Does Belief in the Trinity Necessitate Polytheism?

Well good afternoon and welcome and a really fascinating topic for you this afternoon. In fact it's been a long long time really since we did this in a muslim christian context. The trinity. Does belief in the trinity lead to polytheism is basically what we're talking about.

Does it necessitate polytheism? It's if you like been one of the paradoxes of the christian faith for millennia the idea that God exists as three in one one in three and here to help us understand that from a christian perspective is James White.

James is the director of Alpha and Omega Ministries in the United States. It has a wide brief really in terms of christian apologetics. James debates many different types of people but has been over here in the UK debating muslims for the last week and will be doing quite a high profile debate with Shabbir Ali.

That's taking place on Monday the 17th of November from 7 30 p .m and it's going to be at Twineholme Baptist Church. Am I.

Pronouncing that correctly. James. Or maybe you're not the best person to ask. You're asking a person from Arizona how to pronounce the British word.

It's either Twineholme or Twinholme Baptist Church. It's in Fulham Cross and you can get there on Monday from 7 30 to listen and to well witness that debate. So I do encourage you to get along there if you'd be interested in that.

Thank you for coming on this afternoon James and tell us a little bit about yourself. You obviously live out as you say in Phoenix Arizona.

You must be enjoying our British weather. I am actually enjoying the weather. We have about 360 days of sunshine in Arizona. We've seen 50 degrees in the shade there which is 122 for us and so it's a little bit different than here in London.

But I'm an elder in the Phoenix Reformed Baptist Church. I'm an adjunct professor at the Golden Gate Baptist Theological Seminary. I teach have taught Greek, Hebrew, systematic theology, church history issues along those lines and especially in apologetics.

But since 1983, 25 years now, I've been the director of Alpha Omega Ministries which is a Christian apologetics organization and we do engage in a wide variety of apologetic interactions. I've written over 20 books on a number of subjects including the doctrine of the trinity and also textual critical issues.

A book that I wrote against the King James only controversy has been used as a textbook in the U .S. for quite some time now and so that's really where a lot of my interest lies is in the original languages and the texts of the New Testament and the Old Testament.

Well it's great to have you with us and I'm sure you would be fascinated on all kinds of subjects not just the trinity but that obviously is what we'll be looking at today. And to my mind probably when I meet Muslims that's probably one of the first things that they will bring up as regards to why they don't see Christianity as coherent or believable.

I mean so it's an important one to address in many ways isn't it James?

Well it is and for not only the apologetic reason of an encounter with Islam or any of the other world religions but also for the fact that I think that especially evangelicalism has been impoverished as our people have become less and less familiar with their own faith and especially with the doctrine of the trinity.

Christianity does not present a god that we worship that we don't know and in fact the biblical command is for you to grow in the grace and knowledge of our Lord Jesus Christ. And so I think that our worship is impoverished when we do not understand what the bible reveals about the relationship of the father son and holy spirit.

What that means to our worship even the gospel itself. I believe it's a trinitarian gospel. It finds its origination in God the father and is the son who brings about the very means by which the gospel can take place that is that transaction upon the cross.

It's the spirit that comes and makes that gospel come alive. So it's a it's a trinitarian religion all the way through and so when we have people who don't understand it for themselves that impacts their life.

And then of course if you don't understand for yourself you certainly are going to struggle to try to explain.

It to someone else. Well we're going to be looking into this with the help of Abdullah Al-Yusufi. Abdullah your first time on the program as well so welcome along to the program. Pleasure to be here.

Great to have you. Now you are obviously a Muslim and tell us a little bit about yourself. Have you always seen yourself as a Muslim and sort of how did you arrive at this place you are now of engaging in these kinds of debates etc?

Well I haven't always been a Muslim. I used.

To be a Christian Church of England Christian. Really? Up until I was a teenager and I chose Islam after a kind of a very long and arduous search for the truth and I analyzed every religion that you can think of Jainism, Shintoism even Rastafarianism every kind of religion regardless of where it came from its background or whether it's culturally outside what I would recognize.

I researched all these different religions and Islam was last on my list because I didn't think that Islam would have anything interesting to say about the truth of the world in the universe in existence and then I came upon the laws and the rules and the understandings and the theology of Islam and it's very much agreed with my rational search and so on.

So I became Muslim after that point and then after this I kind of looked into understanding more about Islam, understanding more about the world not just religions but also politics also sociology and psychology of human beings and so on to deepen my understanding about the human existence on earth and about how we interact and so on so forth and why is it that you know many people around the world you know they have common phenomenons that they experience like you know spiritual experience and so on whichever religion you're from.

So I wanted to kind of research everything to get a kind of a bigger world picture than just make a narrow world view for my particular religion or a particular viewpoint and so on. So and that's what basically what led me to discussing theology although my main lines of social activity or political activity is along the lines of I debate most with secularists, I do social work with Muslim youths and I do political work in terms of trying to work for and revive the kind of Islamic system in the Middle East and so on and to bring you know for justice and so on.

Obviously I raise causes of injustice around the world both Muslim and non-Muslim so these are the kind of activities that I am engaged in and so on and this I mean I don't usually deal with philosophical discussions but because I've obviously I researched it when I was choosing religions and I researched it when I was investigating Islam and on the comparative religion I think it's kind of like a bit of a.

Pastime I can engage in now and again. Well thank you so much for being with us and I know that you're a regular as it were on YouTube. I've seen a couple of your tapes there and if you want to see Abdullah in action go to youtube .com forward slash Mujtahid 2006 that's Mujtahid 2006.

James White you can visit his website at aomin .org so a-o-m-i-n .org. So those are our guests on the program today do join us again in just a couple of minutes time and we're going to get into this discussion on the trinity.

It is a central part of Christian doctrine but can Christians defend it and does it make sense? Those are the kind of questions that Abdullah is going to be asking of James White our Christian apologist on the program today so do hope you can join us again.

In a couple of minutes time. You're listening to Unbelievable on Premiere Christian Radio.

The Trinity as a Christian Apologetics Question

Welcome back yes we're talking about the trinity this afternoon and it is often something that I think Christians probably do find hard to express to those who ask them about it. And James White well his job really is making clear things that sometimes seem to be mysterious in many ways and he's going to be explaining what he believes are the biblical if you like explanations for the trinity why Christians can and should be confident in a belief in a triune god.

Well all this talk we'll find out from Abdullah this afternoon is he's mystifying to Muslims and we'll find out why he believes that Christians have to believe in a polytheist god if they believe in this trinity.

That's the question we're asking this afternoon does belief in the trinity lead necessarily to polytheism? That's the topic of the show this afternoon. Do hope you can stay with us through till four o 'clock this afternoon and don't forget you can find us online at premiere .org .uk forward slash unbelievable lots of other interesting debates between Muslims and Christians in our archive there.

Right gentlemen so let's launch into this. I'll start with you Abdullah. I mean you said you were searching as a young person was as it were the reason you're leaving at least a sort of childhood sort of embrace of what is one of the reasons this trinity issue did that come up in your sort of.

Searchings as it were? Well I mean as a young boy and growing up to being a teenager I don't think and I think for other Christians around me we didn't really have this concept of trinity as Jesus being God because for a child you grow up and you see you see God you know God the father and you see you know it's our father right in heaven and you say that the the Lord's Prayer and then you see Jesus so as a child there are two concepts there is Jesus and then there is the the father and so when you pray you're praying to the to the father and Jesus prayed to the father and when we saw the the title of the son of God we understood that as a kind of metaphorical title praise so but it wasn't specifically the trinity per se that actually got me out of Christianity because I didn't think I understood the trinity fully at that point but rather it was that I saw that Christianity in my view lacked any comprehensive system by which human beings can be organized, politics, economics, all these things that we live on earth and if our purpose in life obviously is to worship God then every aspect of our life should be should revolve around this purpose and the thing that trained me to Islam was that it's very comprehensive and it deals with all these subjects on a political social and private sphere so that was the main law of Islam but again that wasn't the the first thing that came to my mind initially because I went through a whole bunch of different religions I was researching but when I was researching different religions it brought interesting questions such as when I looked at Hinduism or I even looked at ancient Greek mythology how do I know that there is no multiple gods, there are no multiple gods, there are no, you know, politism is not the existence of the divine, it is politism, how do I know this for sure and so I had to encounter these ideas at that stage when I contemplated it I realized obviously that if there is obviously more than one God then there's more than one infinite being and the question would arise as to which one has more power than the other or you know and so on they would equal each other out and then they would basically limit each other and then how can God be unlimited and plus if there's like 10, 20 or 100 gods then or 100 beings then who created them in its plurality you know why is it that.

It was 10 or 20 why not 21 or 30 or 100. So do you actually regard Christianity not as being a monotheistic faith in that sense if the trinity. If we believe in this trinity do you regard that as in actual fact Christianity is a polytheistic faith?

It depends how you define Christianity.

I mean if I was to say that it's a polytheistic faith a lot of Unitarian Christians would become very upset with me and rightly so because they don't believe in the trinity but they affirm that they are Christian.

Obviously historical scholars have affirmed that some early Christians were Unitarian up until within one generation after Jesus for Ebionites and Nazarenes so on and so forth. Now I'm not going to debate as to obviously which doctrine is more closer in history to Jesus or not but rather I want to focus on the actual the idea and I think that although the Trinitarian Christians you know who call themselves obviously monotheists believe in one God I think that it's really a kind of a polytheism but masquerading as monotheism because they try to reconcile the one God but then they want to include Jesus and the Holy.

Spirit in this. James in many ways Islam the birth of Islam through Prophet Muhammad was in response to these what he saw as polytheistic beliefs wasn't it. In Mecca he saw polytheism both in as it were pagan religions and in this nascent Christian religion and said this has taken us away from the worship of the one true God and hence in many ways it is the trinity if you like.

That is partially accountable in some ways for the growth of Islam from the.

Very outset. Well there's a lot of question as to exactly what Muhammad's knowledge the doctrine of the trinity was. What kind of Christians he had encountered. There's a lot of question as to that he only encountered Nestorian Christians or or even Christians who had any knowledge whatsoever of the doctrine itself or have any solid knowledge.

It's it's hard to say. But I think it's important to emphasize that the reason that I believe in the doctrine of the trinity is because I believe that the Bible is the word of God. I believe as Jesus said that the scriptures cannot be broken as Paul said that all scripture is God breathed or as Peter put it men spoke from God as they were carried along by the Holy Spirit.

And so when I read those scriptures I see three foundational truths that are clearly presented in those texts. First of all there is only one true God in the Old Testament the tetragrammaton Yahweh which we slaughter in English as Jehovah.

But Yahweh is the one true God. He is the creator of all things he is owes his existence to none. He is timeless. There is nothing that exists outside of his will. And yet that same name when we come in the New Testament though the Greek New Testament does not contain the name Yahweh those texts that talk about him are applied to three persons the Father the Son the Holy Spirit.

And so we have a biblical monotheism. There is only one true God. All the gods the peoples are idols. Psalm 96 5 before me there is not no God formed. There should be none after me. Isaiah 43 10. But then we have the introduction in the New Testament of these three divine persons clearly distinguished from one another.

The Father is not the Son of the Son is not the Spirit. In John 14 Jesus says refers to the Father. He talks about the love that exists between he and the Father. In John 17 he says he shared glory with the Father before creation itself came into existence.

And then he speaks about sending another comforter the Holy Spirit who proceeds forth from the Father. So we have these three persons. And then they're described as possessing the attributes and nature of God.

The Father clearly. So the Son is described as the Creator. He is described as having eternal existence. In John 1 1 he is described as God in numerous passages. Thomas after the resurrection when he sees Jesus cries out to him.

The text cannot be taken in any other way other than saying my Lord and my God to Jesus. Jesus does not rebuke him. He accepts this as a confession of faith. And then we have the Spirit. When Ananias and Sapphira lie to the Spirit of God you've not lied to men but to God.

He's identified as God. He gives the gifts to the church as he wills. So he's personal in 1 Corinthians 12. And so we have these three persons. But then we have the question well could it be that that we are somehow violating our Old Testament monotheism.

No. Every person that writes in the New Testament was a monotheistic Jew would say the every morning from Deuteronomy 6 4. Here Israel Lord our God the Lord is one. And so we have the equality of those persons presented to us in scripture not identity.

Because clearly the scriptures differentiate between the Father Son. The Spirit was not. It was not the Father who became flesh it was the Son. It's not the Son or the Father who indwells us. Now they instead have sent the Holy Spirit and by means of that Spirit and dwell believers.

And so you have these three foundations absolute biblical monotheism the teaching the existence of three divine persons and then the equality of those persons. Which is the reason why if you accept sola scriptura scripture alone is the sole rule of faith for the church and tota scriptura all the scripture you are forced to the doctrine of the trinity.

By taking all that information together do you see.

The trinity is something that we only really find though in the New Testament or do you believe it.

Exists in the Old Testament the concept the the doctrine of the trinity is actually revealed in the coming of the Son in flesh and in the outpouring of the Holy Spirit. And all of that takes place between Malachi and Matthew.

The New Testament then becomes the record of that revelation of the trinity. Each of the writers in the New Testament is an experiential trinitarian. Think of someone like Peter. Peter stands upon the mount of transfiguration.

He sees Jesus transfigured he sees the glory of Christ. He hears the Father speaking from heaven. He's now indwelled by the Holy Spirit. He is an experiential trinitarian. And that is why the language of the New Testament is soaked in trinitarian terminology.

Why it's so easy for example for the New Testament writers to speak of the Spirit of God or the Spirit of Christ in the same passage going back and forth between the two. Because there's no there's no conflict in their understanding.

And so uh the the revelation is it prophesied in the Old Testament. I believe it clearly is in Isaiah chapter 9 verse 6. We have this prophecy of this one who is to come. And there we are told that a child will be born to us.

And the term born there is the standard term in the Hebrew language for natural birth of a child. But then it says a son will be given to us. The government will be upon his shoulders. In English shall be called wonderful counselor mighty God everlasting father prince of peace.

Who is this. Who is this one. Who is who is to come. That such exalted language could be used of him that is only used of Yahweh. So while I don't think that the Old Testament is quote-unquote trinitarian in that sense because the revelation hasn't taken place the prophecies of that coming one.

Psalm 2 speaks of one that we are to kiss the sun lest he be angry. He rules over the nations. And so we can see in this fulfillment in the New Testament that the one who's to come is is not merely uh just a a prophet but is in fact uh divine knowledge.

The Trinity in the Old Testament and New Testament Revelation

Abdullah. Um I mean I would say my point of that is I find it highly conspicuous that the whole of the the Old Testament or the belief the Jews and Judaism there's not there's no revelation of the issue of trinity.

Now if the uh I mean regardless of the Christian interpretation of the New Testament which we can go into it doesn't really matter what what tradition you have the the actual doctrine itself when you think about it rationally um why is it that if we we are required to believe in a doctrine which the the Jews didn't know about for thousands of years uh in you know in the Old Testament why it took the New Testament to have this revelation and so on which itself is disputed among between different Christian factions.

But uh and so on and also other I mean other issues such as obviously the uh total scriptura and so on that we have to take the older scriptures again. Where where's your your your basis for taking all these scriptures.

What scriptures. What all the scriptures are you taking. What goes into the you know what did you just give a contents page about which books are going to be the everything you're going to be you're going to accept.

So I think that it brings up a lot of questions about the the origins of the issue of the trinity and and it's just very conspicuous for to anyone which I would say.

So so you'd say just into it. Firstly there is no trinitarian conception that obviously springs out of a reading of Jewish you know the Jewish history. But on top of that for you there's simply a logical problem of the idea of three gods but one or three persons but one god.

I mean that for you is a central you know whatever interpretation you make of the New Testament that's still going to.

Be a problem. Yeah I mean I think when the uh perhaps when when certain Christians during the history of Christianity encountered um well they wanted the need to basically write say Jesus divine but the problem is it was brought up while he was praying to a father and so how do you reconcile that we want to make him divine but who's this other person he's praying to.

And obviously okay I think the Holy Spirit might be brought on later on or so. But whatever the case um in order to reconcile these contradictory things you believe in one god because Jesus said you know one god but at the same time you want to make Jesus divine and I think it's a human phenomenon that you want to make a god.

You can see someone you can personally interact with for example in India right now Sai Baba who's currently living is revealed as a god as a god incarnate by by Hindus. Haile Selassie was revealed as a god by the by the Rastafarians.

And there's been many human beings who've been revealed as god incarnate throughout the history of humanity um from from Hercules to um Krishna and even more contemporary ones as I gave them that's okay so I would say that um the the main the problem that I have is that when looking at the uh the history or at least just looking at the actual the conception you want to have three things which you want to make into one so how do you reconcile this.

Well the Christians came up with an interesting play of words instead of saying three gods three gods in an alliance they said no we'll say one god but three persons but I want to know and this is something I mean I've you know I've read Augustine's book on the trinity and I read um in a few contemporary explanations of the trinity and I think it doesn't make sense is what is a person how do you define these these person is just the name to that was brought up is it's a semantical word game to justify free whereas if you actually dig into it when you ask for example you say right if Jesus Jesus is eternal fine um Jesus was not created fine so he wasn't uh made by anything so if he wasn't made by anything then he's independent he doesn't need anything he's not a dependent being like we are so if he's not dependent then what need does he have of the father.

And so on. When he prays to the father how does that make sense. I mean so I mean Christians have tried sometimes James to sort of define the trinity in ways that might be helpful they've maybe talked about.

Well water comes in the form of ice steam uh liquids. And or think of a a block you know which has in a sense two-dimensional faces but as a whole is a three-dimensional object. I mean do are those helpful or do they.

Kind of. Are they red herrings.

In no I don't. Uh obviously the we believe that God exists in an absolutely unique fashion. Therefore any type of analogy to the created order is going to fail at some point. And so I in my book I have discussed the various failures of the uh uh the three-leaf clover and all the rest of stuff that people have attempted to use over time.

Uh obviously we believe that God exists in a unique fashion. And again we come back to the issue of whether this is a divine revelation or whether this is something that man comes to in some rational thought process.

And we need to be consistent. For example Abdullah just raised well well how do we know what the scriptures are. Well how do we know what the uh what the islamic scriptures are. I mean we know that sir al-baqarah existed as a separate book in some people's minds even outside the Quran in the early years there are all sorts of questions we can ask about uh with man's revision and all those types of things.

Every religion has to answer those questions. The fact that people ask those questions does not mean there's not an answer to those things. That's the first thing. Secondly I said we do have to look at what the new testament says.

And the new testament writers are monotheists. They are not saying well we have three gods. How do we figure out how to make them one god in any way shape or form. The fact that there is one divine name we're baptized in a single name.

The fact there's one divine name that monotheistic jews are going to recognize in the old testament the greek translation the old testament the name yahweh was rendered by the greek term kurios which means lord.

It's interesting to me that that's jesus's normative term throughout the new testaments. He is kurios only by the holy spirit. Can we say jesus kurios. Jesus is lord. And so uh it's not a matter of us trying to quote-unquote figure this out.

We have a divine text. Uh in this divine text jesus says unless you believe that i am using the very same terminology yahweh uses it himself in the old testament you will die in your sins. So it wasn't generations later someone trying to go well we want to make jesus a god because we want to have a god that we can see.

No they have these inspired texts and they are attempting to do with them what the muslim attempts to do with the quran. When i interpret the quran i try to look at all the quran has to say i think it's unfair to pull one part out and say well i'm going to isolate this out.

And the muslim agrees with that. But when it comes to new testament they operate on a different standard. Instead when we come to the new testament it's very very clear. John says in the beginning was the word and the word was with god and the word was god.

Here you have in three phrases the description the fact that the logos the word who becomes flesh in john 1 14 has eternally existed. He did not come into existence at a point in time in the past. Secondly that there's been an eternal relationship between he and the father as john 118 says that god is being spoken of here as the father and that he is as to his nature deity.

Now if that's in your inspired text along with the assertion there's only one true god. Then you have to accept what that text says. It's not it's not some uh well we just have to. We want to change things after the revelation has taken place.

This is an inherent part of the revelation itself. There can no question of that before we get a.

Response from abdullah you if you're listening you're listening to a um a discussion on whether the christian doctrine of the trinity leads to polytheism. That's what many muslims believe and abdullah al-yusufi is one of them.

He's with me here in the studio along with christian apologist james white. Don't forget you can give us your comments on the debate today by emailing unbelievable at premiere .org .uk. Or you can phone me your phone response to this discussion on 08456 525252 and select option five.

You can do that whether you're listening live this saturday afternoon or you're listening to the podcast i can pick it up and play it out on next week's program and indeed pass on any relevant pieces of information to my guests.

Um you're so uh let's just get back into this discussion. Because i've done that james is saying. Look we're not trying to make you know sense of something after the event. This this stuff about the trinity is inherent in in the original stuff.

You know that this isn't something that a later council tried to kind of force onto the text. In some way i mean what what do you make of that. Well the bible is not a diary.

It's not a personal uh a personal account of someone thinking hmm i want to go you know make. How do i do this. Okay i'll do it like this. No it's the finished document. It is they've you know produced work.

I mean uh and no one's gonna say we're gonna put three girls into one. They're gonna give a spin on it. For example um pro-lifers as i'm no doubt i think james would be against their position. They don't call abortion killing of children.

They call abortion abortion just like you know abortion choice of the woman to uh to basically choose what happens. So you mean pro.

Choice rather than pro-life. You said pro-life. So yeah pro choice the um so the people use.

Euphemisms to you know and word games to change the the actual you know meaning of uh of uh to give a different spin to a to what essentially is something else they're doing. So i believe in calling a spade a spade and so on.

If you you know in terms of the actual uh text i mean i'm obviously we're not here to to to say right. Well you know this uh this text and and uh where did it come from. And so on so forth. Yes this question can be asked and this is very interesting question where that can lead but i think in the case is that god gave us a mind and god is not author of confusion and he gave us a mind to you know choose between and be able to kind of tell between falsehood and truth.

So if something doesn't make sense regardless of which book it comes from i would i would say i mean i'm very i'll say i'm consistent in this. If the quran says something which is irrational i'll throw out the quran and i'll cease being a muslim.

I have no compunction about saying this. But likewise i would i would like the christians to approach their bible in the same way or their interpretation of the bible or however or wherever they derive their belief from.

I'd like to them to approach this because end of the day there's something that we all agree on which is that we all have minds and we all agree on. Obviously we can see the universal and existence around us.

So this common this uh common language the universal language of rational thinking which god has given us is an enable human beings to determine the truth and not just blindly accept texts. What if uh you know if uh the the harry potter became forgotten then 2 000 years ago they came up with a book out of the ground and some believes it without critical without critical reasoning on this see now what james white might condemn as um label scholarship is uh is actually just critical reading of the text.

And i think um there's something else james mentioned that we know we shouldn't use analogies. We shouldn't compare the divine uh to any analogy to explain it and so on. And i and i agree with this although you know in in his video on youtube trinity versus oneness debate part one he used an analogy to explain uh the divine the trinity by saying that all the humans in the audience we are all of the same substance same uziah but we are all different persons hypostasis different persons.

Now he used an analogy in that he did in that case and i would say that that's actually a very interesting analogy because um he's saying that all these people in the audience are all one substance but different persons.

Well of course but there's multiple people in the audience no doubt the greek pagan gods are all made of the same substance but they're all different gods. So i would say that you know it's for reasons like this which i think the trinity um you just can't justify it logically.

And it i mean would you agree there james. That that i mean you've said analogies do break down.

Yeah and that was an analogy i was using on the trinity at all. I was uh abdullah has misunderstood me. I was simply illustrating the difference between two terms. And that is being in person. And i illustrated the fact that we as human beings always differentiate between these terms.

We recognize that even inanimate objects have being a pick up a rock toss it somebody else. That will be empirical proof that a rock has being. Uh but rocks are impersonal you can insult a rock all you want.

It's not really going to care because it's not personal. And i was saying we as human beings share the same kind of being. Our being is limited in time and space but each one of us is personal and we differentiate on those levels.

I was not in any way describing the trinity with that analogy. So uh that that's a misunderstanding. But uh i am not a rationalist. I believe that god has given us our minds to think his thoughts after him.

I believe that we are to be consistent and all the rest of those things. But i'm not a rationalist. I do not sit here and say that that man's mind is a measure of god's existence. And i do not believe there's anything irrational in recognizing the difference between being in person.

Uh your being and my being. We are limited in time and space. Uh right now i am seven hours ahead of my family back in in phoenix. It's made it's very difficult to call home and get the chance to talk with him at the right time.

Um i cannot bilocate between those two locations. I am limited in time and space. God is not. And while my being is probably only shared by one person upon what logical irrational basis do we say that god's being being infinite cannot be shared by three divine persons fully and completely.

That is an issue of divine revelation. Is it not god's business to reveal to us exactly how much he wants us to know of his of his divine being. Jeremy 29 29 says. The things are revealed belong to us and to our children.

The secret things.

Belong to the lord our god. I suppose one of your arguments abdullah might be though. But if god wants to reveal himself to us and wants us to believe in him why would he do it in a confusing way that we can't grasp with our mind.

I mean is that what you're getting at that that when you say god is not the author of confusion this is a confusing i didn't say we can't grasp it with.

With our mind i didn't say that uh i did not. I wanted to make sure. Because if you're going to answer a question it needs to be based upon what i'm saying. I am not saying that we cannot understand the doctrine of trinity.

What i'm saying is that on god's most basic level i cannot comprehend how he's eternal. I cannot wrap my mind around timelessness. And if that's the most and that's something we both agree about about god.