A Trinitarian assertion: “We have one God manifest in three persons.” There is a problem, well illustrated in this typical statement. The problem is not in “three persons”. That doctrine was pushed on Trinitarians by various schisms over the centuries. The problem is when “one God” actually means, to a fairly typical Trinitarian, the set of the essential qualities that are found in the Father, the Son and the Holy Spirit. Yes the same qualities are there. They are essential qualities (Greek biblical term : hypostasis) of the Father represented perfectly in the Son (as Hebrews Epistle 1:3 states). The qualities are the same, the Father and Son have them. The Father has them and the Son represents them perfectly. However, Trinitarians at an advanced level of understanding of the Trinity are instructed to call these qualities singular and shared. That goes beyond Hebrews 1:3. They are not necessarily shared since it is the Father who possesses them and the Son who is the exact representation of them. So this is contrived. It gets worse. The real problem is the assigning of the title ‘God’ not exclusively to the Father (who Jesus called the One True God), but rather, to the supposed shared singular set of essential qualities themselves. It is the essence or hypostasis which Trinitarians are taught to call ‘God’. This is worrying. It seems like something pagan-minded philosophers would do, used in their pagan lives to ascribing the title God to essential qualities of metals like gold and silver or animals. The motive? I do wonder whether the changes in Rabbinical Judaism post-Temple had something to do with it, when around 100 AD onwards the understanding of monotheism was altered to exclude acknowledgement of existence of any mighty and significant being other then the Most High God, and when a label of heresy was applied to anyone making assertions about such beings. The obvious targets of this new monotheism in Judaism were not only pagans of the Roman world, but Christians who believed in both the Most High God and His only-begotten, beloved Son. An appeasement of Judaism resulted, it seems, in muddying of the clear water of the Gospel, with worldly philosophy. This would have potential of dulling the sword edge, robbing the Gospel of its power to save, power of God.
