The vicar in our Prologue obviously had strong views on the doctrine of the Trinity. Having heard the evidence, can you share his point of view? Had he accepted the doctrine just because it was part of the long-established position of the Church, or had he deduced it from his own personal study? Would he have taken the same line if he had known that:
Many of his fellow Trinitarians have accepted that the Trinity is not a Bible doctrine:
the Apostolic church did not teach it; nor did their immediate successors, the 'Apostolic Fathers':
the doctrine of the Trinity is really a product of the 4th century, and was formulated only after considerable opposition at a series of sometimes unrepresentative and poorly run church councils, and established as official church policy by edict of the Roman Emperor:
and that most of the biblical passages commonly used to support the doctrine of the Trinity only appear to do so if they are read with the Trinity already in mind. Taking the passages in their context, and with regard to the intentions of the writers and the understanding of the original readers, no such meaning was intended?
This present volume adduces what we hope to be compelling evidence that the "faith which was once for all (time) delivered to the saints" (171) knew nothing of the doctrine of the Trinity: that it was rather "a capitulation of the biblical revelation to a foreign system from which Christianity has not yet escaped" (172).
It is the authors' prayer that their labours will help some to escape the 'foreign system', and come to recognise and love the 'only true God, and Jesus Christ whom He has sent' and so at last receive the eternal life that will be freely given to those who truly know him (173).
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REFERENCES
171. Jude 3
172. Rusch, W.G.: The Trinitarian Controversy, p.27
173. John 17:3