Quotes Worthy Of Notice
By Cohen G. Reckart, Pastor
"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" or three "persons," is biblical language. The language of the doctrine is the language of the ancient Church, taken not from the Bible but from classical Greek philosophy" [Shirley C. Guthrie, Jr., Christian Doctrine, p 92.]
"There is no evidence the Apostles of Jesus ever heard of a trinity" [H. G. Wells, Outline of History, 1920 Edition, p 499].
"The word trinity is not found in the Bible" [The Illustrated Bible Dictionary].
"The origin of the Trinity is entirely pagan" [The Paganism In Our Christianity, by Arthur Weigall].
The doctrine of the Trinity is considered beyond the grasp of human reasoning" [The Encyclopedia Americana].
"The trinity is a mystery." In the strict sense, "which could not be known without revelation, and even after revelation cannot become wholly intelligible" [Theological Dictionary, by Karl Rahner and Herbert Vorgrimler].
The trinity "is not directly and immediately the Word of God" [New Catholic Encyclopedia].
"The doctrine of the holy trinity is not taught in the Old Testament" [New Catholic Encyclopedia].
"Precisely what that doctrine is, or rather precisely how it is to be explained, Trinitarians are not agreed among themselves" [A Dictionary of Religious Knowledge].
"We are not saying that there are three gods, and still one God. We say there are three persons in one nature. Hence, we cannot even begin to know what we are talking about" [One God, by Theodore M. Hesburgh].
"In Scripture there is as yet no single term by which the divine persons are denoted together. The word [tri'as] (for trinity) is first found in Theophilus of Antioch about 180 AD Shortly afterwards [195-235 AD] it appears in the Latin form of trinitas in Tertullian" [The Catholic Encyclopedia].
"Theologians today are in agreement that the Hebrew Bible does not contain the doctrine of the trinity" [The Encyclopedia of Religion].
"The Old Testament tells us nothing explicitly or by necessary implication of a triune God who is Father, Son, and Holy Spirit." "There is no evidence that any sacred writer even suspected the existence of a trinity within the Godhead." "Even to see in the Old Testament, suggestions or fore-shadowings or veiled signs of the trinity of persons, is to go beyond the words and intent of the sacred writers." "The New Testament writers give us no formal or formulated doctrine of the trinity, no explicit teaching that in one God there are three co-equal divine persons." "Nowhere do we find any trinitarian doctrine of three distinct subjects of divine life and activity in the same Godhead" [The Triune God, by Edmund Fortman, Jesuit].
"Theologians agree that the New Testament also does not contain an explicit doctrine of the trinity" [The Encyclopedia of Religion].
"Neither the word trinity nor the explicit doctrine appears in the New Testament" [The New Encyclopedia Britannica].
"As Far as the New Testament is concerned, one does not find in it an actual doctrine of the trinity" [A Short History of Christian Doctrine, by Bernhard Lohse].
"The New Testament does not contain the developed doctrine of the trinity" [The New International Dictionary of New Testament Theology].
"Jesus Christ never mentioned such a phenomenon, and nowhere in the New Testament does the word trinity appear. The idea was only adopted by the Church three hundred years after the death of our Lord" [The Paganism in Our Christianity, by Arthur Weigall].
"To Jesus and Paul the doctrine of the trinity was apparently never known. They say nothing about it" [Origin and Evolution of Religion, by Yale University Professor E. Washburn Hopkins].
"At first the Christian Faith was not trinitarian." "It was not so in the Apostolic and sub-Apostolic ages, as reflected in the New Testament and of the early Christian writings" [Encyclopedia of Religion and Ethics].
"The formulation ‘one god in three persons' was not solidly established, certainly not fully assimilated into Christian life and its profession of faith, prior to the end of the 4th century." "Among the Apostolic Fathers, there had been nothing even remotely approaching such a mentality or perspective" [New Catholic Encyclopedia].
"The doctrine of the trinity was of gradual and comparatively late formation." "It had its origin in a source entirely foreign from that of the Jewish and Christian Scriptures." "It grew up, and was ingrafted on Christianity, through the hands of the Platonizing Fathers." [The Church of the First Three Centuries].
"We can trace the history of this doctrine , and discover its source, not in the Christian revelation, but in the Platonic philosophy." "The trinity is not a doctrine of Christ and his apostles, but a fiction of the school of the later Platonists" [A Statement of Reasons, by Andrew Norton].
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Copyright Notice | Tribute | Introduction | The Eastern Greek Orthodox Church | Greek Claims of Orthodoxy
The Cabbalist Jewish Connection | Nicaea Where Truth Was Declared Illegal | Constantine Takes The Bait
Constantinople A Rival Religious Papacy | A Religion Of Works For Salvation
Things Greek Orthodoxy Must Admit | The Curse Of Nicaea Upon Constantine And His House
Additional Trinity Notes | Patripassianism | Gnosticism
Quotes Worthy Of Notice | True Orthodoxy