I would first like to state that though I consider myself a Christian, I do not believe in the traditional Trinity as is believed by the Catholics, Protestants, and Orthodox. I am LDS (Mormon), and I believe that God the Father, his Son Jesus Christ, and the Holy Ghost are three separate and individual beings. I was faced with this teaching from the LDS Church and really had a very difficult time "feeling" it. I know that is not logical, but I could not join until resolving this question.
I respect all people's faiths and believe that the world would be a lot better if there was more religious toleration. I did not mean this to insult or disrespect another religion, faith, sect, or church. Please forgive me if it appears I have done so. no insult taken.
Before the First Council of Niceae, the Christian churches were very diverse about their beliefs concerning the Godhead. Catholicism maintained that the Three were all one divine being. Other popular churches, particularly Arianism, Sabellianism, etc., had a belief that all Three were distinct beings. While this is true, my question remains, "what did Jesus and his Jewish community believe?" The answer to this is complete Monotheism. Jews were never allowed to believe that God had a co-equal God working with him. This is what distinguished Judaism from all other faiths - that there were no other Gods. In Isaiah 44:6 God himself states that "I am the First, and I am the Last, besides me there is NO OTHER." This means that if Jesus was created by God to be a co-equal God at some point prior to this writing, God would have certainly acknowledged this to Isaiah. There are several other verses that state the same thing. Secondly, in Exodus 3:13, Moses asks Eloheme (God the Father) what is name is, that he might tell the Hebrews what God they were going to follow from then on. Eloheme tells Moses that his name is "Jehovah" or YHWH, and it is usually rendered in KJV as "I AM THAT I AM", which means self existant, uncreated, and salvation. If you look up the word God for that very verse in Strong's Exhaustive Concordance, you will find that the word "God" translates as Eloheme and not Jehovah. In Hebrew it is very, very clear that Eloheme tells mosees that his name is Jehovah. Most of Christendom recognizes, as do the LDS Christians, that Jehovah is the pre-incarnate Christ. What Eloheme is telling Moses is that he is both Eloheme AND Jehovah/pre-incarnate Christ. Add to this the fact that every time you see the phrase "the Lord our God", "The Lord God", "The Lord your God" and so forth, whether it be in the BoM, the Bible, D&C and so forth, you get the same translation as in Exodus 3:13, for the word "Lord" translates as YHWH, and the word "God" translates from Eloheme. Therefore the phrase "the Lord God" literally means "Jehovah, (who is) Eloheme". You can further compare Christ's miracles to those of Jehovah and recognize that each did the same types of miracles - hence the same deity. Further support FOR the Trinity is found in the BoM itself: Alma 11:26-39 confirm a very Trinitarian viewpoint: "And Zeezrom said unto him: Thou sayest there is a true and living God? And Amulek said: Yea, there is a true and living God. Now Zeezrom said: Is there more than one God? And he answered, NO. ... Now Zeezrom saith again unto him: Is the Son of God the very Eternal Father? And amulek said unto him: Yea, he is the very Eternal father of heaven and of earth, and all things which in them are; he is the BEGINNING AND THE END, THE FIRST AND THE LAST;" There is no doubt that this quote directly matches up with Isaiah 44:6 where Eloheme/God, the Eternal Father IS the first and the last, the beginning and the end, and "besides me there is no God." That pretty much puts Christ out of the picture as a "separate" deity. He either IS God, as Exodus 3:13 states, or he isn't God at all, which is what the Muslim faith contends. By the way, Islam is a very extreem view of Arianism, which you mentioned. Arianism pre-dates Catholicism to be sure, and the prophet Muhammed hung on to the tale end of it and made it Muslim doctrine as belief in it was phasing out and the Catholic church was spreading. To resurrect this thread of early christianity is to invoke parallel beliefs with early Islam, which by the way has a parallel spiritual history with Mormonism - a prophet is called of God, visits a private natural setting, ( a cave or a grove), receives an angelic visitation which prompts the writing of new scripture to correct the old, defunct, error-ridden scriptures, new rules are laid out that were formerly canceled in the old religion, and an entirely new faith develops based on the new writing. Christ remains, but his position changes somewhat, either to a prophet, or a lesser being beneath God, and his ability to forgive sin is removed or diminished. This is why in Mormonism, some sins can not be forgiven and blood atonement is required, hence the blood atonement doctrine that was used by the Danites, and why only Utah has the execution of criminals done by Gunshot and not injection - their blood must be drawn to atone for their own sins, because Christ can not atone for "some" sins. This is not traditional Christianity by any means, because in Traditional Christianity, Christ's cross aquitted ALL sin, period. Three distinct and separate beings may have been part of Arian Christianity, but they were not part of Jewish Christianity, the kind Jesus taught and walked among the Jewish nation with. Jesus taught only ONE God, just like Moses did. Judaism was established as a means for getting RID of the idea of more than one God. And because of Exodus 3:13, this idea can continue, by knowing that Eloheme and Jehovah and Jesus are all the same being, with the Holy Spirit - three in one. The other thing that does not make sense to me in regard to Mormonism is that when Joseph Smith received his first vision, a pillar of light came out of the heavens and surrounded him - SURROUNDED him. He was inside this ONE PILLAR of light and therefore he was able to see 2 of the three aspects of deity even though they were ensconsed as ONE being, ONE pillar of light. Although the beautiful picture/stained glass window of Joseph's first vision shows him viewing the Father and the Son separately, it is not accurate, read the first vision scripture carefully - he was actually INSIDE that ONE PILLAR of light - this was the same pillar of light that led the hebrews through the red sea - it was "three in one", only the hebrews did not know this, but Jos. Smith was inside this light pillare and that was his own experience. He was inside the one, and therefore could experience the three, two visible, and one through feeling. Of course that would have been hard to describe. AS far as I am concerned the BoM and Jos. Smith's first vision SUPPORT the Trinity, and possibly the "Seven Fold Spirit of God" mentioned in the OT, they do not deny it at all.
One of the principal reasons the First Council of Niceae was called was to end this conflict among the early Christian churches. In the end, Constatine, though he was not at a Christian at the time, decided the official belief would be that they were all One Being, and over the next three hundred years the Arians were converted to Catholicism. This statement is also true, but why go with Arianism? There was obviously something prior to that as far as Christianity went. You know who coverted to Arian Christianity? The pagan Germans. They converted from a huge pantheon, and their God, Odin, was crucified on a tree, and returned from death with the runes, or holy writ. Of course the Germans were going to understand the Godhead as separate - that is what they already believed, and so this was an easy conversion. But as they studied, they recognized the error and went with catholicism. If Arianism had spoken to them in any way, why did they let it go? The answer is that Judaism is the basis for early christianity, the EARLIEST christianity, and one can simply not deny that severe monotheism is a must for the basis of Christianity. When more than one deity exists, we go right back to poly-theism, and knock out the entire reason that God removed Moses from Egypt to begin with. God would not do that. He does not change.
By the year A.D. 700, the principal Christian belief was that God, Jesus Christ, and the Holy Spirit were different personifications of One Being, because of a descision made ove three hundred years earlier by a non-Christian to help unite his people.
If Jesus was God Incarnate, who was He praying to in the Grove? Himself? If Jesus was God the Father, why did He say to Mary not to touch Him, for He had not yet ascended to His Father. I would like you to pause and do an experiment here. First, locate your brain - you know where that is don't you? Now locate your spinal cord, the stem coming off your brain. Now locate your nerves, you have nerves in your fingers and your toes, arms and legs, tongue, eyes and so on. The brain, spinal cord and nerves are all scientifically SEPARATE systems. They can be disconnected, studied and treated differently. They have different diseases, right? They are separate organs. However, they are all ONE ORGANIZED SYSTEM AND THEY CAN NOT FUNCTION AT ALL IF THEY ARE IN ANY WAY DISCONNECTED. ok? now, pinch your finger, and pinch it hard. Did you feel that? Your nerve, spinal cord and Brain all picked up the message at the same time. Jesus is the "nerve" - the part of the system that interacts with the world and sends messages to the "headquarters". The spine delivers the message, and would make a good icon for the "holy spirit", who "delivers our prayers with groaning". The Brain is Headquarters and receives the messages, interprets them and sends messages and help back, makes decisions and so forth. Just because Jesus was on earth as God does not mean that "all of God" left heaven, just a part of God left heaven, for a human body would not accomodate something like God. That is why the OT scriptures state that the earth is God's FOOTSTOOL - only a part of God can dwell on earth, not all. Just like a nerve sends info to the brain through the spine, so Jesus sends God info through the Holy Spirit. the natural world is a beautiful picture of the divine, isnt it? Further, the NT states that Jesus is in the "IMAGE" of the Father - he is an image, a reflection, like a mirror. And just like a mirror reflects light and there are not 2 objects but one object and one light-reflection, so God is the "real" entity, and the natural world is just a reflection of that, including Jesus, who is God's reflection. The moon reflects the sun's light, a mirror reflects objects and Jesus' body reflects God's spirit. Go and stand in front of a mirror right now. Is there now two of you? No there is not. There is one you, and onereflection (or several, depending on how many mirrors you are using). How about this web sight? I have made ONE post. But millions of computers may reflect my words. Does this make many of me? I don't think so, yet there are many reflections of my mind and thoughts. If the natural world can show how easy it is for one to be many at the same time, why does it baffle you that God could not do the same thing? It says God is both the east and the west, meaning that God can do the impossible. If that is true, then God can be in many places at one time, even if it because he only puts a small part of himself at different places. The trinity is easy to understand, but trying to understand how a God who claims there is "no other Gods" will turn around and defeat that teaching, that makes no sense at all. Either God lies, or he does not know what he said in the past, or he changed things after saying he would not - none of that makes sense to me at all. But the natural world's ability to show me how interactive systems and natural reflections can display more than one IMAGE of the divine, and interact with mankind on many levels - that makes perfect sense.
There are many scriptures in the Bible in which Christ states that He and the Father are one. These are often used out of context.
And now I am no more in the world, but these are in the world, and I come to thee. Holy Father, keep through thine own name those whom thou hast given me, that they may be one, as we are. - John 17:11
In this scripture, if They are the same, then why is Jesus speaking to His Father? It sounds to me as if He is saying that they are one in purpose. If he means literally one being, then does that mean all men should fuse togethor and become one being as well? Yes, God and Jesus ARE one in purpose, but that is only the beginning of their Unity. They are also one in being, as Exodus 3:13 tells us, and as Isaiah 44:6 tells us. Do you have children? Do you realize that in that genetic code of your child resides your genetic code and the code of your spouse? Two have become one, not just in purpose, but in being. Yes the natural world will support the Trinity. The BoM also supports it. But for some reason, the LDS Church will not, and I do not understand that. I also do not understand why the LDS Church will not support research from their own 5th Generation LDS Geneticist, who worked fervently at BYU for many years to try and see if any American Indian population living anywhere between the arctic and ant-arctic had ANY Semetic genes, and found that none did, at any time frame. He said it was easy to go back to the BoM period, and geneticists do that all the time, and go back even further. The people in the BoM are Asian, not Semites. there is absolutely NO genetic strands to support the BoM assessment that a semitic group came over and lived the BoM story out. It is not logical to believe that they were, and it is also not a matter of faith, for faith would never ask you to believe something that is not actual.
At any rate, this "trinity" problem is what caused me to stop in my tracks and NOT join the LDS Church, no matter how much good it has done over the years, etc. This doctrine fails to show any understanding of Hebrew, greek, or the ancient religion from which the trinity doctrine was derived. That is why I personally could not join. I hope this does not hurt your feelings, as it is not intended to, it is simply and educated explanation of why people do not join up with mormonism. I hope this gives you something to ponder, and know that I respect and like LDS people and the church overall very much.
