One thing I have observed in life is that Christians are very quick to alienate those they claim to want to reach over subtle, arcane points of theology instead of trying to find common ground. This needs to stop.
I grew up going to church every Sunday. I prayed every night. I read the Bible. I believed for most of my life that God created the universe, that Jesus died for my sins, and that the Holy Spirit lived in me and guided my actions. I believed that Jesus was himself God. I even believed in some of the more controversial parts of the bible such as a literal seven-day creation week and the virgin birth. Imagine my shock when in my thirties I woke up one morning to read online that I had been living a lie all those years; I had never been a Christian because I didn’t believe in the trinity!
To show love and solidarity with Muslims as they are abused both by the extremists within their own religion and those in the West who cannot tell a good Muslim from a bad Muslim, a professor at a Christian college several years ago opined that we all worshipped the same God – not an uncommon opinion. Not only did the college fire her, but they went on to say that Muslims certainly do not worship the same God because they don’t believe in the trinity and anybody who doesn’t believe in the trinity doesn’t worship the same God either. I was quite surprised.
I was always aware that God’s triune nature was a common belief, but not that the debate had been settled, and certainly not that it was important. It was hardly central. My church held up baptism by immersion as a more important issue. When I was young, I always had the sense that the trinity was something debated by theology nerds but incomprehensible to normal people. Since Jesus loves even children and the mentally retarded, it seems unlikely that salvation would depend on understanding something as obscure and incomprehensible as the trinity. I was never sure whether I believed it myself because I did not know what it was. How could I know whether I believed in the trinity when I didn’t even know what “trinity” meant? For all I know, I might already believe in the trinity, but know it by a different name! Over the years I have heard no fewer than twelve different explanations of the nature of the trinity, all of them incompatible with each other, and by far the most common explanation I hear is: “Well, no one understands the trinity, but we know it’s true because the Bible tells us.”
Really? Actually, the word “trinity” is nowhere in the Bible and the strongest hint we have of its existence is that the early Christians were told to go out and make disciples, baptizing them in the name of the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit. This is very flimsy circumstantial evidence to say the least. Just because three of God’s manifestations are listed does not mean those are the only three he has. I can think of seven just off the top of my head: in the beginning speaking the world into existence, in the pillar of smoke that led the Israelites through the desert during the day, in the pillar of fire that led the Israelites around the desert at night, in the Ark of the Covenant, in Elijah’s still small voice, in Jesus, and in the bright light on the road to Damascus. That’s seven forms. Why is he not a septnity? What do those seven lampstands in Revelation really represent?
There are other verses that people cite that allegedly show evidence for the trinity, but these are even less clear. It really looks to me like people made up their minds first that the trinity existed, and then combed through the Bible for anything that was even remotely compatible with it. The more I have read on this subject, the more I have become convinced they are just making it all up and being divisive for the sake of being divisive. They are trolling!
Furthermore, not one of the verses cited give any hint as to the nature of the trinity. There is no way to know if partialism (the idea that Father, Son, and Spirit are different parts of God, such as how eggs have yolk, white, and shell) is right, or if modalism (the idea that Father, Son, and Spirit are different modes God can be in, such as how water can be solid, liquid, or gas) is right, yet there are those that dismiss both of these very intuitive ideas as not only wrong, but heretical.
Some people claim that God has a soul, spirit, and body just like we do, yet they do not refer to humans as little trinities. They still treat “The Trinity” as something special and mysterious that only God has. They mention that Jesus prayed to God The Father, but do not explain whether this was a body speaking to a spirit or a spirit speaking to a soul or just what was going on at all. If Jesus was “fully man,” as some claim, this means that by the same logic, he would have had his own spirit and soul – a trinity within a trinity. Do any of these trinities have smaller trinities? How many are God? 3? 9? 27? 81? 243? Where does it end? They also do a poor job at describing what a soul and spirit are, how they are different from each other, how they are both different from the mind, and how it is that a body can pray to a mind without already having a mind to pray with.
Some people claim that just as there are billions of human persons with the human nature, there are three divine persons with the divine nature. In other words, there are multiple Gods. While they don’t use the word, this is polytheism by definition. Unlike partialism and modalism, this actually is heretical.
Others claim that when God says in Genesis “Let us make them in our image,” it shows that God is a trinity of male, female, and offspring. In other words, the Holy Spirit is female. It also means that most animals are made in the image of God, since humans are not unique in engaging in sexual reproduction. How do we know that “us” is not a mistranslation from an earlier language into Hebrew? How do we know God was not talking to the angels? How do we know God was not talking to himself the way I sometimes talk to myself?
Others claim that the three parts of the trinity are just three titles God has. Just as a man might be a father, husband, and son at the same time, God can be Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. Why only three? God has not only been referred to as the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit, but also as the way, the truth, the life, the word, the prince of peace, the son of man, the son of God, the lamb, the lion, the alpha, the omega, the I Am (not the “We Are”), Yahweh, Elohim, Jehovah, Jesus, Yeshuah, and even the “unknown God” (Acts 17:23). God has not only taken the role of heavenly father, but is also referred to in the Bible as the bridegroom of Israel and the head of the church body. Can a bride marry her own head? He is even called a vine while we are the branches! Why do we only consider three titles? Doesn’t it make more sense to say there is only one God who takes on as many titles as he wishes?
Others claim that when Jesus refers to “another counselor” that it proves that he is not the same thing as The Holy Spirit, yet absolutely nobody suggests that when Ezekiel is called “the son of man” that it makes Jesus and Ezekiel the same person. It’s so very confusing!
It all seems so silly! Isn’t it overreach to declare others not to be true Christians just because they might be wrong about one or more points of theology? Don’t we still worship the same God? The same might be said about Jews or Muslims. They claim to worship the God of Abraham. They might call him by a different name and have some ideas about him that I don’t agree with, but how can I know for sure it isn’t the same God? Isn’t there only one?
Whatever the theological truth might be, this rhetoric is dangerous for two reasons: It alienates the Muslims that we should be trying to reach and it alienates other Christians who could help us reach them. In any case, I know Jesus personally and I know he accepts me, so I don’t care what others say. I still can’t believe somebody got fired over this. When did belief in the trinity become so important?
Here is a good explanation of the issue I found from a noted Bible scholar, Derek Prince. “Muslims reject with scorn the suggestion that God has a Son. God has no need of a son they say. In fact, they have actually inscribed ‘God has no son’ on the Mosque of Omar in the Temple area of Jerusalem.
To the contrary, the supreme revelation of the Christian Bible is that God has one Son, manifested in history as Jesus of Nazareth, who is to be honored above all others. It was this Son who on the cross offered Himself as a sacrifice for the sins of the whole world. Islam, however, rejects the biblical account of the death of Jesus on the cross. It claims that at the last moment before Jesus died, an angel rescued Him and carried Him away, and another man of similar appearance was substituted for Him.
Because Islam has no sacrifice for sin, it cannot offer a remedy for sin. In fact, Islam does not acknowledge that there is a ‘sin problem’. Islam is essentially a religion of works. If your good deeds outweigh your bad deeds Islam teaches that you will make it to a Muslim Paradise.
Every Muslim is required to recite the following confession: ‘There is no god but Allah and Mohammed is the messenger of God.’ No Muslim, it is claimed who makes this confession will ultimately remain in Hell. However, those who repudiate this claim will be punished by conscious, eternal damnation in hellfire.
According to the Bible, our attitude toward the Son of God reveals our true spiritual condition. In 1 John 2:22 the apostle tells us ‘Who is a liar, but he who denies that Jesus is the Christ (Messiah)? ‘He is antichrist who denies the Father and the Son.‘ Since Islam denies the Father/Son relationship in God this clearly marks it as an antichrist.’”
You’re suggesting a lot of different possibilities but one thing I’m sure of is that Allah of Islam is not the same as our Christian God. They are total opposites. There’s a wonderful testimony by an Iranian who explains what Islam is really like at YouTube.com/MohamadFaridi