Shocking Admissions

Some may be surprised to hear Christians say the orthodox Doctrine of the Trinity isn't in the Bible.  We agree, it is startling to hear that a doctrine which is so often said to be the most fundamental belief of Christianity was actually a post-biblical development, especially when it's coming from Trinitarians. 

The opinions of  the most respected voices in modern and historical Trinitarian scholarship reveal a justification for our skepticism about the dogma.

Scroll down for another selection of opinions from secular Encyclopedias & other sources.

 

Trinitarian scholars & theologians

The following opinions represent Trinitarian scholarship from a wide range of denominations and eras:

  • Shirley C. Guthrie Jr., Presbyterian theologian, Columbia Theological Seminary

    “The Bible does not teach the doctrine of the Trinity.  Neither the word “trinity” itself nor such language as ‘one-in-three’, ‘three-in-one’, one ‘essence’ (or “substance”), and three ‘persons’ is biblical language.”
    (Guthrie, Shirley C. Christian Doctrine. Louisville, KY: Westminster John Knox Press, 1994. p. 76-77.)

  • Charles C. Ryrie, Evangelical scholar

    "But many doctrines are accepted by evangelicals as being clearly taught in the Scripture for which there are no proof texts.  The doctrine of the Trinity furnishes the best example of this.  It is fair to say that the Bible does not clearly teach the doctrine of the Trinity… [This] proves the fallacy of concluding that if something is not proof texted in the Bible we cannot clearly teach the results… If that were so, I could never teach the doctrine of the Trinity or the deity of Christ or the deity of the Holy Spirit.”
    (Ryrie, Charles C. Basic Theology: A Popular Systematic Guide to Understanding Biblical Truth. Chicago: Moody Publishers, 1999. p.89-90.)

    “Even with all the discussion and delineation that we attempt in relation to the Trinity, we must acknowledge that it is in the final analysis a mystery.”
    (Ryrie, Charles C. Basic Theology: A Popular Systematic Guide to Understanding Biblical Truth. Chicago: Moody Publishers, 1999. p.61)

  • Millard J. Erickson, Baptist Scholar, Southwest Baptist Theological Seminary

    "It is claimed that the doctrine of the Trinity is a very important, crucial, and even basic doctrine.  If that is indeed the case, should it not be somewhere more clearly, directly, and explicitly stated in the Bible?  If this is the doctrine that especially constitutes Christianity’s uniqueness, as over against unitarian monotheism on the one hand, and polytheism on the other hand, how can it be only implied in the biblical revelation?  In response to the complaint that a number of portions of the Bible are ambiguous or unclear, we often hear a statement something like, ‘It is the peripheral matters that are hazy or which there seem to be conflicting biblical materials.  The core beliefs are clearly and unequivocally revealed.’  This argument would appear to fail us with respect to the doctrine of the Trinity, however.  For here is a seemingly crucial matter where the Scriptures do not speak loudly and clearly.  Little direct response can be made to this charge.  It is unlikely that any text of Scripture can be shown to teach the doctrine of the Trinity in a clear, direct, and unmistakable fashion."
    (Erickson, Millard J. God in Three Persons: A Contemporary Interpretation of the Trinity. Michigan: Baker Pub Group, 1995. p.108-109.)

    “In the final analysis, the Trinity is incomprehensible.”
    (Erickson, Millard J. Christian Theology. Grand Rapids: Baker Books, Second Edition, 1999. p. 363.)

    "This doctrine in many ways presents strange paradoxes... It is a widely disputed doctrine, which has provoked discussion throughout all the centuries of the church’s existence. It is held by many with great vehemence and vigor. These advocates are certain they believe the doctrine, and consider it crucial to the Christian faith. Yet many are unsure of the exact meaning of their belief. It was the very first doctrine dealt with systematically by the church, yet is still one of the most misunderstood and disputed doctrines. Further, it is not clear or explicitly taught anywhere in Scripture, yet it is widely regarded as a central doctrine, indispensable to the Christian faith. In this regard, it goes contrary to what is virtually an axiom (a self evident truth) of biblical doctrine, namely, that there is a direct correlation between the Scriptural clarity of a doctrine and its cruciality to the faith and life of the church."
    (Erickson, Millard J. God in Three Persons: A Contemporary Interpretation of the Trinity. Michigan: Baker Pub Group, 1995. p 11-12.)

  • Graham Greene, Catholic scholar

    “Our opponents sometimes claim that no belief should be held dogmatically which is not explicitly stated in Scripture... But the Protestant churches have themselves accepted such dogmas as the Trinity, for which there is no such precise authority in the Gospels.”
    (Greene, Graham. "Assumption of Mary." Life Magazine. 30 October 1950. 51.)

  • Douglas McCready, Trinitarian scholar

    "New Testament scholars disagree whether the N.T. directly calls Jesus as God because of the difficulty such language would create for early Christians with a Jewish background. It is important to note that every passage that identifies Jesus as “theos” can be translated other ways or has variants that read differently."
    (McCready, Douglas. He Came Down From Heaven: The Preexistence of Christ and the Christian Faith. Downer’s Grove: IL: IVP Academic, 2005. p. 51.)

    "In biblical Judaism the term “messiah” did not necessarily carry any connotation of divine status, and Jews of Jesus’ day were not expecting their messiah to be other than human… While some have used the title Son of God to denote Jesus’ deity, neither the Judaism nor the paganism of Jesus’ day understood the title in this way. Neither did the early church."
    (McCready, Douglas. He Came Down From Heaven: The Preexistence of Christ and the Christian Faith. Downer’s Grove: IL: IVP Academic, 2005. p. 51, 55, 56.)

  • Emil Brunner, influential Protestant scholar

    “Certainly, it cannot be denied that not only the word “Trinity,” but even the explicit idea of the Trinity is absent from the apostolic witness to the faith…"
    (Brunner, Emil. Dogmatics, Vol. 1. London: Lutterworth Press, 1949. p. 205.)

    “When we turn to the problem of the doctrine of the Trinity we are confronted by a peculiarly contradictory situation.  On the one hand, the history of Christian theology and of dogma teaches us to regard the dogma of the Trinity as the distinctive element of the Christian idea of God, that which distinguishes it from the Idea of God in Judaism and in Islam, and indeed, in all forms of rational Theism, Judaism, Islam and Rational Theism are Unitarian.  On the other hand, we must honestly admit that the doctrine of the Trinity did not form part of the early Christian – New Testament – message.”
    (Brunner, Emil. Dogmatics, Vol. 1. London: Lutterworth Press, 1949. p. 205.)

    “[The Trinity was] a conception at which the [Early Church] age had not yet arrived”
    (Brunner, Emil. Dogmatics, Vol. 1. London: Lutterworth Press, 1949. p. 467.)

    "The ecclesiastical doctrine of the Trinity, established by the dogma of the ancient Church, is not a Biblical kerygma (preaching)..."
    (Brunner, Emil. Dogmatics, Vol. 1. London: Lutterworth Press, 1949. p.206)

  • New Catholic Encyclopedia, 1967 (Thomas Carson)

    “[The doctrine of the Trinity] is not directly and immediately in the Word of God.”
    (Carson, Thomas. “Trinity,” The New Catholic Encyclopedia, Second Edition. Farmington Hills: Gale, 2003. Volume XIV, p. 304)

    “Among the Apostolic Fathers, there had been nothing even remotely approaching such a mentality or perspective.”
    (Carson, Thomas. “Trinity,” The New Catholic Encyclopedia, Second Edition. Farmington Hills: Gale, 2003. Volume XIV, p. 299.)

    "It is difficult in the second half of the 20th century to offer a clear, objective and straightforward account of the revelation, doctrinal evolution, and the theological elaboration of the Mystery of the Trinity… Historians of dogma and systematic theologians [recognize] that when one does speak of an unqualified Trinitarianism, one has moved from the period of Christian origins to, say, the last quadrant of the 4th century.  It was only then that what might be called the definitive Trinitarian dogma 'One God in three Persons' became thoroughly assimilated into Christian life and thought… it was the product of three centuries of development."
    (Carson, Thomas. “Trinity,” The New Catholic Encyclopedia, Second Edition. Farmington Hills: Gale, 2003. Volume XIV, p.295.)

  • Cardinal Stanislau Hosius, Catholic Bishop

    “We believe the doctrine of a triune God, because we have received it by tradition, though not mentioned at all in Scripture.”
    (Cardinal Stanislaus Hosius, Conf. Cathol. Fidei, Chap. XXVI)

  • Bruce Metzger, influential Protestant scholar

    "Because the Trinity is such an important part of later Christian doctrine, it is striking that the term does not appear in the New Testament.  Likewise, the developed concept of three coequal partners in the Godhead found in later creedal formulations cannot be clearly detected within the confines of the canon [ . . . ] While the New Testament writers say a great deal about God, Jesus, and the Spirit of each, no New Testament writer expounds on the relationship among the three in the detail that later Christian writers do."
    (Metzger, Bruce, Michael Coogan. The Oxford Companion to the Bible. Oxford University Press, 1993.  Accessed Online May 9th, 2013. )

  • W.R. Matthews, Anglican theologian

    “It must be admitted by everyone who has the rudiments of an historical sense that the doctrine of the Trinity formed no part of the original message."
    (Matthews, W.R. God in Christian Experience. Whitefish: Kessinger Publishing, 2010 (1930). p. 180.)

    “St. Paul did not know it, and would have been unable to understand the meaning of the terms used in the theological formula on which the Church ultimately agreed… [it] formed no part of the original message.”
    (Matthews, W.R. God in Christian Experience. Whitefish: Kessinger Publishing, 2010 (1930). p. 180.)

  • A.T. Hanson, Protestant Professor of Theology, University of Hull

    "No responsible NT scholar would claim that the doctrine of the Trinity was taught by Jesus or preached by the earliest Christians or consciously held by any writer of the NT. It was in fact slowly worked out in the course of the first few centuries…"
    (Hanson, Anthony Tyrrell. The Image of the Invisible God. London: SCM Press, 1982. p.87.)

  • Ray Pritchard, Evangelical apologist

    “I admit that no one fully understands it.”
    (Pritchard, Ray. “God in Three Persons: A Doctrine We Barely Understand,” Keep Believing Ministries. Accessed online. 31 December 2014. .)

  • James Strong, Bible Scholar and author of Strong's Concordance

    "Towards the end of the 1st century, and during the 2nd, many learned men came over both from Judaism and paganism to Christianity.  These brought with them into the Christian schools of theology their Platonic ideas and phraseology."
    (Strong, James, John McClintock. Cyclopaedia of Biblical, Theological, and Ecclesiastical Literature. New York: Harper, 1891. Vol. 10, "Trinity," p. 553.)

  • Christopher B. Kaiser, Reformed scholar, Western Theological Seminary

    “The Church’s doctrine of the Trinity would seem to be the farthest thing from [Jesus’ and the writers of the New Testament’s] minds, and today’s reader may well wonder if it is even helpful to refer to such a dogma in order to grasp the theology of the New Testament.  When the church speaks of the doctrine of the Trinity, it refers to the specific belief that God exists eternally in three distinct ‘persons’ who are equal in deity and one in substance.  In this form the doctrine is not found anywhere in the New Testament; it was not so clearly articulated until the late fourth century AD.”
    (Kaiser, Christopher B. The Doctrine of God: A Historical Survey. Eugene, OR: Wipf & Stock, 2001. p. 27.)

  • John L. McKenzie, Catholic scholar

    "The trinity of God is defined by the Church as the belief that in God are three persons who subsist in one nature. That belief as so defined was reached only in the 4th and 5th centuries AD and hence is not explicitly and formally a biblical belief."
    (McKenzie, John L. Dictionary of the Bible. New York: Touchstone, 1995. p. 899)

     

  • Cyril C. Richardson, Protestant Theologian, Union Theological Seminary

    “One of the sources of the confusion in Trinitarian theology is that the doctrine arose when this sense of the development of thought in the New Testament was lacking.  Texts were torn from their contexts and misused to no small degree, and certain symbols were canonized without a full understanding of their original meaning.  They were introduced into later theological schemes, not because they really fitted, but because they could not be questioned.  Much of the defense of the Trinity as a ‘revealed’ doctrine, is really an evasion of the objections that can be brought against it.”
    (Richardson, Cyril C. The Doctrine of the Trinity: A Clarification of What it Attempts to Express. Nashville, TN: Abingdon Press, 1958. p. 16.)

  • Charles Peter Wagner, Evangelical professor, Fuller University

    “We today believe in the Trinity not because of direct biblical revelation but because of majority votes in certain councils—in other words, by extra-biblical revelation.”
    (Wagner, Peter C. “But That’s Not in the Word!” Charisma Magazine, 2 June 2014. Accessed Online. 19 December 2014. .)

  • Edmund J. Fortman, Catholic scholar

    “[The doctrine of the Trinity] is a museum piece with little or no relevance to the problems of contemporary life.”
    (Fortman, Edmund J. The Triune God. Louisville, KY: Westminster John Knox Press, 1972.)

    "The Jews never regarded the spirit as a person; nor is there any solid evidence that any Old Testament writer held this view....The Holy Spirit is usually presented in the Synoptics [Gospels] and in Acts as a divine force or power."
     (Fortman, Edmund J. The Triune God. Louisville, KY: Westminster John Knox Press, 1972. p. 6, 15.)

  • Charles Bigg, Regius Professor of Ecclesiastical History at Oxford

    “We are not to suppose that the apostles identified Christ with Jehovah; there were passages which made this impossible, for instance Psalm 110:1, Malachi 3:1.″
    (Charles Bigg, D.D., Regius Professor of Ecclesiastical History, Oxford, in International Critical Commentary on Peter and Jude, T&T Clark, 1910, p. 99).

  • Frederic William Farrar, Chaplain to the Queen of England, Trinity College at Cambridge

    “The first teachers of Christianity were never charged by the Jews (who unquestionably believed in the strict unity of God), with introducing any new theory of the Godhead. Many foolish and false charges were made against Christ; but this was never alleged against him or any of his disciples. When this doctrine of three persons in one God was introduced into the Church, by new converts to Christianity, it caused immense excitement for many years.  Referring to this, Mosheim writes, under the forth century, “The subject of this fatal controversy, which kindled such deplorable divisions throughout the Christian world, was the doctrine of the Three Persons in the Godhead; a doctrine which in the three preceding centuries had happily escaped the vain curiosity of human researches, and had been left undefined and undetermined by any particular set of ideas.” Would there not have been some similar commotion among the Jewish people in the time of Christ, if such a view of the Godhead had been offered to their notice, and if they had been told that without belief in this they “would perish everlastingly”?”
    (Farrar, Frederic William. Early Days of Christianity, vol. I. Boston, Massachusetts: DeWolfe, Fiske & Company, 1882. p. 55.)

  • Saint Augustine, Fourth century theologian

    “if you deny it you will lose your salvation, but if you try to understand it you will lose your mind!"
    (attributed)  (Olson, Roger E. The Story of Christian Theology: Twenty Centuries of Tradition & Reform. Downer’s Grove, IL: IVP Academic, 1999. p. 261.)

  • Roger E. Olson, Evangelical scholar

     “It is understandable that the importance placed on this doctrine is perplexing to many lay Christians and students. Nowhere is it clearly and unequivocally stated in Scripture. How can it be so important if it is not explicitly stated in Scripture?”
    (Olson, Roger E., Christopher Hall. The Trinity. Wm. B. Eerdmans Publishing Company, 2002. p.1.)

    “The doctrine of the Trinity developed gradually after the completion of the N. T. in the heat of controversy. The full-blown doctrine of the Trinity was spelled out in the fourth century at two great ecumenical councils: Nicaea (324 AD) and Constantinople (381 AD).”
    (Olson, Roger E., Christopher Hall. The Trinity. Wm. B. Eerdmans Publishing Company, 2002. p.2.)

    “I affirm that the doctrine of the Trinity is not “gospel.” Nor is it part of the gospel we preach.  It is a human construct and a defensive one.”
     (Olson, Roger E. “How Important is the Doctrine of the Trinity?” Patheos.com. 29 April, 2013. Accessed online. 12 January 12, 2015. .)

    “It is a clumsy doctrine, no matter how it’s expressed.”
    (Olson, Roger E. “How Important is the Doctrine of the Trinity?” Patheos.com. 29 April, 2013. Accessed online. 12 January 12, 2015. .)

    “For numerous Christian theologians past and present, the doctrine of the Trinity is crucial, essential, indispensable to a robust and healthy Christian view of God.  The problem is, of course, that many, perhaps most, Christians have little or not understanding of the doctrine of the Trinity.  And they couldn’t care less.”
    (Olson, Roger E. “How Important is the Doctrine of the Trinity?” Patheos.com. 29 April, 2013. Accessed online. 12 January 12, 2015. .)

other Encyclopedias, dictionaries and NOTEWORTHY sources

The following opinions reflect a wide range of secular authorities on history & respected Christian scholarship from non-Trinitarian traditions:

  • Alvan Lamson, Church historian

    "[The doctrine] is not found in any document or relic belonging to the church of the first three centuries…Letters, art, usage, theology, worship, creed, hymn, chant, doxology, ascription, commemorative rite, and festive observances… are, as regards this doctrine, an absolute blank.”
    (Lamson, Alvan. The Church of the First Three Centuries. Toronto: University of Tornoto Libraries, 1875. p.466-467.)

    "The modern popular doctrine of the Trinity… derives no support from the language of Justin, and this observation may be extended to all the ante-Nicene Fathers; that is, to all Christian writers for three centuries after the birth of Christ.  It is true, they speak of the Father, Son, and… holy Spirit, but not as co-equal, not as one numerical essence, not as Three in one, in any sense now admitted by Trinitarians.  The very reverse is the fact."
    (Lamson, Alvan. The Church of the First Three Centuries. Boston: Horace B. Fuller, 1869. p. 56-57.)

  • William Barclay, Professor of Divinity & Biblical Criticism, University of Glasgow

    “But we shall find that on almost every occasion in the New Testament on which Jesus seems to be called God there is a problem either of textual criticism or of translation.  In almost every case we have to discuss which of two readings is to be accepted or which of two possible translations is to be accepted.”
    (Barclay, William. Jesus As They Saw Him: New Testament Interpretations of Jesus. Wm. B. Eerdman’s Publishing Company, 1983. p. 21)

    “Nowhere does the New Testament identify Jesus with God.”
    (Barclay, William. A Spiritual Autobiography. Grand Rapids, MI: William B Eerdmans Publishing Company, 1977. p. 50.)

    "It is not that Jesus is God. Time and time again the Fourth Gospel speaks of God sending Jesus into the world. Time and time again we see Jesus praying to God. Time and time again we see Jesus unhesitatingly and unquestioningly and unconditionally accepting the will of God for himself. Nowhere does the New Testament identify Jesus and God.  He said: `He who has seen me has seen God.' There are attributes of God I do not see in Jesus. I do not see God's omniscience in Jesus, for there are things which Jesus did not know.”
    (Barclay, William. The Mind of Jesus. Harper & Rowe, 1961. p. 56.)

  • New International Dictionary of New Testament Theology

    “The Trinity. The NT does not contain the developed doctrine of the Trinity. The Bible lacks the express declaration that the Father, the Son and the Holy Ghost are of an equal essence and therefore in an equal sense God himself. And the other express declaration is also lacking, that God is God thus and only thus, i.e., as the Father, the Son and the Holy Spirit. These two express declarations, which go beyond the witness of the Bible, are the twofold content of the church doctrine of the Trinity (Karl Barth, CD 1, 1 437)….

    That God and Christ belong together and that they are distinct, are equally stressed, with the precedence in every case due to God, the Father, who stands above Christ… There is no strict dogmatic assertion… All this underlines the point that primitive Christianity did not have an explicit doctrine of the Trinity such as was subsequently elaborated in the creeds of the early church.” 
    (J. Schneider, Ph. D, Prof. of Theology in Berlin.)