What assumption do Arians make? Let’s plunge into the Deeper Waters and find out.
I regularly debate the Trinity with Jehovah’s Witnesses and others. If there’s one big mistake that they make, it is what I call the assumption of unipersonalism. The topic under debate in these discussions is whether God is one person or not. What happens in the assumption is that it is automatically taken for granted that God is one person and every text is read in that light.
Imagine going to the Shema where we read “Hear O Israel, the Lord our God, the Lord is one.” “Ah!” says the Arian! “That settles it! The Lord is one!”
The automatic assumption is that since the text says that God is one, that means that God is one person. All Trinitarians would agree that the Lord our God is one. They would not agree that that means that He is one person. If you say that Trinitarians ipso facto deny the oneness of God, then you are not understanding our position.
Another case of this is where you have verses of Scripture that mention God and then mention Christ as well as if they are two different persons. At this point, the Arian thinks they have won again. “See! The text mentions God and then it mentions Christ as someone else! They are two different beings!”
Several passages of Scripture have this kind of language. A search through BibleGateway reveals them. So you look at all of these and it sure looks like those are two different beings.
The problem is Trinitarians look at those and do not have any problem. It is actually what we expect. We expect God the Father to be spoken of in one way and Jesus to be spoken of in another.
If you do not believe in the Trinity, just consider this. If it is true, how else should this be spoken of? You have people realizing that Jesus is somehow included in the divine nature. They also know that there is still God the Father. They do not say God through God to avoid confusion. They treat Jesus as included in the divine nature and yet distinct from the Father. One common way of doing this is calling Jesus, Lord, and calling the Father, God.
Also, one has to be quite ignorant to look at all these verses and think that every single Trinitarian in church history just completely ignored all of them. Sadly, people who are Witnesses will extremely rarely ever read anything that disagrees with them. It would be easy to go to a library and find a commentary on these verses and see what was said about them in the past, but that will not happen.
Trinitarian theology is not easy to understand, nor should it be. We are talking about the nature of God! Why on Earth would anyone consider that to be easy to understand? People who argue against the Trinity owe it to themselves to at least try to understand the doctrine they are arguing against.
Doing so shows respect for truth as you are open to making sure you are not wrong by listening from the other side directly.
It shows respect for your opponents in saying you do not want to straw man them and you want to make sure you represent them accurately.
It shows respect for God as you want to make sure you are speaking about Him accurately and not just believing what any one person or group says.
On the other hand, avoiding this tells your opponents you do not really care about truth, that you do not really care about them, and that you are more interested in your idea of God than you are in God Himself.
Not only that, but when I see arguments anti-Trinitarians make that they think are super-powerful, too often I just shake my head. They think they are destroying us when they are revealing their own ignorance instead. If you want to try to change the mind of someone like myself, you need to show me you have at least tried to seriously interact with my viewpoint.
Avoid the assumption of unipersonalism.
In Christ,
Nick Peters
(And I affirm the virgin birth)