Book022

Worship one God, purpose of religion

The Trinity, a dogma that might be reformulated

Christianity has been a religion that worships the only one true God. We may call him Father, or Mother, as we may call him/her also Yahweh, or even Allah, Brahma or any other name that represents the Divinity, the only one true God. There is no problem with the names.

The only one to whom divine honor is due is the supreme Being, God, called Father in the New Testament. If we worship the Son or the Spirit, this is done with the implication that they identify with that supreme and unique Being, God.

The Bible, a monotheistic book

The Bible, from beginning to end, is a monotheistic book; it teaches that there is only one divine Being deserving to be worshiped. All the writers of the Bible had such a monotheistic mentality, that it is impossible to imagine how any of its authors -Moses, David, Isaiah, Matthew, John, Paul or any other- could think, even for one instant, that there were other "divine beings" except Yahweh. This is true for the Old and for the New Testament.

How some texts of the New Testament should be interpreted without breaking this monotheistic principle and interpretation, is our problem or limitation; but the only Being recognized by the Bible to be worshiped is God, Yahweh, the Father in the New Testament.

Two Christian eras

The doctrine about the Trinity in the Christian era might be divided, in reference to the early ecumenical councils, into the pre-council era, covering the first, second and third centuries; and the post-council era, fourth century and after. We find in these two eras, two different views or interpretations of the Being of God, and there shouldn't be any contradiction between them.

The pre-council era

1. The New Testament. We are aware of the fact that the New Testament calls God by the names of the Father, or our Father, or the Father of our Lord Jesus Christ. This God or Father is the same as Yahweh, the only one God of the Old Testament. There is also a frequent mention in the New Testament of Jesus Christ, Son of God, and of the Spirit or the Holy Spirit.

The New Testament is very "naive" using these names; it does not speculate about them or explain them; it just mentions the names spontaneously, when they occur. All the writers of the New Testament had no problem in using these Names, without the need of categorizing them or adding speculative definitions.