
  10. In Heb 1:3 Jesus is said to be the exact imprint of God the Father’s ὑπόστασις, but it’s unclear to me how best to translate this. The word ὑπόστασις is used with different meaning in 2Co 9:4; 11:17; Heb 3:14; 11:1. #
  11. Grenz, S., Guretzki, D., & Nordling, C. F. (1999). Pocket Dictionary of Theological Terms (pp. 61–62). Downers Grove, IL: InterVarsity Press. #
  12. Leonardo Boff, Trinity and Society, trans. Paul Burns (Maryknoll, N.Y.: Orbis, 1988), 5. #
  13. Raymond E. Brown, The Gospel According to John I–XII (Garden City, New York: Doubleday & Co. Inc.), 403, 407. #
  14. David J. Ellis, The International Bible Commentary (ed. F.F. Bruce, Zondervan Publishing House, Grand Rapids, Michigan, 1986, p. 1249). Found at [2]. #
  15. Calvin, J., & Pringle, W. (2010). Commentary on the Gospel according to John (Vol. 1, p. 417). Bellingham, WA: Logos Bible Software. #
  16. Calvin, J., & Pringle, W. (2010). Commentary on the Gospel according to John (Vol. 2, pp. 183–184). Bellingham, WA: Logos Bible Software. #
  17. Carson, D. A. (1991). The Pillar New Testament Commentary: The Gospel According to John (p. 394). Leicester, England; Grand Rapids, MI: Inter-Varsity Press; W.B. Eerdmans. #
  18. Lange, J. P., & Schaff, P. (2008). A commentary on the Holy Scriptures: John (p. 332). Bellingham, WA: Logos Bible Software. #
  19. Borchert, G. L. (1996). The New American Commentary: John 1–11 (Vol. 25A, p. 341). Nashville: Broadman & Holman Publishers. #
  20. Keddie, G. J. (2001). A Study Commentary on John: John 1–12 (Vol. 1, p. 407). Darlington, England; Auburn, MA: Evangelical Press. #
  21. Lange, J. P., & Schaff, P. (2008). A commentary on the Holy Scriptures: John (p. 332). Bellingham, WA: Logos Bible Software. #
  22. Johann Albrecht Bengel. Gnomon of the New Testament, John 10:30. http://www.studylight.org/commentary/john/10-30.html #
  23. Augustine. Tractates on the Gospel of John, 36.9. http://www.newadvent.org/fathers/1701036.htm #
  24. Anatolios, Khaled. Retrieving Nicaea: The Development and Meaning of Trinitarian Doctrine. Baker Publishing Group. Kindle Edition. #
  25. Carson, D. A. (1996). Exegetical Fallacies (pp. 82–84). Baker Publishing Group. #
  26. Ware, Bruce A. (2005). Father, Son, and Holy Spirit: Relationships, Roles, and Relevance (Kindle Locations 143-149). Good News Publishers. #
  27. Sanders, Fred (2010). The Deep Things of God: How the Trinity Changes Everything (pp. 9-10). Crossway. #
  28. Letham, Robert. The Holy Trinity: In Scripture, History, Theology, and Worship (p. 228). P&R Publishing. Kindle Edition. #
  29. Jesus’ baptism is also the first passage Grudem brings up in his Systematic Theology when he begins to coniseder the New Testament evidence for the Trinity. #
  30. Joey Day › The Trinity, Part 1 #
  31. https://www.patheos.com/blogs/adrianwarnock/2005/06/esv-interview-why-is-yhwh-translated-the-lord/ #
  32. https://csbible.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/01/Translation-Decisions-QA.pdf #
  33. See Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy › Neoplatonism and Wikipedia › Ecstasy (philosophy) #
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