Book Plunge: Jesus Was Not A Trinitarian Chapter 11

Does having more support change a position? Let’s plunge into the Deeper Waters and find out.

In this chapter, Buzzard lists several people who he says support his cause. Sadly, they all use pretty much the same kinds of arguments. There is really less and less to comment on, but let’s go on with what one of these people says about the history of the doctrine of the Trinity:

Fourth-century Trinitarianism did not reflect accurately early Christian teaching regarding the nature of God; it was, on the contrary, a deviation from this teaching…It developed against constant unitarian opposition and was never wholly victorious. The dogma of the Trinity owes its existence to abstract speculation on the part of a small minority of scholars.

In response, here’s at least one good thing that came out of the later Star Wars movies.

Indeed. For one thing, this was not a fourth century doctrine as much as it was one started in the second century and further refined up to that point and is still being refined. We have made plenty of arguments against Buzzard’s idea that Trinitarianism is a deviation, but also there was not constant Unitarian opposition and finally, it was hardly a minority. I would expect to find this more in the Da Vinci Code!

Buzzard also writes about the Angel of the Lord and how that was accepted to be a theophany without proof. As to why Stephen who talked about the Angel in his speech before the Sanhedrin never said that, why should he? For one thing, Buzzard assumes that statement would be controversial to say that the Angel of the Lord was an appearance of deity. This assumes they held to Buzzard’s strict unitarianism. Second, if they don’t accept Jesus, what good would it do to say “This Angel was Jesus all along!” Not a bit.

Those interested in seeing the Angel of the Lord can search through my blog where I have stated that He is an appearance of deity. Go to the verses under question and look for them here or just search for Angel of the Lord. Either way, Buzzard is begging the question.

Finally, he says that Hebrews not only says that Jesus is greater than the angels, but if Jesus was the Angel of the Lord, what about how Hebrews also says in these last days God has spoken by His Son? The first one is quite easy in that the angel of the Lord is the messenger of the Lord and not an angel in the same sense as all the other angels. In the second, these appearances are also definitely not the same as a full incarnation taking on human nature. It’s sad Buzzard thinks these are great objections when one can come up with an answer easily with a moment’s thought.

Buzzard also says:

It is encouraging to hear scholars say that the Trinitarian dogma “was determined neither by scripture nor by experience but by the Arian controversy on the doctrine of the Trinity.”

Why does he consider this encouraging? Error has always led to the refining of truth. It was Marcion’s false canon that led Christians to establish the true canon. It is failure in modern fields that leads to success.

Finally, I want to bring out this closing remark of his:

Unitarianism has of course continued since the early twentieth century when the Schaff-Herzog article was penned. In general Unitarians have become less “biblical,” meaning that they lost a grip on central biblical teachings such as the virgin birth, the resurrection and the Second Coming. The loss of these central truths is hardly likely to make unitarianism attractive to evangelicals and the fault lies in this respect with the Unitarianism which has lost its biblical basis, other than its rejection of creeds which superseded the creed of Jesus.

I highlight this as I found it revealing of Buzzard’s character. Any time any Trinitarian has done something he despises, he has pointed to how dreadful the doctrine is and what it does. However, when Unitarians consistently start denying other essential biblical doctrines, including the virgin birth, which I do affirm, well that’s just that these people have lost their Biblical Basis. It has nothing to do with rejecting the Trinity!

It must be nice to live in Buzzard’s world where the rules are always different for you than they are for the other side.

In Christ,
Nick Peters
(And I affirm the virgin birth)

Book Plunge: Resurrecting The Trinity

What do I think of M. James Sawyer’s book published by Weaver Book Company? Let’s plunge into the Deeper Waters and find out.

The Trinity is something that many people do not really pay attention to in Christianity. Sawyer is certainly right that for many Christians today that if the Trinity was proven false, their church services and worship style would be little changed if any. We are often mere monotheists, confessing Trinitarians but practicing Arians.

Of course, we do lip service to the Trinity, but that’s where it usually ends. The only other time we open up the Trinity box is when Jehovah’s Witnesses come by so we can beat them up with it and win in a battle that we don’t often see the importance of and then the Trinity goes back on the shelf. Sawyer wants us to see the Trinity as a life-changing doctrine.

In our modern secular world, we can often view God through a scientific lens where He often plays no active role in our universe except for an occasional miracle. This is why deism is such a possibility for so many people. The universe can run on its own power with laws of nature being active. God is not really necessary. The universe is just a big machine.

Go back to the past and in fact to many other traditions today like the Orthodox church and the Trinity is a living reality to them. We can make many statements about God that would be easily agreed to by a Muslim or a Jew. To some extent, this is understandable. There is no philosophical argument that can prove the Trinity. If we have just reason alone, we can get so far, but the problem is we often act like reason alone has got us as far as we can go.

Instead, the Trinity is to show us what God is like mainly through Christ. Christ doesn’t appease an angry side of God. Christ shows us what the Father Himself is like. If we think the Father is eager to judge us, then we have to ask why Jesus doesn’t seem the same way. There is no dark side of God. What you see is what you get. When you look at Jesus, you see what God is like.

Sawyer also shows that we can have those false views of God such as the kind of name-it, claim-it God or the God who is eager to smite us all. To some extent, we all have these ideas of God at some time in our lives I suppose. It has been rightly said that whatever your idea of God is, it is inadequate. Still, we should strive for as truthful a view as possible.

Sawyer also says that this has often led to a certain moralizing in our walk. Holiness can become a burden when it needn’t be because we are trying to appease the angry God. There is no problem with being moral, but the issue is did Jesus really come to establish a new morality, or did He come to give us God? By all means, He showed us a better way, but did He not show God as well?

When we look at our theology, it is too easy to not have it really be informed by Jesus. The God of the philosophers is tempting to stick with, but the God revealed in Christ is a huge step forward. Too many of us are too tempted to stick with all the omni traits, which we should not deny, and just leave it at that instead of interacting with the whole theological picture.

There isn’t as much in defense of the Trinity here against objections, but that’s fine. There is some grounding of the idea and how it contrasts with Rabbinic thought and about what happened in the Arian controversy, but I think the whole of the work doesn’t seek to defend the Trinity as much as it seeks to show why the Trinity matters. This is indeed something that we need restored to the church today.

The only major area I think I’d disagree with is that Sawyer does seem to hold a higher view of The Shack than I would like. It’s quite interesting that one of the main reasons I didn’t like that book was because of the way it treated the Trinity. If you are like me, you can still get a lot out of this as it doesn’t play a major role in the book.

I hope a book like Sawyer’s is appreciated. The church needs to reclaim the revelation that has been given in Christ. Our doctrine has become largely about morality and such instead of really about a revelation of who God is so that He can often seem just as distant to us as He would have been before the revelation of Jesus. There is a better way.

In Christ,
Nick Peters