Is the Trinity a pagan concept?

[Jesus.defender]

Is the Trinity a Pagan Concept?

No! Because:

i) The Babylonians and Assyrians believed in triads of gods, which were three separate gods (polytheism) governing other gods. This is totally different from the Trinity of only one
God (monotheism) with three persons within the one Godhead.
ii) Triads of gods pre-date Christianity by about 700 years and were far removed from Israel..
iii) Some pagan ideas have some truth in them, such as the pagan Flood legends.
Just because pagans spoke of a concept that remotely resembles a biblical concept, does not mean that Christians stole it from the pagans.
iv) JWs quote Hislop’s The Two Babylons to support their case, yet they don’t tell us that Hislop believes in the Trinity, as seen from Hislop’s quote:
‘They all admitted a Trinity, but did they worship the Triune Jehovah?’ (p. 90)
- About 80% of the sources that the WT quotes are from Trinitarians. This begs the question: ‘How can the WT disprove the Trinity by quoting sources who believe the Trinity?
- 15% of their sources are secular works like Encyclopaedia Britannica.
- 5% of WT sources are invalid sources of Biblical truth, eg: sceptics, spiritists, Unitarians.
- The WT always finds some unknown, obscure person to agree with them. They do not examine the credibility of such sources. Most WT sources have no credibility & no authority.
- The WT rarely gives page numbers of its quotes to allow check the source and context.
v) JWs claim they represent the ‘faith once delivered to the saints’. They claim that the Trinity idea was introduced in 325 AD. What they don’t say is that current WT teachings
have no precedent in history. They do not say who were the JWs of the first three centuries or later. No early church ‘father’ represented their beliefs. The WT is historically bankrupt.
vi) The WT, by showing a three-headed god, use the ‘straw-man effect’, where they misrepresent what Christians believe, and then proceed to ‘shoot down’ this ‘straw man’.
This is seen in five pictures of three-headed gods which are supposed to represent the God of Christendom. (‘Should you believe in the Trinity’ p 10).
vii) The WT is happy to misquote sources to prove their point.
Consider page 6 ‘Should you believe in the Trinity’, where they misquote the New Encyclopaedia Brittanica by failing to give the full relevant quote. They stop the quote at the asterisk *
‘The Encyclopaedia Britannica (1976 Edition) correctly states: “Neither the word Trinity, nor the explicit doctrine as such, appears in the New Testament”,’
[*They stop the quote here, ignoring the rest of the article which endorses the Trinity:] ‘nor did Jesus and his followers intend to contradict the Shema in the Old Testament: ‘Hear, O
Israel: The Lord our God is one Lord’ (Deuteronomy 6:4). The earliest Christians, however, had to cope with the implications of the coming of Jesus Christ and of the presence and power of God
among them - ie, the Holy Spirit, whose coming we connected with the celebration of Pentecost.
The Father, Son, and Holy Spirit were associated in such New Testament passages as the Great Commission: ‘Go therefore and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the
Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit’ (Matthew 28:19); and in the apostolic benediction: ‘The grace of the Lord Jesus Christ and the love of God and the fellowship of the Holy Spirit be
with you all’ (2 Cor. 13:14). Thus, the New Testament established the basis for the doctrine of the Trinity.The doctrine developed gradually over several centuries and through many controversies.

Any early church council disputes were over fine points of Trinity clarification, such as the substance, nature and omnipotence of Father, Son and Holy Spirit, never over whether the Trinity was right or wrong. The truth of the Trinity was always accepted.

[Evacuated]

 

On 6/27/2018 at 12:00 AM, Jesus.defender said:

Any early church council disputes were over fine points of Trinity clarification, such as the substance, nature and omnipotence of Father, Son and Holy Spirit, never over whether the Trinity was right or wrong. The truth of the Trinity was always accepted.

Arianism – Arius (AD c. 250 or 256–336) believed that the pre-existent Son of God was directly created by the Father, and that he was subordinate to God the Father. Arius' position was that the Son was brought forth as the very first of God's creations, and that the Father later created all things through the Son. Arius taught that in the creation of the universe, the Father was the ultimate creator, supplying all the materials and directing the design, while the Son worked the materials, making all things at the bidding and in the service of the Father, by which "through [Christ] all things came into existence". Arianism became the dominant view in some regions in the time of the Roman Empire, notably the Visigoths until 589.[10] The third Council of Sirmium in 357 was the high point of Arianism. The Seventh Arian Confession (Second Sirmium Confession) held that both homoousios (of one substance) and homoiousios (of similar substance) were unbiblical and that the Father is greater than the Son (this confession was later known as the Blasphemy of Sirmium): "But since many persons are disturbed by questions concerning what is called in Latin substantia, but in Greek ousia, that is, to make it understood more exactly, as to 'coessential,' or what is called, 'like-in-essence,' there ought to be no mention of any of these at all, nor exposition of them in the Church, for this reason and for this consideration, that in divine Scripture nothing is written about them, and that they are above men's knowledge and above men's understanding";[11]

10. http://www.historyworld.net/wrldhis/PlainTextHistories.asp?historyid=ac61

11. https://www.fourthcentury.com/second-creed-of-sirmium-or-the-blasphemy-of-sirmium/

[Space Merchant]

The Trinity is indeed a paganism concept. I hope you know what Attis this, Deserter, because it is not of the Church. And our early brothers and sisters never believed in the Trinity concept and the Terminology at all. It is not too difficult to read into how the church of that age operated, however, it ignored when it comes to concerning the new doctrines that is beyond the church.