76) The Trinity's Disappearing Essence - a podcast by William Schlegel, Preston Macy

from 2022-07-01T22:06:50

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Trinitarian theologians have insisted that God is one by claiming that the Trinity is three persons in one essence (White, The Forgotten Trinity, 24; Sanders, The Triune God, 121). This is supposedly how three can be one. James White, a modern Trinitarian apologist, says that the Trinity is three whos (persons) in one what (essence).


But this description of the Trinity given by Trinitarians directly contradicts and testifies against their other core belief drawn that God became flesh.


If God, or any person of the one God, became flesh, then God has two natures. Trinitarianism has created a contradiction between its two core doctrines:


1. God is one because they (or it) are one essence.


2. God became a second essence.


Trinitarians insist their god has only one nature, while insisting their god has two natures.


Which is it? Are we to believe that God has one nature or two natures?


Biblical theology and Christology should not be a magic trick. “Look! One nature. Now look, two natures! See, one essence! Now two essences!”


If God the Son took on flesh, how many natures does the Trinity have? I’m not asking about how many natures “God the Son” has, but how many natures does the tri-personal god have?


The standard explanation for 1600 years has been that the Trinitarian god is three persons in one essence? That definition rejects the idea that God became flesh. That definition also denies the humanity of Jesus.


When talking about God, the tendency for Trinitarianism is to forget about or remove the human nature from God. If the Trinity is “three persons in one essence”, Jesus is no longer flesh. Even the abstract “humanity” of Jesus is eliminated.


By its very own definition of who or what the Trinity is, Trinitarianism eliminates the “humanity”, the “flesh” of Jesus the Messiah.


If  one member of a godhead became flesh, then God has two natures and the Trinitarian claim that God is one essence fails.


Trinitarianism is also an attack on the personal-ness of God, an attack on the Fatherhood of God. The claim "three persons in one essence" means the one God is not a personal Father, but is rather an "it" and "essence", or a "force". The one God of Trinitarianism is not a person, but an it.


#trinity, #deityofchrist, #jameswhite





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