{"id":5063,"date":"2019-11-10T04:57:52","date_gmt":"2019-11-10T10:57:52","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/trinities.org\/blog\/?p=5063"},"modified":"2019-11-17T00:11:15","modified_gmt":"2019-11-17T06:11:15","slug":"zarley-asks-can-genuine-christians-be-trinitarian-or-non-trinitarian","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/trinities.org\/blog\/zarley-asks-can-genuine-christians-be-trinitarian-or-non-trinitarian\/","title":{"rendered":"Zarley asks: Can Genuine Christians Be Trinitarian or Non-Trinitarian?"},"content":{"rendered":"\n
\"\"<\/a><\/figure><\/div>\n\n\n\n

An important post<\/strong> by the Golf Pro from the Moon. He answers the above question, in part:<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Yes. I was a Trinitarian for twenty-two years until God enlightened me through scripture that being a Christian has nothing to do with being Trinitarian. Contrary to church dogma, you don\u2019t have to be a Trinitarian to be a Christian. And being a Trinitarian doesn\u2019t disqualify you from being a Christian.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n\n\n\n

I too was a trinitarian<\/strong> for about twenty-two or twenty-three years before changing my view. My switch, like Zarley’s, and like a great many before, was based on study of the Bible (and not, as one might think given my profession, on my philosophical views – though it was the problems of all the competing theories that forced me back to the Bible). Back to Zarley,<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Some people who believe like I do now\u2013that only the Father is God\u2013do like Trinitarians. They contend that a person who believes in the doctrine of the Trinity believes in three Gods and therefore is not a real Christian, but a polytheist. Some even insist that Trinitarians are idolaters.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n\n\n\n

Zarley doesn’t buy it<\/strong>, and I’m convinced that he is correct. Trinitarians are not<\/em>, as such, idolaters. See his whole post<\/a> for his biblical reasons<\/strong> for holding that trinitarians, like unitarians, can be saved. Whatever side you fall on, I think you should agree.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Is this disagreement minor or peripheral? No it’s serious<\/strong> and central. But so is the disagreement between Calvinists and Arminians and Molinists and open theists. Or between those who think God is timeless and those who he is “in time.” Or between Catholics and Protestants.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

But Jesus has followers of many sorts. We think that anyone who takes one position named in the previous paragraph and merrily damns all the others is a sectarian<\/strong>, a divisive person, at best immature and out of balance. Why don’t we also think this about trinitarians who damn all unitarians, and vice-versa? As best I can tell, the answer is that 4th century catholic leaders set us a bad example<\/strong> of despising their theological (and ecclesial) opponents, and supposing that God too must hate them as bad or worse. But un-Christ-like contempt and swaggering self-righteousness are no more fitting in christology and theology than they are in eschatology, soteriology, or ecclesiology. The proverbial odium theologicum<\/em> (“theological hatred”) is a scandal<\/a>.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

God is love. And he takes pity<\/strong> on his children who sincerely try<\/em> to love him with all their minds by theorizing accurately about him, his Son, and his spirit.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

“But this is an issue of salvation!”<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

That’s what Athanasius said. Is it also<\/em> what Jesus and his apostles said? Zarley argues not, and I agree. But if not, who is your Master – Athanasius, or Jesus? I find the latter far<\/em> superior to the former.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Seriously, read his post to the end<\/a>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

An important post by the Golf Pro from the Moon. He answers the above question, in part: Yes…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":5064,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"neve_meta_sidebar":"default","neve_meta_container":"default","neve_meta_enable_content_width":"off","neve_meta_content_width":70,"neve_meta_title_alignment":"","neve_meta_author_avatar":"","neve_post_elements_order":"","neve_meta_disable_header":"off","neve_meta_disable_footer":"off","neve_meta_disable_title":"off","footnotes":""},"categories":[21,4,14,33,10,43],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-5063","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-bible","category-heresy-orthodoxy","category-history","category-incarnation","category-logic","category-unitarianism"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/trinities.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5063","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/trinities.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/trinities.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/trinities.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/trinities.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=5063"}],"version-history":[{"count":5,"href":"https:\/\/trinities.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5063\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":41988,"href":"https:\/\/trinities.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5063\/revisions\/41988"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/trinities.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/5064"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/trinities.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=5063"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/trinities.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=5063"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/trinities.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=5063"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}