Review of Glyn Parfitt’s manuscript:

The Trinity, What Has God Revealed.

A Collaborative Effort

Edited by Brendan P. Knudson

Contents

Pulling the Trinity out of a Hat, Part 1: 1

Hermeneutricks

Brendan Knudson

Examine Yourselves, Whether You Are In The Faith 12

Caroline Andrew

The Remnant & the Latter Rain 17

Blair Andrew

What Has God Revealed? 21

Blair Andrew

Pulling the Trinity out of a Hat, Part 2: 30

Myths and Fables

Brendan Knudson

Begotten or Not Begotten 36

Terry Hill

Christ our God 62

Blair Andrew

The Holy Spirit 70

Margaretha Tierney

What is Truth? What does it Weigh? 75

Blair Andrew

Pulling the Trinity out of a Hat, Part 3: 80

Arithmagic

Brendan Knudson

Appendix: When Trinity Doesn’t Mean Trinity 86

Brendan Knudson

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st Oct, 2008

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Pulling the Trinity Out of A Hat, Part 1:

Hermeneutricks

Brendan P. Knudson

This being the first paper of review for Glyn Parfitt’s forthcoming book, The Trinity,

What Has God Revealed? Objections Answered (hereafter TT:WHGR), I would like to

here introduce the project and the motivation behind it. Over the past few years, I

have come to know the author, mostly in the context of the Trinity discussion. He was

initially sent my way by a mutual friend, Allan Lindsay, who hoped that I might be

edified. I certainly have been.

While we disagree in some of our conclusions, we have found that we agree more

often than not, and I consider Glyn to be personal friend and respect him for his

convictions. My participation in this review should thus be read in the context of the

high esteem I hold Glyn in, as a friend, scholar and fellow Christian. The titles for my

papers are not meant to belittle him, nor to cast judgement on his intentions, but

reflect how I perceive the subject matter has been dealt with in order to uphold a

Trinitarian conclusion. I hope that the examples I provide are enough to substantiate

the title choice.

This review project came about after the book became available on CD, prior to being

printed. After procuring and perusing a copy, I immediately contacted the author.

While there are some definite strengths, which I will outline shortly, I felt that the

author had opened himself up to rebuttal in many areas and offered to head up a team

of those who held different conclusions to prepare this pre-publication review. My

concerns were for the author himself, that he was going to be investing money in this

book, and also for the church at large, for I feel this book could further widen the gulf

between Trinitarian and non-trinitarian Seventh-day Adventists.

I was glad that Glyn accepted the offer and am grateful that he has delayed printing so

that this review had adequate time to be prepared. All of the participants in the review

have been non-trinitarians for some time, and have written on the topic from that point

of view. I was personally involved in ministry and research within the non-trinitarian

“movement” for a couple of years, before returning to the Conference and submitting

to the appropriate channels. I believe this experience, as well as my friendship with

Glyn, qualify me to contribute to and edit this collaborative effort. My hope, beyond

the personal benefit to Glyn Parfitt of having this review, is that this might help pave

the way to dialogue and reconciliation between those who hold to the historic and

modern beliefs about God within Adventism.

Before moving on, I would like to thank also those who have contributed to this

project and introduce their efforts. Blair Andrew has written four contributions on

various aspects of the book. In some instances he parallel’s my own thoughts from a

different angle, and at times he gives a succinct perspective of the historic belief of

Adventism which Glyn failed to adequately represent. Caroline, his wife, has written a

thoughtful contribution dealing with where bias comes from and challenges all to

examine whether we hold to certain biases in our conclusions. Terry Hill has

responded more on the Christological content of Glyn’s book, reviewing from the

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point of view of the “begotten” issues. Margaretha Tierney has focused more on the

Pneumatology of Glyn’s book and appeals that there can be more than one way of

looking at evidence. I am grateful that each of these members of the review team

made time in their busy schedules to fit this in and that they wrote in a Christian,

though at times passionate, way.

Strengths

I want to mention here three of what I consider to be the greatest strengths of Glyn

Parfitt’s (hereafter GP) contribution to the Trinity discussion. While I might qualify

the extent of these strengths, I do not wish to be seen as giving a backhanded slap to

the author in this section. He is to be commended for these areas where I believe he

has surpassed others who have written from the same point of view in the past.

The first strength is the extensive research he has engaged in. While this has mostly

been done to support the Trinitarian position, both parties should welcome fresh

evidence for consideration. Of particular note are the Avondale Press statement of

beliefs and the studies in Hebrew word families, which bear further reflection.

The second, and to me more important strength of GP’s work is the genuine attempt

that has been made to engage and interact with the non-trinitarian position. While it is

not explicitly stated in his book, I feel he treats non-trinitarians with respect as people

and Christian brethren, as opposed to previous works which seem to either ignore the

human component (in zeal to defend a doctrine), or malign the motives of those who

disagree with them. He refrains from using emotionally charged labels such as

“Arian,” “Semi-Arian” and even “Anti-Trinitarian” and acknowledges that there is

actually agreement in certain places which have not been conceded before, for

instance:

"The full Deity of Christ has never been a matter of contention among

Seventh-day Adventists. To my knowledge, all who mentioned the subject

claimed to believe in it. Nevertheless, there may be some readers for

whom information on this subject may be helpful. A brief exposition of

the Deity of Christ has therefore been included, together with statements

from the pioneers affirming it." – TT:WHGR, p. 19.

It is heartening to see statements as the above in the author’s book. While I deal with

some inconsistencies regarding his statements on the deity of Christ later on, I am

pleased to see his fair and honest appraisal on this matter. The author also concedes

that non-trinitarians do not hold to their position without intelligent reason:

"I freely admit that, when dealing with the subject of the Trinity, we will

find some pieces of evidence for which the most natural explanation is a

non-Trinitarian position. It will be up to the reader to judge where the

weight of the evidence lies after considering all the information available."

– ibid, p. 20

The strengths above culminate in the third – that this should be acknowledged as the

best critique of the non-trinitarian position. I think all non-trinitarians would do well

to read this book, for there are some minor positions which I believe we have held to

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extremes. GP’s book provides an opportunity to re-evaluate some of these and let go

of those things which are untenable. Some of this has already occurred, as will be

mentioned below, others need to be further assessed by individuals and thought

leaders that represent the non-trinitarian position today. I believe that in setting aside

and repudiating errors which can be clearly shown, non-trinitarians can make their

own steps towards positive dialogue and hopefully reconciliation with the church at

large.

To conclude this section, I hope that all parties can be benefited from the new

evidence in TT:WHGR and that all parties can emulate the Christian way in which the

author approaches those who hold opposing points of view.

Hermeneutic considerations

It is not the purpose of this paper to defend the non-trinitarian position, but to

highlight oversights which are more readily apparent by one reading from my

perspective. What follows are nine different areas where I believe that GP could

improve in, with specific regards to hermeneutic. My contribution, beginning in this

paper will be continued by part 2, which will look more at historic considerations and

concluded by a paper which examines the innovative mathematical “weight of

evidence” concept in TT:WHGR and gives final recommendations of the review

project.

1. Seeming confusion over some issues

We saw earlier regarding the deity of Christ that GP conceded that non-trinitarians

agree on this. He further gives a list of quotes from pioneer SDA’s as well as modern

non-trinitarians which affirm the deity of Christ (found on pages 104, 105). Despite

this, in the final calculation, on pages 382 and 383, the deity of Christ is given weight

only on the side of the Trinity. If the author is to follow through on his statements

regarding the deity of Christ, he should assign this weight to both sides, or not assign

it at all, since it is a crucial part of both Trinitarian and non-trinitarian Seventh-day

Adventism.

The same might be said for the “eternal existence of the Holy Spirit,” which GP states

“is not particularly controverted.” p. 382. This issue is likewise agreed upon by both

parties. I would personally add that non-trinitarians agree that the Holy Spirit is

divine, and since GP has included the deity of the Spirit as a separate category to the

distinctness/personhood1 of the Spirit, would put forth that these are all worthy of

being given weight on both sides (or to cancel each other out). These comments do

not reflect agreement with the GP’s method of assigning weight, but have to do more

with the consistency of such.

2. Failure to truly walk in non-trinitarian shoes

Not to detract from what I said earlier about the author’s respect for non-trinitarians

and their beliefs, there are limitations to the extent that GP has done this. There are

two things that are most readily apparent regarding this point. Firstly, GP seems to

deal solely with how non-trinitarians have expressed themselves in writing. By this I

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mean that he sometimes gets sidetracked with the way that an author has expressed an

argument, rather than looking at the principle behind that argument.

Extending from this is the fact that GP uses seriously outdated writings in answering

his objections. I understand that there may be some who still (according to private

conversation with GP) distribute Fred Allaback’s No New Leaders, No New Gods,

but, this would certainly be a small minority of individuals. Allaback’s book appears

to have begun the resurgence of non-trinitarian Seventh-day Adventism, but as with

the beginning of many movements, it is riddled with extreme statements and positions

which have been backed away from by most non-trinitarians today (though some may

yet need relinquishing). GP’s use of Allaback’s thoughts on the Holy Spirit being the

angels, and his explanation of the term Godhead are really straw men in the modern

discussion, 13 years on from the printing of this book.

Allen Stump’s Foundation of our Faith, is still distributed in some places, but it is in a

later revision to that used by GP (now it’s 6th

). Sherlene Turner, who I personally

know, also does not reflect more than a small minority position. While the small

weights assigned their objections are justified, inclusion of such objections might only

serve to give the impression that all non-trinitarians hold to such positions, when I

know many to be moderate and balanced.

While in some places the author does seem to grasp the impetus behind non-trinitarian

perspectives, there are many places where he doesn’t seem to have looked at things as

a non-trinitarian would. I believe this to be a more fatal flaw than any other, for it

leads on to some of the others yet to be mentioned. I say this because I believe that the

direction the author headed in, in engaging non-trinitarians, is the right one, and that

the more that can be done in this regard, the greater the results will be. The same is

true of non-trinitarians engaging Trinitarian perspectives on passages.

3. Relying on previous theories without critically examining them

This consideration will be more prominent in my second paper on the historical parts

of TT:WHGR, but basically there are certain assumptions or ideas presented by

previous authors, which GP perpetuates. One that bears on hermeneutic, and which

may appear minor, is that of Dale Moody’s statement that Tyndale did not translate

monogen�s as “only begotten”. GP’s treatment of this is found on page 154. It is true

that Tyndale did not translate the word as “only begotten” in John 3:16, 18, however,

a search of the other Johannine uses (which can be done in many places on the web)

will show that it was translated by Tyndale as “only begotten” in John 1:14, 18, and 1

John 4:9.

This concludes the more general principles. The next six points will hold more in the

way of examples.

4. Leaving out information/disconnecting from context.

On pages 95 and 96, GP addresses the clause “the Word was God” from John 1:1. GP

appears to only examine whether the clause should be translated with an indefinite

article or not. He does not at all address the third option, that the clause is qualitative.

This treatment can be found in other books on the trinity, including that by Moon,

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Widden and Reeve, The Trinity, pp. 58-65 (also in Daniel Wallace, Greek Grammar

Beyond the Basics, pp 256-270).

On page 101, GP deals with the “Thy throne O God is for ever and ever,” from Heb.

1:8. However, he does not examine verse 9, where the Father (who is speaking to the

Son) calls Himself “Thy God” or the God of the Son. These considerations do not

necessarily detract from the deity of Christ, but may clarify our understanding of His

divinity.

In the section dealing with the Holy Spirit as “He” in John 14-16 (TT:WHGR, pp.

245-248), GP doesn’t mention that there is at least one leading Greek scholar who has

not seen John as breaking the rules of grammar in this instance (Daniel Wallace, op

cit, pp. 331, 332). I have personally made this material known to GP, so know that he

had access to it.

In the section “another Comforter” (TT:WHGR, pp. 249-252), GP does not look in

depth at the word “allos,” and show that on at least one occasion (1 Sam. 10:6 LXX),

this word has been used of the same individual. Nor does he deal with the full context

of this quote. Two verses on from “another Comforter”, many non-trinitarians point

out that Christ says, “I will come to you.”

In the list of activities which only a person can do (ibid, pp. 252-254), no mention is

made of the fact that a similar list can be made up for man’s spirit. Neither is this

counter-balancing evidence brought up as an objection. This seems strange, given that

GP gives this section a 90% weight in favour of the personality of the Holy Spirit (as

he understands it).

Finally, on page 274, GP deals with the objection that we are never told to pray to the

Holy Spirit. GP, dealing with the wording of Fred Allaback, states that there is no

command to worship Christ. However, if we are to honour the Son as we honour the

Father, this would include worship (John 5:22-23). Also, there is the issue of example.

There are many examples of worship to Christ, and a few of prayer to Him (eg. Acts

7:59) GP only deals with the examples of worship in parenthesis and footnote. In an

attempt to show that the Holy Spirit is to be loved, GP’s use of Ellen White is a

stretch at best, since the word “cherished” was often used of abstracts and inanimates,

such as a “cherished doctrine,” for instance.

5. Hermeneutic double standards

This pitfall is seen most forcefully in the section regarding the “Himself Divested”

quote on pages 337-342. In this section, GP attempts to demonstrate a different

meaning for “divested”. To do so, he brings as evidence a situation where Ellen White

used “divested” alongside “free”. Next, he argues a rigid difference between “free”

and “freed” and that since Ellen White did not use “freed” then divested must not

necessarily mean that the Holy Spirit had humanity before being “divested”.

"Here the word 'divested' is used in parallel with, and synonymously with

the word 'free.' Now the word 'free' is different from 'freed'. The word

'freed' implies previous bondage but the word 'free' does not imply this. I

am a free man, but I have never been in prison. Likewise, the expression

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'free from affectation' does not imply that the person was previously

subject to this habit.

"The coupling of the word 'free' with the word 'divested' in this way

indicates that the word 'divested,' as used by Ellen White need not

necessarily imply that the attribute or thing was previously possessed." –

TT:WHGR, p. 339, emphasis in original

This is a lot of effort to explain a statement in a Trinitarian context. The double

standard can be seen in the fact that Glyn does not at all establish the rigid difference

between free and freed. In fact, of the 4492 occurrences of “free” on the Complete

published Ellen White writings CD, 7 of the first 10 instances of the word mean what

GP suggests “freed” exclusively means.

GP manages to find a 12 volume dictionary to suggest the possibility of “divested”

meaning “devoid”. It contains two references in support of this. It is interesting that

GP consults a dictionary written after Ellen White’s death, which references two uses

of the word that were written before her birth to establish how she herself used the

word, even saying that she was in “good company.” Of the two examples, I have

managed to find one of the books (W. H. Ireland, Scribbleomania) in context and

there is a suggestion of the normal meaning of the word. The other, going only by the

section as quoted by GP, is ambiguous as to the meaning, without the greater context.

Finally on this argument, GP argues that Christ has retained humanity so the quote

could not refer to Him, because He isn’t divested of it. This is founded upon an

unestablished myth that Christ, in retaining humanity, is still limited by it. The quote

is speaking of the encumbrances of humanity, not humanity itself. When Christ was

here on earth, He did not use His own power, but relied upon His Father’s. Also, He

was limited by a human body. After His resurrection, He was able to change/conceal

His real appearance, become invisible, and possibly walk through objects. These are

definitely not normal for humans. The Bible speaks of Christ as filling all things and

becoming a life giving spirit upon His ascension (Eph. 4:10, 1 Cor. 15:45).

As well as this, GP fails to examine the subject of the entire paragraph in question. He

makes the assertion that the “is himself” refers to the Holy Spirit and not to Christ.

However, the subject in the sentences preceding and following is Christ, with all

personal pronouns referring to Him.

6. Giving only two choices (a subtle straw man)

One of the most difficult things for a Trinitarian to express is the harmony between

“One God” and “three Persons.” There is a similarly difficult paradox for those who

hold to the pioneer understanding of the Godhead. The sovereignty of the Father is

often stated as being the “One God” or “Only True God” (John 17:3), yet it is also

acknowledged that Christ is called God. GP, in commenting on the issue, states:

"As with ’ech�d (259) in the Old Testaement, those who take the view that

this is the meaning in those verses describing God as 'one' in the New

Testament will find that it proves too much and in two ways. Not only

does it deprive Jesus of any kind of Deity, it also deprives the Father of

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being Lord, for there is only 'one Lord Jesus Christ' according to this

view." – TT:WHGR, p. 52

GP gives the impression that non-trinitarians prove too much with their argument that

the Father is the “one God” mentioned in Scripture. This is in fact a subtle straw man,

for it presents the reader with only two options – the understanding he proposes, or

the understanding he SAYS that non-trinitarians have, and what it leads to. There is a

third option, which while some have had difficulty expressing, does resolve the

paradox nicely.

Another instance where only two options are given is regarding the Holy Spirit, where

GP states:

"Is the Holy Spirit just a power or an influence, the Spirit of Christ or the

Spirit of the Father that emanates or is sent from Them to convict (sic)

guide (sic) direct (sic) and empower us? Or does the Holy Spirit have an

individuality and a personality all His own?" – ibid, p. 244

Here again, GP subtly presents a straw man that non-trinitarians believe the Holy

Spirit to be “just” a power or influence. Again, this is a matter of paradox to a non-

trinitarian, with a third, harmonising option quite sufficient to explain the seeming

contradiction. As an introduction to the personality of the Spirit, this plants in the

mind of the reader a bias against the non-trinitarian view, as they are not given the

opportunity to understand it first.

More serious straw men appear in the next section.

7. Misdirecting the reader’s attention

Regarding the non-use of “trinity” by Ellen White, GP appears to misdirect onto the

“Trinitarian sounding” statements as a way to lower the weight of this argument. In

doing so, he misdirects from the fact that she appears to deliberately not use it (GP is

aware of at least one instance where this is the case, as brought out in my research on

“heavenly trio” statement). Also, if he was going to use “Trinitarian sounding”

statements that were not yet hermeneutically established, it would only be fair to

counter this with non-trinitarian sounding statements, which he readily admits exist

(as quoted earlier from page 20).

In the section on “one God” in the Old Testament, GP fails to comment that after

Christ’s quotation of the Shema, He states that “there is none other but He.” This

reflection is made by most non-trinitarians who have commented on that passage.

This seems to indicate a singular person (other than Christ), and not a collective

group.

In the section on “was made in the express image” (pp. 217-222), GP rightly enquires

about Ellen White’s use of Hebrews 1:3. He separates uses into pre-incarnate,

incarnate, post-resurrection and indefinite time. What he fails to do is treat the

different contexts for the way in which it is used. For instance, the incarnate refer to

the hidden or veiled divinity of Christ while here on earth, but not his outward

appearance. Therefore it is in a qualified sense that it is used in the incarnation.

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The smokescreen created by this classifying actually does GP’s final explanation

some harm. He intends to relegate the “made in the express image” to the incarnation.

However, if GP already acknowledges that was in this state before the incarnation,

then why did he have to be remade in this way? To make his case, GP misdirects onto

how “made” is used in the New Testament, failing to comment on the original Greek,

which is ginomai and which allows for many more instances of different translation

which may be pre-incarnate (such as John 1:15). In all, GP’s treatment of this quote

leaves much to be desired.

Equally disappointing is GP’s treatment of the objection which follows, “A Son

begotten (pp. 223-225). Apart from leaving out the fact that this statement very

closely resembles one from E. J. Waggoner in Christ and His Righteousness (he

separates this fact from consideration by dealing with it separately), GP argues that it

refers to Christ in the incarnation. He again confuses the uses of “express image” and

gives an example of “the brightness of divine glory” from an incarnate looking

statement to argue that this quote is likewise referring to that period. Here is the quote

as he emphasises it:

"Looking upon Christ in the flesh, we look upon God in humanity, and

see in Him the brightness of divine glory, the express image of God the

Father. (Selected Messages, Book 3, pg 127, 128)." – TT:WHGR, p. 224

This quote actually comes from a Youth Instructor article called “Child Life of Jesus –

No. 1” (21-11-1895). This short article begins by speaking about how Christ did not

come in any visible manifestation of glory or beauty, but that He laid this aside. In

this sentence, GP fails to highlight that the “brightness of divine glory” was “in Him.”

This is again qualified and in a way not shared by the ST statement in question. In the

end, GP makes the case that the new sense of Sonship was begotten, but that He

wasn’t begotten before this, however, GP doesn’t explain the context of the pre-

incarnate Sonship to state what the “old sense” was. Again, this is confused through

misdirecting the reader’s attention from those things which might serve to explain the

context.

Many more could be given in example of this point, but the last one, which is used

quite a lot, will have to do for space concerns. The Allaback argument linking the

Holy Spirit and the angels, which has few, if any, current proponents, is used often in

the Holy Spirit section, with a whole objection dealing with it. While it is justifiable to

deal with this objection, to continually bring it up tends to reinforce bias where there

is no need to do so.

8. Speculation

The major examples of speculation we shall consider all come from the section “God

gave His Son” on pages 200-203. In here we find many elements of speculation,

which are almost admittedly so by GP. Here, GP tries to validate the term Son of God

as applying to Christ before the incarnation without any of the trappings of what that

means. He speculates briefly about the nature of eternity (something he does not

clearly define anywhere in his book). However, the major point of speculation is as to

the term “Son.”

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To undermine the subjective reasoning of non-trinitarians, whereby the love of God is

shown in the fact that God and Christ are Father and Son, and that the sacrifice was

great, GP focuses on the modern practice of embryo cloning and puts a negative light

on the matter, saying that the Father could be accused of merely bringing forth a

convenient other to die in His place. Apart from being insulting, it is completely

irrelevant. Non-trinitarians understand that it was impossible for God the Father to

have been the one to come and die, since He was the absolute source of all existence.

Christ, being both divine and begotten, could do this though, and that was what was

agreed upon. GP leaves out the fact that in Early Writings (p. 127), an angel told Ellen

White that it was a struggle for the Father to allow His Son to accept the part of man’s

redeemer.

GP perpetuates the argument that “sonship” statements prior to the incarnation are

anticipatory. This he does without looking specifically at any of the relevant passages,

as in the Early Writings one above, as well as the early chapters of Patriarchs and

Prophets, Spiritual Gifts and Spirit of Prophecy, Vol. 1.

9. Assumptions based on ambiguous facts and faulty logic

The major point to be looked at here has to do with the threeness of the persons of

God, especially in GP’s treatment of the Great Commission. Most, if not all,

Trinitarians imply the trinity from various “triads” in Scripture. These are either seen

as lists of the three, as in Matthew 28:19, or merely mention of the three within close

literary proximity. Yet not one of these lists defines three co-equal, co-eternal persons

in one God.

GP has this to say about the verse in Matthew:

"Here in Matt. 28:19, the Holy Ghost (or Holy Spirit) is linked with the

Father and the Son on equal terms. Since the Father and the Son are

personal beings with individual identities, it would be strange if the Holy

Spirit was not also a personal being having individuality. That this is so

can be seen from the following.

"Whenever things or people are grouped together in a list, the grouping

shows that there is something common to each member of the group.

Thus, Peter, James and John form the inner circle of Jesus' disciples. Paul

and Barnabus were missionaries to the Gentiles. Gold, frankincense and

myrrh were gifts brought to Jesus by the wise men. etc. We never read

about Peter, James and Paul. Nor would we even think of saying Peter

(sic) James and myrrh. Likewise we would not think of listing the Father,

the Son and Peter together, or Father, Son and Gabriel. Certainly, to list

the Father, the Son and gold would be most inappropriate.

"From these examples we can see that the items in a list must be on the

same level of existence, and they must have at least one common element

which causes them to be grouped together. These considerations lead us to

conclude that the Holy Spirit must be of the same nature and dignity as the

Father and Son. There must also be something they have in common

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which causes them to be listed together." – TT:WHGR, p. 244, emphasis in

original

What is seen above is very faulty logic. Yes, it is logical that if items or persons are

listed together, there must be a commonality between them. However, to insist that

this commonality is the “same level of existence” goes beyond logic, and if the

commonality is not specified in the immediate context, it is an assumption to insist

upon one for any other reason.

Take Peter, James and John, for example. The commonality is, as the author suggests,

that these were the inner core of disciples. This comes from the fact that these three

witnessed some of the major scenes of Jesus’ earthly experience. However, to assume

more than this would be dangerous. One could, for example, assume that all three

were brothers, based on the fact that James and John were brothers. The fact that two

are explained to be brothers does not mean that anyone else listed with them should be

considered to share that same relationship. Likewise, it is going beyond the facts to

assume that the Holy Spirit shares all that the Father and Son do, based upon a mere

list.

While I do not believe that the Angels are on an equal footing with the Father and

Son, there is a list in Scripture of “God,” “Christ” and the “elect angels” (1 Tim.

5:21). If GP is insisting upon the “same level of existence,” he would have a problem

here. In Matt. 28:19, we learn nothing more than that there is one (singular) name

which covers “Father,” “Son” and “Holy Spirit.” We learn nothing specific about the

nature of these three, or their interrelatedness from this verse.

"Since the Father and the Son are each Divine Beings, having distinct,

individual (sic) personal identities, we must therefore conclude that the

Holy Spirit is a Divine Being with a distinct (sic) personal (sic) individual

identity. It would not be appropriate to list the Father, Son and Holy Spirit

together if the Holy Spirit was merely a power or an influence, or even a

part of the Father and/or the Son." – TT:WHGR, p. 245.

This conclusion is seen then to be unsupported. Even the grammatical consideration

which follows is inconclusive, and doesn’t demand that there be three beings or

persons of equal nature in the way the trinity implies. Again, GP speaks of “merely a

power or influence.” This misrepresents the non-trinitarian position. Perhaps he would

be correct if this was the case, but non-trinitarians do acknowledge that the Holy

Spirit has a distinct economic function to the Father and Son, though not having a

separate individual identity. This passage would fit such an explanation. In the end,

there is no reason for the large weight assigned this passage, nor the author’s

concluding words:

"If this passage were the only Scriptural statement bearing on the subject,

it would, I think, be sufficient to settle the matter for most people." – loc.

cit.

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Summary Judgement on Hermeneutic

Based upon the above sample of issues, which is by no means exhaustive, I believe it

has been demonstrated that TT:WHGR fails to meet an objective evidentiary standard.

While going beyond previous authors in seeking to engage non-trinitarian

perspectives, Glyn fails in consistency and maintains a subtle bias, which affects his

treatment of key texts and will flow on to any readers.

The lack of carefulness regarding the research and the assumptions made contribute to

a poor balance in the final weightings, which will be explained in the final part of my

contribution. More examples of some of these fallacies will be further demonstrated in

part 2 of my contribution, dealing with historical considerations.

I believe that the shortfalls in hermeneutic are serious enough to expose Glyn Parfitt

to easy rebuttal and should be resolved before going to print with these things. I

believe that if Glyn was more consistent in applying his exacting enquiries into the

words, texts and quotes commonly used by Trinitarians, or into his own explanations,

he would come up with a very different picture.

1 GP tends to use “personality” and “personhood” synonymously. Non-trinitarians actually have no

problem with the Holy Spirit having or being personality, and it is a major part of their belief.

12

Examine Yourselves, Whether You are in the Faith

Caroline Andrew

Like any good movie or book, the Bible is chock full of ‘good guys’ and ‘bad guys’.

Wearing the white hat and riding on the white horse are the humble and obedient

children of the Most High God – faithful to the commission that the Lord gave them

during their lives. And on the other hand are the bad guys (wearing the black hat, of

course!) – the ones with their own agendas, trying to manipulate those around

them…even God in some cases…to achieve their desires.

Let’s narrow it down and look at the life of Jesus. Yes, He’s the good guy and

surprisingly, everyone else is a potential bad guy. At the outset of the story it’s not

clear who will take a stand on the side of Jesus and who won’t, but it doesn’t take

long for a familiar pattern to emerge; many of those who were entrusted with the role

of being spiritual guides to the people opposed Jesus actively to the point of planning

his death. Of course, they weren’t his only opponents, but because of their position

and influence, their opposition was all the more effective.

You would think that if you found yourself in the place where you were basically

planning to murder someone, that somewhere deep in your heart an alarm bell might

start to ring, and you might just stop for a minute or two to consider, “Isn’t this

somewhat contradictory to my beliefs and profession?” Fortunately, some did have

that experience, and those men eventually did make their stand for Jesus.

But what about those who didn’t? What misplaced zeal led them to kill the Son of

God? John records the following concerns that the chief priests and Pharisees

expressed:

“What shall we do? For this Man works many signs. If we let Him alone like this,

everyone will believe in Him, and the Romans will come and take away both our

place and nation.” Caiaphas went on to rebuke the nay-sayers to this plan with this

reasoning – by killing Jesus they would prevent the whole nation from perishing.

Wow – these guys really thought that the nation of Israel was really important, didn’t

they!

Unfortunately, these people fell into a common trap, where the institution of the

nation’s religious office became the master to be served, instead of being the vehicle

of service - a way of serving God and the people. It was therefore inevitable that

when God should ordain that the services of the Sanctuary be superseded by the One

they pointed to (Jesus), that those who placed all their hopes in their ‘church’ would

actually end up opposing God.

Jesus warned his disciples (and us) of this spirit of misplaced religious zeal in these

words:

“These things I have spoken to you, that you should not be made to stumble. They

will put you out of the synagogues; yes, the time is coming that whoever kills you will

think that he offers God service.” John 16:1, 2.

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Has anything changed in 2,000 years? I can testify from personal experience that it

hasn’t! And the sore point which prompts this reaction is the same now as then:

anything that threatens the smooth, continued operation of the prevailing religious

institution is the enemy which must be defeated at all costs.

So, let me tell you about my experiences. After 7 years as a faithful church member,

the Lord led my husband and me to discover the original teachings of our church on

the Godhead, and to understand that the Trinity doctrine had only been officially

adopted by the church in the previous 20 years. That in itself was a big enough shock,

but as the evidence mounted I had another lesson to learn; the inability of the majority

of people to fairly evaluate the idea that the Trinity is incorrect. By that I mean, not

jumping to conclusions, or getting tripped up by what they perceived to be the results

of not believing the Trinity doctrine. I understand why this can be hard, because I

myself had to avoid doing so when I first faced this issue.

Two of the first hurdles for me were, “But all religions that don’t believe the trinity

are a cult,” and “Everyone knows that the Trinity is the truth.” However, since I

hadn’t been trained to take verses out of context and make them fit the Trinity mold,1

when I studied the subject from the Bible I could see clearly what every honest Bible

scholar has freely admitted: The Bible does not teach explicitly that there is a Trinity2.

Initially, my ability to quickly “see” what I did made me naively think that others

would see it just as quickly. Was I in for a shock! What I encountered was other

people’s hurdles that were somewhat similar to mine, but there were more of them.

Their objections led to this thought, “But if you believe that the church is wrong in

accepting the Trinity doctrine, then you must believe the church is Babylon/in

apostasy… and if that is the case, you would have to leave the church.”

Bingo – there’s that sore point again! This thought seemed sufficient for them to

dismiss any other evidence presented as invalid. It was almost like an intellectual

‘Restricted Zone’ that eliminated the need for all other questions, and negated all

evidence presented. There is something about questioning church doctrine which

immediately places you under investigation for condemning the church.

Proud to be an Adventist?

When I became an Adventist, there was one thought that was promulgated repeatedly

to me, and emphasised quite strongly (which I will attempt to summarise as follows,

and refer to hereafter as the “Remnant Church” concept):

The Adventist Church is the only church that believes the whole Bible, and for

that reason if you want to serve / follow / know God you should become a

Seventh-day Adventist. The book of Acts speaks of God restoring all things and

the Advent movement is the vehicle God is using to restore all of the truths in

the Bible and set them in the right light ready for the return of Christ. Ellen

White repeatedly reaffirmed our role in the world to do this very thing. A part

of that message is to declare the Three Angel’s messages, which includes

exposing the popular churches to be a part of Babylon, and its false doctrine

which the Bible calls the “wine of Babylon”.

I’m sure that’s the understanding that Seventh-day Adventists had in 1865, and for the

most part it’s the same we promote today. Uno problemo – our church doesn’t have

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the same doctrines as in 1865, or even 1895! Because our denomination has done a

180 degree turn over the last 80 years on at least one major doctrine (i.e. the Trinity),

and yet still promotes the same understanding of “God’s Remnant Church”, there a

couple of significant problems to deal with:

• How can the church preach the above message of restoration of truth and

coming “out of Babylon”, when it has adopted a doctrine which firstly can’t be

proved conclusively from the Bible, and secondly is claimed by the Catholic

Church to be the foundation of all its doctrines?

• By emphasising that the Seventh-day Adventist church is commissioned to

give the 3 angel’s messages, you are in a catch-22 situation the moment you

find that you disagree with any of the church’s doctrine. By emphasising the

necessity of pure doctrine, to find fault with the church’s doctrinal position

must therefore mean that the church is part of, or influenced by, ‘Babylon’.

If that is the case, what can we do? Believing the “Remnant Church” concept was safe

to do 120 years ago, before any major changes were made to the church’s beliefs. If

the steps our church leadership took over the last 80 years were steps in the wrong

direction, how can we turn things around?

Moreover, if this 180 degree turn is regarded as progress, and admitting that this was a

mistake threatens the denomination in some way, how is it even possible to turn

things around? The Jews were so incensed at the threat Jesus posed to their church

that they were prepared to kill Him rather than submit to God’s plan. How would you

react?

Could our church leaders, if necessary, summon the courage to recant their stand on

this Fundamental and universally accepted doctrine if it was shown conclusively to be

wrong? In our own day, we have the experience of the World Wide Church of God as

an example of what could happen. Only recently, their denomination decided to

accept Sunday keeping and reject their non-Trinitarian position. As a result, the

church has split. Are our church leaders so committed to following truth that they

would, if need be, stand for the right “though the heavens fall?”

Is the Ship Taking a Detour?

If the adoption of the Trinity doctrine is not of God, then as Gamaliel noted in Acts

5:38, “… it will come to nothing.” In that instance, the church denomination is

destined to eventually have a head on collision with God’s truth, for as Peter noted in

Acts 3:21 the time is coming where all truth will be finally restored.

We know God’s church will ultimately triumph…but does that mean our

denomination will go from strength to strength right up till the return of Christ? The

Jews anticipated triumph in their day – why, it was prophesied! Certainly, I am sure

that God is guiding our denomination, but I see that God’s leading, as always, is

rather in spite of His human representatives and not because of them.

In physics the larger a moving object is, the more force is required to stop it, and the

greater the mess when it hits another immovable object. If the denomination is off-

course, I anticipate that it would take a colossal event (or series of events) to correct

it. At present, the Seventh-day Adventist church is fuelled by the thought that “the

15

church is going through” and is confident that God’s stamp of approval is placed over

all of the church’s decisions and developments. The reports of thousands of baptisms

happening world-wide are cited as confirmation of the church’s forward progress, but

is this a correct interpretation?

Of course, faithful church members get edgy when such thoughts are expressed. Any

suggestion that the church denomination is somehow in error is akin to blasphemy for

many people. How easily we forget the weakness of our own humanity! It wasn’t just

the Pharisees in Jesus’ time that got caught up in pipe dreams and agendas. Even the

disciples were victims of their own nationally-instilled delusions of grandeur. How

many times did Jesus say point blank, “I am going to be delivered to the chief priests

and will be killed,” and yet their understanding of a Messiah who would subdue the

Romans and restore Israel once more as a powerful nation prevailed.

Bias Binding

If the disciples, who lived and worked with Jesus Himself, in the flesh and face to

face for over 3 years, were still heavily influenced by misconceptions, how dare we

think ourselves immune from such failings? Bias (i.e. an understanding which is

inculcated through education or absorbed by osmosis from those with whom we are in

contact) is one of those things which normally just doesn’t show up on our internal

radar. It is accepted without question. Rather, it is placed in a position which defies

questioning. All facts and all evidence to the contrary will be dismissed rather than

question that which “we know” to be true.

The point of these reflections is this: Life is not the same as a movie, and while we are

here in the midst of the drama it is not clear cut as to who the good guys and bad guys

really are. It’s not as simple as who believes what doctrine. The best we can do is

check our own inner motivation and pray to be released from the power of bias and

religious zeal. We all suffer from it. Those two elements inherently carry with them

the potential to make us work against God while we profess to serve him. They are

not doctrine/religion/race specific. If you are a human being, you are vulnerable.

At this time, more than ever, we need to be conscious that Jesus Christ alone is the

head of the church and that He, as always, is not afraid to lead His people in ways that

cause us to confront our mistakes and weaknesses. As a matter of fact, I suggest you

expect it. He does this with individuals and will do it with organisations as well.

Consider Peter, a broken man, weeping that he should deny Jesus so easily rather than

risk meeting the same fate as His Lord. Consider the size of the immovable object that

the Jewish nation hit in 70 AD – their pride and confidence in their nation’s

infallibility went head-to-head with the Roman Empire, with catastrophic results.

In both cases, those involved were destined to be confronted by reality. Peter “fell on

the rock and was broken” but arose to fulfil his role in proclaiming a risen Saviour.

The Jews however, in rejecting the Messiah because He didn’t meet their

expectations, were destined to be “ground to powder” (Matt 21:44).

In the whole scheme of things, the Trinity vs Godhead debate serves as a litmus test

whereby it is revealed where one’s confidence lies, and to show how deep our

Christianity goes. We may not be able to see the results of that test, but it is a sure

thing that the Lord Himself does. And while we love being a part of a denomination

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that does many good works and effective ministry, we must never lose sight of the

fact that placing our confidence in anything besides Jesus Christ places us on

dangerous ground.

May the Lord help us to be set free from the spirit of misguided religious zeal and the

blindfold that it wraps around our spiritual eyesight. Only then is there a chance that

we might know the truth and be truly set free.

Endnotes:

1. I have noticed that people who study the Bible for themselves, even baptised church members who

profess to be Trinitarian, usually do not in reality believe in the Trinity doctrine. They can usually

recite the necessary words and the theory, but if the Bible says that Jesus is the Son of God, they

believe it to be so and relate to Him as such, instead of viewing Jesus as a part of God who took on the

role of, or pretended to be the Son. Only those who decide to study and actively defend the Trinity

doctrine normally end up advocating strong Trinitarian dogma.

2. The most commonly accessed Encyclopedia on the Internet, Wikipedia, states: “The consensus of

Modern exegetes and theologians is that the Hebrew Bible does not contain a doctrine of Trinity (even though in the past dogmatic tracts texts like Gn. 1:26, Gn. 3:22, 11:7, Is. 6:2-3 were cited as

proofs). Further, modern exegetes and theologians agree that the New Testament also does not

explicitly contain the doctrine of the Trinity. The Trinity was thrashed out in debate and treatises as

a result of continuous exploration of the biblical data, and was eventually formulated at the Council of

Nicaea in 325 CE.” Wikipedia, the Free Encyclopedia. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Trinity (Yes, I

know this is somewhat hypocritical, quoting a secular encyclopedia because it supports my position.

But then, our church Pioneers also confirm that the Trinity cannot be proven from the Bible, and Ellen

White never wrote anything explicitly stating that the Trinity could be proven from the Bible, so I feel

justified in quoting the above.)

See also The Oxford Companion to the Bible: “Because the Trinity is such an important part of later

Christian doctrine, it is striking that the term does not appear in the New Testament. Likewise, the

developed concept of three coequal partners in the Godhead found in later creedal formulations

cannot be clearly detected within the confines of the canon.” TheOxford Companion to the Bible,

1993. Art. Trinity, by D.N. Schowalter. p.782-3. Editors, Bruce M. Metzger, Michael D.Coogan.

17

The Remnant and the Latter Rain

Blair Andrew

Background

Over the last 15 or so years I have been intimately involved in the discussions over

the concept of the trinity within Adventism. Although once a Trinitarian, I have

changed my position and at the outset feel I must emphasise that there is a great deal

of misinformation and stereotyping about what constitutes a non-belief in the doctrine

of the Trinity.

Having communicated briefly with Glyn Parfitt, and being asked to take part in the

review process on his upcoming book, I enjoyed hearing Glyn speak on the topic

recently at the South East Queensland Convention 2008. I had not heard him speak

before, and was encouraged that he attempted to put himself in our position, - a

difficult thing to do - and analyse an understanding of God from that perspective.

Unlike others I have communicated with, he was not dogmatic, and handled well the

questions I raised with him. Although we are not in agreement, I am impressed that he

has taken the time to try to understand our position. In this paper, I will attempt to

briefly give some of the reasons I have for being a non-Trinitarian for 15 years, and

also point out some of the areas of concern I have for Glyn and his work.

The Remnant and the Latter Rain

Adventism is unique. The truths that we hold form an intricate structure whose

simplicity and integrity exceeds anything to be found in the broader Christian world.

More than this, there is a consistency of doctrine and experience that harmonises with

that of the early Church in a way that no other branch of Christianity can claim.

Seventh-day Adventism traces its roots back through the nineteenth century Great

Second Advent Movement, through the Protestant Reformation and the “Church in

the wilderness” to Apostolic times.

As such it is the latest phase in the restoration of that which was lost during more than

a millennium of theological digression. Spanning the period of the Judgment of this

world,1 its purpose is to prepare a people to stand securely in the simplicity of God’s

Word though the heavens fall.

As one Adventist writer noted;

“From their inception Seventh-day Adventists have felt themselves to be the

legitimate successors of the Advent message, popularly known as Millerism. With

this belief has come the conviction that the Seventh-day Adventist church is God’s

remnant church, destined to fill a unique function in the end-time of earth, that to

her has been entrusted the messages of the three angels of Revelation 14. This

involves a restoration of neglected and forgotten and rejected truths. Seventh-day

Adventists have never surrendered this self concept.” 2.

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We believe that Christ would have come before this, had His people been ready. Our

own church history tells us that at Minneapolis, Minnesota in 1888, God sent the

beginning of the loud cry message through his messengers, Elders Waggoner and

Jones. He had purposed for that message to swell with the outpouring of the Holy

Spirit in latter rain power. That Loud Cry message was intended to lighten the earth

with its glory.

However, it was not allowed to do its job. Through pride the Holy Spirit was resisted

and the message rejected. According to Ellen White it was God’s purpose to end the

world’s misery prior to the twentieth century, but that our lack of faith has caused its

delay. It does not take much to see that if we had the message, and we had been

giving it to the world, we would not be here today. 3.

We have wandered in the wilderness for one hundred and twenty years since that

event, but now what? There are millions of us now, and our growth as a denomination

is expanding. But, deep in our hearts, we sense something is missing. Our message

lacks life changing power. The Spirit-filled victory alluded to back in 1888 still eludes

us.

Study this paper prayerfully, for I believe it unravels key elements that will enable us

to understand why this is so.

Let me sketch for you a brief outline of the phases of change within the history of

Seventh-day Adventism that have relevance to the topic at hand.

Stage 1. The Missionary Phase

The Pioneers of the Movement were on the offensive, they were charged with a

message to enlighten the world in order to prepare it for Christ’s soon return. They

were not afraid, for they knew they had a commission, and that the power of the truth

would win the day.

Stage 2. The Apologetic Phase

Adventist evangelists, pastors and scholars from the 1920’s to the 1950’s were on the

defensive. This could be described as boundary establishment and control. It was an

attempt to:

Substantiate Seventh-day Adventism in the eyes of the other Christian

denominations;

Extinguish fires started by those who left the denomination;

Write books defending Adventist doctrines;

Set up Defence Committees to aid this work.

Stage 3. The Shared-Identity/Compromise Phase

From the 1950’s we have attempted to win acceptance from the Christian

establishment by looking at where we can agree. We thereby gain some identity for

ourselves in the eyes of the world. It’s a kind of Adventist ecumenism, for while we

can agree on some points there are fundamental differences between Adventism and

Catholicism, and Adventism and Protestantism. We believe Adventism was divinely

instigated as a reformation of both branches of Christianity – a movement to continue

the cause from which they had digressed. To actively seek their endorsement or

favour runs the risk of abandoning our reason for existence.

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If we look objectively at Roman Catholicism, it is very difficult to find even one

doctrine that is solely Scriptural. The same applies to contemporary Protestantism.

The Protestant churches originated with godly men and women who sought to restore

Biblical truth, and thereby accomplish the reformation of Christianity. But after

hundreds of years that spirit has mostly been lost and with it the pre-eminence of the

Bible as the sole arbiter of sound doctrine. When the reformers died, their churches

had not wholly broken with Rome’s teaching: after entering the Promised Land many

fortresses of error still remained. Yet their spiritual descendants were content to

proceed no further in conquest than their forebears. As time passed they became

wedded to the seductive but unscriptural doctrines still inhabiting the land and their

purity of faith was lost.

Adventism, like the prophets of old, was sent to arrest this decline by recapturing the

spirit of reform. As a result it necessarily stood alone in its early years, distinct in its

truths and calling. Sadly, the seductive influences so successful in staying the progress

of reform in earlier times began to influence Adventism. Just as Protestantism settled

into benign conventionality and stretched out its hands to grasp those extended by

Catholicism, so Adventism runs the very real risk of doing the same, especially with

contemporary Protestantism.

It took 300 years for the Apostolic church to become the church of Rome. It took the

same time for the Reformed churches to be themselves in need of reform. Adventism

began with no greater outpouring of God’s Spirit than these two worthy endeavours

and so we ought not to think that it immune from a similar fate within as short a time.

Thus it is imperative that we be on our guard lest we find ourselves after 150 years

being halfway to apostasy.

Some have argued that “the dynamic nature of Seventh-day Adventist theology”3.

justifies change and new understandings of scripture. We would agree, but argue that

any new light will not negate the old.

In saying this, I acknowledge the work Glyn Parfitt has put into his manuscript, but

we see therein serious underlying assumptions and misconceptions of the issues at

hand. Before reading Glyn’s manuscript I, and others like myself, once again faced

the possibility that we might be wrong in our understanding. We were somewhat

apprehensive and yet truly wanting to know if there was indeed some stone that we

had left unturned in our search to understand the truth on this matter. It was with

sadness that we discovered that once again, another author had not fully understood

the issues.

We have been relieved that Glyn has been open to us reviewing his work, which we

have tried to do in a respectful way. The opportunity to review opens the door for

those interested in defending the Trinity doctrine to perhaps get a fuller understanding

of the problems we have found – something that no one else has adequately done till

now.

Having not found anything in Glyn’s research to fully answer our Scriptural

objections, we believe that the Trinitarian framework and Christology are erroneous.

20

We see the adoption of these doctrines as symptomatic of the Laodicean condition,

having detoured further and further from the message of Righteousness by Faith

delivered to us in 1888. If the non-Trinitarian understanding of God was as integral to

the 1888 message as we believe, then a denial of that doctrine could well be holding

us back from receiving the Latter Rain of the Holy Spirit, and giving the Loud Cry to

a dying world. 4.

The real proof of any theory is in its results. The fact that we have not entered the

kingdom and still wander in an experiential wilderness of sin and failure after having

rejected the fundamentals of the 1888 message should tell us something about the

veracity of our beliefs.

My premise, therefore, for this review, is that if we continue to reject the 1888

Message, and its Scriptural understanding of the Godhead, we are steering the Church

away from the necessary preconditions for the reception of the Latter Rain.

To the best of our understanding the Trinity doctrine has no purely Scriptural backing.

Indeed there is a remarkable logistical similarity between defending it and defending

the doctrine of Sunday sacredness. Neither can be proved from Scripture and both

were established by ecclesiastical decree. Yet strangely, every attempt is made to

demonstrate their validity from Scripture. In the process the protagonists merely

succeed in reinforcing their own opinions because there is no equally respected

authority. In the end it isn’t a purely Scriptural argument on the Trinitarian side and

that is the real issue that needs to be addressed.

Let me say it again; by accepting the Trinity doctrine, we fear that we have

unknowingly continued down the path of rejection of the Message of 1888, and have

moved away from our calling in giving the Three Angel’s Messages. - messages

which are non-trinitarian in nature, for they are a call to give the true “everlasting

gospel”, and return to the worship of the one true God. Included with the ‘everlasting

gospel’ is the call to “come out of Babylon”, and to avoid the sign of her worship.

This is the message we are specifically called to give to a dying world; a world drunk

on the “wine” of Babylon.

The Adventist, non-Trinitarian position, is a simple, Scriptural understanding. As such

it is a welcome alternative to the two opposite extremes of Trinitarianism and

Arianism. It is what the early Church believed, what the Church in the Wilderness

upheld for centuries and what the Advent Pioneers re-discovered. It is the same

message about God found in both the Old and New Testaments and it lies at the heart

of the 1888 Message. It removes the contradictions and paradoxes of Trinitarian

theology and gives the Gospel a power that changes lives: restoring the love of God in

the heart and empowering believers in their battle with sin.

_____________________________________________________________________1. Rev. 14:6.

2. Holt, Russell. The Doctrine of the Trinity in the Seventh-day Adventist Denomination: Its rejection and

acceptance. 1969. p.1.

3. EGW. TM p.91-97. 5BC p.1131. 1893 GCB. p.419.

4. EGW. R&H Nov 22, 1892.

5. Burt, Merlin D. History of Seventh-day Adventist Views on the Trinity. 2006. p.1.

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What Has God Revealed?

Blair Andrew

The first point that raises itself upon reading Glyn Parfitt’s work, The Trinity, What

Has God Revealed, (TT WHGR) is the lack of a clear definition of the term Trinity.

This needs to be defined, for there are a variety of views circulating within

Adventism, and unless it is clearly defined at the outset, you cannot clearly see what it

is you are opposing, or accepting. Variations of trinitarianism range through the

whole church. There are those who uphold the Nicene Creed as their foundation, there

are others who believe in Christ being “begotten” of the Father, but still advocate the

Orthodox Trinitarianism, others tell me we have two mediators between God and

Man, the Spirit and Christ, still others tell me the Holy Spirit is the Father of Christ, or

is an emanating force or power, and yet all uphold the Trinity doctrine. The word

trinity has such a wide variety of interpretations, from the early Nicene and Post-

Nicene writers to the different uses of the word made by Adventist Pioneers. The lack

of defining the term and its use leaves the door wide open to speculative ideas. In any

discussion of theology, by laying down the meaning of words and terms from a

Biblical foundation at the beginning of the work, any misunderstandings in the

discussion may be alleviated.

Glyn makes a very true statement on page 46 of his work; “Most of the confusion is

caused by trying to understand the statements of finite men trying to explain the

mysteries of an infinite God. If we would keep to what is revealed and accept it by

faith without trying to explain it any further, many of the difficulties would

disappear.” (TT WHGR p.46). But without defining what he believes himself, Glyn

leaves the door open for misinterpretation. He does make a very generalized

statement; “my beliefs fall within the range of beliefs generally regarded as

Trinitarian,” (TT WHGR p.19) but we should point out that his views are at variance

with other Australian authors, such as Pastors Max Hatton and Lloyd Grolimund.

Let us take a brief look at what God has revealed in regard to the Trinity doctrine,

before beginning our review of Glyn’s work.

Current Explanations and definitions:

“There is one God: Father, Son and Holy Spirit, a unity of three co-eternal Persons.

God is immortal, all-powerful, all-knowing, above all, and ever present. He is infinite

and beyond human comprehension, yet known through His self-revelation. He is

forever worthy of worship, adoration, and service by the whole creation.” Seventh-

day Adventists Believe … A Biblical Exposition of 27 Fundamental Doctrines, 1988.

R & H. p.16.

From this, one of our current definitions of the trinity doctrine, (published by the

Ministerial Assoc) we learn that there is one God, and from the first line we see that

this God has three names, and as well as this, our Divine God is made up of three co-

eternal persons: and “He” is male. “He” is a singular term, and you can use that to

apply to any “one” of the “three” “Persons”. So, the question arises, in the context of

the above quotation, who is the “He” referring to? What about the word “Persons”

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which obviously is plural. Is “He” still “one”? So far, we have more questions than

answers. Let us read on. "In contrast to the heathen of surrounding nations, Israel believed there was only one

God (Deut.4:35;6:4; Isa.45:5; Zech14:9). The New Testament makes the same

emphasis on the unity of God . . . This monotheistic emphasis does not contradict the

Christian concept of the triune God or Trinity - Father, Son and Holy Spirit; rather it

affirms that there is no pantheon of various deities. Although the Old Testament

does not explicitly teach that God is triune, it alludes to a plurality within the Godhead" . . . "While the Godhead is not one in person, God is one in purpose, mind

and character. This oneness does not obliterate the distinct personalities of the

Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit. Nor does the separateness of personalities

within the Deity destroy the monotheistic thrust of Scripture, that the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit are one God." Seventh-day Adventists Believe . . . A Biblical

Exposition of 27 Fundamental Doctrine, 1988. R & H, pp 22-23. (emphasis supplied)

Several points come out of this statement. We know that the word God means deity,

or divine; and we see no problem with our Father being called God, and Jesus being

called God, because they both are divine, and are related, just as your earthly father

and you are related; ie. family. But “mono” mean one. And “tri” means three. So, if

God is one, and yet is three divine persons, that again seems to contradict logic. And

yet it says that “this monotheistic emphasis does not contradict the Christian concept

of the triune God or trinity.” As well as this, it states that the Old Testament does not

teach that God is triune, but alludes to a plurality. We need more evidence than

alluding to something to build our faith on. All of Adventist’s other doctrinal beliefs

are based on clear scriptural exegesis. But it would seem from the above statement

that we do not have this for the trinity doctrine. As Glyn said “If we would keep to

what is revealed and accept it by faith without trying to explain it any further, many of

the difficulties would disappear.” (p.46) Let us turn for a moment to another official

Adventist source, and see if they can shed more light on the topic.

Adventist Review:

“While no single scriptural passage states formally the doctrine of the Trinity, it is

assumed as a fact by Bible writers and mentioned several times. It is implied in

Genesis 1, where God and the Spirit of God are portrayed acting in Creation. . . . Only

by faith can we accept the existence of the Trinity. Nevertheless, reason supplies

evidences that support our belief in God. Through the ages theologians have

developed what have become known as the traditional proofs of God. . . . ” Adventist

Review, Vol. 158, No.31. July 1981.p.4.

So, we have no scriptural passage stating the trinity doctrine, again it is “assumed”,

but now we are told it is “assumed as a fact by Bible writers and mentioned several

times” by Bible writers. Evidence is not presented in the Review to support this

statement, and I have searched elsewhere for it, without success. I cannot find

anywhere in Scripture where the doctrine of the Trinity “is assumed as a fact” by any

Bible writer. As well as this, I cannot find it “mentioned several times”, but I do

agree that there is much we can “only accept it by faith”. The question begs to be

asked though, should not our faith rest on evidence? For years we have been known as

“the people of the Book”, who can present and defend our positions on any doctrine.

Has God revealed enough evidence about His nature to support the Trinity doctrine?

Let us turn to Andrews University and see what their scholarship can produce. The Reign of God, by Richard Rice:

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“The role of the trinity in a doctrine of God always raises questions. One reason is

that the word itself does not appear in the Bible, nor is there any clear statement of the

idea. But the Bible does set the stage for its formulation, and the concept represents a

development of biblical claims and concepts. So even though the doctrine of the

trinity is not part of what the Bible itself says about God, it is part of what the church

must say to safeguard the biblical view of God.” The Reign of God, An Introduction

to Christian Theology from a Seventh-day Adventist Perspective. by Richard Rice.

1985. Andrews Uni Press.

This statement poses some interesting thoughts. Obvious contradictions abound. Rice

is saying that although something is not found in Scripture, we should defend it to

safeguard it as the Biblical view of God. We may not be academics, but that type of

circular reasoning defies logic, and should never have been put in print, let alone in an

Adventist text book for University level theology students.

Ekkehardt Mueller, BRI. “We do not believe in three Gods but one God in three persons. These three

personalities participate in one substance. In the divine unity there are three coeternal

and coequal persons, who, though distinct, are the one undivided God. This doctrine

of God is a biblical doctrine. However, it surpasses our understanding.” – Ekkehardt

Mueller, Reflections, BRI Newsletter, July 2008.

Mueller is attempting again to explain the doctrine, and speaks of three “co-eternal,

coequal persons who are distinct, and yet are one undivided God. He then states that it

is a Biblical doctrine. Although I agree with much of Mueller’s article in Reflections,

he presents no evidence for the co-eternal, coequal part of the Trinitarian formula

from scripture. God does not expect us to believe something that defies the very logic

he has imbued us with. God is a God of order and consistency, He never expects His

children to believe something without clear evidence.

The Trinity, by Moon, Whidden & Reese, Andrews University.

“Probably the strongest clues to such a divine triunity occur in the famous gospel

commission that Jesus gave the church in its baptismal formula: ‘Go therefore and

make disciples of all the nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the

Son and of the Holy Spirit’ (Matt. 28:19).” The Trinity, by Jerry Moon, Woodrow

Whidden, & John W. Reese, published by R & H 2002, p.32. (Chapter entitled “The

Strongest Biblical Evidence for the Trinity”) (emphasis supplied)

We are now told by our three well respected academics that Matthew 28:19 is the

“strongest clue” that we have to prove the trinity, when it is not even a text laying out

a doctrinal position on the nature of God! Christ is making a statement on Baptism,

and we do not find the early church using it in these words anywhere in Scripture.

But, it is “strongest clue” we have. Is that the best that God has revealed for us, His

remnant people, as the foundation of our faith, in regard to the God whom we

worship? Let us look further at some other well known authors.

Questions People have Asked Me, by Francis D. Nichol:

The Mystery of the Trinity “I confess frankly that I cannot explain how there is but one God and yet three

persons in the Godhead. Nor have I ever heard anyone explain it satisfactorily. Yet I

believe it.” – Questions People have Asked Me, - F.D. Nichol, p.275. 1959. R & H.

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Getting Acquainted with God, by Otto H. Christensen: “The word trinity is not in the Bible, but the plurality of the divine triad can be

inferred, some think, from the Sacred Record from the very beginning.” Getting

Acquainted with God, Otto H. Christensen. p.70. 1970. R & H.

No comment is necessary here. Both authors go on to defend the Trinity doctrine,

neither presenting Biblical evidence for its existence.

Let us now check whether or not there are any scholarly sources outside of Adventism

who can give us a clear scriptural basis for the trinity doctrine.

The most commonly accessed Encyclopedia on the Internet, Wikipedia, states:

“The consensus of Modern exegetes and theologians is that the Hebrew Bible

does not contain a doctrine of Trinity (even though in the past dogmatic tracts texts

like Gn. 1:26, Gn. 3:22, 11:7, Is. 6:2-3 were cited as proofs). Further, modern

exegetes and theologians agree that the New Testament also does not explicitly

contain the doctrine of the Trinity. The Trinity was thrashed out in debate and

treatises as a result of continuous exploration of the biblical data, and was eventually

formulated at the Council of Nicaea in 325 CE.” Wikipedia, the Free Encyclopedia.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Trinity (emphasis supplied)

So, a “consensus of Modern exegetes” tell us that both the Old and New Testaments

do not clearly, explicitly, contain the doctrine of the trinity. It came into Christendom

from another source, outside of scripture. Maybe the compilers of Wikipedia were

biased, possibly being non-Christian authors, so we will check some other sources to

see what confirmation we can find.

The Encyclopedia Brittanica: “Neither the word Trinity nor the explicit doctrine appears in the New Testament, 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 doctrine developed gradually over several centuries and through many

controversies. . . . It was not until the 4th Century that the distinctness of the three and

their unity were brought together in a single orthodox doctrine of one essence and

three persons.” Encyclopedia Britannica, Vol 11, art. Trinity. 15th Edition.

Brittanica says basically the same thing as the Wikipedia. Both these credible sources

tell us that the idea of the trinity came after scripture, and from sources outside of

scripture, and sources that Seventh-day Adventism has never recognized as inspired,

reliable, sources.

The Oxford Companion to the Bible: “Because the Trinity is such an important part of later Christian doctrine, it is

striking that the term does not appear in the New Testament. Likewise, the

developed concept of three coequal partners in the Godhead found in later

creedal formulations cannot be clearly detected within the confines of the canon.” The Oxford Companion to the Bible, 1993. Art. Trinity, by D.N. Schowalter.

p.782-3. Editors, Bruce M. Metzger, Michael D.Coogan. (emphasis supplied)

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So, what are they saying here? Is it there or not? “Cannot be clearly detected within

the confines of the canon”? Is that a nice way of saying that the Bible does not

actually teach the Trinity doctrine?

The Columbia Electronic Encyclopedia:

“Trinity [Lat.,= threefoldness], fundamental doctrine in Christianity, by

which God is considered as existing in three persons. While the doctrine is

not explicitly taught in the New Testament, early Christian communities

testified to a perception that Jesus was God in the flesh; the idea of the

Trinity has been inferred from the Gospel of St. John.” The Columbia

Electronic Encyclopedia, Copyright © 2004, Columbia University Press.

(emphasis supplied)

Again, we are lacking an explicit teaching of the Trinity doctrine in scripture, and we

can only infer it from the writings of John.

The Encarta Encyclopedia has this to say about the origin of the Trinitarian doctrine:

“Trinity (theology)

In Christian theology, doctrine that God exists as three persons—Father, Son, and

Holy Spirit—who are united in one substance or being. The doctrine is not taught

explicitly in the New Testament, where the word God almost invariably refers to the

Father; but already Jesus Christ, the Son, is seen as standing in a unique relation to

the Father, while the Holy Spirit is also emerging as a distinct divine person.

The term trinitas was first used in the 2nd century, by the Latin theologian Tertullian,

but the concept was developed in the course of the debates on the nature of

Christ. In the 4th century, the doctrine was finally formulated; using terminology still employed by Christian theologians, the doctrine taught the

coequality of the persons of the Godhead. ... For an adequate understanding of the

trinitarian conception of God, the distinctions among the persons of the Trinity

must not become so sharp that there seems to be a plurality of gods, nor may these distinctions be swallowed up in an undifferentiated monism.” – Encarta.

Art. Trinity. (emphasis supplied)

The question begs to be asked, can we base our faith purely on inference alone? If it is

a fundamental doctrine in Christianity, it should surely have enough evidence to have

actually become a doctrine! Read on.

The Encyclopedia of Religion: “Exegetes and theologians today are in agreement that the Hebrew Bible does not

contain a doctrine of the Trinity, even though it was customary in past dogmatic

tracts on the Trinity to cite texts like Genesis 1:26, “Let us make humanity in our

image, after our likeness”(see also Gn. 3:22, 11:7, Is. 62-3) as proof of plurality in

God.” - Encyclopedia of Religion, Art. Trinity, Volume 15, page 54, 1987. (emphasis

supplied)

Further on we read;

“Further, exegetes and theologians agree that the New Testament also does not

contain an explicit doctrine of the trinity.” (Ibid)

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In the next a paragraph it says regarding ‘trinity language’;

“In the New Testament there is no reflective consciousness of the metaphysical

nature of God (“imminent trinity”), nor does the New Testament contain the

technical language of later doctrine (hupostasis, ousia, substantia, subsistentia,

prosopon, persona).”… “While it is incontestable that the doctrine cannot be

established on scriptural evidence alone, its origins may legitimately be sought in

the Bible, not in the sense of “proof-texting” or of finding metaphysical principles,

but because the Bible is the authoritative record of God’s redemptive relationship

with humanity.” (Ibid)

“What the scriptures narrate as the activity of God among us, which is confessed in

creeds and celebrated in liturgy, is the wellspring of later trinitarian doctrine.”

(Ibid)

The New International Dictionary of New Testament Theology:

“Primitive Christianity did not have an explicit doctrine of the Trinity such as

was subsequently elaborated in the creeds.” - The New International

Dictionary of New Testament Theology. Art. Trinity.

These standard works all seem to agree – something is fundamentally wrong, when

the Bible doesn’t teach something, it must have come from somewhere! To have

come at a later time in the creeds of Christendom is not enough, for they come too

late. The Canon was compiled before that, and logically, anything after that which

was not given through the gift of prophecy can only be invented by man, either as

traditions or as false teachings. Which is it going to be? Reading on, we find this

interesting piece;

The International Standard Bible Dictionary: “The doctrine of the Trinity lies in Scripture in solution; when it is crystallized from

its solvent it does not cease to be Scriptural, but only comes into clearer view. Or, to

speak without figure, the doctrine of the Trinity is given to us in Scripture, not in

formulated definition, but in fragmentary allusions; when we assemble the

disjectamembra into their organic unity, we are not passing from Scripture, but

entering more thoroughly into the meaning of Scripture.” The International Standard

Bible Dictionary, Art. Trinity. (emphasis supplied).

“Fragmentary allusions” – I will leave the reader to define the word “Allusion”, for to

allude to something, it really needs to have been found and defined before.

Let us now go to the authority which states that it is the source of the idea, and see if

the definition found there has any Biblical basis.

“The trinity of God is defined by the Church as the belief that in God are three

persons who subsist in one nature. The belief as so defined was reached only in the

4th

and 5th

centuries AD and hence is not explicitly and formally a biblical belief. The trinity of persons within the unity of nature is defined in terms of ‘person’ and

‘nature’ which are Gk philosophical terms; actually the terms do not appear in the

Bible. The trinitarian definitions arose as the result of long controversies in

which these terms and others such as ‘essence’ and ‘substance’ were erroneously

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applied to God by some theologians.” Dictionary of the Bible, by John L. McKenzie, S.J. p.899. (emphasis supplied)

This Roman Catholic source is clear as to the origin of the trinity doctrine. We could

continue, with many more quotations to clarify the issue, but, to any unbiased reader

the evidence is clear. Scripture does not clearly present the idea of the trinity doctrine,

it is a doctrine which came after the canon of Scripture was closed, developed in the

4th

and 5th

centuries. Inspiration was obviously not involved in the formulation of the

doctrine.

The New Catholic Encyclopedia puts it this way;

“The doctrine of the Holy Trinity is not taught in the OT. In the NT the oldest

evidence is in the Pauline epistles, especially 2 Cor 13:13 and 1 Cor 12:4-6)”

(New Catholic Encyclopedia, Volume 14 page 306, ‘Trinity, Holy (in the Bible)

Here is the point blank denial of the trinity doctrine being found in the Old Testament.

This is even though some trinitarians maintain that there is evidence of it there. Notice

here that what is said to be found in the New Testament is not the trinity doctrine

itself but “evidence” of it. And note; this is the Roman Catholic Church telling us

this, the Church that can trace its beginnings to the Ecumenical Councils of the 4th

Century. As we shall now see, the same is said with regard to this teaching being

found in the gospels, as Moon, Whidden, & Reese stated above.

The encyclopaedia continues;

“In the Gospels, evidence of the trinity is found explicitly only in the baptismal

statement.” (Ibid)

In closing this section, we would like the reader to consider the following statements;

the first from an outside source, that you may consider how non-Christians look at the

professedly Christian world, and its idea of God.

“Rivers of medieval ink, not to mention blood, have been squandered over the

‘mystery’ of the Trinity, and in suppressing deviations such as the Arian heresy. Arius

of Alexandria, in the fourth century AD, denied that Jesus was consubstantial (i.e. of

the same substance or essence) with God. What on earth could that possibly mean, you

are probably asking? Substance? What ‘substance’? What exactly do you mean by

‘essence’? ‘Very little’ seems the only reasonable reply. Yet the controversy split

Christendom down the middle for a century, and the Emperor Constantine ordered that

all copies of Arius’s book should be burned. Splitting Christendom by splitting hairs –

such has ever been the way of theology.

Do we have one God in three parts, or three Gods in one? The Catholic Encyclopedia

clears up the matter for us, in a masterpiece of theological close reasoning:

In the unity of the Godhead there are three Persons, the Father, the Son, and the

Holy Spirit, these Three Persons being truly distinct one from another. Thus, in

the words of the Athanasian Creed: ‘the Father is God, the Son is God, and the

Holy Spirit is God, and yet there are not three Gods but one God.’

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As if that were not clear enough, the Encyclopedia quotes the third century theologian

St Gregory the Miracle Worker:

There is therefore nothing created, nothing subject to another in the Trinity: nor

is there anything that has been added as though it once had not existed, but had

entered afterwards: therefore the Father has never been without the Son, nor the

Son without the Spirit: and this same Trinity is immutable and unalterable

forever.

Whatever miracles may have earned St Gregory his nickname, they were not miracles

of honest lucidity. His words convey the characteristically obscurantist flavour of

theology, which – unlike science or most other branches of human scholarship – has not

moved on in eighteen centuries. Thomas Jefferson, as so often, got it right when he

said, ‘Ridicule is the only weapon which can be used against unintelligible propositions.

Ideas must be distinct before reason can act upon them; and no man ever had a distinct

idea of the trinity. It is the mere Abracadabra of the mountebanks, calling themselves

the priests of Jesus.’” Dawkins, Richard. The God Delusion, p.34-35. 2006. Bantam

Press.

The second illustration is from a well known Anglican Bible scholar, David Pawson,

in his Video series entitled “The Challenge of Islam to Christians”. In this brilliant

series, Pawson makes the observation that:

“We say that God is three persons, and yet you must not call God ‘them’ you call them

‘Him.’ And yet the trinity is one of the biggest blockages, not just to Muslims, but to

hosts of people. They say, ‘I can’t understand that. How can God be three, in one, at the

same time?’ We are neither polytheistic, which is the belief in many gods, nor are we

monotheistic, which is the belief in one person called God. We are triune-theistic, and

we have somehow got to get that across. … And then when we get to God the Holy

Spirit, this really is confusing. The two things that divide Christianity from every other

religion, are the Deity of Christ and the personality of the Holy Spirit. What a

complicated faith to confront people with. And then admission to Christianity is so

complicated. It involves moral, verbal, and ritual action. It involves four basic steps.

You repent of your sins to God the Father. You believe in God the Son. You receive

God the Spirit, and you are baptised in water in the name of the Father, Son and the

Holy Spirit. And then you’ve only got started. How much more complicated our faith

is!” – David Pawson, Video 2, “The Challenge of Islam to Christianity.”

From the above two academic sources, one Christian and one atheist, it is evident that

the professedly Christian world have done what we have been forbidden to do. They

have added to the Word of God, and this is the first point upon which the Trinity

doctrine falls. Evidence from scripture has not been forthcoming, for we cannot base

any doctrine on purely one “proof text”, Matthew 28:19. The confusion of the trinity

may be touched on in later sections of this paper, but it is clear that the beauty of the

gospel has been marred and well nigh obliterated by the Trinity, as pointed out

Trinitarian author David Pawson. May we all heed the words of the wise: “Do not add

to His Words, lest He reprove you and you be found a liar.” Proverbs 30:6.

We should know what we believe and why we believe it, and we should be able to give

an intelligent reason for our religious convictions.

“Believers are not to rest in suppositions and ill-defined ideas of what

constitutes truth. Their faith must be firmly founded upon the word of God so that

29

when the testing time shall come and they are brought before councils to answer

for their faith they may be able to give a reason for the hope that is in them, with

meekness and fear.” – 5T, p.708. (emphasis supplied)

We are to have an intelligent faith, and an intelligent knowledge of our God. I believe

that the evidence in scripture fits the non-trinitarian model in a far more consistent way

than the Trinitarian model. We will cover some of this as we continue later in our

review.

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Pulling the Trinity Out of a Hat, Part 2:

Myth and Fable

Brendan P. Knudson

In this part of the review, I will be dealing with the research and conclusions of Glyn

Parfitt (hereafter GP) in terms of his historical statements. Many of these will involve

similar principles as my previous paper. As with the hermeneutic, I will not be dealing

with every perceived problem, and these are merely taken as representative. Not a few

of these come from the early section where GP deals with what he sees as the major

objections of the trinity.

History is often more difficult to get a read on than the study of someone’s writings.

An understanding of history is affected by so many considerations. We can never

truly say what a person was thinking, for instance. The best we can do, is compile as

much of an historical context as we can for something we are examining and find the

best conclusion which fits the facts. These conclusions also need to be flexible enough

to change as new facts come available. Outside of facts I have specifically shared with

GP, I cannot determine whether he knew of these facts, therefore, I cannot comment

on his honesty or integrity in presenting his take on things. However, if his

conclusions fail to take into account all of the evidence he provides, or if he could

easily have had other pertinent information at hand, it can reflect on his research

skills.

It is apparent from some of the new evidence in favour of the trinity GP presents, that

he has adequate research skills, for I personally only discovered the Avondale Press

statement because someone at Avondale mentioned that GP had discovered it first.

James White and his position on the Trinity

The first matter we shall look at is GP’s statement about James White. He says on

pages 28 and 29:

"James White appears to have softened his anti-Trinitarian stand in his

later years. This may have resulted from his contacts with the Seventh-day

Baptists...

"This statement was made in the context of cordial relations that were

being established between the two churches at this time. This included the

exchange of preachers, etc. James White was not expressing merely his

personal view, but seemed to be saying that the position of Seventh-day

Adventists, as a whole, on the matter of the Trinity, was now so close to

that of the Seventh-day Baptists, that he did not expect them to raise any

objection to the views of Seventh-day Adventists on this matter."

The relevant part of the statement which GP quotes, says, “The principle difference

between the two bodies is the immortality question. The S. D. Adventists hold the

divinity of Christ so nearly with the trinitarian, that we apprehend no trial here.”

There is nothing in this to suggest that the church shifted its position on this matter.

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Also, contrary to what GP attempts to highlight, it is the divinity of Christ, not the

“matter of the Trinity,” which James White was saying was close to the Seventh-day

Baptists.

GP then quotes an entire article, titled Christ Equal With God, where James White

says that Christ is equal with God. This is in evidence that he “softened” his views on

the trinity. However, this is reading into things what is not there. Non-trinitarians did

not believe Christ’s “equality” to include “co-eternal” pre-existence. They could

believe that Christ was begotten, and also that He was fully divine. It is interesting

that GP does not quote the following, from the year White died: "The Father is the

greatest in that he is first. The Son is next in authority because He has been given all

things." (RH, 4-1-1881) This quote was available to GP, for it has appeared in Living

Voice of the Lord’s Witnesses, a book which he quotes from later on.

There is no evidence whatsoever for the assertion that James White “softened” his

views on the trinity, based upon the evidence GP has presented, and his reasoning

behind that assumption is not faithful to the evidence he had at hand.

Doubt about some early “non-trinitarians”?

Glyn states also on page 28:

"Not all those generally regarded as non-Trinitarian were necessarily of

that persuasion. They may have been merely reflecting a Trinitarian view

such as that of Tertullian, one of the early 'orthodox' Christian writers, and

one of the first to use the term 'Trinity.' Included among these early

Adventist writers would be J.G. Mateson, A.T. Jones, E.J. Waggoner,

C.W. Stone, and J. Edson White."

GP tries to allow for these guys to be Trinitarians who just believed that Christ was

begotten. However, in his introduction, GP states:

"To me, the whole matter revolves around two key issues:

"1. Did Christ have a beginning? Was there some point in the remote past

when he was literally 'begotten' from the Father?" – p.19.

If this question is one of the key issues concerning the trinity, it seems interesting that

he would attempt to argue that these men were actually Trinitarians in the same way

as Tertullian. There is no evidence for or against that point of view for most of them,

and so it is really pure speculation. In truth, they disagreed enough to be considered

“non-trinitarian” according to the Trinitarian definition of the book, so why try the

double talk?

Small Insinuations

In some instances, GP assumes or insinuates much from a small quotation. For

instance, on page 26, he hints that the non-trinity belief was not agreed upon by all

early pioneers by a statement where James White says, “As a people we are brought

together from divisions of the Advent body, and from various denominations, holding

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different views on some subjects...” He offers no evidence that the Godhead was one

of these subjects.

GP insinuates (p. 34) that the non-trinity belief of the pioneers was not a pillar in 1889

when Ellen White listed the cleansing of the sanctuary, the three angel’s messages, the

commandments of God and faith of Jesus, the sanctuary, the law, the Sabbath and the

non-immortality of the wicked. He underlines where she states, “I can call to mind

nothing more that can come under the head of the old landmarks.” He explains that

Ellen White “add[ed]” the “personality of God [and] of Christ” later, only after the

Kellogg crisis. He attempts to distance the “personality” spoken of in these quotes

from the “personality of God” which was published about in the early days of the

message, despite the “50 year” statements made at the same time which link the two

time periods.

In the comments on the Froom-Lacey correspondence (Appendix C, pp. 519-527) GP

makes out that Ellen White commended Prescott’s talks on the I AM. Interestingly,

the letter of Ellen White referred to is Nov. 18, at the time of the Armidale talks,

which GP establishes as not being the convention Lacey refers to. It is interesting that

he would suggest they refer to the convention, when the more natural conclusion is

the Armidale camp meeting talks.

M. L. Andreasen’s account taken as fact

This particular point surrounds the statements made by M. L. Andreasen on the quote

“original, unborrowed, underived. Many authors have referred to Andreasen’s

comments that this caused “great concern to the denomination theologically.”

However, there is no corroborating evidence that this occurred in the decades

immediately following the Desire of Ages. In a paper I am writing at the moment, I

show that the statement caused no problem for those who held to the pioneer position

and does not need to be understood as the Trinitarian insists.

The more periodicals that are made available by the site www.adventistarchives.org,

the more I look to find any discussion on this quote. The earliest I can seem to find is

in Ministry Magazine, in the 1940’s. It might be true that it caused concern in M. L.

Andreasen’s immediate circle, but without corroborating evidence, GP is merely

perpetuating a myth here.

1919 Bible Conference Sidestep

Seventh-day Adventist Trinitarian’s are continually reaching for the earliest date for a

change to the trinity. As more evidence becomes available, this hope is slipping

through their fingers. Froom’s claims in Movement of Destiny that it was only a vocal

Arian minority in early Adventism have been long given up, and later remnants of

non-trinitarianism have been acknowledged by Merlin Burt in Demise of Semi-

Arianism and Anti Trinitarianism in Adventist Theology, 1888-1957. GP appears to

try and sweep aside any late entry of Trinitarianism, and so when it comes to the 1919

Bible conference, he ignores the implications of those who opposed the trinity by

focusing only on those who supported it.

33

The fact is, that Prescott himself still held to a view that Christ was derived, being

confused over the issue at the conference, yet still declaring Christ to be derived a

year later in the book The Doctrine of Christ, saying:

“We may conceive the Father existing from eternity and possessing

infinite powers, simply because he wills so to exist, without any cause

external to himself, eternal and infinite and underived; and of the Son

existing with the Father from eternity, and possessing to the ful the

Father's infinite powers, but these received from the Father, existing

because the Father wills him so to exist, eternal and infinite and derived.

This conception will account for the entire language of the New Testament

about the Son of God.

The Son is equal to the Father in everything except that which is conveyed

by the terms Father and Son. He is equal to the Father in that he shares to

the full the Father's existence from eternity and his infinite power and

wisdom and love. But in asmuch as the Father possesses these divine

attributes from himself alone, whereas the Son possesses them as derived

from the Father, in this real sense and in this sense only, the Father is

greater than the Son.

Evidently in an eternal Father and an eternal Son the ideas of older and

younger can have no place. As we lift up the conception of son ship out of

time into eternity, these elements of it, every present in human fathers and

sons, at once disappear. When they fall away, does any conception

essential to our idea of son ship remain? Yes; there still remains the chief

idea, viz., personal existence and powers derived from another person.

And this idea is plainly embodied in John 5:26, and in other express

assertions from the lips of Christ describing his own relation to God.” –

page 12 of the electronic Pdf edition available at

www.maranathamedia.com

While there are some small differences between this and the pioneer position, this

might be attributable to the fact that Prescott indicates a different understanding of the

nature of Eternity to the pioneers (see part 3 of my review). This understanding

continued to be presented in Sabbath School quarterlies of the 1930’s and 40’s

according to new research by Terry Hill and others. (see the end of section six for

further information)

Dodging conspiracy

While I might not be as paranoid as others who have written on the subject, I use the

term “conspiracy” because GP does, referring to the way in which the change in belief

came about. While there is still much more work to be done in this area, from Fred

Allaback through to current writers, there is much that has been written demonstrating

the alternative hypothesis about how the trinity came into the church. We claim, of

course, a later date of inception, and largely due to a few people, not the majority.

Allaback did tend to show a little too much in the way of paranoia when he spoke of

this topic. Whether or not there was a well orchestrated plan to change the

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denominational belief may never be provable, but there is evidence that certain

individuals pulled strings. Chief among them is L. E. Froom. GP deals with this on

pages 63-74.

In the first of these two sections, GP looks at whether there was a “conspiracy” to

change fundamental beliefs. He concludes, based upon the 1913 statement by F. M.

Wilcox, that there were already Trinitarian statements of belief from that date.

However, I believe that GP assumes too much from the word “trinity” in this instance.

I will append an article I wrote called “When Trinity Doesn’t Mean Trinity” to this

review. The evidence in there will show that the 1913 statement was not “decidedly

Trinitarian” as GP states.

In this section regarding statements of belief and baptismal vows, GP is ignorant of

the changes to the baptismal vows that have occurred since 1980. He also claims that

the 1874 statement is “neutral” on the trinity. In this, he seems to assume the meaning

of the statements based upon a modern day understanding, and not how the wording

would have appeared in its historic and cultural setting. In this he is at variance with

many historians and scholars, such as C. M. Taylor and the NAD book Issues: The

Seventh-day Adventist Church and Certain Private Ministries (both of these resources

are quoted elsewhere by GP). I cover the historical context of this statement of

belief’s wording in my paper, The Alpha and Omega of Deadly Heresies: A Treatise

on the Cause and Effect Relationship in the Teachings of Kellogg and Ballenger.

It is more in dealing with the next section, regarding whether or not the trinity was

introduced to avoid “cult” status where GP completely ignores the issues. GP lists a

number of things which L. E. Froom was claimed to have done, and all of which I

believe there to be ample evidence to back up. The way GP dodges this is artful. He

does not at all address the specific accusations levelled at Froom, nor the interaction

regarding the trinity that occurred during the evangelical conferences. Instead, he

quotes from an article in Colliers Encyclopedia which he claims was written by

Froom.

While I do not doubt that much of it was written by Froom, there was clearly editing

which occurred to this article after Froom’s death. The article includes statistics of

church membership from 1982, which would have been hard for Froom to write,

being dead 8 years. GP highlights that Froom didn’t mention the trinity in the short

article for the encyclopedia and therefore dismisses any agenda Froom had to

introduce trinitarianism to make Adventism evangelically acceptable. Terry Hill and

Margaretha Tierney have both written on this subject and present very good research

as to Froom’s role in the process. Even M. E. Burt’s paper, Demise of Semi-

Arianism…concedes, “One is left with the impression that Froom chose not to present

the facts, possibly either out of fear that it might undermine someone's faith or of

jeopardizing the Church's evangelical standing.” (p. 47).

I believe that this treatment of this historical issue (which is very important) is the one

which GP is most culpable for, since it does little to answer the matter, even as

presented by Allaback, and yet assigns a weight of 0. Should GP examine this matter

more carefully, he might learn a bit more where modern Adventism has inherited its

biased hermeneutic, specifically when it comes to the writings of Ellen White on the

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Godhead. (Froom was involved in the first compilations of her writings which

supposedly support the Trinity and which are used to this day.)

Summary Judgement on Part 2

I believe that this section of the review shows some severe deficiencies in Glyn’s

coverage of the historical data. He appears to have only engaged scholarship where it

has supported his case, and ignored some of the concerns of non-trinitarians on some

important issues.

Throughout, and this has not been brought out in the review, the author makes

statements which are unknowable. For example, he suggests that the history of the

church may have been different if the early Adventists had sat down and studied the

trinity in the same way as other doctrines (p. 37). Apart from arguing from silence, he

is presenting pure conjecture, for we cannot possibly know alternative histories.

Commentary like this, which is scattered all through his book, is therefore unscholarly

and serves only to bias the reader.

While Glyn should be commended for bringing to light certain evidences that have

not before been available for consideration, his overall treatment of historical matters

leaves a lot to be desired. There is little doubt that as it stands, this book will invite

rebuttal on this point, especially where it sidesteps concerns of non-trinitarians. It

would be recommended that much more work be done on revising these sections and

performing more adequate research.

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Begotten or Not Begotten: A brief response to Glyn Parfitt’s book ‘The Trinity, What Has God Revealed?

Objections Answered’

Terry Hill

As I reviewed Glyn Parfitt’s unpublished manuscript (which I have been requested to do), it became apparent that much of the thrust of it was to show that Christ is not really the Son of God. This begs the question – “If Christ is not the Son of God then who is He”? The Seventh-day Adventist Church answers that He is simply another divine person who is identical to the one who is called the Father, although having said that, they also maintain that ‘the Father’ is not really a father and ‘the Son’ is not really a son. They say instead that they are co-equal and co-eternal divine beings (all role-playing a part), neither of whom have their source in the other. To the contrary, those who oppose this teaching (usually the non-trinitarians), say that Christ is begotten of the Father therefore the relationship between the two is that of a Father and a Son. This begotten concept (they say) confirms that Christ is none other God Himself (in the person of His Son). As many Seventh-day Adventist will probably realise, in dealing with this concept of a begotten Christ (His Sonship) we are dealing with a denominational ‘hot potato’. We need to continue therefore with this realisation in mind. Whilst much has been said concerning this passionately debated subject, we can also be sure that much more will be said in the future. What we need today is a balanced consideration of this subject and not an extreme view which is ‘hell bent’ (without due consideration being made to all the available data) on arriving at one particular hypothesis. So where shall we begin in acquiring this balance? I believe a good place to begin would be with the early Church.

Early Christianity

The begotten concept concerning Christ (Christ a true Son) is not new to Christianity. Since its beginnings it has been the historical view of the church. This can be seen from the writings of the early church fathers. Whichever of these writings is investigated, ‘Christ begotten’ (Christ the literal Son of God) is the norm. Even those who translated these writings into other languages (such as Latin) and spoke in other languages said exactly the

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same. So where did all of these early Christian writers get this idea of a ‘begotten’ Christ? The obvious answer is that they acquired it from reading the Scriptures, also from the testimony handed down of the apostles (like James, Peter and John etc). Some may object to this idea but what is the alternative answer? Did they acquire it from paganism as Glyn Parfitt in his book suggests may have been the case (see page 153)? These early Christian writers were speaking on behalf of the church. Whilst they did write in opposition to the many heresies that were then being attempted to be brought into Christianity, the fact is that none of them objected to the concept of a begotten Christ. Can it be said that they all had it wrong? Can it be said that they were all deceived into accepting pagan concepts of divinity? The truth of the matter is that they all upheld the begotten concept. As to yet, I have not come across one early Christian writer who objected to it. Is this telling us something today (we shall refer to some of their writings later)? We must also remember that the majority of these Christian writers were Greek speaking. This means that it was not necessary for them to translate the New Testament Scriptures from one language into another like we (speakers of a language other than Greek) need to do but were reading them in their own everyday tongue (we are talking here in terms of linguistics rather than theology). They were also obviously conversant with the Septuagint (a Greek translation of the Old Testament Scriptures) In our understanding of this ‘begotten debate’, this linguistic data must be taken into consideration. Obviously it is very important. This is because much of the argument over this ‘begotten concept’ does concern the meaning of Greek words (in particular ‘monogenes’). So what better place can we go to understand this issue than to the people in whose language the New Testament Scriptures were originally written?

Here is another consideration. Much of the trinity debate finds its roots in the controversy that brought about the Council of Nicaea (AD 325). Whilst it is not the purpose of this critique to go into all the details here, suffice to note that at this council (remember here that this was less than three hundred years after the beginnings of Christianity, also only 200 or so years after John wrote his gospel), the begotten concept was the norm. In other words, during the first centuries of the Christian era (also for centuries beyond) no one disagreed with it. The entire church accepted it. To put it another way again, the begotten concept, in early Christianity, was not a debated issue. What was debated (during the 4th century) was whether this begetting was from all eternity (from everlasting) as was said by the up and coming trinitarians or was it from a point in time (as said the Arians or

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semi-Arians). Up to that time period there had been no controversy at all over it. What is that telling us today? Glyn Parfitt says that some Christian creeds do “mention” (as he puts it) the begotten concept (see page 142) but the truth of the matter is that all the main (important) creeds are 100% based on the concept. I cannot recall any that are not. Without this concept they would be all null and void. The vast majority at the Council of Nicaea were all Greek speaking, meaning that they read the New Testament Scriptures in their own language. We must ask therefore, did they all have a misunderstanding of the Greek language (even the Christians who made no objection to this concept) whilst our theologians today who say that the begotten concept is wrong have it correct? This would be a very pompous (conceited) and very narrow minded way of looking at it. Surely those who were Greek speaking (which was most) would have no problems understanding their own language. The above data therefore, if we are to have a happily balanced understanding of this begotten discussion, must be taken into consideration. Take for example the Bishop Alexander’s statement when speaking of his and his followers beliefs concerning Christ (at the time of the Council of Nicaea, Alexander was the Bishop of Alexandria and was deeply involved in the controversy). He said; “We have learnt that the Son is immutable and unchangeable, all-sufficient and perfect, like the Father, lacking only His “unbegotten.” He is the exact and precisely similar image of His Father. For it is clear that the image fully contains everything by which the greater likeness exists, as the Lord taught us when He said, ‘My Father is greater than I.” (The ecclesiastical history of Theodoret, Book 1, Chapter 3, page 39 ‘The Epistle of Alexander, Bishop of Alexandria to Alexander, Bishop of Constantinople’)

According to Alexander’s reasoning, the only difference between the Father and Son is that the Son is not unbegotten meaning that the Son is begotten of the Father. Notice too that this bishop says that the Father is “the greater likeness”. In other words (he is saying), the Son has His source in the Father therefore in this sense alone, the Father is the greatest. Or to put it another way again, apart from one being unbegotten and the other begotten of the unbegotten, there is no difference between the two divine personalities. According to the early church fathers, this was the faith of early Christianity. It was the faith that the Son of God was the express image (exact likeness) of the ‘substance’ of the Father. Later on I shall briefly comment on this ‘substance’. With respect to Christ’s pre-existence, Ellen White wrote;

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“From eternity there was a complete unity between the Father and the Son. They were two, yet little short of being identical; two in individuality, yet one in spirit, and heart, and character.” (Ellen G. White, Youth’s Instructor 16th December 1897) Here we are told that from the very beginning, although the Father and Son were in complete unity with each other, there was a difference between them, albeit it was one that was very small. This tells us that in His pre-existence, the Son was not 100% identical to the Father. Could it have been here that like Alexander, Ellen White was saying that the only difference is that the Father is unbegotten whilst the Son is begotten? As we shall see later, this is more than likely. Alexander continued in his letter (this was in defense of the belief that the Son was eternally begotten – not begotten at a point in eternity);

“And in accordance with this we believe that the Son always existed of the Father; for he is the brightness of His glory, and the express image of His Father’s Person.” (Ibid) Alexander was quoting from Hebrews 1:3. It is reasonably obvious, seeing that he said that the Son is not unbegotten, that he is saying that the Son was begotten in “the express image of His Father’s person”. This was with reference to Christ’s pre-existence, not the incarnation. We shall return to this thought later. This bishop then said; “But let no one be led by the word ‘always’ to imagine that the Son is unbegotten, as is thought by some who have their intellects blinded: for to say that He was, that He has always been, and that before all ages, is not to say that He is unbegotten.” (Ibid) Alexander was stressing that Christ ‘always existing’ did not stop Him being begotten of the Father. He was not saying that Christ is another God from the Father. It is also very apparent that Alexander was not very impressed with those who said that Christ was not begotten (unbegotten). In fact in one rendition (translation) of this statement he said that those who believe that the Son is unbegotten are “deficient in intellectual power" (this is as quoted in A. T. Jones ‘The Two Republics’ Page 333). There is an obvious reason why Alexander used such strong wording. He knew only too well that the Scriptures were clear that Christ was God Himself (Jehovah) manifest in the flesh yet he knew also that this divine personage was not the Father but the Son of God. This did not mean to Alexander (or anyone else who believed that the Son was of the Father) that

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the Son was a lesser god than the Father but rather was Jehovah Himself in the person of His Son. This is the begotten concept. This was also believed by Ellen White, although she took great care to delineate between the Father and the Son. This was when she said such as; “The One appointed in the counsels of heaven came to the earth as an instructor. He was no less a being than the Creator of the world, the Son of the Infinite God.” (Ellen G. White, Special Testimonies on Education, page 173, 1897) Here, as she does in over a hundred different places, Ellen White clearly distinguishes between the “Son” of God and the “infinite God”. She regarded them as two different divine personages. Nine years after the publication of her supposedly trinitarian ‘The Desire of Ages’ she continued to say (note the title of the article); “The Son of the infinite God came to this earth, and honoured it with His presence.” (Ellen G. White, Review and Herald, 6th June 1907, ‘No other Gods before me.’)

As will be seen in an overall review of Ellen White’s writings, she always spoke of Christ, in His pre-existence, as being a true Son (the Son of God). She did not speak of Him as the infinite God, at least not in personality. We shall also return our thoughts to this later. From the writings of the early church fathers, it can be seen that without a doubt, the faith of the early Christian Church was that Christ was begotten of the Father. They knew this had to be true because they realised that Christ could not be ‘another God’ other than Jehovah. No objections can be found in the writings of the early Christians regarding this concept. It was the accepted norm (accepted faith) of the church. It was believed that the Son was no one less than Jehovah yet He was not the Father. When deliberating this begotten concept, this historical data, even though it does not actually ‘prove’ it to be correct, must be taken into consideration. It is obviously very relevant and very important.

An unwarranted and unjustifiable conclusion

In his book, Glyn Parfitt (as do others) suggests that one of the main reasons (perhaps the main one) why the word ‘begotten’ (and the thought) found its way into English translations of the Scripture is because of a mistranslation by Jerome (it was Jerome who compiled what we know today as the Latin Vulgate). This implies that this is the reason why some think even today in terms of a begotten Christ.

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This without doubt is an unwarranted and unjustifiable conclusion. It has to be so because Jerome was not even born when the early church fathers wrote that Christ was begotten of the Father. This means that this begotten concept, when Jerome was born (c. 347), had been the established faith of the Christian church for over 250 years. In his translation of the Scriptures, Jerome was using what he believed was the wording that correctly portrayed the Hebrew and Greek. He was not even born at the time of the Council of Nicaea (AD 325) For the above reasons Jerome cannot be nominated as the only one who led the English translators to portray Christ as begotten of the Father. This concept had been well and truly established before he was born. This is an undeniable fact.

Another unwarranted and unjustifiable conclusion

Glyn Parfitt maintains that when the early Church fathers spoke of Christ being begotten they were often simply saying that Christ was ‘unique’ or ‘special’ (see pages 145-146, 149-150, 153-154, 165, 641 and 810). Whilst no one will argue with the uniqueness of Christ (or His specialness), to say that the early church fathers meant ‘begotten’ to mean this I find is totally unjustifiable. Along with that which Alexander wrote (as above), take a look at other early Christian’s writings See how they read when ‘unique’ or ‘special’ is substituted instead of literally begotten. Alexander said; “We have learnt that the Son is immutable and unchangeable, all-sufficient and perfect, like the Father, lacking only His “unbegotten.” He is the exact and precisely similar image of His Father. For it is clear that the image fully contains everything by which the greater likeness exists, as the Lord taught us when He said, ‘My Father is greater than I.” (The ecclesiastical history of Theodoret, Book 1, Chapter 3, page 39 ‘The Epistle of Alexander, Bishop of Alexandria to Alexander, Bishop of Constantinople’) Can we say that what Alexander was actually saying was that the Son was lacking in His Father’s ‘un-specialness’ or ‘un-uniqueness’? This would be a nonsensical way to understand what Alexander was saying. It is obviously that he is using this begotten concept as Christ having His source in the Father. Arius, who represents the opposition to the theology of Alexander, wrote in similar letter regarding his and his follower’s beliefs; “But we say and believe, and have taught, and do teach, that the Son is not unbegotten, nor in any way part of the unbegotten; and that He does not derive His subsistence from any matter; but that by His own will and counsel He has subsisted before time, and before ages, as perfect God,

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only begotten and unchangeable, and that before He was begotten, or created, or purposed, or established, He was not. For He was not unbegotten.” (The Ecclesiastical History of Theodoret, Book 1, Chapter 3, ‘Letter of Arius to Eusebius of Nicomedia’) Again this being begotten was regarded as a ‘happening’ (an event). It was not just saying that Christ was ‘special’. As another example, take the writings of Ignatius. He spoke of those he termed ‘Christ betrayers’. Amongst other things he said that; “They [the Christ betrayers] also calumniate His being born of the Virgin; they are ashamed of His cross; they deny His passion; and they do not believe His resurrection. They introduce God as a Being unknown; they suppose Christ to be unbegotten; and as to the Spirit, they do not admit that He exists. Some of them say that the Son is a mere man, and that the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit are but the same person, and that the creation is the work of God, not by Christ, but by some other strange power.” (Ignatius, Epistle of Ignatius to the Trallians, Chap. VI) This was written by Ignatius around AD 107. He was writing to the early Christians urging them to maintain their faith. There were no objections to his begotten concept of Christ. In fact here (like Alexander did over 200 years later) he condemns those who say that Christ is unbegotten. Ignatius is said to have been born very soon after the death and resurrection of Jesus. Some say that it was as early as AD 35, although others maintain it was a few years later (the death and resurrection of Jesus was in AD 31). Whichever date of his birth is assumed, Ignatius certainly lived during the time of the ‘acts of the apostles’. This would have been in the time of such as Peter, Paul, James and John etc. This is something that for very obvious reasons we need to remember. They would have handed down their beliefs personally to those like Ignatius. It is also said that Ignatius was a convert and disciple of John the gospel writer (John is the one who used ‘monogenes’ in respect of Christ). If this is true then he would have known exactly what John believed concerning Christ. He may have even read John’s gospel as it was originally written. Ignatius also wrote to the Ephesians; “But our Physician is the only true God, the unbegotten and unapproachable, the Lord of all, the Father and Begetter of the only-begotten Son. We have also as a Physician the Lord our God, Jesus the Christ, the only-begotten Son and Word, before time began, but who afterwards became also man, of Mary the virgin.” (Ignatius, Epistle of Ignatius to the Ephesians)

Again there is no way that anyone who is honestly seeking the truth can say that all that Ignatius was saying here of Christ was that He was unique or special.

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Justin, in his Dialogue with Trypho (or Tryphon) wrote (this was with reference to Christ being the wisdom of Proverbs chapter 8); “And it is written in the book of Wisdom: 'If I should tell you daily events, I would be mindful to enumerate them from the beginning. The Lord created me the beginning of His ways for His works. From everlasting He established me in the beginning, before He formed the earth, and before He made the depths, and before the springs of waters came forth, before the mountains were settled; He begets me before all the hills.' When I repeated these words, I added: "You perceive, my hearers, if you bestow attention, that the Scripture has declared that this Offspring was begotten by the Father before all things created; and that which is begotten is numerically distinct from that which begets, any one will admit.” .”(Justin Marty, Dialogue with Trypho, chapter CXXVI, ‘The various names of Christ’) This very same reasoning can be found throughout the entirety of the early church father’s writings. Masses more could be quoted but they would all say the very same thing. That is that Christ is begotten of the Father therefore He is truly the Son of God. That Christ is the wisdom of Proverbs chapter 8 is also prevalent in the writings of the early Christian writers. These early church fathers all believed and taught that the Son has His source in the Father therefore they described the Father as the unbegotten and the Son the begotten. This is what made the Son, according to their reasoning, God (Jehovah) Himself. It must also be said here that if the word ‘begotten’ (as used by the early Christians) only means unique or special, then why is not this concept applied in the Scriptures to the Father or the Holy Spirit? Are they not unique? Are they not special? Are they not co-equal? Why apply it to only the Son? In summary of the above, it must be said again that even though all these church fathers wrote about the Father being unbegotten and the Son being begotten it brought about no objections from early Christians. This begotten concept appears to have been the predominant faith of early Christianity. In other words it was the norm. Why I bring this to your notice is because the majority of these early Christians were Greek speaking. If they had thought that these early Christian writers were speaking antagonistically to the New Testament Scriptures would they not have objected? After all, they would have been reading the New Testament Scriptures in their own language. When debating this begotten concept therefore we need to give this serious consideration. In other words we must ask why they did not object to it. It can only be reasoned that on an issue as big as this one (the deity of Jesus Christ), they believed that what the church fathers wrote was in accordance with the Scriptures. I cannot see that there can be any other conclusion.

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If I were using Glyn Parfitt’s method of ‘weight of evidence’ analysis (which I am not) I would probably give this at least a + 5 or even more in favour of the begotten concept. Even though it does not ‘prove’ the concept, it is still a major part of the puzzle.

Ellen White and the begotten concept

There can be no doubt that whilst Ellen White was alive, just like early Christianity, the faith of the Seventh-day Adventist Church was that Christ was literally begotten of the Father, therefore He was the literal Son of God. At the 1888 Minneapolis General Conference, it was this ‘begotten faith’ that was the underlying factor of Ellet Waggoner’s message. It was this message that Ellen White endorsed as coming from God. We must reason therefore that if there had been anything seriously wrong with this message, she would not have given it the approbation that she did. We can also reason that if she had thought regarding this issue (the begotten concept) there was something wrong with the faith of Seventh-day Adventists she would have spoken of it. As it was she made no objections. Throughout her ministry she allowed the church to teach it world-wide as being the truth about the Son. Should that be telling us something today? In his book ‘Christ and His Righteousness’, which is said to depict Waggoner’s message at Minneapolis, Waggoner wrote such statements as; “It is not given to men to know when or how the Son was begotten; but we know that He was the Divine Word, not simply before He came to this earth to die, but even before the world was created.” (E. J. Waggoner, ‘Christ and His Righteousness’, page 9, 1890) “There was a time when Christ proceeded forth and came from God, from the bosom of the Father (John 8:42 and 1:18) but that time was so far back in the days of eternity that to finite comprehension it is practically without beginning. But the point is that Christ is a begotten Son and not a created subject.” (Ibid pages 21-22) “This name [God] was not given to Christ in consequence of some great achievement but it is His by right of inheritance Speaking of the power and greatness of Christ, the writer to the Hebrews says that He is made so much better than the angels, because “He hath by inheritance obtained a more excellent name than they.” Heb. 1:4.” (Ibid pages 11-12) “A son always rightfully takes the name of the father; and Christ, as “the only begotten Son of God,” has rightfully the same name. A son, also, is, to a greater or less degree, a reproduction of the father; he has to some extent the features and personal characteristics of his father; not perfectly, because there is no perfect reproduction among mankind. But there is no imperfection in God, or in any of His works, and so Christ is the “express image” of the Father’s person. Heb. 1:3. As the Son of the self - existent God, He has by nature all the attributes of Deity.” (Ibid)

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This was the basis of Waggoner’s Minneapolis message (1888). It was the belief that in eternity, Christ was begotten of the Father. I would ask you to note just one more statement. This is when Waggoner said; “It is true that there are many sons of God, but Christ is the “only begotten Son of God,” and therefore the Son of God in a sense in which no other being ever was or ever can be.” (Ibid, page 12) He then added; “The angels are sons of God, as was Adam (Job 38:7; Luke 3:38), by creation; Christians are the sons of God by adoption (Rom. 8:14, 15), but Christ is the Son of God by birth. The writer to the Hebrews further shows that the position of the Son of God is not one to which Christ has been elevated but that it is one which He has by right.” (Ibid) Waggoner here is explaining the reason for Christ’s divine sonship. He said it was not because He was created, neither was it because He was adopted, but that He was a son by “birth” (meaning birthed in His pre-existence). Parfitt says that it could be argued that there is nothing in this statement to indicate that Waggoner was not referring to the incarnation (see pages 226-227). In response to that observation may I say this much. Anyone who upon reading what Waggoner says prior to as well as following that quotation and then draws the conclusion that he was referring to the incarnation, has without doubt stepped into the realms of total absurdity. Waggoner titled the section in which this statement is found “Is Christ God”? The whole point of the discussion in the section is to prove that Christ, in His pre-existence, is God. The emphasis was not concerning the incarnation. In fact when Waggoner gets to the end of the section he says; “Note the expression, "the only-begotten Son, which is in the bosom of the Father." He has His abode there, and He is there as a part of the Godhead, as surely when on earth as when in heaven. The use of the present tense implies continued existence. It presents the same idea that is contained in the statement of Jesus to the Jews (John 8:58), "Before Abraham was, I am." And this again shows His identity with the One who appeared to Moses in the burning bush, who declared His name to be "I AM THAT I AM." (E. J. Waggoner, Christ and His Righteousness, ‘Is Christ God?’ 1890) I would now ask you to compare the penultimate statement with something Ellen White wrote just 7 years after Minneapolis, also as ‘The Desire of Ages’ was being prepared for publication. By this time she had been God’s chosen messenger for over 50 years and was drawing on that same amount of revelation from God.

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As is commonly known, her lack of education saddened her. This is because she knew it was as a ‘stumbling block’ to her finding the adequate words to describe what God had shown her. To overcome this handicap, she often resorted to using what other people had written. Bearing this in mind, compare this next statement of hers with the one previously quoted from Waggoner. Note this was 5 years after Waggoner had published his book. As we shall see, she must have read Waggoner’s statement and modified it. She wrote; “A complete offering has been made; for "God so loved the world, that he gave his only-begotten Son,"-- not a son by creation, as were the angels, nor a son by adoption, as is the forgiven sinner, but a Son begotten in the express image of the Father's person, and in all the brightness of his majesty and glory, one equal with God in authority, dignity, and divine perfection. In him dwelt all the fullness of the Godhead bodily.” (Ellen G. White, Signs of the Times, 30th May 1895, ‘Christ our complete salvation’) Regarding the sonship of Christ (why Christ is the Son of God), how much difference is there between this statement and what Waggoner had written (see above)? The answer is very little. The only noticeable difference is that Waggoner used the word “birth” with reference to Christ’s pre-existent sonship whilst Ellen White used the word “begotten”. Both said that Christ was not a Son by creation (as were angels). Both said that He was not a Son by adoption (like us Christians). Waggoner said that Christ was a Son by “birth” whilst Ellen White said that He was “a Son begotten in the express image of the Father's person”. This primarily is the only difference between the two statements. It is clearly evident, although she did not use exactly the same words, that Ellen White used Waggoner’s statement and modified it. This shows us clearly that as regards to this begotten concept of Christ (His divine Sonship), Ellen White was in harmony with Waggoner. It also shows us that she was in harmony with Seventh-day Adventists in general because this was their predominant faith. Never did she say that their begotten concept of Christ was wrong. This must be telling us something today. Glyn Parfitt says that this statement of Ellen White, like Waggoner’s similar statement (see above), is made with reference to the incarnation. I would regard this, as I believe would most people, as being totally impossible. The statement only has to be read in context for this to be realised. It must have been made with reference to Christ’s pre-existence. The words begotten “in all the brightness of his majesty and glory, one equal with God in authority, dignity, and divine perfection” are enough to tell us this much.

Glyn Parfitt also says (page 227) that there is no evidence that Ellen White supported Waggoner’s begotten concept regarding Christ. He says that she

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only supported his reasoning of righteousness by faith. The above evidence proves completely otherwise. Without a doubt, regarding Christ, Ellen White clearly supported Waggoner‘s reasoning. Now note that 6 weeks later Ellen White wrote in principle an almost identical statement. She said; “The Eternal Father, the unchangeable one, gave his only begotten Son, tore from his bosom Him who was made in the express image of his person, and sent him down to earth to reveal how greatly he loved mankind." (Ellen G. White, Review & Herald 9th July 1895 ‘The Duty of the Minister and the People’) Ellen White this time substitutes the word “made” instead of “begotten” but the principle is the same. I cannot accept how Glyn Parfitt deals with this passage on page 217 of his book, although like everyone else he is entitled to his opinion. Like the above statement, he maintains that the “made in the express image of His person” is probably with reference to the incarnation although he does not seem very sure of himself. He appears to ‘waffle’ a lot. This to me, if it is interpreted this way, is a total disregarding of the grammatical sequence of events in the statement. This is that (1) “The Eternal Father, the unchangeable one, (2) gave his only begotten Son, (3) tore from his bosom Him who was made in the express image of his person, and (4) sent him down to earth to reveal how greatly he loved mankind”. The obvious understanding of this statement is that the ‘tearing from His bosom’ is God giving up His Son who was already “made in the express image of his person. In other words, to reveal how greatly he loved mankind, God sent to this earth His only begotten Son who had been (previously) made in His image. I believe that the statement cannot be honestly read in any other way.

As Ellen White also wrote; “Before Christ came in the likeness of men, he existed in the express image of his Father”. (Ellen G. White, Youth’s Instructor, 20th December 1900 ‘Christ’s humiliation”) There is no doubt in my mind that the above “begotten” and “made” in the ‘express image of God’ statements are with reference to Christ’s pre-existence yet in his book, Glyn Parfitt says that they are probably both with reference to the incarnation. One may argue here that Ellen White had her theology wrong but to say that she wrote these statements with reference to the incarnation (as does Glyn

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Parfitt) is not reasonable exegesis – at least I do not believe it to be so. Without going against my conscience I could never make such a claim.

Another comparison

I would also bring to your attention another comparison of statements. In his book ‘Christ and His Righteousness’ (which as we noted above Ellen White used and modified from), Waggoner wrote such as; “The Word was “in the beginning”. The mind of man cannot grasp the ages that are spanned in this phrase.” (E. J. Waggoner, ‘Christ and His Righteousness’, page 9, 1890) “We know that Christ “proceeded forth and come from God” (John 8:42) but it was so far back in the ages of eternity as to be far beyond the grasp of the mind of man.” (Ibid) Waggoner was simply saying that it is not revealed when Christ was begotten. Now compare what he said with a statement from Ellen White. She wrote this the year after ‘The Desire of Ages’ was published. It was with reference to Christ saying “Before Abraham was I am”. She said; “Here Christ shows them that, altho they might reckon His life to be less than fifty years, yet His divine life could not be reckoned by human computation.” (Ellen G. White, Signs of the Times. 3rd May 1899 ‘The Word made flesh’) She then added; “The existence of Christ before His incarnation is not measured by figures.” (Ibid) Again it must be asked: - how much difference is there between this and Ellet Waggoner’s statements (see above)? Again we must answer: - there is no difference at all, at least not in principle. Ellen White said exactly the same as did Waggoner, again wording it differently. We can only conclude therefore that Ellen White reasoned exactly the same as did Waggoner. He believed that Christ was God (Jehovah) in the person of His Son and so did Ellen White. They both reasoned also that the Son was begotten of the Father in eternity - a time unknown and incalculable to the human mind. This, like the faith of early Christianity before the trinity doctrine was introduced, was then the faith of Seventh-day Adventists. These are the facts of history.

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In his book, Glyn Parfitt disagrees with this reasoning. He says that along with the Scriptures, Ellen White never speaks of Christ as having His origins in the Father. In other words he says that along with Ellen White, he believes that Christ is not begotten of the Father therefore He is not in reality the Son of God. My belief is, after reading volumes of what Ellen White said regarding this matter, that she believed that Christ is the begotten Son of God.

In the express image of God’s person

In all of the early Christian father’s writings, also in Ellen White’s writings, also in the writing of many of this world’s top theologians (including those of the Seventh-day Adventist Church), I cannot remember seeing it claimed that when the writer of Hebrews said that the Son of God was the ‘express image of God’s person’ (see Hebrews 1:3) that reference was made to any time period except the Son’s pre-existence. Certainly I have not read of any of them that it is with reference to the incarnation. Glyn Parfitt in his book suggests that the period of time to which this refers is not known (see page 218). The verse in question says (in its context); “God, who at sundry times and in divers manners spake in time past unto the fathers by the prophets, Hath in these last days spoken unto us by his Son, whom he hath appointed heir of all things, by whom also he made the worlds; Who being the brightness of his glory, and the express image of his person, and upholding all things by the word of his power, when he had by himself purged our sins, sat down on the right hand of the Majesty on high: Being made so much better than the angels, as he hath by inheritance obtained a more excellent name than they.” Hebrews 1:1-4 It is reasonable to believe here that when referring to the Son “upholding all things by the word of his power” it can only be with reference to His pre-existence. By those who think differently this may be a matter of conjecture but personally I cannot reason it any other way. Others like Glyn Parfitt obviously are able to do so. The Seventh-day Adventist Encyclopedia also relates this “express image” passage of Scripture to Christ’s pre-existence. It says in the commentary with reference to Hebrews 1:3 (emphasis as the original); “God’s glory is His character … Christ did not become the brightness of God’s glory. He already was, and always had been (see on John 1:1) … This constitutes the essential and eternal ground of His personality.” (Seventh-day Adventist Encyclopedia, volume 7, page 397) Whilst an explanation of “express image” (Gr. charakter) and ‘person’ (Gr. hupostasis) would be too much to go into in detail here, the clear meaning is that the Son was the exact likeness (image) of the Father’s inner being (inner

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person). This is because the word ‘hupostasis’ means ‘substance’ (what constitutes someone or something). In other words, everything that God is (what makes God, God) so is the Son. As the New English Bible translates John 1:1; “When all things began, the word already was. The word dwelt with God and what God was, the word was.” John 1:1 New English Bible. The Son therefore, according to this reasoning, is the perfect (absolute) representation of the Father yet a separate personage from Him. As Ellen White put it with reference to Hebrews 1:3 (I will quote these “express image” statements without individual comment); “Christ Himself is the pearl of great price. In Him is gathered all the glory of the Father, the fullness of the Godhead. He is the brightness of the Father's glory and the express image of His person. The glory of the attributes of God is expressed in His character.” (Ellen G. White, Christ’s Object Lessons. Page 115 “As a personal being, God has revealed Himself in His Son. Jesus, the outshining of the Father's glory, "and the express image of His person" (Hebrews 1:3), was on earth found in fashion as a man.” (Ellen G. White, Testimonies Volume 8, page 265) “Taking humanity upon Him, Christ came to be one with humanity, and at the same time to reveal our heavenly Father to sinful human beings. He who had been in the presence of the Father from the beginning, He who was the express image of the invisible God, was alone able to reveal the character of the Deity to mankind. He was in all things made like unto His brethren. He became flesh even as we are.” (Ellen G. White, Ministry of Healing, page 422, “Man was to bear God's image, both in outward resemblance and in character. Christ alone is "the express image" (Hebrews 1:3) of the Father; but man was formed in the likeness of God. His nature was in harmony with the will of God. (Ellen G. White, Patriarchs and Prophets, page 45 “In the work of creation, Christ was with God. He was one with God, equal with him, the brightness of his glory, the express image of his person, the representative of the Father. He alone, the Creator of man, could be his Saviour.” (Ellen G. White, Signs of the Times 13th February 1893 All of these and other of Ellen White “express image” statements speak of Christ as being in this condition in His pre-existence, yet Glyn Parfitt says that this can be with reference to the incarnation. How this can be I cannot fathom. As of yet I cannot find anywhere where Ellen White expresses this sentiment. Obviously she says that when on earth He represented the express image of God. This is because He was this in His pre-existence.

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Monogenes

We now need to move on to the word which is very much at the centre of the begotten debate. This is the Greek word that we transliterate ‘monogenes’. Whilst this word needs far more explanation that can be given to it in this review, enough will be said to show that it must mean that at some specific point of origin, a person (or personality) was acquired (brought into being). Take for example all the places in the New Testament Scripture where this word is used. These are; Luke 7:12 Now when he came nigh to the gate of the city, behold, there was a dead man carried out, the only son [monogenes] of his mother, and she was a widow: and much people of the city was with her. Luke 8:42 For he had one only [monogenes] daughter, about twelve years of age, and she lay a dying. But as he went the people thronged him. Luke 9:38 And, behold, a man of the company cried out, saying, Master, I beseech thee, look upon my son: for he is mine only [monogenes] child. John 1:14 And the Word was made flesh, and dwelt among us, (and we beheld his glory, the glory as of the only begotten [monogenes] of the Father,) full of grace and truth. John 1:18 No man hath seen God at any time, the only begotten [monogenes] Son, which is in the bosom of the Father, he hath declared him. John 3:16 For God so loved the world, that he gave his only begotten [monogenes] Son, that whosoever believeth in him should not perish, but have everlasting life. John 3:18 He that believeth on him is not condemned: but he that believeth not is condemned already, because he hath not believed in the name of the only begotten [monogenes] Son of God. Hebrews 11:17 By faith Abraham, when he was tried, offered up Isaac: and he that had received the promises offered up his only begotten [monogenes] son, 1 John 4:9 In this was manifested the love of God toward us, because that God sent his only begotten [monogenes] Son into the world, that we might live through him.

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From the above texts, we can see that it was only three New Testament writers who used the word ‘monogenes. These were Luke and John, also the writer of Hebrews whom many believe to be the apostle Paul. Luke clearly uses the word to mean ‘the only child of’. Obviously to the parents, this child is special. He or she is the only one of its kind. In the case of Paul’s use of this word, Isaac was not Abraham’s only son but he was the only son of the relationship of Abraham and Sarah. Isaac is the only one recognised by God as fulfilling His promise to Abraham. All were brought into being at some time. John is the only Bible writer to use ‘monogenes’ in respect of Christ. He does not use it on any other occasion. As I see it, the question here is not simply what does the word mean but what did the users mean by their employment of it. Perhaps the most well used Scripture where ‘monogenes; is employed is John 3:16. This is where Jesus said to Nicodemus; “For God so loved the world, that he gave his only begotten [monogenes] Son, that whosoever believeth in him should not perish, but have everlasting life.” John 3:16 I would ask a question here. John is recording the words of Jesus. Under the inspiration of the Holy Spirit he is communicating them as the Holy Spirit led him to do so albeit Jesus would probably have spoken to Nicodemus in Aramaic. So the question is not so much what did John mean (as Glyn Parfitt says on page 142) but what did Jesus intend Nicodemus to believe concerning what He had told him. If I were in the shoes of Nicodemus (assuming John quoted Jesus correctly), I would say that Jesus meant me to believe that God had given to this world His one and only (beloved) Son. What else could I take it to mean? Never could I think that Jesus was speaking metaphorically. Why would that thought cross my mind?

Take for example when Luke used this word (monogenes) with respect to the widow’s son, also with reference to the daughter of Jairus and the demon possessed boy. Are we to take it that he was using this word in some metaphorical sense and not literal? Obviously not. So why would we do it with respect to Christ talking to Nicodemus (we must remember here that John was supplying a Greek word, under the inspiration of the Holy Spirit, to explain what Jesus probably said to Nicodemus in Aramaic)? How about the writer of Hebrews: was he using the word metaphorically? Again, I would answer definitely not. Isaac was a literal child of literal parents. All these children were literal children. Paul was simply using the best Greek

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word he knew to reflect God’s description of Isaac which was “thine only” (see Genesis 22:1-2, 12 and 16). After all, he was writing to Hebrew Christians. Regarding these children, they all had one thing in common. This is that they were all ‘one of a kind’. This, according to Strong’s concordance, is exactly what ‘monogenes’ means. Strong’s says that ‘monogenes’ is compounded of two separate words, namely ‘monos’ and ‘ginomai’. It says; “3439 … Monogenes … from 3441 and 1096; Only-born, i.e. sole - only (begotten, child) (James Strong, LL.D., S.T.D., The New Strong’s Exhaustive Concordance of the Bible, New Strong’s Concise Dictionary of the words in the Greek Testament, page 59) Whilst ‘mono’ (one only) is easily understood, the other transliterated word ‘ginomai’, has a more varied application. By the gospel writers alone it is translated ‘done’ over 50 times and ‘came’ (as in ‘came to pass’) also over 50 times. It is also translated, ‘come’, ‘become’, ‘made’ and ‘fulfilled’. Strong’s describes it as a word that is translated in the KJV as ‘be assembled’, ‘be’ (come), ‘be’ (brought to pass), ‘arise’, ‘continue’ etc. Strong’s also describes this word as; “A prolongation and middle voice form of a primary verb; ‘to cause to be’ (“gen”-erate) i.e. reflexively to become (come into being)” (see The New Strong’s Exhaustive Concordance of the Bible, New Strong’s Concise Dictionary of the words in the Greek Testament, page 19). If this is a correct understanding of ‘monogenes’, this would mean that when applied to an individual person (as it always does in Scripture), it means that the person ‘caused to be’ is the only one of a kind. This is obviously what Luke meant by his use of the word, as did the writer of Hebrews. Regarding the latter, Isaac was the only child of Abraham and Sarah therefore he was definitely ‘the only one of his kind’. He was obviously also very special. He existed by the promise of God. His birth was a miracle.

We must ask another question here. What did John mean by his use of the word? He was the only one to use it with reference to Christ. Even more importantly what did Jesus mean when speaking to Nicodemus? John used it twice when recording this conversation. I cannot see that John would expect anyone to understand it any differently than Christ saying that He was God’s one and only Son (one of a kind). Why would anyone think any differently? This is exactly what the word means.

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There is another point here. Some will say that ‘monogenes’ means ‘unique’. Whilst to an extent this is true (an only child of one set of parents would be in one sense unique) it must be asked if Christ is unique (one of a kind) then what makes Him such? The reason why I ask this is because it is a fact that for the one and the same reason, it is impossible to have two or more uniques. This is why the word ‘unique’ can only be used in the singular. Look at it this way. If Christ is unique, then what makes Him different to the Father and the Holy Spirit? I ask this because to be unique He must be different from these other two divine personalities. If it says that He (the Son) is unique because He is God’s only Son then it must be accepted that He is a son. This brings us back in a full circle to Christ being begotten of the Father. This is because He is either a son or He is not. It cannot be said in one breath that He is unique because He is a son and then say in another breath that He is not a son. If He is said not to be a son (meaning not God’s one and only son) then in what sense is He unique? The questioners of the begotten concept (like Glyn Parfitt) must answer this question. It is reasonably obvious that it cannot be said that He is unique (one of a kind) because He is a son metaphorically. This would not only be an abuse of the English language but also an abuse of anyone’s intelligence. On page 165 of his book, as he does in other places (see above for page references), Parfitt says that ‘monogenes’ simply means “only” or “very special” but this is very much an over simplification of the problem. The word itself and its meaning, as its two parts ‘monos’ and ‘ginomai’ suggest, is far more complex. If it was that simple (as Parfitt suggests) there would be no dispute over it. Whilst there may be reservations over this begotten concept, also questions that are unanswerable this side of eternity, I cannot see that there is any other explanation of how Christ can be God (Jehovah) and yet not be the Father.

An explanation of this is noticeably absent in Glyn Parfitt’s book therefore before it is published (assuming it will be published), this issue must be addressed. If it is not addressed then this book will just be another meaningless collection of words that does not lend itself to answering the real questions concerning Christ. In other words, regarding this begotten issue, I believe this book will only add to the confusion that already exists within Seventh-day Adventism.

John 8:42 By those who support the begotten concept, there are some who say that in His conversing with the Jews, Jesus alluded to this event. This is where it is recorded;

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“Ye [Jews] do the deeds of your father. Then said they to him, We be not born of fornication; we have one Father, even God. Jesus said unto them, If God were your Father, ye would love me: for I proceeded forth and came from God; neither came I of myself, but he sent me. John 8:41-42 Glyn Parfitt makes a great deal out of understanding the Greek word ‘exerchomai’ (translated proceeded) that Strong’s says means “issued”. Parfitt says that Jesus was referring to the incarnation (see page 163) but this is extremely doubtful (it seems that Parfitt says that most of the evidence that those use who believe in the begotten concept refers to the incarnation and not Christ’s pre-existence). Although the Jews were alluding to the circumstance of His birth (see John 8:41), Jesus was saying very clearly here that they (the Jews) were of their Father the devil whilst He, having God as His father, had ‘issued forth’ from God. Whether Jesus was referring to His pre-existent origins may be a matter of conjecture but certainly He was not referring to His entry into this world through Mary. The context does not allow this statement to be interpreted this way, although Parfitt seems to think that it does. Jesus was here referring to spiritual ancestry not to human genealogy. Read the discourse between the Jews and Jesus and you will see what I mean.

The wisdom of Proverbs chapter 8

Parfitt maintains (see pages 164-170) that Proverbs 8:22-31 is simply “the personification of wisdom” (page 165). Whilst he acknowledges that Ellen White does say that this passage of scripture does refer to Christ, he obviously does not take this to mean that she meant it literally - hence his remark concerning ‘personification’. He accents mainly on the words “brought forth”. He says that this was just a literary device used by the Bible writer which is not meant to be taken literally (see page 167). This is in opposition to those who uphold the begotten concept who say that it refers to this event. Parfitt quotes Ellen White where she uses this passage in ‘Patriarchs and Prophets’ (page 34) and remarks that she omitted what he terms “the contentious part”. This is where it says in Proverbs 8:24-25 that wisdom is “brought forth” which those of the begotten concept see as the begetting of Christ. It is the “brought forth” that Parfitt says is contentious. Strange to relate though, if Ellen White did believe it to be contentious (as Parfitt maintains), why did she include it in an article in the Review and Herald in 1906 called ‘The Word made Flesh’? This is when she said; “The Lord Jesus Christ, the divine Son of God, existed from eternity, a distinct person, yet one with the Father. He was the surpassing glory of heaven. He was the commander of the heavenly intelligences, and the

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adoring homage of the angels was received by him as his right. This was no robbery of God. "The Lord possessed me in the beginning of his way," he declares, "before his works of old. I was set up from everlasting, from the beginning, or ever the earth was. When there were no depths, I was brought forth; when there were no fountains abounding with water. Before the mountains were settled, before the hills was I brought forth; while as yet he had not made the earth, nor the fields, nor the highest part of the dust of the world. When he prepared the heavens, I was there: when he set a compass upon the face of the depth." (Ellen G. White, Review and Herald 5th April 1906, ‘The Word made Flesh’) Notice Ellen White said here that the Son of God “existed from eternity”, also that He was “brought forth”. As we shall see later, her use of “eternity” does not necessarily mean that she meant from everlasting. Ellen White made it very clear that this passage of Scripture is not simply a personification of wisdom but is referring to Christ Himself. This can be seen very clearly in the above quote but she also said in the Signs of the Times in 1900; “Through Solomon Christ declared: "The Lord possessed Me in the beginning of His way, before His works of old. I was set up from everlasting, from the beginning, or ever the earth was. When there were no depths, I was brought forth; when there were no fountains abounding with water. Before the mountains were settled, before the hills was I brought forth. . . . When He gave to the sea His decree, that the waters should not pass His commandment; when He appointed the foundations of the earth; then I was by Him, as one brought up with Him; and I was daily His delight, rejoicing always before Him." (Ellen G. White, Signs of the Times, 29th August 1900, ‘Resistance to light No. 3) I notice here, as well as the inclusion of the “contentious part” (brought forth), the “Me” in “The Lord Possessed Me” is capitalised, even though in the KJV it is not. This was done the same in Patriarch and Prophets (page 34) This is when she wrote (according to Parfitt omitting the contentious ‘brought forth’ part): “The Sovereign of the universe was not alone in His work of beneficence. He had an associate--a co-worker who could appreciate His purposes, and could share His joy in giving happiness to created beings. "In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. The same was in the beginning with God." John 1:1, 2. Christ, the Word, the only begotten of God, was one with the eternal Father--one in nature, in character, in purpose--the only being that could enter into all the counsels and purposes of God. "His name shall be called Wonderful, Counselor, The mighty God, The everlasting Father, The Prince of Peace." Isaiah 9:6. His "goings forth have been from of old, from everlasting." Micah 5:2. And the Son of God declares concerning Himself: "The Lord possessed Me in the beginning of His way, before His works of old. I was set up from everlasting. . . . When He appointed the

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foundations of the earth: then I was by Him, as one brought up with Him: and I was daily His delight, rejoicing always before Him." Proverbs 8:22-30.” (Ellen G. White, Patriarchs and Prophets, page 34, ‘Why sin was permitted’) In the Signs of the Times of 1899 Ellen White also wrote (note the capitalisation of “Me” again); "The Lord possessed Me in the beginning of His way, before His works of old," Christ says. "When He gave to the sea His decree, that the waters should not pass His commandment; when He appointed the foundations of the earth; then I was by Him, as one brought up with Him; and I was daily His delight, rejoicing always before Him." But the only-begotten Son of God humbled Himself to come to this earth. He took the sinner's place; the guiltless suffered for the guilty. This was the hiding of His glory. "Forasmuch then as the children are partakers of flesh and blood, He also Himself likewise took part of the same; that through death He might destroy him that had the power of death."” (Ellen G. White, Signs of the Times, 22nd February 1899, ‘The Measure of God’s love’) It is very clear that Ellen White did not just regard Proverbs 8:22-31 as simply the personification of wisdom. She says that it literally refers to Christ. I cannot see how that can be argued about, but Glyn Parfitt disputes it. Interesting also, as we have seen earlier in this appraisal, is that the early Christian writers, just as did Ellen White, regarded Proverbs 8:22-31 as directly referring to Christ. Interesting is that Justin Martyr (c.100 – c.165) in his dialogue with Trypho says that this wisdom is Christ but then quotes this passage from Proverbs a little bit differently than we have it today in the KJV.

He says; “And it is written in the book of Wisdom: 'If I should tell you daily events, I would be mindful to enumerate them from the beginning. The Lord created me the beginning of His ways for His works. From everlasting He established me in the beginning, before He formed the earth, and before He made the depths, and before the springs of waters came forth, before the mountains were settled; He begets me before all the hills.' When I repeated these words, I added: "You perceive, my hearers, if you bestow attention, that the Scripture has declared that this Offspring was begotten by the Father before all things created; and that which is begotten is numerically distinct from that which begets, any one will admit." (Justin Martyr, Dialogue with Trypho, chapter CXXVI, ‘The various names of Christ’) As I am sure you will agree - this is very interesting. This admits the begotten concept. Tertullian also reasoned the same way. He said (quoting Proverbs 8:22-25);

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“Listen therefore to Wisdom herself, constituted in the character of a Second Person: "At the first the Lord created me as the beginning of His ways, with a view to His own works, before He made the earth, before the mountains were settled; moreover, before all the hills did He beget me;" that is to say, He created and generated me in His own intelligence.” (Tertullian against Praxeas, chapter six) In chapter seven Tertullian said of this generating; “Thus does He make Him equal to Him: for by proceeding from Himself He became His first-begotten Son, because begotten before all things; and His only-begotten also, because alone begotten of God, in a way peculiar to Himself, from the womb of His own heart -- even as the Father Himself testifies: "My heart," says He, "has emitted my most excellent Word." (Ibid, chapter seven) The early Christian writers had no problems equating Christ with the wisdom of Proverbs chapter 8. They regarded it as revealing the begetting of the Son. How interesting is that?

From the days of eternity

At the risk of making this appraisal very lengthy, it would not be possible to finish it without some reference to a phrase often attributed to Ellen White when referring to Christ. That phrase is “from the days of eternity”. Most would see this as her meaning to say ‘from forever’ or ‘from everlasting’ but I would disagree. In his book, Glyn Parfitt, in his denial of the begotten concept, seems to place a great deal of emphasis on the word ‘everlasting’ as used in Micah 5:2. This is where it says with reference to the coming (promised) Christ; “But thou, Bethlehem Ephratah, though thou be little among the thousands of Judah, yet out of thee shall he come forth unto me that is to be ruler in Israel; whose goings forth have been from of old, from everlasting [Heb. Olam].” Micah 5:2 In Micah 5:2 (KJV), as in other places in the Old Testament, the Hebrew word that is translated ‘everlasting’ (‘owlam’ or ‘olam’) does not actually mean ‘forever’ (meaning never having a beginning). It actually means ‘time out of mind’ or ‘the vanishing point’ (i.e. that which is hidden from human understanding). It also has as its root a word that literally means ‘hidden’ or ‘concealed’. This same Hebrew word ‘owlam’ suggests, as we would say today, ‘sometime so far back in eternity that it is beyond human understanding’. It is just like saying that which is ‘beyond the horizon’, ‘something that cannot be seen’, ‘time out of mind’ or ‘beyond human comprehension’ (as Ellen White said, Christ’s existence before the incarnation is beyond human computation).

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Although space denies me quoting the entire verse, other translations have “from ancient times” (New International Version (footnote ‘days of eternity’), “from old, from the days of eternity” (Green’s Literal Translation), “from long ago, From the days of eternity" (New American Standard), “from the beginning, from the days of eternity” (Douay-Rheims Translation), “whose origin is from of old, from ancient days” (Revised Standard Version), “whose origins go back to the distant past” (The New Jerusalem Bible [1985]). Other translations have very similar renderings. Very interesting is that when Ellen White used this verse in ‘The Desire of Ages’, also in ‘Prophets and Kings’ she quoted from the KJV but instead of using the word ‘everlasting’ (as in the KJV text) she substituted the margin notes. These notes said ‘from the days of eternity’. Here are the instances; “Silence fell upon the vast assembly. The name of God, given to Moses to express the idea of the eternal presence, had been claimed as His own by this Galilean Rabbi. He had announced Himself to be the self-existent One, He who had been promised to Israel, "whose goings forth have been from of old, from the days of eternity." Micah 5:2, margin. (Ellen White, The Desire of Ages, page 469, ‘The light of Life’) She had also said earlier in the book of Mary the mother of Jesus: “She is of the lineage of David, and the Son of David must be born in David's city. Out of Bethlehem, said the prophet, "shall He come forth . . . that is to be ruler in Israel; whose goings forth have been from of old, from the days of eternity." Micah 5:2, margin.” (Ellen G. White, ‘The Desire of Ages, page 47, ‘Unto you a Saviour’, 1898) She also did the same in ‘Prophets and Kings’. This is when she said; “The Son of David must be born in David's city. Out of Bethlehem, said the prophet, "shall He come forth ... that is to be ruler in Israel; whose goings forth have been from of old, from the days of eternity." Micah 5:2, margin.” (Ellen G. White, Prophets and Kings, page 697, ‘The coming of a Deliverer’) Needless to say, Ellen White must have had a very good reason for doing this because if she wanted to depict the existence of Christ as never having a beginning (everlasting or forever), then what better choice of words could be used from the English language than “from everlasting”? As it was though, on these three occasions, she refused to use them. As has been said, there must have been a very good reason for her not doing it. I believe it is because it did not fit in with what God had shown her, which was that Christ, sometime in the distant past that is beyond the computation of the human mind, the Son proceeded forth (was begotten) of the Father. She chose those words knowing that these books would go to the public in general.

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Again this shows that she was in harmony with Ellet Waggoner of Minneapolis fame because he said in his book ‘Christ and His Righteousness’; “There was a time when Christ proceeded forth and came from God, from the bosom of the Father (John 8:42 and 1:18) but that time was so far back in the days of eternity that to finite comprehension it is practically without beginning. (E. J. Waggoner, Christ and His Righteousness, page 21-22, ‘Is Christ a created being?’ He also said (using Micah 5:2); “The Scriptures declare that Christ is "the only begotten son of God." He is begotten, not created. As to when He was begotten, it is not for us to inquire, nor could our minds grasp it if we were told. The prophet Micah tells us all that we can know about it in these words, "But thou, Bethlehem Ephratah, though thou be little among the thousands of Judah, yet out of thee shall He come forth unto Me that is to be ruler in Israel; whose goings forth have been from of old, from the days of eternity." Micah 5:2, margin.”(Ibid, page 21 ‘Is Christ a created being?’) Regardless of what Glyn Parfitt says (see page 227), it is blatantly obvious that Ellen White did agree with Waggoner’s begotten concept of Christ. Whilst in his book Glyn Parfitt does acknowledge that ‘olam’ does not necessarily mean ‘everlasting’, I cannot find anywhere where he points out that Ellen White made this substitution of the margin notes (or where she parallels Ellet Waggoner). Perhaps he does not know about it, or perhaps he does know and for some reason simply refrained from saying so.

Final remarks Much more could be said regarding Glyn Parfitt’s objections to the begotten concept but space is limited. This is why I must end here. After reading his work, the one thing that I have come to realise is that it is only too easy to accent on the negatives. It is something else to provide some positives. All it seems to me that Glyn is doing in his book is the former. If this book is published I will consider it a very sad day for Seventh-day Adventism. This is because I regard it as only ‘tearing down’ instead of ‘building up’. It seems to me that it is simply a case with Glyn of deny, deny, deny, no matter what reason is given for this denial (in other words, any reason is better than none). In light of the evidence I have just provided, I cannot see how some of his reasoning can be considered justifiable. This critique was not meant to be a ‘blow by blow’ analysis of his book but was a very brief examination of it regarding his ‘begotten reasoning. Perhaps a more detailed analysis would serve to critique it more thoroughly – perhaps after it is published.

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For those who wish to study my views of the begotten concept, or for those who feel compelled to offer a critique, they can be found at http://theprophetstillspeaks.co.uk Please feel free to email me. I will only be glad to hear from you. Christian regards Terry Hill England

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Christ our God

Blair Andrew

There are times, in reading works criticising non-trinitarians, I shake my head and

wonder if their authors really read any of the non-trinitarian material in print, or if

they only read it to prove it wrong. I know I have been guilty of doing this very thing

when, as a Trinitarian, I was first asked to rebut a non-trinitarian author’s attempt at

writing out his views. And then, later on, I attempted to review another book, this time

on the Trinity, and me, writing as a non-trinitarian. Either way, it is very hard to

succinctly get your understanding of God out onto paper, without letting “self” get in

the way, and turn the reader off, and/or emotionally attack them for their blindness in

not understanding what to you, is so obvious.

So Glyn, please don’t take my words as a personal attack on you, I am just as human

as you, and have the same failings. I am often too analytical, too critical, too

impatient, or too slow to understand.

But on the topic of the Deity of Christ, and His pre-existence, Trinitarians and non

trinitarians are not that far apart. Of course, there are differences, but it is often only

seen when we step back from our work and try to see the Big Picture, the whole

package, and understand where all the pieces fit together.

The whole scenario is explained by Ellen White in one beautiful statement, which

summarizes this part of the picture for us.

“‘God was in Christ, reconciling the world unto Himself.’ – 2

nd Cor. 5:19. Christ was

the foundation and center of the sacrificial system in both the patriarchal and Jewish

age. Since the sin of our first parents there has been no direct communication between

God and man. The Father has given the world into the hands of Christ, that

through His mediatorial work He may redeem man and vindicate the authority and holiness of the law of God. All the communion between heaven and the fallen

race has been through Christ. It was the Son of God that gave to our first parents the

promise of redemption. It was He who revealed Himself to the patriarchs.” – PP.

p.366. (emphasis supplied).

So this clarifies what all non-trinitarians believe, that it is Christ, throughout the Old

Testament, who led His people, Israel, and worked on their behalf, and on behalf of

His Father.

“It was Christ that spoke to His people through the prophets. The apostle Peter,

writing to the Christian church, says that the prophets ‘prophesied of the grace that

should come unto you: searching what, or what manner of time the Spirit of Christ

which was in them did signify, when it testified beforehand the sufferings of Christ and

the glory that should follow.” 1 Peter 1:10,11. It is the voice of Christ that speaks to

us through the Old Testament.” – PP. p.366-367. (emphasis supplied).

“However much a shepherd may love his sheep, he loves his sons and daughters more.

Jesus is not only our shepherd; He is our ‘everlasting Father.’ And He says, ‘I know

Mine own, and Mine own know Me, even as the Father knoweth Me, and I know the

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Father.’ John 10:14,15. R.V. What a statement is this! – the only begotten Son, He

who is in the bosom of the Father, He whom God has declared to be ‘the Man that

is My fellow’ (Zech.13:7), - the communion between Him and the eternal God is taken to represent the communion between Christ and His children on the earth!”

- SDA Bible Commentary, Vol. 7A page 438. (emphasis supplied)

I love these statements, they make it all so simple. They really need no comment, they

clarify all the thoughts that Glyn has tried to annunciate through pages 118-239 of his

book, and they clarify so much that is misunderstood.

Adventists have always understood, that it was the Son of God, sometimes called an

angel, “The angel of the Lord” (eg. Gen. 22:15), in the Old Testament, representing

His Father to humanity. Christ speaks for, and on behalf of His Father, and acts as His

representative throughout the Old Testament. Christ explained this to the Jews.

“Ye search the Scriptures, because ye think that in them ye have eternal life; and these

are they which bear witness of Me.” – John 5:39.

In Deut. 32:4-6 we read of “the Rock, his work is perfect: For all his ways are

judgment: … Is not He thy father that hath bought thee? Hath He not made thee, and

established thee?” Paul tells us in 1st Cor.10:4 that “that spiritual Rock that followed

them:” was Christ. Jesus confirmed this again in John 5:46-47, and Peter understood

this in 1st Peter 1:10-11. Luke speaks of it in Luke 24:27. We know also that it is

Christ, (the Rock of our Salvation, our Creator), to whom all judgment has been

given. God the Father was represented in Jesus, and it is Jesus who is the Father of the

Israelites - speaking and leading His people throughout the Old Testament. Christ is

the Father of His creation. As the second Adam, He is the “Father of everlasting”, or

the “everlasting Father”, not of Himself, not of His own Father, but of His children,

for He speaks of “the children which God hath given Me.” – Hebrews 2:13. (See also

Exodus 14:19,24; 23:20-23; 32:34, Isaiah 63:9.)

There is no contradiction here. We see that the Father and the Son were one in man’s

creation. The Father said to His Son, “Let us make man in our image, after our

likeness.” – Genesis 1:26. (see Patriarchs & Prophets. p.36.) Did God say to an

inferior being, “Let us make man in our image? No. I am not an Arian or Unitarian,

who believes Christ is an inferior being to the Father. Here we see the Word, and God,

two individuals, who existed before creation took place, and the Word created all

things. And we know who the Word is; - the Son of God.

So, we see from above that whatever the Father does, Christ does, because God does

it through him. Whatever Christ does, God does, because Christ does it by him. God's

words are Christ's words, because God speaks by him; and Christ's words are God's

words, because Christ receives them from Him. Thus Paul says:

“God, who at sundry times and in divers manners spake in time past unto the fathers

by the prophets... hath in these last days spoken unto us by his Son.” - Heb.1:1,2.

And Christ himself testified that His works were the works of Him that sent him, and

that His words were not His own, but such as He had received of His Father. (John

14:10,24). The unity of the Father and the Son does not detract from either, but

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strengthens both. The Adventist Pioneers and Ellen White explained this in many of

their books.

John 1:1 tells us that “the Word was God”. Paul states it a little differently, saying that

the Son is “equal with God.” – Philippians 2:6. How, and why is He equal with God?

Comparing Scripture with Scripture, we read of Christ, that “God also hath highly

exalted Him, and given Him a name which is above every name: that at the name of

Jesus every knee should bow, … and that every tongue should confess that Jesus

Christ is Lord, to the glory of God the Father.” – Phil 2:9-11. It “pleased the Father”

(God) and He has highly exalted Him, and given Him a name above every name.

We also find that this Son, the Word, has been “appointed heir of all things,” and is

the “express image” of God, and “by inheritance” has “obtained a more excellent

name” than the angels. – Hebrews 1:1-5. What name is that, that is more excellent

than the angels? “But unto the Son He saith, ‘Thy Throne, O God, is forever and

ever: …Therefore God, even Thy God, hath anointed thee with the oil of gladness

above thy fellows.” – Hebrews 1:8-9. It is the name of His Father, God, is that name.

Just as my son inherits my family name, so it is with God and His Son. Is my son any

less human than I am, because he came after me? No, he is still my flesh and blood,

and he is still my son. He may be given other names, but as soon as he existed and just

because he exists, he has my name.

The parallel is the same with God and His Son, regarding their divinity. This is a

simple concept to understand, and follows logically. So we see that Christ is equal

with His Father, because His Father has chosen to elevate Him to that position of

equality. This contradicts the trinity position in so many ways. If Jesus were the

second person of a trinity, why would God exalt Him, give Him an inheritance of a

more excellent name, and why would Paul in Hebrews talk of the Son being exalted

above all others? For a Trinity of three co-eternal, co-equal persons, this would seem

contradictory and completely unnecessary. The Father has no reason to do this, if

Christ is already part of a Trinity. These plain, simple texts are a contradiction to

Trinitarian theology, as well as a rebuke to Arian thinking. The Bible is God’s Word,

written to reveal things about Himself to humanity, His creation. If God is a Trinity,

don’t you think it would have been part of the revealed will of God to show us this, in

no uncertain terms? God is not the author of confusion.

“All that is attributed to the Father himself is attributed to Christ.” – EGW, R & H

May 19th, 1896.

So, from all of the above, we know that we have: God the Father; Who has a Son,

who shares all His attributes, who is His express image, and shares His name. These

divine capabilities, (immortality, omnipresence, omniscience, omnipotence, etc) make

Him equal to His Father in nature. God also invested His Son with His authority. He

is therefore worthy of worship, as His Father is. “And since He is the only begotten

Son of God, He is the very substance and nature of God, and possesses by birth all the

attributes of God, for the Father was pleased that His Son should be the express image

of His Person, the brightness of His glory, and filled with all the fullness of the

Godhead (deity or divinity).” – E.J. Waggoner, Christ & His Righteousness, p.5.

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Look at Proverbs 30:4 for confirmation of this. “Who hath ascended up into heaven,

… Who hath established all the ends of the earth? What is His name, and what is His

son’s name, if thou canst tell?” This text is speaking of past events, for it uses the

word “hath” in past tense. There are no symbols or figures in the text, so we can take

the text according to its obvious meaning. The chapter speaks of creative acts, which

we know occurred in the past. It attributes these acts to only two beings, one of them

being the Son of the Other. That makes a Father and a Son. We can argue over the use

of different words, their Greek, their Hebrew, their linguistic and grammatical use,

etc, etc. But ultimately, we need to acknowledge that God can and has preserved His

Word, the Scriptures, and special guidance through His Spirit via the Spirit of

Prophecy, and if He wants to use certain words to help us understand Him, we need to

accept what He says, and try not to get our human wisdom in the way. I have found

from the plain, simple Word of God, that Jesus Christ came to this earth, as the Divine

Son of God, to become sin for me, to step into my place, and die for my sins. If His

Father tells me that Jesus is His Son - really, literally - who am I to argue with Him?

As Glyn himself says,

“The above conclusion must mean that Christ is the God of the Old Testament,

Jehovah. This is not meant to say that Christ is the Father, or that the Father is

not Jehovah. The Father is clearly revealed in several places in the Old

Testament as a Being separate from Christ, and it is the Father who is there

called Jehovah. Both the Father and the Son, as Divine Beings, are entitled to

that name.” – TT WHGR p.135.

This much is true. But where Glyn misunderstands the simplicity of Scripture is

something that I misunderstood for years also. In his next sentence after the preceding

chapter, Glyn states: “Now, if Jesus is the Jehovah of the Old Testament, then

everything written there about His eternal existence in the past, applies to Jesus as

much as the Father.” (ibid).

This, together with the following statement, illustrates where I, when I believed the

Trinity doctrine, and Glyn, and all the other Trinitarian authors who have tackled this

subject, failed to understand. Read this next statement, and I will attempt to explain

what I mean.

“Everything that is said of the Father’s eternal existence is also said of Christ. If

the Son is not eternally existent in the past, we have no grounds for saying that

the Father is. But if the Father is eternally existent in the past, then so is the

Son.” – TT WHGR, p.125.

Herein lies the problem. As a Trinitarian, I would explain time and eternity with a

simple illustration. If I stand on the white line in the middle of a road with a bucket of

water, and drop one drop of water into that bucket, that represents the time in which I

live my life here on earth. The time it takes for that drop to fall, that is my life. The

bucket represents time as we know it on this planet, and the white line represents

eternity, stretching away from me in either direction – infinitely. As a Trinitarian, I

saw eternity and earthly time on the same line, with eternity running out on either

side, before me, and after me. I taught that eternity is the infinite extension of time,

although I had no evidence from Scripture to support the idea.

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Time is measured here on earth by the things that He created to delineate time for us,

His creation. The Sun, the Moon, the Stars, all have a part to play in measuring time

here on earth. (Gen. 1:14.) We understand that time, on another planet, would be

different in the way we would measure it. But God is outside of time, for He created it

also.

Time is a law, like any other. God is not controlled by time, He made it, and He

dwells in eternity, and eternity is a separate concept from time. One is not an

extension of the other. Once you see this, the whole issue of the eternal Sonship of

Christ becomes a non-issue, and fades into insignificance.

It is interesting that something as invisible and as intangible as time, has been

ordained of God to be a test of spiritual sight. By this I mean the final Sabbath test for

all mankind, for the Sabbath rest was ordained of God before one single page of

human history had been written, or a single act of Adam recorded. The Sabbath was

put in place before the Fall of Man, and therefore is part of the restoration of all things

spoken of in Scripture.

Time is part of the fabric of the visible universe, space and time are the two things

which make it work. Time is flexible, like a rubber band, but we cannot go back in

time. Time, not a specific place, is hallowed by God on this earth as a test for all who

might claim to be followers of God.

Christ, as the divine Son of God, was with the Father, begotten before time. He came

into existence in eternity. God exists in eternity, it is His domain. We exist in time, for

our Solar System determines the time for us. Outside of time as we know it, exists

eternity.

So when Glyn and other authors talk about the “eternal son of God”, it poses no

problem for me or any other non-trinitarian. We see that in the light of our

understanding of the word eternal, and what eternity is. Once you understand this, the

Word of God and the Spirit of Prophecy are beautifully harmonized, and there is no

paradox, no contradictions, no misunderstandings. The same applies to the idea of the

“absolute deity of Christ”. I believe in the absolute deity of Christ, but a Trinitarian

would say I did not. According to his definition, based on his understanding of

eternity and the word eternal, I do not.

The Bible clearly teaches that there is only one absolute God and none beside Him

who is an absolute God. In 1st Corinthians 15, Paul teaches this doctrine so there can

be no doubt as to Christ’s subordination and submission to the Father. Paul says:

“Then cometh the end, when He (Christ) shall have delivered up the kingdom to God,

even the Father; … For He (the Father) hath put all things under His (Christ’s) feet.

But that He (God) is excepted, which did put all things under Him (Christ). And when

all things shall be subdued unto Him (Christ), then shall the Son also Himself be

subject unto Him (God) that put all things under Him (Christ), that God may be all in

all.” - 1st Cor. 15:24-28.

Here Paul clearly teaches that God is not subject to Christ, but that Christ is subject to

the Father, who gave all authority to Him. Whatever Christ is, whatever authority He

has, whatever attributes He possesses, may be all in all and above all. Paul says, “Ye

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are Christ’s; and Christ is God’s.” - 1st Cor. 3:23. Again says Paul: “But I would have

you know, that the head of every man is Christ…and the head of Christ is God.” - 1st

Cor. 11:3. Christ Himself said: “I go unto the Father; for my Father is greater than I.”

- John 14:28. Now at this point I am going to ask some simple questions, that I have

not had answered by other Trinitarians. Glyn, think about these carefully in light of all

that is in this review.

Question: How can a Trinitarian believer reconcile the above statements when they

fly in the face of the co-equal, co-eternal, co-substantial catch-cry?

Jesus said: “But of that day and that hour knoweth no man, no, not the angels which

are in heaven, neither the Son, but the Father.” - Mark 13:32. And in Matt. 24:36,

Jesus says, “but My Father only” knows that day and hour. Christ Himself admits that

the secret things belong to God, and that He Himself as the Son of God, does not

know the day and hour of His return to this earth the second time.

Question: Why or how would this be possible if God the Father, God the Son and God

the Holy Spirit are completely equal in all things? Would it even be possible for One

of the Triune God to know something that the others did not know?

Christ is equal with God

The Jews understood the implications of what Christ was saying when they sought to

kill Him, because He “said also that God was His Father, making Himself equal with

God.” - John 5:17.

Question: Why do Trinitarians insist that Christ would be inferior to God if He was

begotten/born, when the Jews clearly understood that it made Him equal with God?

Paul also taught that Christ was “equal with God,” and that God Himself had

“exalted” Christ to that position. For he says, “Christ Jesus, who, being in the form of

God, thought it not robbery to be equal with God; but made Himself of no reputation,

and took upon Him the form of a servant, and was made in the likeness of men; and

being found in fashion as a man, he humbled Himself, and became obedient unto

death, even the death of the cross. Wherefore God also hath highly exalted Him, and

given Him a name which is above every name,” and therefore we are to “confess that

Jesus Christ is Lord, to the glory of God the Father.” - Phil 2:5-11.

Why are we to give the glory of Christ’s exaltation above every other name than the

name of God Himself, to God the Father, instead of to Christ in His own right?

Because it is God the Father who has thus exalted Him. Paul makes this great truth of

Christ’s dependence upon the Father still more evident when he said to Timothy: “I

give thee charge in the sight of God, who quickeneth all things…who is the blessed

and only Potentate, the King of kings, and Lord of lords; who only hath immortality,

dwelling in the light which no man can approach unto; whom no man hath seen, nor

can see; to whom be honor and power everlasting.” - 1st Tim. 6:13-16.

God “only hath immortality.” He alone is the only self-existent God. But He gave His

Son when He was Begotten the same life he had in Himself, therefore when Christ

offered His life as a ransom for the sins of the world, He and He only could make an

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atonement for all the sins of all the world, because he made “an infinite sacrifice,” and

it required an “infinite sacrifice” to atone for all the sins of mankind and angels who

had sinned, in order to satisfy the demands of the law of God and infinite justice.

Scripture tells us that Christ died for our sins, and that angels could not atone for our

sins. Angels were finite beings just like we are, but men are a lower order of beings.

Christ had unconditional immortality bestowed upon Him when He was begotten of

the Father. Angels had conditional immortality bestowed upon them when they were

created by Christ. Angels are immortal but their immortality is conditional. Therefore

angels do not die but live on after they sin just as Satan or Lucifer lives on in sin. But

since Lucifer and the fallen angels only have conditional immortality, they will

ultimately be destroyed and the gift of immortality which Christ bestowed on them

when He created them will be removed. Whatever God bestows he can take away

whenever He sees fit.

In the final resurrection, immortality will be bestowed upon every saint that is raised

to life through Jesus Christ. Then and not until then is eternal life bestowed upon the

Christian. “And this is the record, that God hath given to us eternal life, and this life is

in His Son.” - 1st John 5:11. But this same eternal life is also in the Father. For John

says: “The Word of life…was manifested…that eternal life, which was with the

Father.” - 1st John 1:2,3. Here we are plainly told that the same eternal life, immortal

life, which is with the Father, was manifested in His Son, and will in the resurrection

be bestowed and imparted to all the saints in Christ. But we must never forget that it is

an imparted immortality. We thus see that eternal life and immortality can be

bestowed upon beings who were not co-existent with God. It is the same eternal life

that is in God, and when human beings are thus made immortal it is said of them that

they are “filled with all the fullness of God.” - Eph. 3:19.

But Christ, the only Begotten of the Father, made in the “express image” of the Father

in person; God appointed to be the Saviour of men, and He appointed Him “heir of all

things,” “being made so much better than the angels, as He hath by inheritance

obtained a more excellent name than they. For unto which of the angels said He (God)

at any time, Thou art My son, This day have I begotten thee?” - Hebrews 1:2-5. Here

we are told that the expression “Thou art My Son, this day have I begotten thee,”

refers only to Christ and not to any of the angels. Then there must have been a time

when the Son of God was begotten by the Father. On that day, the Father saith unto

His only Begotten Son: “Thy throne, O God, is forever and ever…therefore God, even

thy God, hath anointed Thee with the oil of gladness above thy fellows. And Thou,

Lord, in the beginning hast laid the foundation of the earth, and the heavens are the

works of thine hands.” - Hebrews 1:8-10. Christ is shown clearly to be the Creator.

“For it pleased the Father that in Him (Christ) should all fullness dwell.” - Col. 1:19.

It pleased the Father. What does this statement tell us? God, the Father, bestowed His

own Deity fully upon His Son, for Hebrews 1:2-10 clearly portrays Christ, as a Son,

as a Prince, inheriting all things from His Father. Again, we are seeing a clear

relationship.

So we see in all of the above texts that Christ in His Word acknowledges that all He

possesses of wisdom, of power, of authority, and of life itself, all was given to Him

from the Father. His exaltation was from the Father. (John 13:3; John 8:42; John

9:35,37) Now that we have established the Deity of Christ, His submission to His

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Father, and His equality with His Father in the proper context, we still have no

evidence from the above texts that a trinity of persons exists.

And we can go on. Scripture is plain, and simple. The whole plan of salvation can be

understood by a child; but once you remove the Father and Son relationship,

confusion sets in, and theologians can spend their whole lives writing treatises and

thesis on the nature of God, forgetting the simplicity of the Gospel.

In closing this section, please think about this thought. God has always had a people

on the earth who believe the truth, but we do not see them in the majority.

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The Holy Spirit

Margaretha Tierney

I have been asked to critique the above book, pages 243-500 on the Holy Spirit. I

thought it would be an unbiased book with “a few mistakes” or “misunderstandings”

about what non-Trinitarians believe, and perhaps the author might be willing to

change these ‘difficulties’ before it was printed.

Now that I have concluded my section I can see that this would be impossible, as

every point is written with a purpose – to weigh the non-Trinitarian position and see if

it stands up to the author’s scrutiny, after which the author weighs his evidence in

favour of the Trinity. Anyone who accepts this weighing cannot help but accept the

Trinity as truth, because not one finalising question gives less than 94-98+% in favour

of the Trinity.

We all have different personalities. Some do not know how to answer questions.

Others do not know how to ask questions. A few people know how to answer every

question. The latter appears to fit the author of this book, however, this does not

mean his answers are correct.

A personal experience just last week will serve as a demonstration.

When speaking to a brother, who believes the timeline prophecies will be repeated in

the future, I am always wrong.

For instance, my statement was ‘1844 is the end of prophetic time’, and the reply

given, ‘that doesn’t mean there can’t be literal time’.

Again, ‘Our message isn’t to hang on time’ – ‘it doesn’t because we don’t know when

any of the dates begin’.

And again, ‘The GC says 1844 is the last and longest prophetic time’ – its been

changed by Prescott. The 1884 and 1888 one doesn’t say that.’

And on and on, without me being right once.

My personal feeling when reading through the objections in ‘The Trinity’ is that the

author has given answers in the same way, pulling out a minute point from the

statement, and then gathering evidence from the Bible and Spirit of Prophecy to prove

it. So, no matter what I say, I will be wrong. It may not be an ability when

speaking, only when writing. The author is not dishonest in doing this, but it makes

it difficult for the listener or reader to show that he has a thinking mind too.

I found that in reading the objections that at times the answer was so far from the non-

Trinitarian position that all I could do was sigh. Often there is a clear answer, but it

would take a great deal of explanation, because the whole premise is wrong. When

one begins with a faulty base, even if the progression is very logical, the conclusion

will be wrong. As a result, one must go back to the beginning and explain why the

foundation is wrong. This can take many pages of writing, and if the reader is not

willing to learn, it will be as if it had not been written.

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As I said, the author of ‘The Trinity’ has finished his book, and although he might be

willing to learn beyond what he has written, it would not be practical to begin

changing his book at this stage.

I have chosen three objections to demonstrate that the author’s answers are not

necessarily correct, and in my opinion are entirely wrong.

1. The author of ‘The Trinity’ quotes a number of non-Trinitarians upon which to

base his objections. In some cases the person quoted does not speak for those

who take this position.

For instance – Objection 8. Fred Allaback says that where Ellen White writes of the

ministry of the Holy Spirit, it is interchangeable with the ministry of the angels. I do

not know anyone who believes this, so in actual fact, the author is correct when he

says that God works for us through the Holy Spirit and the angels.

However, using a false argument means that the objection is invalid and a straw man.

In this case, it is the basis of the argument that is wrong, which is something both

Trinitarians and non-Trinitarians would concur.

2. Objection 12. (Part) Again Fred Allaback is quoted where he says the Holy

Spirit is the Spirit of both the Father and the Son.

This is believed by all non-Trinitarians. The author of ‘The Trinity’ says, “This

cannot be the case. He could be the personal Spirit of one, but not of both. Person,

personal, personality contains the idea of identity. My personal spirit would mean my

own inner being, mind and nature.” The Trinity, p254.

This argument is using finite reasoning. Certainly ‘my spirit’ (yours and mine) could

not be the spirit of more than one person, but no one can say it cannot be so with God.

His Spirit is far beyond our understanding. The Father is the divine Source of the

Spirit and it is not up to us mortals to say God cannot do something that we do not

understand.

In a further objection (Objection 12 – Can a person be omnipresent?) the other side is

given.

The author’s objection is not important here, but he now argues for the infinite nature

of God. He says, “Why should it be difficult for an infinite personal being to be

everywhere present? Why do we think we must have a God whose infinite nature we

can comprehend with our finite minds?” The Trinity, p301.

Thus the author argues opposites, something he has charged non-Trinitarians with

doing. It is true the Holy Spirit is personal and not simply a force or a power. It is

God’s Spirit, and because Christ was begotten of the Father, He received by the

inheritance of birth all that belongs to the Father, including His omnipresent Spirit.

Answering ‘how’ in any way, is not possible. So of this aspect, as well as to the

nature of the Spirit, “silence is golden”, to quote the prophet.

3. Objection 15. Christ is the only being who can enter the heavenly councils.

The author of ‘The Trinity’ quotes Alan Stump and says his quotation is not the only

one he could have used, then proceeds to give a number of similar quotations,

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commenting that the Holy Spirit is not included. Then he says, “However, in 1899,

the Holy Spirit is included, even though the statement is brief…”

The full quotation is as given by the author.

“It is the glory of the gospel that it is founded upon the principle of

restoring in the fallen race the divine image by a constant manifestation of

benevolence. This work began in the heavenly courts. There God decided

to give human beings unmistakable evidence of the love with which He

regarded them. He ‘so loved the world, that He gave His only-begotten

Son, that whosoever believeth in Him should not perish, but have

everlasting life.’ John 3:16.

The Godhead was stirred with pity for the race, and the Father, the Son,

and the Holy Spirit gave Themselves to the working out of the plan of

redemption. In order fully to carry out this plan, it was decided that

Christ, the only-begotten Son of God, should give Himself an offering for

sin. What line can measure the depth of this love? God would make it

impossible for man to say that He could have done more. With Christ, He

gave all the resources of heaven, that nothing might be wanting in the plan

for man’s uplifting.” Counsels on Health, p. 222.

When analysing this statement, it is easy to jump to conclusions that the word Godhead

is referring to the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit, but the word ‘Godhead’ does not

necessarily mean that ‘the three’ were stirred with pity, which is the first reaction, but

if you read the first paragraph you will see that it is God (the Father) who is stirred

with pity for the fallen race, and this thought is continued to the end of the second

paragraph.

Another point is that the words “the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit gave

Themselves to the working out of the plan of redemption”, can appear that they

worked out the plan together, however, this is not the only possibility, in fact, when

taking into account the numerous statements given by Sr White that it was the Father

and the Son who devised or worked out the plan of salvation, it is more than likely it

does not mean this. Below are some of these statements.

“The plan of salvation devised by the Father and the Son will be a grand

success.” Signs of the Times. Jun 17. 1903.

“Before the fall of man, the Son of God had united with His Father in

laying the plan of salvation.” Review & Herald. Sep 13.1906.

“A covenant has been entered into by the Father and by the Son to save the

world through Christ.” Signs of the Times. Oct 10 1892.

“In counsel together, the Father and the Son determined that Satan should

not be left unchecked to exercise his cruel power upon man.” Manuscript

31. 1911.

We must also include the Bible statement, “…and the counsel of peace was between

them both.” Zechariah 6:12.13. This could refer to Christ’s priesthood and kingship,

but Sr White says it means the Father and the Son. “In the plan to save a lost world,

the counsel was between them both; the covenant of peace was between the Father and

the Son.” Signs of the Times. Dec 23. 1897.

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So from Sr White’s statements we can see that the Father and the Son devised the plan

of salvation together, and seeing Christ is the only being who can enter into the

councils of God, this fits perfectly.

But what of the statement that includes the Holy Spirit?

Two points should be noted.

Firstly, the Spirit of God is always a part of God Himself, even though He can operate

by that Spirit elsewhere in the universe. So even though the Spirit is not mentioned in

most of the statements, God’s Spirit is always there as a part of Himself.

Secondly, ‘working out of the plan’ does not necessarily mean ‘devising or

formulating the plan’. It can also mean ‘fulfilling the plan’.

In the 1828 Webster’s Dictionary, ‘work out’ means ‘to effect by labor and exertion’.

It does not mean ‘to devise a plan of labor’, but the actual working out of the plan

already formulated. A text given as a reference in the dictionary is Philippians 2:13.

“Work out your own salvation with fear and trembling”. This does not mean to

devise a plan, but to co-operate with God in His plan. [Editor’s note: I did a quick

search of “working out” on the Ellen White CD Rom and found that most, if not all

instances are used in this way]

If you read the Ellen White reference again, you will see that the three great powers of

heaven “gave themselves to the working out of the plan of redemption”, a plan that

had been formulated by the Father and the Son in the councils of heaven prior to the

creation of the earth. At the fall of man, the working out of the plan began, and of

course, God the Father, Christ the Son, and the Holy Spirit are all a part of the

fulfilling of the plan. No one would argue with this, as we are clearly told that “It is

the Spirit that makes effectual what has been wrought out by the world's Redeemer.”

The Desire of Ages, p671.

I could spend many hours going over every point, however, I feel that the three brief

illustrations show simply that there is another way to look at each subject, and the

author is not always right. It seems rather pointless going through every objection

because it would not be possible for the author to change his position. His manuscript

is completed. At times a question answered one way will make a big difference to a

question answered further on. But more than that, he has weighed every answer

mathematically and then taken those figures to give a final figure. These are not things

that can be altered.

The author of ‘The Trinity’ has weighed the evidence according to how he feels each

answers weighs. He has tried to be lenient in giving credit at times to the non-

Trinitarian position, however, the end result is always in accordance with his own

position. Thus by a mathematical formula his conclusions are drawn:

The combined probability that the Holy Spirit is a distinct Being: 99.86%.

The combined probability of there being three fully divine Beings existing from all

eternity: 98.6%.

The combined probability that the Trinity is true: 94.3%.

The fact that non-Trinitarians are seen as totally wrong in every case will win some to

the Trinity cause, and it may make us look rather foolish, however, if anyone is willing

to submit to the Holy Spirit and listen to what God is saying, he/she will know the

doctrine, whether it is true or false.

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It is not mathematical equations that will convict the seeker for truth, but the Spirit of

God. This is the Bible standard, “Not by might, nor by power, but by my Spirit, saith

the Lord of hosts.” Zechariah 4:6. Even when reading answers that attempt to prove the

Trinity 94-99% right, suddenly God’s omnipresent Spirit can speak, and make all

things clear. When Peter was asked by Jesus who he believed the Son of man to be, he

replied, ‘Thou art the Christ, the Son of the living God’. Jesus blessed him and said

that this was revealed by “My Father which is in heaven.” Matthew 16:16.17. I do

not believe the glorious Father descended from the throne of heaven to whisper in

Peter’s ear, but that the Spirit of the Father spoke to him and identified His Son.

In the end, the controversy will be over two things – the day on which we worship and

the God who sanctified the day. Today, no matter on which side we stand, if we are

surrendered and committed to Jesus, we will know the true God and His Son, and in

our great time of need will be empowered to keep holy the seventh-day Sabbath by the

true Spirit. But if we do not know God, we will bow the knee to the idol Sunday and

its false god, and be lost. It is my prayer that all who read this critique will be in the

former group in that day.

Glyn Parfitt has spent countless hours on his book and no doubt is very anxious to have

it printed, together with the Biblical Review Committee and the Signs Publishing

Company. To all I would say -- with respect -- that this book is a misrepresentation of

the non-Trinitarian position. In the Forward by A. Leroy Moore, readers are

encouraged to "weigh the evidence", but when the evidence is incorrect, it is quite

obvious there will be a very lop-sided and wrong result. I give thanks on behalf of the

group of reviewers, for the time allowed to read through the book.

I would like to conclude with a Bible verse that gives me encouragement and

confidence whenever truth is made to appear as error. “We can do nothing against the

truth, but for the truth.” 2nd

Corinthians 13:8.

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What is truth? What does it weigh?

Blair Andrew

“Pilate saith unto Him, ‘What is truth?’” (John 18:38). Pilate’s question echoes down

through the ages. Sadly, Pilate never waited to hear the answer. There is something

about the human mind which always wants to believe it is right, and often we will

stand for something, convinced we are correct, only much later to see the error of our

ways.

In some churches, tradition is taken as the higher standard by which we measure the

validity of any truth. Others rely on their Commentaries, the works of their Academia;

others upon the word of their Priest, Bishop or Pastor. In any case, they give up their

God-given ability to ascertain the truth for themselves under the guidance and

inspiration of the Spirit, and ultimately this leads to subjugation of their mind to that

of another man, and an example of where that can lead can be seen in the history of

the Papacy.

I have found that Adventists have generally fallen into several categories when

discussing and “weighing” “truth”, “new light” or “old truths” when they come across

their path.

1. Many judge any message that appears to be different or “new” by the type of

person it comes from. ie. Are they balanced, extreme, liberal left wing, new

theology, right wing fanatical or hard line. This is how some decide if something

is wrong or right.

2. Many judge by asking their minister, or someone (or something) they look up to

or respect, whom they think is more capable of making the decision for them

about the topic at hand. The Commentaries on the Word of God are a good

example here.

3. Many judge by looking up a few EGW statements on the EGW CDROM, and then

rest their case on them, as if that answers it for them.

4. Many judge by what they say are “the fruits of the message” and the people

believing it. They usually say its divisive, or its contrary to the 28 Fundamentals,

or it must lead to calling the Church “Babylon” and then to “separationism” or

“leaving the faith”, or it causes peoples’ marriages to fall apart, etc, etc, therefore

it is not of God.

5. Others begin to look at the topic, decide it is too big a challenge for them, and too

time consuming, (ie. not important enough) and go back to their comfort zone,

saying that if it’s good enough for the Church, it’s good enough for them.

6. Some judge by the Word of God, comparing Scripture with Scripture, looking

prayerfully at what God says and at the evidence available to them. They will

check their conclusions against “the lesser light”, seeking guidance there. Then

they walk in the light, as the scroll of Present Truth unrolls, no matter what the

consequences to them personally.

It is obvious to all that the final method, number 6, is the correct way in which we

should “weigh up” the truth we are considering. As we have seen in my previous

section “What is Revealed?” contemporary sources acknowledge that the Bible does

not explicitly teach the Trinity doctrine, but admits that it came after the Canon of

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Scripture was compiled. Due to this lack of Scriptural evidence, it therefore lacks

enough “weight” to include it as a doctrine that we should accept. Much more could

be said to reinforce this, and it behooves the reader to go back to the Word of God and

carefully study for themselves what God has revealed about Himself.

Apart from the six points listed above, there is something else that influences our

thinking and judgment. “The spirit in which you come to the investigation of the Scriptures will determine the

character of the assistant at your side. Angels from the world of light will be with

those who in humility of heart seek for divine guidance. . . . But if the heart is filled

with prejudice, Satan is beside you, and he will set the plain statements of God’s

Word in a perverted light.” – TM, p.108. (emphasis supplied)

How careful we need to be. None of us want to allow Satan to delude us by setting

“the plain statements of God’s Word in a perverted light.” If I come to the topic at

hand with the wrong spirit, or attitude, or prejudice, I create the conditions for myself

to be deceived.

Over the years there have been numerous controversies within Adventism. There are

three areas in which disputes have generally fallen into:

(a) How we do things, ie. Worship, lifestyle.

(b) What we believe, ie. Theology/doctrine.

(c) How we manage the gifts God has given us, ie. Assets, funds, tithe, time.

The current controversy over the acceptance of Trinitarian thinking is found under (b).

ie. What you and I believe as Adventist Christians; our theology. But it also involves

worship, for our understanding of the God whom we worship is just as important as

how we worship Him, and when we worship Him.

So, how do we correctly judge the validity of the non-trinitarian position, or the

Trinitarian position?

Weight of Evidence (WoE)

As we have noted, Glyn has chosen to use the “weight of evidence” method as the

best means to arrive at a balanced judgment of the evidence for the Trinity doctrine.

This is harmony with the Spirit of Prophecy, where we are told:

“Satan has ability to suggest doubts and to devise objections to the pointed testimony

that God sends, and many think it a virtue, a mark of intelligence in them, to be

unbelieving and to question and quibble. Those who desire to doubt will have plenty of

room. God does not propose to remove all occasion for unbelief. He gives evidence,

which must be carefully investigated with a humble mind and a teachable spirit,

and all should decide from the weight of evidence.” - 3T, p. 255. (emphasis supplied)

So this is a good method, a God ordained method, but it is not foolproof. Brendan, in

Part 3 of his review, will deal largely with this area, but a few thoughts here in Glyn’s

methodology will reinforce Brendan’s analysis.

Truth is precious to us all, and the following formula given us by the Spirit of

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Prophecy aids us in using this method, and reminds us of our need to be humbly led

by the Holy Spirit as we study; “We have nothing to fear for the future, except as we shall forget the way the Lord has

led us, and His teaching in our past history.” – LS, p.196. (emphasis supplied)

That formula is quite simple. God clearly raised up and led the Seventh-day Adventist

Church, and He has remained consistent in all His teaching in our past history. It is

miraculous that God has preserved the truth through thousands of years, without

contradiction. Truth has shone down through the Ages, from Abraham, right through

to the Advent Movement. So this formula tells us we can weigh up the evidence, and

compare it against the way God has led us in our past history. She clarifies this even

further in the following statements:

“One thing it is certain is soon to be realized, - the great apostasy, which is developing

and increasing and waxing stronger, and will continue to do so until the Lord shall

descend from heaven with a shout. We are to hold fast the first principles of our

denominated faith, and go forward from the strength to increased faith. Ever we are

to keep the faith that has been substantiated by the Holy Spirit of God from the

earlier events of our experience until the present time.” - Special Testimonies Series

B, No.7, p57. (1905). (emphasis supplied).

“The past fifty years have not dimmed one jot or principle of our faith as we

received the great and wonderful evidences that were made certain to us in 1844, after

the passing of the time. The languishing souls are to be confirmed and quickened

according to His word. And many of the ministers of the gospel and the Lord's

physicians will have their languishing souls quickened according to the word. Not a

word is changed or denied. That which the Holy Spirit testified to as truth after the

passing of the time, in our great disappointment, is the solid foundation of truth. Pillars of truth were revealed, and we accepted the foundation principles that have made

us what we are - Seventh-day Adventists, keeping the commandments of God and

having the faith of Jesus.” - Special Testimonies Series B, No.7, p57-58. (1905).

(emphasis supplied).

From the above two statements we see that the truths that the Pioneers believed have

been substantiated by the Holy Spirit to be truth. Ellen White made these statements

in 1905, clearly showing that the doctrines that the Pioneers believed were the truth,

and were unchanged at the time of writing. At no time did she ever state that any of

the foundation doctrines of the pioneers had been incorrect, and needed to be revised.

“The past fifty years have not dimmed one jot or principle of our faith,” is a clear

indication of the time period and the amount of evidence we would need to examine

in the period that she is talking about. We can then use this “rule” to interpret any and

all doctrinal changes in Adventism since that time, for now we have a way of

“measuring” or “weighing” the evidence. We simply ask the question, is this belief in

harmony with the beliefs of our early Pioneers and the prophetess in the first 50 years

of our denomination, and if not, why not? We have a simple gauge, and with all the

data readily available in such places as the Adventist Pioneer Library CD, and the

Adventist Archives website, the EGW Estate CD, etc, we are able to weigh the

evidence. Of course, we must use our first method listed above, testing from the Word

of God, the Bible. But this second formula enhances what we have, and aids further in

assessing the evidence within Adventist history. But once I pass it through my filter,

or bias of interpretation, it comes unstuck. As Brendan has so ably done in his study

in Part 3, Arithmagic, we see that Glyn’s method of using probability has taken the

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data and wrested it away from objective reasoning, and taken it into the realm of

subjective analysis, away from the leading of the Holy Spirit.

Probability

Glyn, in his judgment of the samples of evidence he has taken in his study, has chosen

a unique method of using probability to ascertain the truth of his theological concepts.

“Probability is the likelihood or chance that something is the case or will happen.

Probability theory is used extensively in areas such as statistics, mathematics, science

and philosophy to draw conclusions about the likelihood of potential events and the

underlying mechanics of complex systems.” – Wikipedia. Art. Probability.

There is several problems with this method. Firstly, the accuracy of the outcome is

proportional to the size of the sample of data, or information he has available to him,

and how he has chosen the sample. If we were to apply probability principles of

interpretation to other areas of the Gospel, I wonder were we would end up. If I were

to analyse using probability in regard to humanity ever getting victory over sin,

(without taking into account the work of the Holy Spirit to work in the life of the

believer) I know the outcome would be devastating. If I were to apply probability to

the incarnation of a Saviour coming to the earth, (without taking into account the

existence of the God and the plan of salvation) there would be no Saviour. Without all

the data in the data pool, you are floating in a sea of chance. And I could go on and

on.

To establish authenticity by any other method than from the Word of God, is to place

that instrument or method above the Word. You are imposing a system of human

reasoning on the Word of God. We are in effect judging the Word, and the effect of

that is that God will judge us. As I have said, weighing the evidence is good, but great

care is needed because the assigning of weights is wide open to a high probability of

subjective interpretation, and hence arbitrary imposition. And then, to interpret that

data by mathematical probability, takes the outcome out of the realm of reality. This is

where Glyn’s work has come unstuck.

What is the probability that using probability in the case of the truthfulness of the

Trinity doctrine is correct? If the answer is probable, as indeed it must be as we have

already entered probability into the equation, closes the case. For faith is the antithesis

of doubt. Do we establish truth by mingling faith with unbelief? What this does is to

bring something else into the scenario. We rely on experts to ascertain the truth, and

then their decision, their method, their bias, their authority, is placed above scripture

itself. We defer our reason for our faith to them, and step away from our obligation to

find and discern the truth for ourselves. As I said at the beginning of this article, other

churches use tradition, Commentaries, Academic works, the word of their Priest,

Bishop or Pastor to assess the truthfulness of any doctrine. This is not God’s way.

And in Glyn’s work, if the line between truth and error is so uncertain that it has to be

reduced to a balance of probability, it has already lost its status as a truth.

We need to remember, almost every lesson of Scripture is of the majority being are

wrong, and the minority being right. The Christian world is largely Trinitarian in its

understanding of God, but that is no criteria for its acceptance into Adventism.

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The majority rejected the truth in the days of Noah and perished in the Flood. A flood

that public opinion said could never happen. History will be repeated.

"To act without clear understanding,

to form habits without investigation,

to follow a path all one's life - without

knowing where it really leads - such is

the behavior of the multitude."

- Mencius.

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Pulling the Trinity Out of a Hat, Part 3:

Arithmagic

Brendan P. Knudson

In this final part of the review project, and the last of my own hat-trick of articles, I

will be summing up and focusing specifically on the weight of evidence principles in

Glyn Parfitt’s (hereafter GP) book The Trinity: What Has God Revealed (hereafter

TT:WHGR).

We have so far covered some serious problems in hermeneutic and historical

interpretation. These will all have a bearing on this conclusion. In the summary of the

first article, I mentioned that if GP had followed the same close scrutiny across the

board, testing his own evidence as he does the non-trinitarian, he may have come up

with very different weights.

Testing the Math

At first, it was difficult for me to get my head around GP’s mathematical reasoning.

Since it is such an innovative idea, there aren’t any other sources I can refer to in my

review. I will give first some thoughts of explanation for those who might not quite

understand how his probability system works.

I was at first confused as to why GP did not simply use a mean or average of weights.

His actual method is sort of a compound probability – that is, each additional evidence

given a weight in favour of a point will close the gap towards 100%. For example, if

you have 3 pieces of evidence which are all 50% in favour, the first would be 50%,

the second would be 50% of the remaining 50% (or 25%) and the last would be 50%

of the remaining 25% (or 12.5%). 50 + 25 + 12.5 = 87.5%.

This was easy enough for me to understand. However, it took a little longer to

understand the method of combining opposing probabilities. I still don’t fully

understand the why behind it, but I have tested it with a few different numbers and I

found this: If you have one probability as 99.99%, it makes very little difference to

this number whether the opposing probability is 10%, 50%, 90% or 99% (these results

would be 99.99%, 99.98%, 99.9% and 99% respectively). In fact, there is very little

impact until you get to about 99% versus the 99.99%. Yet if we had two such high,

mutually exclusive probabilities regarding something, we wouldn’t expect one to be

hardly affected by the other in this way.

I have merely added these explanations as ways of understanding the maths involved

so that this review will be more easily understood. I am not going to suggest that GP

should have used this equation or that equation instead of the one he chose. This is for

a number of reasons.

First, mathematics and probability is not my area of expertise. Second, I disagree

entirely with the idea of weighing this sort of thing mathematically to determine

which doctrine is correct. So while I will not suggest a better alternative in terms of

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maths, I will explain how this system can be self-serving to whosoever might want to

use it.

To begin with, in establishing the weights, all one would need to do would be to try

everything possible to bump up one’s own numbers and tear down the other side. It is

here that GP’s hermeneutic and historical inconsistency comes into play in this book.

When GP establishes his evidences for the Trinitarian point of view, he does so based

on the way a Trinitarian reads the text. In this way, he doesn’t spend much time

establishing the meaning, for instance, of Matthew 28:19. He assumes its strength for

his side, and gives it a high weight, without any cross-examination from any

opponents to question his assertions. For his positive proofs for his case, all he needs

is a few highly weighted pieces of evidence, for each additional evidence only closes

the remaining gap to 100%. If he assigns two pieces of evidence 90%, he has 99%

right there to begin with (90% + 90% of 10% = 99%).

On the other hand, when GP handles the evidence put forward by the non-trinitarians,

however much it might at first appear to support their case, all he has to do is suggest

enough doubt, or alternative explanation to lower the weight. It takes a lot more

evidence of smaller weight to close the distance to 100%.

And this is what I believe the hermeneutics that is found in GP’s book adds up to – A

one sided court case. As fair as GP claims to be in still assigning weight to the non-

trinitarians, there are no checks and balances to maintain objectivity. While he can

cross-examine every evidence that non-trinitarians put forth, he establishes his own

case with very little self-scrutiny, assuming much from a traditional reading of

favoured texts.

This is truly pulling the Trinity out of a hat. Beginning with smoke and mirrors when

examining the evidence, the issues become shrouded in confusion in the almost 850

pages of GP’s book. Then, when he has established high enough weights in favour of

his point of view, it doesn’t matter if the weights opposing him are 17% or 77%,

because it won’t make much difference either way. While GP’s method was highly

subjective, his concluding Biblical weight (94.3%) is arguably still well within

reasonable doubt. If 100 were divided into 12 (representing jurors) that is almost one

twelfth worth of doubt, which would be enough for a hung jury. Not bad for a court

room with only one side being properly represented.

Paradox instead of Probability

I do not suggest an alternate formula for calculating probabilities. Instead, I suggest an

alternative way of looking at the whole matter of a weight of evidence. There is one

particular problem that I have with GP’s philosophy regarding this that it took me a

while to put my finger on. GP sets “opposing” thoughts against each other, rather than

looking for a harmony between them.

It is interesting that Leroy Moore puts his name to this book. From what I have read

of his writings (Theology in Crisis and Adventism in Conflict) he speaks of the idea of

paradoxical truth. I have found this to crystallise the way I see the big picture on many

things. Truth is often of a paradoxical nature, with two seemingly clashing elements.

For example, ‘Law and Grace’, or ‘Divine Foresight and Human Free Will’. Error is

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often found in taking an extreme position on one element without the balancing of the

other which holds truth together in a harmonious tension.

I believe there are a number of paradoxes involved in the doctrine of God. The

Trinitarian understands this as far as explaining one God and three persons. While I

do not agree with the explanation, I highlight it as a common need to understand both

what the Scripture says monotheistically about “one God” and what it says about

more than one person being called God.

Before leaving this paradox, I would like to point out that GP does not adequately

address this problem. Adventism currently has a number of different definitions of the

Trinity. Max Hatton and Ekkehardt Mueller appear to advocate a more Athenasian

trinity (co-substantial) than does Moon, Widden and Reeve in The Trinity. GP tends

towards the latter in describing the three persons, and argues that the Trinity of

Adventism is different from Tritheism. However, he does not describe where the

difference lies. This is safe ground for the author as he doesn’t firmly take either side.

I would like to know what the actual differences are between the theology GP puts

forth and why it isn’t tritheism, nor a co-substantial view.

What GP sees as mutually exclusive regarding the nature of Christ has been seen as a

paradox since apostolic times. Not that the paradox has always been resolved

correctly. The Bible speaks of Christ clearly as divine and eternal, yet at the same

time, it speaks of Him as being a Son and (debatably for now) as begotten, and often

speaks of His pre-incarnate nature in the language of inheritance. Many word pictures

indicate this, including, but not limited to “Express Image” (comes after an original),

Prince, by Inheritance, Firstborn, Son, etc.

It is a trend new to the last century to deny one side of the paradox altogether and see

Christ as without any derivation. Origen’s attempt at harmony failed due to a Greek

understanding of eternity being infinite. The early SDA church was able to resolve

this paradox more easily as a result of their study of the nature of man, of all things.

Looking at the meanings of the words for “eternal” or “everlasting,” they found

implications for the Godhead. Their sensible understanding of eternity can be seen in

the following representative quotes:

“TIME, as distinguished from eternity, may be defined as that part of

duration which is measured by the Bible. From the earliest date in the

book of Genesis to the resurrection of the unjust at the end of the

millennium, the period of about 7000 years is measured off. Before the

commencement of this great week of time, duration without beginning fills

the past; and at the expiration of this period, unending duration opens

before the people of God. Eternity is that word which embraces duration

without beginning and without end. And that Being whose existence

comprehends eternity, is he who only hath immortality, the King eternal,

immortal, invisible, the only wise God.” – J. N. Andrews, History of the

Sabbath, p. 9, 1873

“To make this position of any force, the ground must be taken that Adam's

first day was the first day of time. Then all that went before was eternity.

God created the world and all things therein, not in the beginning, but in

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eternity. But time as distinguished from eternity is duration measured,

eternity being unmeasured duration; and these days of creation are

measured off to us, and hence belong to time and not to eternity. What

blind presumption for men to set a point from which to reckon different

from that which the Bible has given us!” – U. Smith, The Biblical

Institute, p. 122

While both of these statements regarding time and its relationship to eternity are in the

context of the Sabbath, it just goes to further show how interwoven early Adventist

doctrine was. Today we hear about the Trinity in relation to the Atonement, but rarely

do we hear about it as it is connected to the nature of man (made in the image of God)

or the Sanctuary (where God and Christ physically reside at present, and which is the

pattern of the atonement). More on the definitions of Eternal can be found in Smith’s

Here and Hereafter, pages 291-298.

Basically, as eternity was seen to be that unmeasured duration, before time, Christ

could be seen as both begotten AND eternal. The confusion and later rejection of the

begotten element can be seen as the concept of eternity changed. Also, Ellen White’s

understanding of Eternal/Eternity appears to be compatible with this and results in a

resolution of the paradox. Unfortunately, not a lot of examination has gone into this

underlying issue since much of the debate has tended to centre on the issues that flow

out from this. As a result, there has been little agreement that has been reached

between parties.

There is also a paradox concerning the Holy Spirit. The paradox, as I understand it, is

between the personality of the Holy Spirit (the times where the Holy Spirit is spoken

of in a personal way) and the Holy Spirit as the presence, power, influence, etc. of

God and Christ. Again, it appears that the current view dismisses the one in favour of

the other, when the early Adventists took the harmony of the two.

When resolving paradoxes, we need to not just have the opposing statements, for

instance, “Jesus is eternal” and “Jesus is begotten,” but we must also expect to find a

linking statement which explains the paradox in a harmonious way. For instance, with

regards to the Law and Grace, we have statements in books such as Romans,

Galatians, James, etc, which speak of the two and begin to show how they relate to

each other. Legalism comes from leaning on the law to the expense of grace, while

antinomianism is the reverse. With regards the nature of Christ, passages which speak

of both would be Proverbs 8 and John 1 (I am writing a paper at the moment which

shows the latter to have a literary dependence upon the former). Regarding the Holy

Spirit, statements like John 14:16-18 and Ellen White’s commentary on this passage

resolve the paradox.

These solutions are impossible in a methodology where varying pieces of evidence

are weighed against each other. I know that Ellen White speaks of the weight of

evidence, and that there will always be hooks to hang doubts upon, but it is theories

which should be weighed, not evidence. Evidence needs to balance other evidence

and shape our theories, our theories shouldn’t dictate which evidence we accept and

which we don’t. In some places, GP has set in opposition two different yet related

evidences. For instance, in evidence for the eternal pre-existence of Christ, GP uses

John 1:1, and in the objections monogenes (coming from John 1:14, 18). Both of these

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are from the same prologue. Also, as mentioned earlier, Proverbs 8 may be relevant in

examining this section of Scripture.

As another example, GP pits the Holy Spirit as “He” against the Holy Spirit as “it.”

This removes the opportunity to enquire whether there is an instance where both could

validly apply. The non-trinitarian view, which sees a distinction in economy, but not

in individuality, is able to accept both “He” and “it” in this instance.

Concluding remarks and recommendation

I know that my review of this book might appear brutal at this point. I believe this is

necessary. There is a responsibility that is borne by all who teach publicly, whether

aloud or in print, to be honest to the facts and fair to those who might disagree. While

I believe that my friend Glyn has made honourable steps towards the latter, I do not

believe that he has succeeded in accomplishing the former. I do not mean to judge

motive, for I know that doctrine can be an emotional matter and that wars have been

fought over such things in the past.

As one who has previously been in the non-trinitarian movement, and who is now a

supportive part of the mainstream church seeking to regain my membership, I am glad

for this chance to dialogue and welcome the positive signs I have seen lately in this

area. I believe that we are reaching a point where dialogue is not only possible, but

crucial, if the current impasse is ever to be breached.

In terms of Glyn’s book, I believe that there are some very solid reasons presented in

all the papers written for this review to call for change, even if only in the area of the

weight of evidence and probability. I do not believe the hermeneutic problems could

be resolved by merely answering any of the comments of this review as “new”

objections or incorporating them into existing ones. I believe that the inconsistency in

how Glyn treats his belief and that of non-trinitarians runs through the entire

manuscript, and that it is beyond the ability to “tweak” and fix it.

I hope and pray that this review will not only be of practical value to Glyn, but to the

BRC. I have often been edified by reading reviews of my own material. I have not had

much formal training yet, and so had to learn not to make so many emphatic

statements (something I’m still working on) and not to assume that everyone takes the

same thing I do from a quote. I believe that the BRC could benefit from seeing how

we as non-trinitarians view some of the arguments put forth by Trinitarians, and hope

that they might give some closer scrutiny to books in support of the Trinity to see

whether they meet the standards of scholarship. I understand that books which are

already seen to uphold the church’s position might not be given as close a scrutiny as

those which are being examined as “new light.” I believe the standard should be the

same for both.

As Glyn’s book currently stands, it will definitely confirm many people in the trinity

doctrine. However, for the vast majority, it will not be because they have understood

the issues he presents clearly, nor because what they have read is a completely fair

and balanced treatment. Instead, they are more likely to be awed at the sheer size of

the book and accept its sentiments at face value. In a perfect world, people might go

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through and give their own weights, but we do not live in a perfect world. We live in a

world where there are pew warmers and spoon fed Christians.

And so my recommendation comes out of a question. Does the author of this book

(and those who have approved of it) mind if people accept what he believes even if it

is for the wrong reason? Is the end more important than the means in teaching what

we believe is truth? There are other questions that might bear asking, but I believe

these are the most pertinent. If you do not believe that the end justifies the means in

this matter, I would hope there would be pause, reflection and action taken on the

points collectively raised in these reviews before this book is printed and given wider

circulation than it already has.

In closing, may the grace of the Lord Jesus Christ, and the love of God, and the

communion of the Holy Spirit be with all who read this review. Amen!

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APPENDIX:

When Trinity Doesn’t Mean Trinity

By Brendan P. Knudson

Words only carry the meaning that is attributed to them, just like currency. The only

reason a small silver-coloured dodecagonal coin is worth fifty cents in Australia is

because we have placed that value upon it. Everyone in Australia would agree that

fifty cents is worth fifty cents. However, fifty cents Australian is not necessarily worth

fifty cents US. It is the same with words. While dictionaries are an aid to

understanding the meanings of words, this does not guarantee that everyone will

attach the same meaning to the same word.

For example, quite often, our understanding is shaped by our experience. A persons’

concept of a father might be different, depending upon whether they had a loving or

abusive experience with theirs. Other factors which determine our understanding of

words are culture and education. Culture is especially important when examining the

meaning of words written by those generations before us, for words change meaning

over time. In this study, we shall look at the early Seventh-day Adventist uses of the

term “trinity,” seeking for a harmonious understanding of the historical evidence.

From the Sabbath Bible Conferences of the late 1840’s to the 1890’s, the term

“trinity” was only ever used in a negative sense in Adventist literature. This era is so

well documented by other authors, that we will only look at one representative quote

here. J. N. Loughborough wrote an extended answer to a question in 1861 of which

this is the introduction:

“QUESTION 1. What serious objection is there to the doctrine of the Trinity?

ANSWER. There are many objections which we might urge, but on account of our

limited space we shall reduce them to the three following: 1. It is contrary to common

sense. 2. It is contrary to scripture. 3. Its origin is Pagan and fabulous.” (Review and

Herald, Vol. 18, No. 23, p. 184)

After 1888, renewed focus was given to the work of the Holy Spirit in both

conversion and living the victorious life as a result of the Latter Rain which began to

fall with that message. As part of this focus, attention was given to the personality of

the Holy Spirit and its relationship to God and Christ. This attention did not constitute

a change in direction on the teaching on the Holy Spirit, but it did result in more

prominence given to this agency and its role in the plan of redemption.

From it’s beginning, the Review had included writings from authors outside of

Adventism on topics of general agreement. During this decade, a number of writings

on the Subordination of Christ and the work of the Holy Spirit were included from

other publications. Of note in this study are the paper The Subordination of the Son by

Samuel T. Spear, and certain articles from the King’s Messenger reprinted in the

Review and Herald, such as Blended Personalities (Vol. 77, No. 14, p. 210) and The

Holy Ghost (Vol. 78, No. 8, p. 116).

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While these freely use Trinitarian language, it must be noted that it is because they

were written by those outside of the denomination, who had their own theological

bent. Examination of other issues of this time period reveal a general editorial policy

of including such externally authored articles and news items unedited when it came

to minor points of expression.

In this climate of deeper study into the working of the Holy Spirit with the obligatory

interest in its personality and relationship with God and Christ, there inevitably came

a need for a group term to include Father, Son and Holy Spirit under one banner.

The term “Godhead” was not considered appropriate for this. Their understanding was

that this term referred either quantitatively (as a noun) for God the Father alone or

qualitatively to the attribute of divinity, which was possessed by Father and Son and is

descriptive of the Spirit. Deity and Divinity appear to have been used in a similar way.

Other terms such as Elohim (potentially a plural) do not appear to have been

considered.

Considering this vacuum and the relaxed position on seeing the term appear in official

publications, it is no surprise to see some of the leaders borrowing the term Trinity.

What needs to be determined is whether they also received with it the theological

baggage of the trinity doctrine itself. Those who have been found to have used this

term during this time period include M. C. Wilcox, Uriah Smith, S. N. Haskell and F.

M. Wilcox. We will examine the context of these original quotes, as well as the

conceptual views of these people in their wider contemporary writings.

M. C. Wilcox was found to use the term around the time that Signs of the Times

printed Samuel T. Spear’s article, as mentioned above. This article was later printed

under a different title, The Bible Doctrine of the Trinity, as part of the Bible Student’s

Library series. In commenting on this article in Signs, Wilcox wrote, “‘The

Subordination of Christ,’ by the late Samuel T. Spear, taken from the Independent. It

was so long that we found it necessary to divide it. We trust that this candid setting

forth of the Trinity will be read with care." (Signs of the Times, Vol. 18, No. 5, p. 80.)

Elsewhere, showing that the printing did not constitute complete agreement with the

article, Wilcox stated, “While there may be minor thoughts in this worthy number

which we might wish to express differently, on the whole we believe that it sets forth

the Bible doctrine of the trinity of Father, Son, and Holy Spirit with a devout

adherence to the words of the Scripture, in the best brief way we ever saw it

presented.” (Signs of the Times, Vol. 18, No. 22, p. 352)

These facts alone might lead one to speculate what was or wasn’t agreed with in the

article, if it weren’t for other articles by Wilcox in the same decade. A few years later,

in 1898, Wilcox authored an article titled, “The Spirit—Impersonal and Personal,”

which appeared in a series of editorials on the Holy Spirit. In this article, he states,

“So the Spirit, the Comforter, brings to us Christ’s presence… the “eternal spirit”

comes to us as the life force and veritable presence of Jesus Christ; Redeemer,

Companion, King.” (Signs of the Times, Vol. 24, No. 33, p. 518)

In the previous issue to this (Vol. 24, No. 32), Wilcox had responded to a question on

whether the Holy Ghost was a person, saying, “The Spirit of God, the Holy Spirit, the

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Spirit, the Holy Ghost, the Comforter, the Spirit of Christ, are all one and the same

Spirit… This Spirit is the outflowing of the life of God in Christ, and has the power of

bringing to the child of God the personality and presence of Christ. In this way it may

be said to be a person, while as God’s life it is said to be shed forth, poured out, etc.

We cannot comprehend the infinite.”

From the above evidence it is abundantly clear that while M. C. Wilcox used the term

“Trinity” as a collective term for the Father, Son and Holy Spirit, he did not have in

mind either the orthodox Catholic Trinity or the current Trinity teaching of the

modern Seventh-day Adventist church.

The next person to use the term Trinity is Uriah Smith, whom no one would think of

as a Trinitarian. He wrote in answer to a question in 1896 on Worshiping the Holy

Spirit and the doxology, “We know of no place in the Bible where we are commanded

to worship the Holy Spirit, as was commanded in the case of Christ (Heb. 1:6), or

where we find an example of the worship of the Holy Spirit, as in the case of Christ.

Luke 24:52. Yet in the formula for baptism, the name “Holy Ghost,” or” Holy Spirit,”

is associated with that of the Father and the Son. And if the name can be used thus,

why could it not properly stand as a part of the same trinity in the hymn of praise,

“Praise Father, Son and Holy Ghost”?” (Review and Herald, Vol. 73, No. 43, p. 685)

One has merely to read Looking Unto Jesus, Uriah Smith’s book on the life of Christ,

printed 1898, to see that he was clearly not a Trinitarian at this time. It is interesting

that the term is only used in connection as a collective term for Father, Son and Holy

Spirit, particularly in connection with Matthew 28:19.

S. N. Haskell was another one to so use this term. In his 1919 publication, Bible

Handbook, under the section, “Baptism,” he writes, “Matt. 28:19. In the name of the

Trinity. T., v. 6, p. 91.” He also used the term in the 1905 edition of his book, The

Story of Daniel the Prophet, where he wrote, “Gabriel was only an angel, upheld by

the same Power that sustained John, and he would not for one moment allow John to

be deceived by thinking he was a part of the great Trinity of heaven, and worthy of

the worship of mankind.” (pp. 132)

This thought is missing from the 1901 edition of the book and while it appears in this

expanded edition, it does not need to convey the ideas that come with the word. On

the contrary, many of Haskell’s works, both before and after this, show concepts in

harmony with the early Adventist understanding of God. His uses appear consistent

with the others who, at this time, were using the word as a collective label.

One of the final uses we will look at comes from the son of M. C. Wilcox. In 1913, F.

M. Wilcox was the editor of the Review and Herald when he wrote a statement of

beliefs which many have said was Trinitarian. The description, however, does not

conflict with what the early Pioneers believed:

“1. In the divine Trinity. This Trinity consists of the eternal Father, a personal

spiritual being, omnipotent, omniscient, infinite in power, wisdom, and love; of the

Lord Jesus Christ, the Son of the eternal Father, through whom the salvation of the

redeemed hosts will be accomplished; the Holy Spirit, the third person of the

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Godhead, the one regenerating agency in the work of redemption.” (Vol. 90, No. 41,

p. 21)

This article by Wilcox wasn’t meant to be a comprehensive set of beliefs of

Adventism. It leaves out many beliefs that have appeared on all our statements of

fundamentals from 1872 to today. It remains true to the original statement by James

White, differing only in emphasising the three powers of heaven, which had been

given more attention in the events surrounding Kellogg’s pantheism.

It is interesting to note that at this time when leaders within Adventism were

attempting to find a word to collectively connote the Father, Son and Holy Spirit,

Ellen White coined a term that was, to all knowledge, original to her in this context.

“Heavenly trio,” while often used as proof of Ellen White being Trinitarian, actually

was coined to be used instead of “trinity,” to avoid the theological baggage with

which the latter came.

And it is this very difficulty – the inability to separate a contextual meaning from a

loaded term – which has plagued Adventist historians of the past half century at least.

Many have made much of a few words here and there which they consider to uphold

their teaching rather than looking at the weight of evidence that the big picture

provides. As more historical resources are becoming widely available for researchers,

it would do well for all parties to re-evaluate the context of statements they have

placed so much weight upon.

_____________________________________________________________________

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Suggested further reading: Is the Heavenly Trio a Trinity?

(by the same author) Ellen White, 1888, and the Christian Connexion

Examining “The Bible Doctrine of the Trinity”

Email: brendanpaulknudson@primusonline.com.au