Is God A Trinity PDF - Church of God Faithful Flock

Is the Trinity Biblical? 17such non-biblical concepts as dualism and the immortalityof the soul. However, most theologians, for obvious reasons,are generally careful to point out that they did notborrow the idea of the Trinity from the Triads of Greekphilosophy or those of the ancient Egyptians and Babylonians.But some are not so careful to make such a distinction."Although the notion of a Triad or Trinity ischaracteristic of the Christian religion, it is by no meanspeculiar to it. In Indian religion, e.g., we meet with thetrinitarian group of Brahma, Siva, and Visnu; and theEgyptian religion with the trinitarian group of Osiris, Isis,and Horus, constituting a divine family, like the Father,Mother and Son in medieval Christian pictures. Nor is itonly in historical religions that we find God viewed as aTrinity. One recalls in particular the Neo-Platonic view ofthe Supreme or Ultimate Reality, which was suggested byPlato ... " (Hasting's Bible Dictionary, Vol. 12, p. 458).Of course, the fact that someone else had a Trinitydoes not in itself mean that the Christians borrowed it.McClintock and Strong make the connection a littleclearer."Toward the end of the 1st century, and during the2nd, many learned men came over both from Judaism andpaganism to Christianity. These brought with them intothe Christian schools of theology their Platonic ideas andphraseology" (article "Trinity," Vol. 10, p. 553).In his book, A His tory of Christian Thought, ArthurCushman McGiffert points out that the main argumentagainst those who believed that there was only one Godand that Christ was either an adopted or a created beingwas that their idea did not agree with Platonic philosophy.Such teachings were "offensive to theologians, particularlyto those who felt the influence of the Platonic philosophy"(ibid., p. 240).In the latter half of the third century, Paul of Samosatatried to revive the adoptionist idea that Jesus was amere man until the Spirit of God came upon Him atbaptism making him the Anointed One, or Christ. In hisbeliefs about the person of Jesus Christ, he "rejected the